The Education Business Blog

eBooks, iPads, and the Kindle are changing the fundamental structure of the publishing industry. From a strategic perspective they are having the largest impact on the development and pricing of products. In other words it is affecting the "what" deeply. The "how" has not changed all that much, regardless of whether you are selling print and/or technology.

There are four fundamental strategies for a growing a company in the K12 sector because even in the best of times K12 is (mostly) a zero sum game. In 2008 I wrote a post about this competitive dynamic:

In normal times education budgets grow at 2%-5% a year. Most start-ups or new products need to grow at a huge multiple of that - 30% to 300% or even more. Mathematically in order for you to grow someone else is must lose out.

K12 Growth Strategies

How does a company go about "stealing" share from other players in the market? Below we look at innovation, distribution, acquisition, and diversification.

1. Innovation - This is the most obvious - if you build a better product people will flock to you while ignoring the tired offerings of your competitors.

The best example in the market today is interactive white boards which are now in over 60% of classrooms (70% is considered market saturation for most technologies). This has mostly happened over the last 5 years.

Since this platform is now ubiquitous a new innovation frontier is content for these devices like Saddleback's excellent math programs.

PCI published our award winning PCI Reading Program - the first research based comprehensive program for intellectually disabled students in decades. It is designed for today's Special Ed population, including a much higher number of students with autism. Tellingly it is a combination of print and software. This product line has seen explosive growth in a rough market.

Success requires a clear vision of market needs and how to apply new tools to those needs in an economically efficient way. Easy to say, really hard to do.

2. Distribution - Distribution is the achilles heel of all K12 start ups. If you have something innovative making more people aware of your innovative solution will drive new business. The problem is that there are 3.8 million teachers in the US and they are bombarded with marketing messages. Cutting through that clutter at that scale takes time and money.

The largest publishers have actually contracted their distribution networks in the last five years. They collapsed their supplemental teams into their core basal teams with the predictable result that the supplemental business has shrunk. There is a fair debate on how much of this shrinkage is falling demand on the customers' side and how much is publisher neglect. What is clear is that the publishers' actions have fueled the fire at some level.

This has created opportunities for mid-market players with niche distribution networks to fill the gaps at both ends - with their own products and as distributors for larger and smaller players. As I noted last fall:

"...[in the attention economy] access to expertise becomes very valuable and companies that can help their customers make informed, relevant, and effective decisions will thrive."

3. Acquisition - Between starts ups innovating new learning technologies and mature mid-market companies seeking exits Education is a target rich environment for those seeking acquisitions.

The core challenge has more to do with investor expectations for returns on capital and the speed at which the education market moves. Due to the stickiness of education solutions once they are adopted they pay out nicely over a long period of time. Put another way - the payoff is there in this market but most investors are not patient enough to earn it.

Right now the larger publishers seem to be sitting this out but people looking to enter the market - like News Corp - are active. Private Equity groups are circling as well but many probably see education as a low risk hedge rather than a core investment. The VCs are quite active - but they are investing in small innovative start ups.

One of the more interesting plays may be marrying the playbook of the PE and VC camps. Leverage the distribution muscle of an established player than can reach across the market with the disruptive innovations coming from the smaller players through creative acquisitions. Culturally and operationally there are significant challenges in this approach, but the payoff if done correctly is a dramatic reduction in the time to market for innovations at a time of disruptive change.

4. Diversification - Another approach is branching into new markets. There are opportunities in corporate learning, education systems in other countries, tutoring, trade publishing, home schoolers, etc. for publishers who currently sell just to schools.

This mistake that may company's make is underestimating both the changes in product design and the distribution challenges associated with moving into other markets.

Does your box say "program" instead of "programme"? At a minimum you will need a new box if not a complete page review and spelling update for the guts of your program if you want to sell it in the UK or Australia. Are you ready for the rough and tumble of trade publishing or corporate learning?

Moving into new markets requires sustained discipline as you learn the rules of the road and a willingness to invest over a long haul. If you are looking for a quick hit don't waste your time on this approach.

Summary

If you are thinking about how to grow your business (rather than just holding on in tough times) then some combination of the four approaches outlined above is where you will probably end up. Your vision, access to capital, and discipline will determine what the right mix is for your company.

I've probably missed some obvious alternative to the four core growth strategies outlined above. Feel free to drop me an email or comment and we'll update the list.

I grew up just outside Rt 128 in Boston. The children of the founders of DEC and Wang were friends and classmates. I've spent most of my adult life shuttling between the other three great tech centers in the US - Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Austin. My domain expertise, such as it is, revolves around introducing new technologies to the market. As part of my apprenticeship I spent seven years at Apple.

This can be an insular world (a sub genre of humor that revolves around technical support?!) and from the inside it is hard to gauge where the work we do really fits into the larger scheme of things.

There is an enormous amount of self serving BS generated as part of the tech innovation cycle. One of the earliest survival skills young nerds need to cultivate is what we jokingly call Rule #1 - never believe your own BS.

Thus it was a bit of a surprise to wake in London this morning and see the news about Steve Jobs on the front pages of The Guardian and The Telegraph littering the halls of our hotel.

Steve (in Apple that was all he went by) embodied so much of what makes brand USA so compelling and so aggravating. The sweeping braggadocio backed up by staggeringly creative innovation executed with precision and efficiency. He was perhaps the best ambassador the technocracy has ever had.

Mountains of press will be spilled over this event. All I wanted to say today is that one of my great heroes has passed - but his genius lives on in the tools every one of us uses to express ourselves. He was far more than a tech genius, he was a citizen of the world.

In "Four years into the ebook revolution: things we know and things we don’t know" Mike Shatzkin does a great job of summarizing the state of the trade publishing business. Education Publishers take note - this is your future.

In "Predicting Player Behavior and How Zynga Profits From Data Analysis" John Rice picks apart the Wall St. Journal's article (paywall) with an eye to education. Talk about data driven business models is all the rage in EdTech - this is what it really looks like. Money quote:

"We feel that a purely data-driven approach has significant promise for creating accurate predictive models of player behavior in games without the difficulties associated with earlier modeling techniques."

I'm involved in the LRMI (which I'll be blogging about in more detail). I'll also be speaking about this in the at the Frankfurt Book Fair in two weeks (Hall 4.2 Hot Spot Stage Fri Oct 4th, 4:15 PM).

As I used to say to my kids when I dropped them off at school "Have a great day, if you can't have a great day have a good day, if you can't have a good day there is always tomorrow."

OPOL

There are bad ideas that become iconic for every era because they were popular fads. Pet Rocks, the Pacer, Supply Side Economics, and .com groceries all come to mind.

Looking back we all scratch our heads and wonder - why?

Gamification, ripping the reward and recognition systems out of video games and applying them to behavioral modification is likely to stand in for our current times in the future.

In the attention economy everyone wants stickiness, products that get used a lot. Some of the stickiest products ever invented are video games. World of Warcraft has a whole genre of humor dedicated to how obsessive players are. The list of sticky games is long, Whyville in education and it's many spawn like Farmville on Facebook come to mind.

The most common elements in gamified applications are:

• Achievements and Badges
• Leader Boards
• Progress Bars
• Virtual (or real) Currency
• User Challenges

Please make the stupid stop.

Personal Experience

The opinions expressed in the column were earned through experience. Like many in the education game community, I was initially excited about extending the power of games to other contexts. But as I used these tools I found that they could spur a week or two of use but they lost their punch quickly and faded away. After the 5th application the pattern started to emerge.

I've been using. Weight Watchers excellent iOS app for a couple of years now. It is useful and well designed with plenty of what could be considered game like elements. But it is not a game. Tracking your food necessary for success but is still a chore. I never stayed up until 1 AM trying to get to the next level of weight loss (hmm but maybe I should...).

Based on my experience there are three fundamental errors that underly the rush to gamify everything.

You Are Unique - Just Like Everyone Else

The first error is assuming everyone responds the same way to game mechanics. There is quite a bit of literature on the different styles of gameplay most of which builds on Richard Bartle's work. Anyone who has spent a meaningful amount of time in the on-line game arena quickly identifies with Bartles four categories of Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers.

Simply put. gamification only works on a sustained basis for a subset of the population - it is not a universal panacea. Not only that but the Achievers often play for the recognition of the other groups - so only focusing on this one group omits the necessary context of Achiever's motivation.

Systems Theory

The second error is assuming that you can separate the reward system from the other elements popular games and have it work. Non-gamers, most of the people throwing time and money at this problem, see the reward systems in games and make the assumption that you can simply repurpose the badges and achievement trees elsewhere.

If you took a steering wheel and handed it to someone who knew nothing about cars they could describe in great detail what it is. It is round, hard, ridged, has a stem, and there is a large bag packed into the center. What they couldn't tell you is what it does. Context matters for true understanding.

Why is it round (human arms), why is is it ridged (human fingers), what does that stem do (control of other front end systems), why is that bag there (human lives). None of those things make sense without understanding the human and other machine components of the larger system.

If you want to understand game reward systems you need to play a lot of games so you can grok the context.

Conversely if we hired a master mechanic and told them to go buy the best example of every car part we would not end up with a functioning automobile. Systems design also has to apply to context. Our steering wheel has precise dimensions so that it attaches properly to the steering column and provides proper sight lines to the speedometer.

