Apple's new iBooks 2 app is demonstrated for the media at the Guggenheim Museum on January 19.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Pilot study done by textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Apple
Middle school students studied from 2010 to 2011 using HMH's Fuse: Algebra I app
During study, iPad seemed to help students better connect with the content
(WIRED) -- More and more schools are jumping on the digital bandwagon and adopting iPads for daily use in the classroom. Apple's education-related announcements last week will no doubt bolster the trend, making faculty tools and student textbooks more engaging and accessible.
But today another data point emerged, demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education. In a partnership with Apple, textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt performed a pilot study using an iPad text for Algebra 1 courses, and found that 20% more students (78% compared to 59%) scored 'Proficient' or 'Advanced' in subject comprehension when using tablets rather than paper textbook counterparts.
The study was conducted at a Riverside, California, middle school from Spring 2010 to Spring 2011 using HMH's Fuse: Algebra I app. Similar pilot courses and iPad programs have cropped up all over the country, primarily in private and boarding schools, and select universities. In the public school sector, more than 600 school districts have adopted a 1:1 iPad program.
The iPad seems to help students better connect with the content at hand.
"Students' interaction with the device was more personal. You could tell students were more engaged," said Coleman Kells, principal of Amelia Earhart Middle School. "Using the iPad was more normal, more understandable for them."
Tablets could be less daunting to students, too. Marita Scarfi, CEO of digital-focused marketing agency Organic, says that moving textbooks to mobile devices will reinvent learning.
"Now you don't know if a book is super huge and formidable," Scarfi says. "Learning can be done in snackable chunks. It could be reoriented."
Another study centered on an iPad game, Motion Math, has shown that the iPad can help with fundamental math skills. Fifth graders who regularly played the game for 20 minutes per day over a five-day period increased their test scores by 15% on average (you can check out more about this study on Wired's GeekDad).
Digital textbooks haven't enjoyed the same success as app-based learning tools thus far, however. E-textbooks have been a transitional product, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps wrote in a November 2011 report. They make up less than 3 percent of textbook sales, and don't offer much over their paperbound counterparts.
Apple's new and updated products — iTunes U (an app-based hub for virtual classrooma), as well as iBooks 2, the iBookstore and iBooks Author — should help provide solutions for educators looking to provide more engaging experiences than plain, old PDFs, all without the heavy investments required of building apps from scratch.
"With iBooks, learning will be a lot more experiential," Scarfi told Wired in an e-mail. iBooks also have the potential to ease some of the financial burden of schools, as ebooks could save on textbook costs. "Other benefits include more timely and relevant content, and the ability for students to interact and share this content with ease. Textbooks will now become social in a variety of ways."
However, even if e-book prices themselves won't break the bank, iPads are still a $500-plus investment per tablet. Funding is still a problem, particularly for public schools. Luckily, there are sites like DonorsChoose.org that can help offload the costs from teachers and school districts.
And a program called SA500 Kids is helping to accelerate funding for technology resource requests on the site. Thus far, iPad requests have been fairly low: SA500 Kids has funded 24 iPad-based project requests since Nov. 25. Currently there are 418 iPad-related requests on DonorsChoose, out of the 20,000 projects listed on the site.
When the next iPad debuts, if Apple goes with a similar pricing scheme as it has with the iPhone — as rumored — then schools will be able to pick up iPads on the cheap and really be able to utilize the company's new education related products.
But regardless, it looks like the iPad is starting to do an impressive job of improving the education space. And now that publishers and instructors have these iBooks tools at their disposal, students can continue to reap the benefits of increased understanding and greater participation.
Apple’s iBooks2 platform has received some breathless coverage since it was announced on Thursday. The Atlantic’s Megan Garber, for example, called it “a new educational paradigm” and “transformative”. There are, however, many issues with the textbooks aspect of this platform, as Venture Beat’s Devindra Hardawar examines.
But I’ll leave those discussions to people more familiar with the realities of education. Instead, I want to look at some of the issues around the platform for other types of publisher, because if you were thinking that Apple’s new iBook Author software could be a great leap forward for you as a small or self-publishers, you probably need to think again.
