Just a quick roundup of some education news focused on digital textbooks and eBooks, open educational resources, education policy, and textbook publisher trends.
- Free digital textbooks offered as Gov. Jerry Brown signs bills - http://20mm.org/LA-Times-Free-digital-textbooks-offered-as-Gov.-Jerry-Brown-signs-bills/News-49.html
- McGraw-Hill Education Launches E-Book Program for Higher Ed - http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/
- How 'Big Three' Publishers Are Approaching iPad Textbooks - http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/11/08/how-big-three-publishers-are-approaching-their-ipad-textbooks.aspx
- Duncan: Make textbooks ‘obsolete’ - http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/11/19/top-ed-tech-news-novemberdecember-2012/
- Chief Academic Officers and Faculty Survey Finds Use of Open Educational Resources Remains Consistent but Low - http://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/07/4967562/chief-academic-officers-and-faculty.html
The CAO survey mentioned in the last bullet above advised that "Chief Academic Officers and faculty report that key barriers to adopting OER are the lack of a single, comprehensive catalog of content, difficulty finding content, and concerns about time and energy spent selecting and evaluating the material." Remember folks, the Akademos Textbook Adoption Tool is open to all faculty from any college or university. It is the only textbook comparison tool that includes OERs and commercial textbook publisher offerings.