Bolting cutting edge game mechanics onto bleeding edge mobile apps does not a useful thing make (usually).

Remove reward systems from games and you do not have a functioning mechanic. Even an extremely well designed gamification system out of the context of the rest of the game has no sustainable use. You might get short term gains but only the obsessive compulsive Achievers will stick with it. (That is a market segment, but not the one everyone is shooting for.)

Game Contexts

There (at least) three contexts in games that interact with the reward elements in ways that make the overall system work. The true value lies in how the components ALL interact. I will refer to these as components but in practice they are nested systems themselves with their own internal dynamics.

Narrative context - scratch 90% of gamers and they tell you that they engage with the story line of the games they play. In a casual game it may just be that the birds are angry, in an MMO it may be an intensely co-created universe like Eve Online. Since so many of these involve elves and rescuing princesses or invading alien bugs non- gamers too easily dismiss what they see as silly window dressing. Don't. At one level the reward system is the marker for your progress through the narrative. It makes the immersion more immediate and reminds you of how far you have progressed.

Social context - we are social and competitive beings. These two elements are linked. It is hard for me to sustain competitive fervor against people or groups that I am not socially close to. Trust me on this one, I'm a Red Sox fan. Or pick any college rivalry. Why is Words With Friends so compelling? What keeps people playing World of Warcraft for years on end? It is the relationships and the rivalries, some friendly some not, that emerge from playing together. Competing with random strangers to be "mayor" of a local coffee shop isn't a sustainable business model. The novelty wears off and we drift off to places where we can truly interact with other people.

Fun context - last but not least game reward systems are situated inside of an activity that is fun. Taking a boring chore and bolting game mechanics on it doesn't make it any less boring or any less of a chore. Put another way, sober up a horse thief and you've got a sober horse thief.

In many ways these relate back to the other three categories identified in Bartle's work - Explorers like engaging with the narrative, Socializers revel in schmoozing, and Killers play for the joy of offing competitors. All rely on the presence of the others to get the full experience.

Conclusion

Education and learning in a school setting is a long term project not subject to quick fixes and panaceas. It would be a mistake for Education Publishers to embrace gamification without the larger contexts of games. I passionately believe games can make a huge difference in learning, but we need to embrace all the elements for it to work.

I'm not saying reward systems can't be well designed , but you can't just take the game elements out of context and have them work on a sustainable basis.

Admittedly they have a huge stake in this growth, but this is a pretty compelling outline of where things are headed.

Also, an incredible example of advertising that informs and engages rather than just promoting.

Enjoy.

Hat tip to Denise Jacks at PCI.

Is the Internet making us dumber or are we just using our brains in new ways? The BBC posted a great overview of a new study which makes the case for a neat trick the brain is pulling now that we have 24/7 access to the web.

The article notes:

"When participants knew that facts would be available on a computer later, they had poor recall of answers but enhanced recall of where they were stored.

The researchers say the internet acts as a "transactive memory" that we depend upon to remember for us"

When it comes to designing education media this has huge implications for every aspect of the products that come out of our industry. Design, marketing, implementation - all need an overhaul in light of this one simple concept.

This is part of why I'm so excited to be participating in the Learning Resources Metadata Initiative (LRMI) as a delegate from the publishing industry. I'll be writing more on that in the coming months as the project gets off the ground.

Start your week on a positive note and go read the BBC's article.

What could be nerdier than a huge ed-tech trade show? It has technology, teachers, curriculum, and lot of gee whiz bang products. I'm sure a couple of the hotels had mad D&D sessions going late into the night.

I'll tell you what is nerdier - judging the marketing efforts at said trade show. Welcome to my world.

Most K12 education technology companies launch new products at ISTE. Companies go all out to put their best foot forward which means it is the fairest opportunity we have each year to pass judgement on the quality of their marketing.

The esteemed Panel of Judge (ahem) spent several hours wandering around casting jaded eyes on this year's offerings. It won't surprise close observers of the market that the mad scramble around Interactive White Boards is where the most intense competition and best marketing are happening. Both winners are in this space.

Best In Show

Proving that great marketing doesn't have to cost a lot of money this year's winner is eInstruction's Mobi View. Their t-shirt (two views below) captured the entire core messaging. I didn't even need to see the product to know EXACTLY what it did. Brilliant, elegant, fun, memorable, plus cheap. All the things that make great marketing captured in a stack of $10 t-shirts.

This proves that in the Interactive White Board scrum where behemoths like SMART and Promethean are dominating the messaging that a scrappy and creative team can get noticed without blowing the budget.

Most Questionable Use of Marketing Budget

Proving that spending a lot of money doesn't translate into coherent marketing, Polyvision takes the prize for their booth fountain. It was pretty, but in most classrooms I've seen sensitive electronics and open water don't share the same space. It wasn't clear what the take away from this stunt was - if there was a product related message in the fountain it wasn't obvious to me.

I like Polyvision's technology and I'm sensitive to the need to do something to stand out in a crowded field. But eInstruction is in the same space and managed to that without resorting to this kind of empty showmanship.

About the only positive thing I can think of is that is created a zen like space of reflection and calm amidst all the jangling advertising going on across the floor.

Now if I could just find the World of Warcraft LAN party....

OPOL

At ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia this week we were blessed with gorgeous summer weather, hot but not oppressive days and cool evenings perfect for a city walk. The show was hot too, well attended and and well run. So it may seem like an odd time to declare that this trade show's days are numbered. Tech shows like ISTE and TCEA are surging in attendance while warhorses like IRA go begging for attendees. Received wisdom is that everything is moving to the tech side.

I'm going out on a limb to argue that the trends of the last 5 years, declining core content shows and strong attendance at pure tech shows, are about to reverse themselves. In the coming years we'll see a resurgence of IRA, NCTM, and other content shows. ISTE will wither to a hard core platform technology event.

After IRA I noted how tech unfriendly the event was - they have a long way to go in encouraging and recruiting tech solutions. As I strolled the floor at ISTE in Philadelphia this week noticed the flip side of this coin. There was very little in the way of core content solutions that are delivered in genuine transmedia packages. It was ALL technology, PURE technology.

A huge part of the maturation of ed-tech is that it is finally blending in seamlessly with traditional media. No longer are schools spending on "gee whiz lets get some tech down the hall" baubles. Educators get how tech can be integrated into core instruction and publishers are following suite, starting to deliver on this demand. For an example see the blending of PCI's Life Science Textbook with games from Filament - "You Make Me Sick."

Also see my last post on how this is manifesting itself in the sales process.

In this world the attendees at ISTE are the dinosaurs. Schools are accelerating towards a time when they are not going to be thinking about tech as something separate and unique. Improving student outcomes with a blend of print, on-line, manipulatives, and professional development is increasingly just "how it is done."

IF organizations like IRA embrace technology they can revitalize themselves at the tech conferences' expense(thats a big if). Schools just want stuff that works to teach reading, math, and to a lesser extent science and social studies. If transmedia becomes the norm then that stuff will be found by the content experts at their content show.

This trend could go far beyond trade shows and change the landscape of trade media as well. Tech & Learning - more focused on platforms. The Reading Teacher - solutions galore. Welcome to the new normal, same as it ever was.

What happens to ISTE in this scenario? There will always be a need for a show for platform technologies and IT services for schools. Some of this could be absorbed by school supply shows like NSSEA, but my guess is the SIS companies, IWB providers, networking consultants, and hardware vendors will always want a place to showcase their offerings. That however is a much smaller show than the one I just walked through.

This won't happen quickly - if I'm right it will unwind over the next 5-10 years and will move in fits and starts. But it sure feels like the triumph of all the evangelists of education technology is to stop being special, set aside, and to blend into the background. For many this goal has been the central theme of an entire career (mine included).

It will be a bittersweet mission accomplished.

When educators choose new classroom materials their first challenge is to sift through dozens of options and narrow the search down to four to five options. In other words before they say "yes" to one solution they need to find reasons to say "no" to a host of other options.

Prior to Common Core the most significant filter was "alignment to state standards." If a company couldn't provide a correlation that showed substantial or complete compliance with a particular state's requirements it never got past the first meeting. No one really used the correlations once the product was purchased, but it was a useful filter to help narrow the field of choices.

In the last six months I have noticed a significant shift in this process. Most districts now require some flavor of "technology" in any curriculum resource they purchase. Like standards correlations they don't particularly care what it is - but they won't consider products that don't have a technology component.

A cynical publisher could throw some crappy IWB activities and Examview into the mix and call it done and they would be in the game. In many cases this is what "Free With Order" really means.

Leading From The Front

But I don't believe that is a sustainable competitive response to this shift. Digitization is a true long term wave sweeping over instructional resources. Slapping some junk in the box or burying your head in the sand are not sustainable survival strategies.

Rather than taking the easy out I believe publishers have a responsibility to map out a compelling vision for how they see technology being woven into classroom practice. Like many I don't believe we will ever get to a pure technology solution - but the blend of traditional print, manipulatives, and technology is evolving in some very interesting ways.

This kind of work isn't easy - it involves developing a point of view and taking real risks when you allocate people's time and capital. But the winners in this race will be those who do unto others rather than waiting to be done unto.

