The Active Book and America's Education Future: The Trust Factor

The textbook becomes increasingly outmoded. TExtbooks delivered content centuries after historical events had occurred, through the misperceptions of committees, and scholars that had a lock on how the information was delivered to the masses.

Committees even now decide what our students read, and they still rely on old texts, though they may be updated continually by, of course, committee. Big publishers have a sranglehold on the budgeting process and the delivery model. What we need is a device to send into the classroom that can deliver real time content, interactive content, and serve as a communication device.

But we have computers and the internet. Yes, but how many schools really let children build something with those devices? And do they really replace the textbook?

Amazon has come out with a support system for building active content on the Kindle. Before the much rumored Apple tablet comes out, here is your game-changer for now.

It's interesting that an online bookseller may be able to take the first steps towards bringing education a mix of active content, learning material and communications on an interactive hand-held device. Weren't the mobile phones supposed to do this years ago?

An active, real-time connected book appears, and education will again be challenged with the capitalist-market idea that it's not so much about learning the three Rs. It's about understanding that the world is global, interactive and not about what happens in a bricks and mortar classroom.

Traditional textbooks used to be about this, too, but they delivered content centuries after historical events happened, and, as I said before, scholars and experts, editors and gatekeepers delivered what looked right, true and sincere in the eyes of history's witnesses. That is true for every kind of content from mathematics and literature, to psychology to recipes.

But they are outdated and this kind of editing and delivery has become outdated. Now we can actually talk and engage with the legacies and the people those textbooks talk about, as they make those events that centuries ago would be considered important historical events, insights, eureka moments, etc.

At stake with the advent of real-time interactive devices is a breakdown of institutions that were built to support the creation of the systems that support these insights. We are beginning to see that everyone can have these insights, or start history, or create new models.

All we have to do is open the doors.

The Printed Book -- What is Tangible and What is Changeable

While I am sitting here at the Boston Public Library on Copley Square, trying to decompress after a morning and afternoon of interviews, it left me happy to see that Surabhi Dewra, a young entrepreneur from India, was also online.

The experience of being able to instantly reach out to someone on another continent, thousands of miles away, and discuss the same subject from the same points of view got me to thinking about my newest theory.

Perhaps it is not that new. In fact, it is somewhat inspired by Buddhism, and the idea that reality is an illusion. Let me refine this perspective.

Clearly there is something tangible about the world, but the momentary existence of the world offers much opportunity in the way of learning and it speaks to the general mission of the education industry.

When individuals connect, and when they exchange views, they bring into that momentary awareness of what is happening a new idea, or a fresh description of the conscious elements of the world.

this is what teaching is, and this is what is kind of problematic about standards.

boiled down:

Standards are created by the same people who, like me and anyone else I am talking about, come together, and set to root an idea about what that standard is.

In essence, they "freeze" a certain standard level, and what troubles me about this is that they leave out the opportunity for new views.

If teaching is an open space, devoid of what is real, and we inject our views into that space, forming what is to be learned by our exchange of views, then aren't we compromising chances to add to that learning in a model where review of materials or the insertion of new tools for learning only happens once a year?

What happens when budget concerns keep one model in play while not allowing another model to form?

When will it be possible for students and teachers to have just as much of a say in a real time application of editing of subject material, as they learn new things?

I can tell you that as a former teacher, sometimes the textbooks were wrong. Especially in English literature or history. we would read as a class a specific piece of information and come to a consensus that, in fact, we didn't believe that material to be right.

How can we change it? We cannot. That is the textbook. That is the printed matter.

Hope I am not getting too philosophical, but it remains to be seen, will budgetary pressures in some of the largest school districts and states in the country force a change in the delivery of publications to students, teachers, or organizations like schools?

New York Times: What Are You Reading?

Because you can't use mobile phones and internet devices in the subway (thank goodness) in New York, the local newspaper wants to know what are you reading when you are down there, hurtling through the rat-infested, trash-strewn tunnels that weave amongst themselves under New York City?

Tell the New York Times what you are reading in the subway.

Hachette Chief Aghast at Google - Amazon eBook Dealings

Arnoud Nourry, chief of Hachette, has lashed out at e-distributors like Amazon and Google for undercutting publishers of paperbacks and hardcover books.

It's not till later down in the story that the beginnings of a non-breaking news story develops. It has something to do with the way European copyright works in different legal jurisdictions. Towards then end of the article there is a brief smoke signal about "rights." I know nothing about what rights they are defending or seeking to preserve. Is it profit? Doesn't market competition have something to say about that?

Nourry basically says this:

“On the one hand, you have millions of books for free where there is no longer an author to pay and, on the other hand, there are very recent books, bestsellers at $9.99, which means that all the rest will have to be sold at between zero and $9.99,” Mr Nourry said.

There was a real and “muscular” debate in the industry in the US, he added. Retailers were paying publishers more than $9.99 for each e-book, so were selling them at a loss: “That cannot last . . . Amazon is not in the business of losing money. So, one day, they are going to come to the publishers and say: by the way, we are cutting the price we pay. If that happens, after paying the authors, there will be nothing left for the publishers.”

Some rival publishers have expressed concern in private at Amazon’s fixed $9.99 per title pricing on its Kindle electronic reader. Others note the minimal costs of distributing books electronically mean they can make higher profit margins even with lower prices than in print.

Where do you fall on this debate? I tend to think that Amazon and Google are fully in their rights to innovate, but so too are the Hachette's of the world.

It's not clear if Hachette is frozen out of negotiations here or if there is something in the business model that just prevents Hachette from ever being able to compete with Amazon or Google over free e-books.

A clue to the issue, though not fully articulated, comes here, same article:

Resistance to the Google books project from European libraries appears to be easing, with the National Library of France confirming this month that it was working with the US internet giant. But European publishers say they are determined to defend their rights.

Is an Amazon platform or a Google platform patently unfair?

Does innovation unfairly bring more profit to technology and distribution providers who innovate?

Is the Google free books project indeed a ransacking of copyright and potential profitability for publishers of authors long dead?

Open Source Textbooks Challenge Inelastic Demand

Wired magazine has a brief blog post on the innovators at Flat World Knowledge.

In a nutshell, there is a huge, inelastic demand for college texts, even though textbook prices are high. Because of this there is a lot of piracy and a robust secondary market for textbooks -- but not for long, because they are updated every couple of years, rendering old editions virtually worthless.

Flat World's business plan aims to exploit the inefficiencies: Its books are online and free. Instead of charging for content it aims to make money by wrapping content up in "convenient" downloadable and print wrappers and selling those, along with study aides and related items.

Comments on the site are also pithy.

Good way to break one of the rackets of the organized crime syndicate known as academia!

Posted by: anon | Sep 2, 2008 8:42:47 AM

State Sponsored? Are you mad?
If this is not a profitable venture, why would it be acceptable for the government to foot the bill...keeping in mind, government is nothing more than a bunch of bad business men and women, for the most part. This is the kind of illogical thinking that has plunged our nation further and further in to debt. A debt that we soon be unable to overcome. People with the mindset of Mr. or Mrs. "SW" need to evaluate what the governments role in society truly is.
Oh and if it makes money, I suppose it would be a good idea. Let the market decide.

Posted by: Newsboy50 | Sep 2, 2008 9:35:25 AM