EO Wilson's Life on Earth is one of the free samples available in iBooks2
The key issue is the EULA, or “end user license agreement”, which is the agreement you automatically sign up to when you open a bit of software for the first time, regardless of whether you agree with it, or have even read it. ZDNet’s Ed Bott took at look at iBooks Author’s EULA and what he found is, well, you might want to get yourself a stiff drink and sit down before we go on. When Bott says, “I have never seen a EULA as mind-bogglingly greedy and evil as Apple’s EULA for its new ebook authoring program,” he means it.
By agreeing to the EULA you agree that if you create a book using Apple’s iBooks Author you can only do two things with it:
Give it away for free anywhere
Sell it via Apple’s iBooks store.
You may not sell your iBooks Author-created ebook in any other store. For their part, Apple do not guarantee that your book will actually be accepted into the iBooks store. If it does not, you cannot attempt to sell it elsewhere, you can only give it away or scrap the file.
Says Dan Wineman, “So, to paraphrase: By using this software, you agree that anything you make with it is in part ours.”
Now, it’s true that the prohibition applies only to the file created by iBooks Author, not the underlying content, so you could go through the process twice with a different bit of software and publish those books elsewhere. But you can’t save your iBooks Author file as a .mobi or .epub, and because they are using a non-standard format you can’t create a .ibooks file in other software. Apple are betting that people will take the exclusivity clause rather than doubling the amount of layout work needed to sell in all stores.
My work isn’t multimedia, but if it was the question I would have is, why make an iPad-only multimedia offering when I can use HTML5 and a service like PugPig to create a cross-platform multimedia app? I can make an app for the iPad, iPhone and Android, blending the best bits of HTML5 with the best bits of native apps, without compromising on quality or having to re-code the wheel.
The vast majority of work in any multimedia app/book is the creation of all the assets. Apple’s iBooks Author supposedly makes the building of ebooks easier, but there are HTML5 authoring tools such as Adobe Edge around too. If you’re going to task someone with learning how to use Apple’s software, you might as well give them the time to learn HTML5 instead; they’ll bring much more value to your business by learning skills that are more broadly applicable.
For Apple’s launch partners, including Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton-Mifflin, it all makes great sense. They know that online resources compete directly with their textbooks for the attention of students and, with education budgets under pressure, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that textbook turnover is also declining.
Getting schools and universities to swap to a once-per-year purchase of one ebook per student at $15 a pop gives them a lock-in they could previously only dream of. Apple, of course, will be happy to take their cut of each sale, but is likely more interested in selling lots of iPads and get educational institutions locked-in to their iOS platform. Once a school has gone the route of iBooks on iPads, they’ll be in hardware and software upgrade hell forever.
But what we need right now in the ebook publishing industry is not more lock-in and more restrictive practices. It’s difficult enough to deal with the way that Amazon throws its weight around without having to do extra work to accommodate Apple’s control-freakery.
For the market to flourish, we need ebook distributors who respect standards and publishers alike. Right now, though, we’re stuck with near-monopoly rent-seekers.
How Will Teachers Pay For Apple's New iBooks? Sites Like DonorsChoose.Org
The single biggest question surrounding Apple’s Thursday announcement of its new iBooks textbooks is how teachers and schools will be able to buy enough iPads to make the initiative a success. After all, interactive, touch-friendly iPad books will only benefit students if schools can afford to make iPads widely available. While the new books will be much cheaper than regular textbooks, iPad prices remain $499 to $829, depending on connectivity options and amount of storage.
Apple's new iBooks 2 textbooks are touch-friendly and interactive -- but require an iPad. Teachers and schools may need to raise money for the devices themselves.
One way to help bridge the gap: nonprofits like DonorsChoose.org, which matches donors with teachers in need of supplies. The New York-based organization is already predicting a spike in teacher requests for iPads following Thursday’s news. Such a surge is “certain” to happen, said DonorsChoose.org Founder and Chief Executive Charles Best in an interview.