At the end of the day educators and students will select the winning visions as practice evolves. Only one of the components of the solutions that emerge will be publishers' contributions. But - we have an opportunity to add significant value to this process and justify our presence in an era of user generated free content.

You must be present to win.

My 17 year old son is in the other room using a kayak paddle with chain saws attached at either end to slice zombies in half. I'm sitting here minding my own business when out of the blue he says "Dad, this game is great for teaching time management skills."

In Dead Rising you have 72 hours in a zombie infested town to build a bike, rescue your daughter, and escape the military. Along the way anything you find can be weaponized against the slow moving brain noshers. Shovels, gasoline, saw blades, pitchforks, shotguns, drills, buckets, are among the things that can be combined in new and amazing ways. Yes, even a stuffed moose head.

Call me a proud papa - this concept was coming from a teen who is wrestling with time management (i.e. he gets A's when does the damn work which isn't often enough). The fact that he was metacogizant of this while playing astounded and pleased me.

This is a game that I can safely say will NEVER grace a screen in a school building. No guidance counselor will use it to expose 17 year old boys to critical skills and concepts needed for the world of work (with or without zombies). And yet - there it is teaching him on a Sunday afternoon exactly what he needs to learn right now.

Besides - I know it is wrong - but I find the creativity involved in inventing new and ever more lethal ways to off the zombies is hilarious. To see the kayak paddle/saw combo watch the video below - NSFW.

The official trailer for the sequel (the ending is classic):

Posted without comment.

Flocabulary - Much Ado About Nothing Rap from Flocabulary on Vimeo.

The role of textbooks in a rapidly digitizing world is an open question. The publishing industry needs to develop a new paradigm for commercially produced instructional materials or it faces extinction.

• Will they be replaced by digital learning packs of atomized content?
• Will Professors self-publish whatever materials they need?
• Will piracy destroy the textbook market?
• Are static textbooks even relevant any more when information is exploding at an exponential rate?

Now, thanks to the folks at Nature (a division of MacMillan) and their new eTextbook Principles of Biology, I glimpse a promising path forward. As is so often the case with paradigm shifts once it "clicks" in your head it is so simple that you wonder that you didn't get it earlier.
Better late than never I guess.

The product itself is innovative but from what I can tell not groundbreaking. It won't ship until September but from the description it sounds similar to Our Choice or Roma, excellent examples of cutting edge iPad publishing for non-fiction.

The New Model

The real innovation is in the business model. There are two elements of their model that are game changers.

A. Lifetime access to updated content. I think most grads have a few core textbooks that we still reference for our vocational and avocational interests. Personally I've gone to the well with Principles of Corporate Finance and Roman History over the years. But both of those fields have moved on since I studied them decades ago. It would be a huge value add if I had regular updates as each field advances and the materials are changed.

Right now publishers leave this value add on the cutting floor. We have to update our materials anyway to keep the content current but we have no way of passing that work on to prior customers. If that can be done digitally with a marginal cost of close to $0 it is a big win for the student and the publisher. It provides a compelling reason to purchase rather than pirate.

B. Site license purchases that can be bundled into tuition. This change has two important aspects.

First - site license pricing will upend one of the inequities in the college textbook market. The decision makers (professors) and the purchasers (students) are two separate entities and the purchasers have very little individual buying power. By uniting the decision and the purchase in an entity with a great deal of purchasing power (the University) it should help control costs while delivering a superior product. Publishers will have a huge amount of costly friction removed from the market as well (stocking college bookstores).

Second - there is a perception that textbooks are an out of control cost. If colleges broke out the cost of the new stadium or the Faculty Club you might see more outrage over tuition hikes. Compared to tuition which has doubled every 9 years since 1958 (roughly double the rate of general inflation), textbooks are a bargain. Textbooks are a small fraction of tuition and haven't increased anything close to that rate. But, because they are a direct purchase by students they get a lot more scrutiny.

If costs are controlled from site license purchasing and bundled into tuition the perception that textbooks are a rip off might subside. The schools benefit by building a lifelong connection to the student as well (assuming their subscription travels with them at graduation).

In the end this would make the university textbook market a lot more like the K12 market where states and districts make the buying decisions.

Conclusion

For K12 the far bigger innovation here is the lifetime "membership" in a textbook that comes from creating a student account. Building, nurturing, and adding value to that relationship over the long haul is a completely new way of thinking about our business.

For Higher Education the site license shift will have huge implications for who, what, and how instructional materials are purchased. It will upend a lot of sacred cows so it won't go down easily ("no Professor, you don't get to choose any book you want...") and it isn't a panacea (e.g. it won't solve the problem of the cost of niche materials).

In both cases the economics are pretty compelling and point to a way forward for publishers that skirts the piracy issue with innovation rather than enforcement.

Next

In a future post I'll write about the challenges for publishers if they begin to implement these ideas on a broad scale. These changes will upend decades of established business practice, process, and systems.

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Hat tip to Michael Cairns over at Personanondata for highlighting this topic.

The International Reading Association's annual conference has been steadily declining in attendance (and thus importance to vendors) for several years now. From a draw of 20,000 attendees the show now attracts less than 8,000. From a content standpoint it remains a top drawer event. That isn't the focus of this piece. I'm making a more mercenary assessment of the event from a marketing perspective.

Reading Language Arts remains the single biggest segment of instructional materials spending (over 60%). Exploring why the show at the heart of the education market is getting smaller should reveal some telling lessons for vendors evaluating how they go to market these days.

This year's exhibit traffic was considerably better than last year's, but the show floor was still a shadow of its former glory. Vendor booths barely filled 70% of the exhibit hall and other than a couple of the major publishers (notably Scholastic) most companies were taking less space than they did even 2-3 years ago.

The vendor commitments to my eye appeared to be scaled appropriately for the opportunity. PCI and others were having substantive conversations with customers actively seeking solutions.

What follows is my own rough estimation of the key factors in the show's decline. These themes will look familiar to regular readers.

• Centralized Decision Making
• Technology Substitution
• The Internet
• The Economic Downturn

Centralized Decision Making

NCLB's accountability measures changed the dynamic of the whole market. With jobs on the line administrators pulled decisions from teachers and principals. Simply put there are fewer people involved in making decisions about what to buy and when they are purchasing they are making bigger more comprehensive decisions.

Rationally Districts are simply sending fewer people because fewer people need to be involved in making decisions about what they are doing about reading.

This isn't all bad from a vendor standpoint. If smaller decisions get bundled the size of the market hasn't changed all that much. This would explain why vendors like Scholastic who offer comprehensive core programs have largely maintained their presence. Even supplemental solutions, if they are complete programs, are attractive to these buyers.

From a traditional supplemental vendor's perspective this has been a disaster. Individual teachers no longer show up seeking targeted solutions for this year's crop of learners. They are not coming to buy a book on spiders or space travel. The administrators are looking for complete libraries.

Vendors should show up with a smaller footprint and with their complete solutions in tow. Leave the little supplemental stuff behind for your web site. In large part this is what appears to have happened.

But there are three other factors that are driving the change.

Technology Substitution

But for all that the most striking thing about the exhibit area at IRA is the absence of technology. It is still primarily a book show. Yes, Scholastic, Pearson, and Study Island all had tech presences there (along with many others). But, wandering the aisles one saw rack after rack filled with Ghandi biographies, turtle books, and teen vampire sagas.

This raises the question of relevance. Educators are starting to demand some element of technology in every purchase they make, even if it is just PDF's on a CD. It reminds me of when standards swept into the market and it became impossible to start a sales conversation without first demonstrating that you were standards aligned. Not many people used those alignments - but they simply would not consider products that didn't have them. The same is true of technology today.

I wonder if part of the problem is that for many educators a show that is fixated on books simply isn't as relevant as something like ISTE. Changing this dynamic at IRA has to become a joint project of both the association and the vendor community. Books are not going away, but books without some kind of tech hook don't have the draw needed to keep the event vibrant.

There are small but concrete steps that could encourage this - like getting the convention center to waive their ridiculous $99 charge per internet connection. There is lots more that could be done to encourage vendors who are attending to flog their tech and to recruit tech vendors who have reading solutions to attend.

The challenge here is cultural more than it is practical. The people who belong to IRA generally love books and want to celebrate them. But we can't afford to ignore the cold hard fact that much of our teen's reading is moving to pixels. Failing to emphasize that reality is undercutting the long term relevance of the show.

The Internet

The economic downturn is accelerating a inevitable transition to early information gathering via the web in place of trade shows. As noted elsewhere one of the central questions marketers need to resolve today is the mix between trade shows and web presence.

Trade show conversations have always clustered at the ends of the purchase process. Districts just starting to explore their options review a lot of products in one sweep of the floor to set a baseline of what they should be evaluating. At the other end Districts realizing they need to spend budget dollars quickly are out trying to nail down what needs to go into POs that have to be cut in the next 90 days.

In normal times the skew is to the folks just starting out with a few lucky bluebirds tossed in. Conferences this year have the reverse mix as folks scramble to spend the last of their stimulus money. More significantly the folks at the front end of the process are using the web more frequently instead of going to shows.

Companies need to be acutely aware of what this means for their on-line presence. If you think of your website as a 24/7/365 trade show booth instead of brochureware you start to do some very different things with your product pages. Think carefully about all the information someone just starting out with a purchasing decision needs and make sure it is easily downloadable. More importantly think about the terms they will use at the start of the process (hint - not the same as at the end) and make sure you are optimizing for those phrases.

