We have seen the recent emergence of more digital formats and readers some of which are mere pretenders and others confusing noise. Today we read news that is potentially important because of who has developed it and their position in their market. Follett, has revenues in excess of $2.3 billion and provides universities, libraries and schools and school districts in the US and increasingly globally with a wide range of educational tools and services, touching millions of students ranging from adults to grade school children. Follett is truly an educational force.
A new Follett Digital Reader has been developed specifically to meet the needs of K-12 eBook users and will be released on 9th February. During February the focus will be to get the reader installed on computers and at the beginning of March automatically they will migrate the entire existing digital download collections to the FDR format. The reader only effects downloaded ebooks with the existing online collections remain as current.
Follett downloaded eBooks currently are protected using Adobe’s ACS3 DRM and are opened with Adobe® Reader® or Adobe Digital Editions®. Adobe products are now migrating to ACS4 DRM and are planned to cut over in March. The new Follett Digital Reader replaces Adobe DRM and reader products, which Follett believe limits their dependence on Adobe, gives them the ability to develop and introduce additional functionality and importantly enables them to meet the specific needs of their significant K-12 and Public library customer base.
The new reader currently will only read Follett ebooks and works with Adobe Flash 9.0 and 10 and Microsoft.Net and runs on PC and Mac platforms. To read more visit
http://www.follettebooks.com/readersupport/index.html
We believe that this move is significant and is real news. Together with others, Follet are now taking control of their digital business and channel. The move to Flash is both understandable and some would say a wise move as it offers much moving forwar. The battleground would now appear to be between those who believe ebooks should be downloaded and read on a portable dedicated devices and those who who still belive the online and download PC and laptop world works and potentially have their options open with mobile platforms. The concern is that we have yet another format and what this means further down the digital road.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Super Mario Goes Back to School
Your Japanese students want to learn English but are failing to make the grade. What do you do? Tokyo Joshi Gakuen school in Japan believe that they have found the answer in deploying that darling of Japanese students – Nintendo.
Reuters report today that junior high school teacher Motoko Okubo has introduced the handheld DS and textbook software. The move clearly surprised students, whose personal devices have todate been banned from the classroom. Interestingly the move has also show encouraging results and the report quotes her saying, "The students are really concentrating and have fun in gaining skills such as spelling," she said.
Japan's education ministry leaves decisions on teaching tools to schools and so far, it's only English that is being used at the all-girls school. However other schools are now using the device in maths and Japanese classes and Nintendo's range of advanced and easy-to-learn games now include education titles.
Is it one off or the being of a trends to use ubiqitious deves to engage and encourage students to learn? Will it only succeed in high tech savvy countries such as Japan? It is an interesting exercise to use the devices that the students are familiar with and use outside the classroom to help them in the classroom. We have seen the huge adoption of games consoles and perhaps they offer a more engaging student interface and wiser investment than even a laptop or a whiteboard.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
The Dark Continent
In places where hunger, AIDS and poverty are rampant, and electricity is often not guaranteed, is the internet really a priority? Last month I spoke in Cape Town about digitisation at the IBF conference. It is clear that the third world is far behind the developed world in technology infrastructure and connectivity, but where as Asia and Southern America are making ground, the lights are clearly switched off in Africa. The issue is not about entertainment and leisure reading but about communications and importantly education.
Attempts to bring affordable high-speed Internet service to the masses have made little headway on this continent. Less than 4 percent of Africa’s population is connected to the Web and most subscribers are in countries that have strong western connections and relative stability such as South Africa and North Africa.
The lack of infrastructure is the biggest problem. In many countries, civil conflict has destroyed what existed and continuing political instability deters new investment. Africa’s only connection to the Internet’s backbone is still the 2002 cable running from Portugal down the west coast of Africa.
Ironically, E-mail messages and phone calls sent from some African countries have to be routed through Britain, or even the United States and about 75 percent of African Internet traffic is routed this same way at a significant costs. Many national telecommunications companies link to the sea cable and often maintain an access monopoly which further restricts usage. East Africa is heavily dependant on 20 year old and aging satellite technology for Internet service which offers slower and reduced bandwidth.
The result is that Africa remains the least connected region in the world. It is hoped that the ‘one laptop per child’ programme will start to make a difference, but we are seeing a gulf between not just the haves and have not’s, but the connected and unconnected widen.
Attempts to bring affordable high-speed Internet service to the masses have made little headway on this continent. Less than 4 percent of Africa’s population is connected to the Web and most subscribers are in countries that have strong western connections and relative stability such as South Africa and North Africa.
The lack of infrastructure is the biggest problem. In many countries, civil conflict has destroyed what existed and continuing political instability deters new investment. Africa’s only connection to the Internet’s backbone is still the 2002 cable running from Portugal down the west coast of Africa.
Ironically, E-mail messages and phone calls sent from some African countries have to be routed through Britain, or even the United States and about 75 percent of African Internet traffic is routed this same way at a significant costs. Many national telecommunications companies link to the sea cable and often maintain an access monopoly which further restricts usage. East Africa is heavily dependant on 20 year old and aging satellite technology for Internet service which offers slower and reduced bandwidth.
The result is that Africa remains the least connected region in the world. It is hoped that the ‘one laptop per child’ programme will start to make a difference, but we are seeing a gulf between not just the haves and have not’s, but the connected and unconnected widen.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
iPods in the Classroom
Last week we spoke about some of the wide range of uses the ubiquitous iPod is being put to.
In 2004, Duke University in the US gave all students iPods as part of a program to determine how iPods could help students learn. This program was successful and gave way to the Duke Digital Initiative, in which faculty encourage students to use hand-held technology such as iPods, tablet PCs and video cameras to collaborate on projects and in other coursework. As a result student are now creating multi media papers and podcasts. This is turn is influencing they way subjects are being taught and learnt.
This year, Stanford University launched Stanford on iTunes, which provides Stanford-specific audio content, including lectures, campus events, book readings, and even podcasts of Cardinal football games. Students at the University of Washington can download lectures and this trend is spreading to others such as the University of Michigan. Mansfield University uses the iPod as a recruitment tool to promote the campus.
As universities and schools start to embrace the iPod and developing technology the question comes back to the provision of the digital content. Importantly this increasingly must fit within a VLE environment that delivers the right material to the meet the right need at the right time.
In 2004, Duke University in the US gave all students iPods as part of a program to determine how iPods could help students learn. This program was successful and gave way to the Duke Digital Initiative, in which faculty encourage students to use hand-held technology such as iPods, tablet PCs and video cameras to collaborate on projects and in other coursework. As a result student are now creating multi media papers and podcasts. This is turn is influencing they way subjects are being taught and learnt.
This year, Stanford University launched Stanford on iTunes, which provides Stanford-specific audio content, including lectures, campus events, book readings, and even podcasts of Cardinal football games. Students at the University of Washington can download lectures and this trend is spreading to others such as the University of Michigan. Mansfield University uses the iPod as a recruitment tool to promote the campus.
As universities and schools start to embrace the iPod and developing technology the question comes back to the provision of the digital content. Importantly this increasingly must fit within a VLE environment that delivers the right material to the meet the right need at the right time.
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