CourseSmart Bookshelf and App for the iPad

I recently signed up to take an online class at my community college, and had the opportunity to buy an electronic book for the course. The e-textbook could either be read on my computer or an iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone using an application named CourseSmart Bookshelf. This e-book seems to be more of an interactive PDF, since you can zoom in for a closer look on any page. On the Mac, I can also highlight text, and use the "Edit > Speech > Start Speaking" menu to have the words read to me.

On the iPad version, there is no search feature, but users have the ability to highlight and mark notes. The iPad/iPhone version ONLY works with an Internet connection (it logs you in whenever you start the app), whereas the Mac version allows you to read "offline" ... however, the iPad and Mac applications do not seem to sync to one another (similar to a Kindle that will return users to whatever place they were last reading in the book, without regards to the device being used.)

The overall cost was less than the printed version of the textbook, however, note that users do not get to keep the electronic text -- it's actually a 360-day "lease." I paid $41.50 to lease the book (which lists for $103.44 for the printed version). In addition, I had to pay a $50 fee to access the online lecture content at McGraw Hill (not part of the ebook). If I bought a new book with the online content as a "bundle" at the college bookstore it was $167.65, (or $125.75 used). I also considered that a trade in value on used books, is only between $10 and $26.

A recent update to the CourseSmart "app" (towards the end of the semester) introduced a new feature: the ability to connect with fellow classmates "within" the context of the book. This option was not promoted by my instructor, and I had none of my classmates' contact information in order to connect to fellow readers, so I'm not sure how this feature works.

A Book of the Future?

Here is an interesting video on the book of the future:

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

"Meet Nelson, Coupland, and Alice — the faces of tomorrow’s book. Watch global design and innovation consultancy IDEO’s vision for the future of the book. What new experiences might be created by linking diverse discussions, what additional value could be created by connected readers to one another, and what innovative ways we might use to tell our favorite stories and build community around books? "
Link:  (http://vimeo.com/15142335)

-- Chris Penny

The Reinvention of Print, One App at a Time

From Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/2010/10/08/scrollmotion-profile/
"The company is ScrollMotion, and while you may have never heard of it, you’ve surely heard of some of its biggest clients. Hearst, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Simon and Schuster, and The Jim Henson Company are just some of the big name clients that use ScrollMotion to create digital, interactive content experiences for the iPhone,iPad and beyond.... The publishing industry is undergoing a significant transformation. It’s not just the death of the printed newspaper and the push to move from newsprint to the web; the publishing industry at large is becoming digitized."

Connected!!

This blog post in the NYTimes (8/23/2010) http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/replacing-a-pile-of-textbook-with-an-ipad/ introduces a new company, "Inkling" which "gets" the idea of "Connected" -- "the company wants to offer a textbook experience that moves far beyond simply downloading a PDF document to an iPad.

One unique feature the service offers is the ability to discuss passages of a book with other students or professors. By selecting a piece of text you can leave a note for others to read and develop a conversation around the text."

Digital Publishing Levels the Playing Field for Small Publishers

This Aug. 15, 2010 article by Jill Priluck of the Washington Post reports a small-time renaissance is underway. What do you think? -- Prof. Harry

Electronic Reading Devices Transforming the Concept of a Book

From the July 18, 2010 L.A. Times article, learn how "digital tools advance beyond screens that talk and play videos, connecting readers to authors and online fan communities."

iPad Goes to College this Fall

An exerpt from Chris Foresman, ArsTechnica
"[Oklahoma State U]niversity has already identified one class where the textbook in ePub format costs $100 less than the dead-tree version. With a typical class load of five courses, it could be possible to completely offset the cost of a device like an iPad in textbook savings alone. (At least, this is true if you're comparing the iPad against a stack of brand new textbooks; the savings may disappear if used books are brought into the comparison.)

"The Illinois Institute of Technology has even more ambitious plans to integrate iPads into academics. A technology initiative will give all incoming freshman undergraduates -- about 550 students -- an iPad to use as a technological enhancement to the curriculum. Because all freshman are required to take several introductory courses, such as 'Introduction to the Professions,' software, e-texts, and other resources will be uniform for those courses." -- Posted by Prof. Harry