If your flagship products still just have a cover shot, an ISBN, and a price you are going to get your lunch eaten in this new world.

The Economy

One of the major challenges for all education trade shows is the difficulty of justifying travel and convention costs at a time when districts are laying off staff and slashing programs. Unfortunately this trend line isn't set to improve for a couple more years, so this impact of the downturn will linger on through 2014 or 2015.

This has had an impact, but I would argue that it is far less than the other factors. It also isn't something the show community has much control over. As a community we need to focus our efforts on addressing the first three issues.

Conclusion

IRA continues to struggle for a relevant identity in a world that is rapidly moving to reading on-line and on the go. The economy is accelerating a trend towards on-line fact finding early in the buying process making the exhibit area less attractive to vendors. The event also needs to move much more aggressively to a blended print/technology focus.

I'll be reviewing the findings of the white paper I wrote for SIIA on Best Practices for Implementing Games & Simulations in the Classroom today at 4 ET (corrected). The webinar and the paper are free.

We interviewed teachers, administrators, and vendors who have successfully implemented edugames and distilled the lessons they learned about how to sell the idea, how to prepare, and classroom management issues. It is a very practical hands on look at this arena and has implications for educators and people designing edugames.

The webinar is part of EdWeb's lively Game Based Learning Community (500+ members). It is the first in a series of webinars with luminaries like Jim Bower, Chris Dede, and Dan Norton.

Links:

Webinar Log In
EdWeb Game Based Learning
SIIA

What is good product development? The answer is deceptively simple to answer and devilishly difficult to pull off. Basically people want three things - better, faster, cheaper. All the complicated analysis in the world boils down to these three fundamentals. Get them right and your odds of success go way up.

You need to nail at least two of them, preferably all three. You need hard evidence to prove you are doing them - and the definition of success must be from the customer's perspective.

While it is easy to see how this plays out in technology (better/cheaper = iPad 1 vs laptop, better/faster = iPad2 vs iPad 1, cheaper/faster = Netbooks vs. iPad) it is more difficult to suss out what this means in education.

Tailoring your mix of these benefits really depends on what specific customers need. Here are a four examples - one from each possible combination.

Variations on a Theme

Better/Faster/Cheaper - For certain students self-paced on-line curriculum fits this bill (Apex). It isn't a universal solution but for self-motivated students it can accelerate learning while holding costs down.

While many technology solutions claim they meet all three of these, in truth very few do. The reason is the infrastructure required - high end computers, broadband, professional development, and wi-fi, etc.

Better/Faster - High end interventions that take unorthodox approaches to teaching and learning often fit in this category (like PCI's SpellRead). If there is solid research to back up the claims these solutions can be winners even though they don't compete on price. They often come with a real commitment to staff development. Versus the cost of students dropping out they are not expensive, but versus traditional reading programs they are. You don't use it where you use traditional programs so this trade off works.

Better/Cheaper - Sometimes a book is all that is called for, and renting that book is better than buying it. Welcome to Chegg. There is evidence that students at the university level who have access to digital textbooks migrate back to print after 2-3 semesters. Print is still cheaper and easier to manage than digital in many cases. This won't be the case forever - but this highlights the essential insight that the only thing that matters is your customer's viewpoint on these issues.

Faster/Cheaper - Given the evidence we have today many of the flash based learning games fall into this category (Food Force, Peacemaker). We don't have enough hard evidence that they are better yet - but they certainly get students engaged with the content more quickly than traditional materials and many of them are free. When we have definitive evidence that they are better they will be a home run.

Success in this arena is tightly linked to picking the right target market. My thoughts on that are here.

What are the missing skills needed in education publishing to create 21st Century products for 21st Century learners? I penned a thought experiment for EdNet on this topic.

Education Publishing’s Own 21st Century Skills Gap – Change Begins At-Home Edition

Fun Architects, Content Marines, Talent Wranglers, and Shibboleth Hunters all get shout outs.

It was fun to step back and think about "the dog that didn't bark."

What gaps do you see that will require new skills?

A fresh batch of piping hot links that may be of interest to those in educational materials.

Are game mechanics the key to great social media marketing? The following link weaves some fascinating connections between the world of gaming and the world of encouraging people to try new things (the essence of marketing).

Everything I ever learned about marketing I learned from Dungeons and Dragons by Ian Lurie at Conversation Marketing.

What does this mean for students AND teachers?

Can authors simply ignore publishers in the world of Kindle and iBooks? Amanda Hocking, a 26 year old living in Minnesota, is minting coin at an astounding rate with no publisher.

The Very Rich Indie Writer over at Novelr.

Can this happen in education? You betcha.

How does ePub overturn the economics of print distribution? Mike Shatzkin's take on the demise of the wholesale model in trade publishing is worth a look. These economics are headed towards education and we'd better sort it out sooner rather than later.

Random House joining the (formerly) Agency 5, and what it might mean at the Shatzkin Files.

As Ted Turner is fond of saying "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

Seth has a new book. Go read it (in your iPad).

Who Will Say Go?

We need a whole lot more of that in our business.

Do you have a bright idea for new education business? Today's guest post is from the team over at the Zell/Lurie Institute's Social Media Fund. Note that the deadline for submission is February 18th - shake out those fingers and warm up the keyboard.

By Darrin Nagengast

The Social Venture Fund at the University of Michigan is one of the world's first student-run venture capital firms focused on supporting social entrepreneurs. We've been covered in the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek and are currently looking to make an investment of up to $250,000in a groundbreaking social enterprise.

In particular, our Education Circle is excited to review business plans focused on disrupting the traditional frameworks in K-12 education and work force development. In addition to having sustainable and scalable business models capable of delivering financial returns, these enterprises should have direct social impact that targets: improving student outcomes, closing achievement gaps, and improving education about and access to post-secondary and employment opportunities.

The circle will be initially focused on the following areas:
• Learning aids and technology in and out of the classroom
• Solutions to enhance the learning environment
• Human capital solutions
• Information and data management systems
• Holistic solutions to effect student health, mind and/or body
• Engagement, empowerment and increased participation of student stakeholders, e.g., teachers, parents, mentors

While we are interested in plans that meet the criteria above submissions are not limited to this scope if you feel you have relevant and outstanding idea.


Entrepreneurs interested in being considered for funding should send a copy of their business plans to svfeducation@umich.edu by February 18th, 2011.

London - BETT claims to be the largest education technology convention in the world. From what I could see the scale of the show is about the same as ISTE (nee' NECC) in the US, although the content is distinctly more international. There are some differences from US education trade shows, but the differences were not vast.

What follows are the impressions of a first time attendee and the lessons I hope I remember for next year.

Overall Take

Lesson - be very clear on what you are after and focus your efforts.

With over 600 exhibitors even the most intrepid and well shod attendee couldn't make it around to every stand. I planned ahead with the PCI team and then took the better part of the first morning just mapping out my plan of attack. Even with all that I'm not likely to reach every vendor I wanted to talk to.

Lesson - you may not see the future by attending this show, but you will learn that the problems with implementing technology are relatively universal. You may glean an idea or two on how to tweak your offerings.

I'd heard that the UK is about 2-3 years ahead of the US on the technology diffusion curve, but that isn't evident at the show. What is hot and what is not are not all that different (white boards, iPads, etc.). It may be that while the solutions sets are similar they are simply faster at implementing because the market is more concentrated.

That said it is really valuable talking to people who are tackling the same problems from a different perspective. It helps bend your thinking to see the issues in a different cultural context.

Lesson - know where funding for your type of solution is coming from - just like home this will determine more about the health your business than anything beyond your product offerings. BESA and NASEN are good sources of this kind of information.

The economic climate in England is just as dreary as the weather. The funding issues here are worse than in the US because there was no stimulus. Given this environment the show was surprisingly crowded and busy - I was impressed by the crush of people. What I heard was that technology is the place people feel they need to invest to prepare kids for the future. More specifically, like the US, Special Needs is also likely to be protected a bit more to insure accessibility. Another parallel to the US is that while national spending isn't likely to be cut drastically, local spending is where the real pain will be felt. This is very similar to the state budget crisis in the US.

Lesson - come prepared to get the most learning done on the show floor not in sessions. If you want to attend sessions plan on rising early (not so easy if you are on US time).

Don't come for the sessions. I was excited to see a strand of presentations just for Special Education Needs (SEN as it is called over here) and showed up the first day only to learn that sessions are by reservation only. There are also relatively few of them - meaning unless you get here first thing every day and get your seat booked you won't get in. But this show is far more about the exhibit area than shows in the US - the sessions seem like an afterthought.

Lesson - Perhaps CEC and the SPED vendor community in the US should start advocating for named strands at NSTA and IRA and other major shows.

One of the things that really impressed me about the show is the focus on Special Needs. There is an entire area of about 30 stands on the show floor dedicated to vendors who are focused on SEN and an additional Fringe exhibit hall off premises with another 15 vendors or so.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen in the US. The general education shows like NSTA (NECC), IRA, or TCEA don't go out of their way to create a focus on SPED - either in the exhibits or in the sessions. Yes we have specialized shows like CEC and ATIA but since inclusion is a huge focus we also need to be part of the generalist shows in a more meaningful way.