Apple devices are already in great demand at DonorsChoose.org, which lets U.S. public school teachers list classroom projects and needed resources on its site. Donors can browse the project summaries online and make contributions via credit card or PayPal. The donations are aggregated until the requested amount is raised. At that point, DonorsChoose.org steps in to buy the classroom materials. The items are shipped directly to the appropriate school.
On the DonorsChoose.org website, there are currently 439 listings that include iPads and iPad accessories. One typical example: a first-grade teacher in Little Rock, Ark. who wants an iPad 2 for “independent practice in reading, writing, and math [and] whole group instruction.”
“Many of my students do not have a home computer,” the teacher notes in her proposal. “[An iPad 2] will prepare them for a future of using technology.”
Such listings are proliferating on DonorsChoose.org. During the 2009-2010 school year, Apple products made up $50,000 or 0.2% of all the classroom supplies DonorsChoose.org purchased on behalf of its registered teachers, said Best.
The following year, that amount increased 16 times. During the 2010-2011 school year, Apple products made up $800,000 or 3.2% of all the classroom supplies DonorsChoose.org purchased.
Best attributes the huge year-over-year boost in Apple device requests and fulfillments to the April 2010 launch of the original iPad. (DonorsChoose.org measures school years from July 1 to June 30.) The organization is currently in the middle of its 2011-2012 school year but already sees that figure rising. So far, Apple products make up 3.3% of DonorsChoose.org’s 2011-2012 classroom orders, according to Best.
Some of those products were other Apple devices, such as iPod touches and MacBook laptops but Best said the majority were iPads. “A really large number of teachers contact us offline testifying how valuable iPads are for their students,” he said. Teachers of special-needs classes have particularly found the iPad’s touchscreen and easy-to-use software makes a “monumental difference” in their students’ education, he added.
There’s a lot more teacher interest in iPads than DonorsChoose.org’s statistics indicate. The site requires teachers to be proactive about listing their projects and communicating with donors. That number is growing but is far from including the majority of teachers. Best said about half of all U.S. public schools have at least one teacher who has posted a project on DonorsChoose.org since the site went live in 2000.
The organization’s numbers also only count project requests that get fully funded and result in actual product orders. DonorsChoose.org says there are 20,000 requests live on its site at any given moment. It expects to direct $40 million in donations to 80,000 classroom project requests this year.
That’s a lot of supplies but one nonprofit isn’t going to be able to put iPads in masses of public schools. (Apple’s not starting from scratch, though. At its Thursday press conference, the company said 1.5 million iPads are already being used in schools.)
In a Jan. 19 note to investors, Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes wrote that budget constraints could slow “Apple’s long-term goal of revolutionizing education” in K-12 schools. But Reitzes added that the new iBooks 2 textbooks could also help Apple attract public funds for iPad purchases.
Reitzes also noted that iPads and iBooks textbooks will be an easier sell to college students who will benefit more from the cost savings over traditional textbooks.
For a graphical overview on whether ‘Apple Can Save Education’, including statistics on U.S. public schools and how technology can affect learning, check out this infographic.
How can teachers get funds to bring iPads into their classrooms? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Apple Goes By The Book, Will Work With Big Textbook Publishers
Take a load off: textbooks are coming to the iPad.
In an effort to turn its iPad tablet computer into a schoohouse staple, Apple unveiled a plan to work closely with some of the largest textbook publishers Thursday at New York’s Guggenheim Museum.
The Cupertino, California-based computer company said it will work with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson to fill Apple’s digital bookstore with textbooks.
Books from the three publishers will begin appearing in a new version of Apple’s iBooks software for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch available Thursday.
Apple’s move into the textbook is reminiscent of its move into music sales, with the launch of Apple’s iTunes music store in 2003, which relied on partnerships with the major music labels, rather than wild schemes to leap into the digital era without them.
The new content helps Apple positioned its $499 and up iPad as a more portable, more interactive alternative to traditional textbooks — an alternative that stays auto-magically up-to-date, as well.
Most of the books will be priced at $14.99 ‘or less,’ said Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing chief. A demonstration showed off a wide range of electronic books featuring interactive 3D objects, diagrams, embedded videos, and photos.
Apple also released iBooks Author, a free download from its online software store for its Macintosh line of personal computers. The software aims to speed the creation of electronic books that feature interactive photos, movies, 3D objects, and other digital bling.