Two Travel Tips For USA Newbies

Lesson - Do a little legwork and figure out where you want to stay to maximize your London experience.

Don't worry if it is far from the convention hall. The experienced crew was down by Parliament, newbies like me were in Kensington.

Public transportation is really good. Unlike US conferences there is very little value in staying close to the venue (although it is in a very nice part of town).

Lesson - Be sure to check up on TripAdvisor or Fodor's or similar sites for reviews of the hotels.

Don't expect a large room. I moved hotels after I found out that my room was so small that I had to sit on the bed to use the desk and had to stand my suitcase upright in order to open the door. Even by European standards it was a very small space.

Better yet - if I attend again I'll use VRBO and rent an apartment. If space is really an issue for you consider staying in one of the US chains where you will find amenities you are used to - although it does feel a bit like cheating (yes I moved to Marriot).

Cheerio!

Ed Note: One of my favorite thinkers and practitioners on engaging kids deeply with Math and Science is Jim Bower. Jim is that rare combination of theorist and practitioner who is successful in both realms. He is both a Professor of Neuroscience at UTSA and the Founder/CEO of Whyville.net, arguably the stickiest web destination for learning ever created.

Jim has strong opinions, but he has earned the right to hold them through deep thinking and risk taking that applies his theories successfully in the real/virtual world.

Please invest the time to read Jim's post where he challenges us to see why the web is making us smarter, not dumber. The TEDx video then answers the question of exactly how you do this.

By Dr. James Bower

Recently, I was asked to participate in the awards ceremony at the White House for the “Apps for Healthy Kids Competition”, announced by Michele Obama and the United States Department of Agriculture last March. The program was designed to encourage game developers to make online games and mobile apps to help kids learn about nutrition.

After the ceremony I took advantage of a beautiful crisp day and walked to one of my favorite book stores, Kramer’s Books in DuPont Circle, to browse the newly released books in Science and Technology. I usually make this pilgrimage to see which of my friends have finally finished their books, but on this particular occasion a book titled ‘What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains: The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr caught my attention.

Suspicious, I skimmed the liner notes, to find that, indeed, it turns out that there is yet another danger now posed by the Internet to our way of life: it is altering our brains to make us dumb and superficial – and we are, as a consequence, loosing our capacity for “concentration, contemplation and reflection”. Claimed support for this assertion comes from “pioneering” neuroscientists Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel.

After scanning the liner notes and chapter headings, I didn’t buy the book, I suppose making me potentially yet another example of the deleterious effect of the Internet on human brains. However, with respect to this particular subject, I may sit in a particularly interesting place.

First, I am, in fact, a neuroscientist who has spent 30 years building computer models of cerebellar cortex trying to figure out how it works.

Second, I have spent the last 25 years studying how to actually use computers and computer networks to make us smarter, deeper and more engaged, not less.

Third, the reason I have been invited to contribute to this august part of the evil blogosphere, is that I also founded and for almost 12 years have run the children’s learning virtual world, Whyville.net.

And, I simply don’t see it.

Last fall, I found myself making a presentation at the Center For Technology in Teaching and Learning at Rice University to a group of middle and high school teachers interested in using online games and the Internet in their classrooms.

At the start of the presentation, I asked the teachers why they were there? The first teacher said, ‘because we have to do something, our schools are failing’. (Just as a side note, I believe that learning in those schools is built almost entirely around the deep contemplation of the printed page.) The second teacher however said, “I want to see the light in my kids eyes at recess, when they are on the computer playing games, in my classroom.”

I now know that I should have responded that the apparent light was an illusion, reflecting only the natural tendency of humans to prefer the superficial, but I didn’t. Instead I asked the teachers how many times, when they introduced a new subject in their classes, one of their students already knew more about it than they did. 100% of hands went up.

So, what is going on here? Why the endless drum beat of warnings about what the Internet is doing to our kids and their minds on the one hand, and then on the other, the growing experience seen by teachers and in Whyville that the Internet is actually much more deeply engaging kids than is traditional school, or their textbooks?

It is probably inappropriate to launch into a political polemic about who benefits and who is hurt by the massive disruption of business as usual represented by the Internet. But it seems pretty straight forward to me that people who make a living writing books, reporting for newspapers, and broadcasting TV might have an ulterior motive in suggesting that the internet is a bad thing.

But no space for political polemics here, instead in my remaining 100 superficial words or less, I want to tell you what we at Whyville are trying to do to set the record straighter.

First, we have always made every effort to have parents, or other adults for that matter, engage with kids in Whyville. IMHO, the disconnect between the lives of kids and the lives of adults is a particularly serious dysfunction in modern society, which the Internet can also help fix.

Working with our partner Media Chaperone, last fall we launched a new face book application, called “Piggy Back”, that is designed to keep parents informed about their children’s use of sites like Whyville.

When originally approached by Media Chaperone, their focus not surprisingly given the general media ‘internet scare’ story, was principally on providing information so that parents could be certain their kids were safe and behaving properly on the web. In our first conversation about a potential partnership, I pointed out that, actually, parents are much more interested in hearing positive than negative things about their kids and that in Whyville, there was a great deal positive going on.

As a consequence, parents using Piggy Back (it is free), now get daily reports on their children’s progress in understanding the physics of angular momentum, or their success in saving virtual money over time to buy a virtual car, or even, when their child contributes an article to the Whyville Times, Whyville’s online newspaper. All of these activities require deep serious effort, and concentration, BTW.

It seems to me that the problem isn’t that the Internet is making us dumb or superficial, the problem is that too little attention is being paid to the ways in which kids, in particular, are actually using the Internet and few have been interested in providing that information to parents.

Oh yes, there is also the problem that many sites built for kids assume they are superficial, but that will also likely change, as parents, publishers, authors, elected officials and especially venture capitalist finally recognize that people, and especially kids, want to be smarter, not dumber and the Internet is increasingly how they will do it.

Ed - For for more insight how how Whyville engages kids more effectively than traditional textbooks watch this video of Jim at TEDx

Jim Bower contact Information:

Twitter: superid101
Mail: Jim at numedeon dot com

Education publishers and Learning Management Systems have a long and somewhat checkered history. Open source publishing, XML, and content digitization are changing the LMS landscape rapidly. In today's guest post Louise Dube outlines the issues facing companies creating instructional materials.

By Louise Dube

What to do? Educator Buying Trends, a recently survey by MDR reveals that Moodle has the largest installed base of Learning Management systems (LMS) in K-12. Equally interesting is that Moodle's strongest presence is in large districts. These districts have the IT infrastructure to support the development and customization of an open source platform.

After Moodle, the floodgates open and districts use everything and anything as a “learning management system” …that is when the school understands what a learning management system is.

A cavalry of vendors to the rescue!

Districts increasingly need a single point of access and management for digital curriculum assignments, assessments, student work, lesson plans etc... Right now, just about every digital educational resource offers an "LMS." They range from light versions with assignments and reports to a full blown solutions including portfolios and groupings and more.

In an informal poll I conducted last year, many elementary schools told me they use “Read 180” as an LMS by which they mean that this is how they evaluate student reading performance and progress. Given this definition, the number of LMSs numbers in the hundreds if not thousands.

With all of those resources available, case closed, or… With the proliferation of digital curricula resources teachers are overwhelmed with the information and available resources. The job of the learning management system becomes even more crucial as the gatekeeper to a digital classroom.

This proliferation of solutions brings into stark relief the fact that the edtech industry, despite its many accomplishments, has not solved the central need of the school, a simple tool that makes the life of the teacher easier and better.

Single signon and centralized reporting will not suffice. The question of how to approach the learning management system goes to the heart of the publishing dilemma in the digital age, i.e. how publishers will continue to defend their margins.

Content, Content

The proliferation of learning content is unstoppable. Khanacademy has over 1,800 free animations/videos teach anything from pre-algebra to the French revolution (notably absent is English as a discipline).

I believe the value of the publisher never lay in the presentation of basic concepts, that is required but insufficient. Open access to basic content should be welcomed by publishers who are now relieved of providing the same 3 ways to teach addition. On its own, this kind of free content will make little difference to the quality of K12 education but it is evidence of a larger movement towards an “app” world.

The digitization of the curriculum requires that the old full grade curriculum monolith be broken into individual pieces and elements for instruction customized to the learner. Elements can be individualized or combined for individual consumption by the learner. Whether the content is prescriptive or inquiry based, this “appification” of the content will require the teacher to act as orchestrator and coach/mentor. The federal government – at least under the current administration – is leading and supporting the transformation of the teaching role through Race to the Top and other funding sources.

Historically, the publishing industry built products for the realities of the classroom, and those who have tried to effect change through products have often failed. Today, change is the reality in the classroom and publishers have to contend with this change. This implies that value will shift from content toward how we support teachers in their changing role in relation to the content.

Publishers' Dilemma

For the publisher, whether and how much to continue to invest in the development of an LMS is not clear. One option is to continue to refine a closed management system that controls the content presented and how it is measured. While many publishers would prefer to stay with this more conventional approach, the day is fast approaching when the pressure to open the system will be overwhelming.

Almost all publishers with closed systems provide a single sign-on alternative with most allowing broader customizations of their systems for large purchasers. Some publishers are concerned that opening up a system will compromise the ability to ensure fidelity to the research or the implementation model.

The reality is that schools draw on a multitude of content sources. The content used by the kids in computer lab co-exists with the project, worksheets, homework tutors and other supplemental materials in the classroom. Many schools are currently using WIKIs as partial LMS. In this model, the school “owns’ the improvement gains and the choice of the educational approach. Vendors in this model will need to support schools in building winning resource solutions to meet the educational goals.

One note of caution: as learning management systems become pervasive, sophistication will grow, and a professional class of open management systems will build ever higher barriers to entry. I note a new press release by Moodle about its Joule 2.0 platform which includes collaborative tools and social networking which exists outside of Facebook. Smaller publishers will find it hard to compete in this arena as content driven features (lesson plans) split from “management” features (assignments, groups, reporting.)

The other option is for the publisher to assume it is not in the LMS business, embrace the concept of learning modules and support a multitude of LMS. Standards adoption has always been painfully slow and continues to be insufficient. Standards lag along with business model concerns are barriers today.

Conclusion

Publishers will resist the commoditizing of content. Nevertheless, new products such as Sky from Learning.com understand that with the rise of self authored and free content, value will lie in integration, enhancement and ease of use. Those who will win will not only offer differentiated content but will also have real solutions for classroom implementation for individual student needs, and more than a token effort at teacher development (not just what to teach but how to teach the content). As a result, I would expect to see significant expansion of professional development integration within the content.

Louise Dube

Louise Dube is currently consulting in product management in the educational technology industry. Louise has over 15 years of experience marketing and developing educational technology for K-12 schools, students and parents. She has worked extensively on creating market driven innovative technology solutions to close the achievement gap. Most recently, Louise was President at Pangea Tools. Previously, she served as Vice President for Product Management at Scientific Learning. Louise can be reached at louisedube at aya.yale.edu

Today's walkabout focuses on a fundamental shift in the instructional materials industry away from the scale economics of the big textbook publishers to the value of niche focused expertise. I believe this is the future of our business.

In a world where Home Depot crushes the local hardware store only themselves to be crushed by Lowes this probably sounds foolish. Why shouldn't Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt do the same in education? In their business model everything becomes a commodity and low prices rule. Indeed - that is precisely what has happened over the past couple of decades in education.

But there are fundamental and intersecting trends that are leading us away from this model and in a fresh new direction.

An Era of Disruptive Change

There are three extrinsic forces reshaping the larger world around textbook publishing which are starting to exert counter pressure to the trend to gigantism.

1. The analog to digital transition that has upended one intellectual property based industry after another is finally laying siege to the textbook citadel.
2. Globalization is both opening up new markets on the revenue side and new suppliers on the cost side
3. At the same time all of us are suffering from overload as the net has exploded access to information, knowing what is important is harder than ever.

In this new environment the very things that make the large publishers strong work against them. I've written about them in the past couple of years (links above) - but I realized recently that the synergies between them are accelerating and amplifying change in education publishing.

Digitization - It's Our Turn

Music, television, newspapers, trade books, and even the family snapshot have all been turned on their heads by digitization. Despite significant investments in educational technology over the last 30 years textbooks have been largely immune until very recently. Ingrained statutes, classroom practices, and cultural expectations about school have all contributed the delayed transition.

Economics also played a role - equipping every child with a mobile access device with enough bandwidth and battery life to deliver content digitally is still a mountain too high.

But cracks in the foundation have appeared - Texas, California, Indiana, and several other states are leading the way towards using textbook dollars for technology substitutes.

For the major publishers the problem is the same faced by the music industry. It turns out most people don't want to buy the whole damn album - just the 2-3 songs they like. Self-publishing undercuts the monolithic products built by the mainstream publishers.

Consider that many of us now:

• Publish our own "newspaper" via blogs, RSS feeds, and social media.
• Master our own music albums by creating mixes on our iPods.
• Schedule our personal TV network with our PVR.
• Print our own photos.

50% of the men did not wear neck ties at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair. Traditional publishers are struggling with appropriate responses to digital transformation and aping the casual style of Silicon Valley seems to be popular. Interesting fact - if you wear a suit without a tie you still look like a Book Rep.

This sartorial mis-match of rhetoric and reality summed up a lot of what I observed. Publishers are saying all the right things, but they haven’t quite figured out how to do them.

Educational Publishing Leaders

The Education Publishing Pavilion had a CEO Roundtable on Wednesday. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson all had delegates on the panel (50% tieless). Many fine things were said about the market transition in education (globalization, technology, accountability, etc). But where it mattered the most - what the big 3 are going to DO about these trends - it wasn't particularly illuminating. My crack after the talk was that they are going to differentiate in the same way.

Snark aside there were several interesting take aways from the panel.

• Pearson spent more in 2009 in product development than they have ever spent (no insight on how much of this is in education or if it has been sustained in 2010). Still - given market dynamics this reflects a very aggressive stance on their part, which is a good sign for the de-facto industry leader.
• HMH has created a $100m internal innovation fund (Pearson did something similar in 2005). This should help spur new ideas after 2-3 years of turmoil and layoffs as the various parts of the organization were consolidated during the recession.
• McGraw-Hill is focused on deep localization as they globalize - they recognize that what China wants is quite different than requirements in Australia. Some markets are radically different - 70% of education publishing in India is local (as in regional not national).
• All publishers are struggling with creating a new paradigm for digital content. Requiring ISBN's for technology products is kind of silly - and yet from a systems standpoint they can't do anything else - yet. This also applies to the culture of the sales side - book reps don't have a good track record with technology and tech reps are going to need a compelling tech vision to sign on.
• They resent that LMS providers have built a $500m business in content (well, at least one of them resents it...). There is a sense that the proliferation of systems is going to have to end - we need some standards so that content can be interoperable.
• Expect to see more alliances with technology platform providers like Microsoft, Oracle, and Apple. I think this applies to publishers of all sizes, but it is a real shift for the big guys who have had a go-it-alone ethos. Time will tell if the clashing paradigms can be reconciled.

Serious Games - Going Dutch

Another aspect of the Book Fair that I love is getting exposed to trends from elsewhere. One topic close to my heart is gaming and Holland had a big presence in the Education Hot Spot focused on edugames.

Mijn Naam ist Haas is a captivating "game" for young children where they co-create the game (draw a line and it becomes the road Haas walks on, draw in the sky and clouds and birds appear, etc). It is a great redefinition of a side-scroller that draws the learner into the world. The Dutch Government supported it with a $640k euro grant.

Another interesting looking game was a project management simulator built around the pyramids. Companies are using it to expose people to best practices. I couldn't see if salt and beer were the currencies of choice.

Expect to see the Dutch moving many of their games into English in the coming couple of years. For US developers this may also be an interesting market to branch into.

Also - none of the Dutch men wore ties, and some even wore (gasp) jeans.

Holy Cow It Is A Big Show

You shouldn't rely on any one report back from this event - it is simply too huge for anyone to really wrap their arms around it. It saw a few things and drew some conclusions but my perspective isn't definitive.

Globalization is real and moving in both directions across a wide variety of education niches.

I made good contacts in Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Most of the other vendors I spoke with in the Education Hot Spot or in the American Collective had similar results.

I have gotten a great deal out of attending this conference the last two years. When I was consulting my practice went global - mostly foreign publishers entering the US market seeking expertise. Now that I'm on the other side I'm pushing global as offense and defense against the unknown.

If you are still focused on just your own country you are limiting your growth at a time when we are all challenged to find new markets. You are also setting up the risk that an outside entrant will steal your share. You must be present to win so show up next year!

When textbooks go fully digital what will schools buy? Will they buy individual lessons, units of 2-3 weeks length, or full curriculum that span a year the way they do today? This is the $5 billion question facing our industry.

Mike Shatzkin has an excellent post on this topic over at The Shatzkin Files. His framing is concise and revealing for those of us mapping out strategy for the analog to digital transition in instructional materials.

He was on a working group preparing for a talk about copyright across different publishing markets:

[I needed to say]..why the problems caused by digital change for newspapers and magazines and record companies were so much more grave than they were for book publishers (so far.) It is simply stated.

For those businesses, the unit of appreciation does not match the unit of sale.

By that I mean that record companies sold us albums when what we wanted were songs. That’s what their economics were built on. The minute we could buy songs, it blew up their business model. Newspapers sell us the weather when what we want are the box scores, or the horoscopes when what we want are the comics. There are many books which will be read cover to cover. Newspapers and magazines are rarely read cover to cover. It was never thought of as wasteful or uneconomic that most people actually consumed a small percentage of every newspaper and magazine they bought. But it gets harder and harder to make that sale in a digital environment.

The Answer - All of the Above

I've noted elsewhere that Education is not a lone target market - it is an industry with many niches. If we think about units of appreciation we can see that there will be instructional products like novels that are already sold in the unit of appreciation and products like music "albums" that will shatter on contact with digitization.

As I turned this over it occurred to me that what is being taught will be a major factor in this. In a nutshell skills development requires products very similar to what is offered today, knowledge development demands a variety of source materials, and fundamental reform efforts may demand a larger horizontal and vertical integration not available today.