Apple’s ‘iTunes U,’ software also got a makeover. Now widely used by educators looking for a way to distribute their lectures, the software will get new features so that educators can use to digitize more of their teaching.
While Apple is treading holding hands with big textbook publishers, its annnouncments could open up textbook publishing to a much broader array of players. IBooks Author and access to Apple’s new bookstore threaten to disrupt the traditional textook business, even if major textbook publishers are participating.
“In solving these problems for publishers, Apple also solves them for everyone else,” Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps wrote on her blog Thursday. “We’ll see an avalanceh of new companies and new content for the education market—and many of the best innovations will come from these smaller companies, not the biggest publishers. ”
Apple shares rose 39 cents to $429.50 in Thursday trading.
Hyperink's E-Book Model Turns Publishing On Its Head
Kevin Gao, CEO of Hyperink
The book publishing industry has been going through a transformation as physical books move to digital.
Building on that growth, a new start-up Hyperink is a publisher of digital books that are targeted to specific niche audiences. “We’re directly taking on Amazon and trying to disrupt how the entire book publishing industry works,” says Hyperink cofounder and CEO Kevin Gao.
In a change for the book industry Hyperink generally does not select from books that are submitted by authors. Instead, the company finds topics that are in demand through analysis of things like Google search trends. Then it seeks out authors for those topics. “It’s the reverse of the traditional book publishing industry, which is supply-driven, where you get manuscripts and pick from them,” Gao says. Does that sound like blog writing, where a bunch of similar stories all target certain hot keywords? In some ways, Gao says, but Hyperink’s books are structured, organized and written by experts in their fields. Instead of spending one or two years to publish a physical book and trying for big mega-hits, Hyperink is going the opposite direction. It focuses on fast publishing–it can churn out a book in a month at one-tenth the cost of physical books, Gao says. It’s also going after the “long tail” with topics such as “Getting Corporate Law Jobs,” “Dating For Singles Over 40,” and “Marketing Your Android App.”
Because of its model Hyperink can get much more specific with titles than typical publishers. For example, instead of a book on “How to get into College,” Hyperink has a book, “Harvard Law School Admissions.” Hyperink’s books are typically 30 to 75 pages. “Book publishers generally have generic topics that are 200 pages because it looks good on a bookshelf and because of all the overhead costs,” Gao says. “We want to get really specific and really long-tail to give consumers the books they really want to read.” While the books are largely non-fiction now, Gao says the company could do fiction as well. For authors Hyperink offers a publishing option that’s better than self-publishing, Gao says. And authors get to keep a larger portion of sales, up to 50%, than they would with traditional books. Hyperink provides typical publisher services such as cover design, layout, customer service and marketing. Hyperink is also targeting experts who don’t have time to write a book. Hyperink hires freelance journalists as ghostwriters to interview these experts and write books for them so that they can become authors. Hyperink distributes the books to Amazon, Nook, iBooks and other sites as well as through its own website.
Hyperink has raised $1.2 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, SVAngel, Lerer Ventures, Launch Capital, Shopkick founder Cyriac Roeding, Milo founder Jack Abraham and others. There are a number of start-ups trying new online book publishing models, including Vook, WeBook and others. But Gao believes his biggest competitor is Amazon and the big six traditional book publishers.
Apple Unveils iBooks 2; Interactive Textbooks Are Here
At an event at the Guggeheim Museum in New York this morning, Apple launched iBooks 2, a new version of its digital books format that includes new features to make textbooks interactive. The company also is launching a revamped version of iTunes U, for online courses, opening the service to K-12 teachers.
The new version of iBooks allows the addition of interactive elements and multimedia features. The company also launched a WYSIWIG authoring application for the Mac for creating interactive books called iBooks Author. The program is available today for free.
Apple is launching a new category in the iBooks store for interactive textbooks, with an initial focus on high school texts, with pricing at $14.99. Initial publishing partners are Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Pearson, and McGraw Hill, which according to Apple marketing guu Phil Schiller together control 90% of the textbook market.
Brian Caulfield 
Tomio Geron 
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