Baby Bear - Just Right - For instruction in basic skills (reading, math) where the focus is on developing fluency and automaticity full curricula that use a consistent pedagogy and emphasize a predictable lesson structure will always be valued. A consistent approach puts the focus on the skills not on the structure.

This is not the same as "kill and drill", the focus is on consistency not rote learning (not that there is anything wrong with that...).

This will also apply to materials for students who are struggling - reducing the distractions between their reading skill and the grade level content is essential. One huge distractor is jumping around to a lot of disparate materials. Considerate text makes a big difference here.

Mama Bear - Too Big - Knowledge acquisition for on-level students is an entirely different kettle of tea. If we want to model 21st Century Skills for learners it is incumbent on teachers to use a wide variety of source materials so that students can experience how knowledge is developed in the real world. Social Studies, Science, Literature, Career Readiness etc. all demand a catholic approach to content. The unit of appreciation is a lot smaller than a textbook - in many cases it is a single page document.

Whether this breaks down to the individual lesson or learning atom or is a the unit level remains to be seen (again - probably all the above). Given the time pressures on teachers we will probably see multi-week units that are packaged as a very popular option (many teachers do this on their own today). While it is a threat to the industry it is also an opportunity - digitization makes it easier for publishers to play in this game as well.

Papa Bear - Too Small - At the other end of the spectrum some schools and districts may be in the market for comprehensive reform. Individual textbooks that are siloed into disciplines may actually be too narrow a unit of appreciation for these customers.

One option for them would be curricula that are integrated across disciplines and which are horizontally and vertically aligned to student skill levels (e.g. multiple reading levels for the same content and/or spiraled strands through the standards). Another option might be platforms like Blackboard that provide some structure, but which can be filled with content.

Equally important in this may be bundling additional services with content - specifically ongoing professional coaching targeted at improving teaching. not just product orientation.

Summary

I really appreciate Mike's crystallization of this concept because it gets to the heart of many of the critical strategic decisions the companies in our space will face in the next 5-10 years. Get the units right (from your customer's perspective) and your business will be right.

E.D. Kain over at Balloon-Juice has a fascinating saunter through crime stats since video games became widely popular.

According to the FBI, since 1990 violent crime has been on a steady decline. E.D.'s basic hypothesis is that some of this can be attributed to people experimenting with rage and mayhem in video games and learning how to manage their emotions more effectively as a result.

Those of us advocating for video games in the classroom have been making a related argument. By allowing kids to experiment with activities that are too dangerous, too expensive, or too time consuming we can broaden their experience and expose them to epistemic frames they would not normally have access to. In the case of violence - it is far safer for everyone to experiment with it virtually.

At the end of the day attributing this decline to any one thing is unrealistic - but it is significant that the statistics flatly contradict the popular meme that violent video games are desensitizing young people and causing a rise in crime.

It just aint true. The next time you hear some cultural scold go off on this topic change the channel.

Go read the article - it is short and makes a good case.

In discussing the potential for ads in e-books - the latest hail mary pass of traditional media - Paul Carr at TechCrunch dropped this gem:

It’s a compelling argument, but like so many compelling arguments made about the future of books, it’s also hampered by consisting almost entirely of bullshit.

Its also a pretty good disclaimer for readers of this site....

Scribd is working hard to be the text version of YouTube. Upload some text, tag it, and let the world discover it. It isn't just unpublished novels - many copyrighted textbooks are already there via unauthorized uploads.

Like YouTube, users can upload anything and the site isn't under any legal obligation to screen for copyright protection. Copyright holders have to proactively scan and search for their content. Get it taken down today - it can be uploaded again tomorrow morning.

For example, Key Curriculum Press's "Discovering Advanced Algebra" is available for anyone to download all 888 pages for free (and has been since last August when it was posted by "skihe63"). It has been accessed 8,898 times since it was loaded less than a year ago. It is an older copyright, but still - on Amazon it sells for $25. That is $222k in value.

This isn't just Key Curriculum Press's (fixed) problem - they are algebra texts from McGraw-Hill, University of Chicago Press, and many other publishers a click away.

"Gee - nice copyright you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

What are Key Curriculum's (fixed) options? They should submit a report to Scribd to remove the illegal copy (and hopefully they will - edit THEY DID). But that just solves it for this one instance - today.

The only way to get Scribd to protect your copyright is to cut them in on the action. Upload your content, and let users download the PDF for a fee which you share with Scribd. Then, and only then, will they screen for unauthorized copies.

So publishers are starting to up load their own content and cut Scribd in on the action - protection money if you will.

While Scribd has the Milleneum Copyright Act law on their side it sure feels like they are doing something immoral. Once they are on notice about a copyrighted material they should be obligated to screen for it. Key Curriculum's (fixed) unambiguous notice is right on page 3 and it explicitly prohibits reproducing it, storing it, or transmitting it without permission.

How it Should Work

Technically, scanning text for a copyright notice is a trivial exercise. If TripIt can decode 95% of the confirmation emails I get from a wide variety of travel providers this is child's play.

You would think that if Scribd wants publishers to be allies that they would scan for copyright notices and require up-loaders to explicitly acknowledge by publisher name that they have authorization (not some dense generic mealy mouthed legalese that is deliberately designed to be ignored). A dialog like "We detected that Key Curriculum Press holds a 2004 copyright on these materials - click here to acknowledge that you have the publishers written permission to transmit these materials to our servers. Violations of copyright law can expose you to personal liability."

Hell - they could go a step further and provide a link to request permission from the named publisher.

But don't hold your breath on Scribd doing the right thing on this score - there is money to be made in playing it fast and loose with other people's property.

Conflicting Values

We know from market after market that increased exposure grows the market - but it often does so in ways that are highly disruptive to existing distribution mechanisms. The music business isn't hurting right now - music publishers are. Movie attendance went UP after HBO went on-line in the early '80's.

The trick for publishers is to figure out how to surf this transition and to see opportunities in challenges. If we reflexively try to fight folks who are playing too cute with our property but who have the law on their side we are going to lose.

As a netizen I find my value for free and open access to information is coming into direct conflict with my publishing hat. I want the hard work put in by the writers, editors, designers, instructional designers and others involved in the creation of our intellectual property to be able to continue providing high value.

There are no easy answers - we will have to hire people to monitor this new world for us and our web marketing teams need to figure out how to align with sites like Scribd rather than fight them.

---------------------
Hat tip to Tim McHugh at Saddleback for sharing their approach and thoughts on this topic with me.

Note: I mistakenly attributed the Algebra title in the piece originally to Pearson's Modern Curriculum Press - I knew better and the good folks at Key Curriculum Press were good natured about it. The references have been fixed.

Last week the New York Times published a piece titled $200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math by Ashlee Vance.

Today we take up the challenge posed in the title and demonstrate that Open Source Textbooks are twice as expensive as books in the K12 market.

Let me state right up front that I'm all for using economic and technology forces to drive costs down while improving services. I agree that Open Source instructional materials have a place and will play a role in coming years in doing exactly this. But they are not the panacea painted by their advocates in the article.

Mr. Vance's normal beat is Silicon Valley, so it comes as no big surprise that the article is largely a big wet kiss to Sun co-founder Scott McNealy's publicist. Mr. McNealy rightfully gets props for his sustained commitment to Curriki which has built important infrastructure and tackled thorny questions about user generated lesson plans. But this article goes far beyond that effort in painting a misleading picture of what open source means for schools.

Worse, Mr. Vance's lack of expertise in education led him to make three additional fundamental and common mistakes in how he presented the facts and interpreted them. Lets start with those and then proceed to the "math."

The foundational errors are:

• K12 does not equal Higher Education
• Cutting textbook costs will not make a material difference to education reform
• Recreating the book experience on-line is not sound instruction
• Open Source technology is more expensive than books in education (today)

These are two distinct markets with unique competitive and customer dynamics.

Evidence? The companies that serve them have completely different K12 and Higher Ed sales forces, marketing departments, and development teams. If there were synergies beyond buying paper and press time in bulk they would be taking advantage of them.

In Higher Education the books are chosen by individual Professors and purchased by the students. This results in very narrow niches and resulting exorbitant costs that the end buyer has little or no negotiating power to counter. When a Biology Professor is one of 6 educators requiring his own book you end up with the $200 books referenced in the title.

By comparison K12 is a bulk institutional purchase where the textbook decision is made at the State or District level. The buyers have huge bargaining power which they have instantiated in legislation and regulations around the adoption and purchase of instructional materials. The typical K12 textbook costs $35-$60 and is used for 4-5 years at a cost of $7-$12 per student.

So which is it $200 or $12? It isn't even close and I haven't gotten beyond the first word of the title.

Second Error - Cutting textbook costs will not make a material difference to education reform

I'm all for using the market and new technologies to save money and improve learning. But textbooks are such small potatoes in the overall education budget that it is laughable to think that even if you could magically eliminate this cost (which we will show you can't) that it would make much of a difference.

We spend $550 billion a year on education in the United States. K12 instructional Materials are 1% of that cost. Completely eliminate it and you have barely moved the needle.

Yes $5 billion is a lot of money - but in the context of of the whole it is insignificant.

Thus the whole premise of the piece - that a noble retired entrepreneur is leading the charge to fix education as we know it is silly. These efforts will, at best, nibble at one small corner of the overall challenge. Love him or hate him at least Bill Gates is tackling the real problems head on and at scale.

Third Error - Recreating the book experience on-line is not sound instruction

This error is perhaps the most fundamental of all and one I would have expected a veteran technology reporter to pick up on. Textbooks companies have in fact spent the last 20 years trying to recreate the book experience on-line. The results have been universally disappointing and are the equivalent of reading plays on TV. It is neither interesting or a good use of technology platforms.

Technology at its best allows us to do things in a new and more productive ways. For this to happen the experience needs to be redesigned and reengineered from a technical and cultural standpoint. This is why most technology diffusion takes 25 years despite the accelerating curve of innovation we find ourselves on.

The good news is that we are at 25 years of PCs in education and change is a brewin'. The bad news is that posting PDFs of textbooks isn't where the market is headed.

Where this really hurts the argument being made in the article is that doing new stuff in innovative ways can be expensive. If we replace textbooks with compelling on-line simulations and games designed for classroom use (my vote for the best use of technology in education) look to the budgets of game developers to get a sense of the scale economics that will be required to support this effort.

Innovation yes. Retreaded open source PDFs as the answer - feh. Been there, done that, didn't work very well.

Follow the Money

This is always good advice when you find arguments being made that don't stand up to scrutiny. In this case you don't have to look any further than the screen you are staring at right now. The hardware vendors are the ones who have been pimping the idea of "free" content on the web as the solution to schools problems coming on 10 years now.

Sun was a hardware vendor at heart that wrote software to move iron (e.g. Java). Apple has been instrumental in changing the adoption requirement in Texas that allows adoption money to be used for digital products. Their end game is allowing adoption money to be spent on their equipment (e.g. iPad).

This. Is. Their. Idea. Of. "Free."

Equity

But "the computers are already there you say - this would be leveraging existing infrastructure to trim costs." Wrong. The first error conflating K12 with Higher Ed ignores a fundamental difference between the two markets. Higher Education is a choice - and included in that choice is the student's responsibility to provide their own technology. K12 Education is legal requirement and the state is required to provide all the necessary resources in an equitable manner to ALL students.

Read that last sentence twice and never forget it. Unless EVERY student has access to the platform the state has what is called an equity issue. The fact that 4-5 computers may be present in the classroom doesn't mean that all students can access it - much less access it at home when they are doing their homework and using their textbooks.

In Higher Education the standard is much different. A company like Flat Earth Knowledge can offer their solution knowing that it is the student's budget that determines if they can afford a computer on which to run the "free" book.

Infrastructure Requirements

So to do the math on moving to open source digital textbooks one has to calculate the costs based on providing every student with a reader device that they can use on their own time. That device needs to handle the complex color charts and images contained in instructional content and ideally should be able to run simulations and other complex software that allows students to explore and play with ideas rather than passively absorb them. The screen needs to be large enough that students can read it without squinting since - hopefully - they will be staring at it for several hours a day.

In other words it needs to be an iPad or Android tablet. Dell's Streak starts at $300 and the iPad at $499. Both include a monthly subscription that runs to around $125-$160 a year. Given how hard kids are on technology (puddles, playground tussles, etc.) you will also need a service contract at roughly $40 a year.

In Which We Do "The Math"

If the device lasts 3 years your annual cost at the low end is $265 per year. A bulk purchaser might be able to negotiate something closer to $200 per year - but not much less than that given that the margins on the devices are already razor thin. At the mid-range it could go as high as $400 a year.

I'm being gracious and not including the cost of the networks and IT staff needed support this kind of enterprise wide implementation of a platform. Since instruction is the core mission of the schools the bulk of that cost should rightfully be allocated to this effort.

At last we arrive back at the original promise of the article. What does it cost to provide a student with textbooks? At the HIGH end for 5 classes it is $58 a year. If we throw in some supplemental materials we get to a cost of $100 per student per year. Or almost exactly the $5 billion+ that is spent in K12 on instructional materials (54 million students).

So back at ya Mr. Vance - $10 billion a year for technology or $5 billion a year for books - You Do The Math.

There is already a significant base of technology in schools - but it tends to be more in the supplemental side of things not in the basal instructional resource area that includes Textbooks. This is because of the equity issue.

To get some sense today of what it costs to implement a basal instructional technology program look at Scholastic's hugely successful Read 180. One actual proposal has the cost at $783 per student. This is for the digital/print instructional materials only and does not include an inch of network or a single keyboard.

We will ride the cost curve down and at some point - in the future - the benefits associated with the migration to the new technology will be justified for core instructional materials. It probably won't even be when it is less expensive. If technological delivery truly delivers more effective instruction it can be justified at a higher cost (see Read 180 above).

But I think it is clear we are not there yet for the broad mass of students and teachers. We should be experimenting with this today and building the tools and resources to take advantage of it when we get there. Again - kudos to Mr. McNealy for his sustained efforts on Curriki in this regard.

Summary

The New York Times has utterly failed in its mission to inform the discussion of this issue by presenting the grossly misleading promises of the open source movement. What the advocates of this move are really pushing for is a transfer of the costs from books to a much more expensive platform.

I'm not an apologist for the textbook industry. I've spent over 20 years as a vocal and public advocate for technology innovation in education (here and here). But we do students and educators a disservice when we don't provide them with a full set of facts to make decisions with. The open source debate is loaded with hidden agendas that the article did not touch on but which have a direct bearing on it's central claim that this movement will save schools money today.

Richard Carey points to an outstanding article by Shane Snow on using game mechanics to power your business over at Mashable.

This rings true in my personal use of social media (see here re Foursquare) as well as in a lot of the thinking that has gone into what will happen to learning materials as they migrate from print to digital.

The one thing missing from the article that I think is a critical element is narrative thread. Here are some comments of on how that applies to education.

Go read Shane's article - you will learn something. Then friend me on Foursquare. You will be pwn'd.

Guest blogger Mike Baum of Sophia Consulting shares his insights on ISTE 2010.

By Mike Baum

In the old Road Runner cartoons, there’s always a point where the slavering coyote, relentlessly and enthusiastically pursuing his dinner, runs off a cliff. But he hangs in mid-air momentarily, falling only when he realizes there’s no longer anything supporting his feet. Walking the floor of ISTE (nee NECC) last week, I thought I heard “beep beep” from time to time.

On the surface it was a very good show. Attendance down a couple thousand from last year, but you expect Denver to draw smaller crowds than D.C. About 200 fewer exhibitors but that’s par for the course right now – and still one of education’s biggest show floors. No one I talked to missed the Elvis impersonator from 2009, either.

Attendees had money to spend. Visitors to the booth of one of my clients often opened the conversation with needs for fall, grants they expected, budgets they still had to allocate. That’s one of the things that make ISTE today such a must-attend for technology companies – unlike a few years ago, a high percentage of attendees are really shopping. And they’re looking for educational solutions, not just gadgets or wiring.

If there was a “buzz” at this show it might be “the year of mobile.” Vendors, sessions, and corridor conversations focused on ways to use iPods, iPads, phones, and even older tech like netbooks, to put applications in kids’ hands more quickly, more interactively, at lower cost. Software vendors are being challenged to make their content run on just any platform teachers have or want to use. The “21st Century Classroom” – all interactive, all the time – fits this paradigm just fine and was also all over the show, with whiteboards, projectors, panels, and student responders, which have proliferated like crocuses in springtime.

All very good, and a genuine trend – but how far can tech buyers run with it before they realize they’ve run out of cliff? ARRA money will only go so far. At her presentation on the future of federal funding, ISTE lobbyist Hilary Goldmann put a brave face on it but had to admit that this time, E2T2 may really be dead. While it could be 2011 or 2012 before our contentious Congress finally agrees on a new ESEA, dedicated tech funding has fewer and fewer defenders. ISTE is trying again to get momentum behind the ATTAIN Act (Achievement Through Technology and Innovation) but the current administration seems focused on other priorities, and the public mood is starting to swing against finding new things to spend money on.

And state budgets will keep reeling for some time from the effects of unemployment and housing-price declines. My airplane reading right now includes the weighty and depressing This Time is Different by economists Reinhart and Rogoff (the title is intentionally ironic). Their historical data indicate that it takes five and six years respectively for jobs and housing to start recovering from major financial calamities. Figuring from 2007 or 2008, take your pick, at that rate it will be 2012 or 2013 before we see improvements, and there’s always a time lag before state tax collections and disbursements reflect the economy. A couple weeks ago I was interviewing the tech director of one of our large urban districts and asked his opinion about the funding outlook. “Things won’t improve till about 2015,” he replied. At the time I thought he was a pessimist. Now I think maybe he’s a prophet.

So should tech companies just go into hibernation for the next five years? Not necessarily. Maybe it will be a good thing to have tech funding merged with school-improvement and professional development initiatives. It could keep us focused on why we’re all in this business in the first place.

Recession or recovery, this country will go on spending about half a trillion dollars on K-12 schools per year. If schools are going to spend some of that money on handhelds or clickers or anything else, it will be because they produce results when teachers really know how to use them effectively. If administrators are ever going to get less twitchy about letting kids use as mobile educational devices the cellphones two-thirds of them now carry (the figure rises to 70-85% when you get past age 11), it will because the educational uses are plain, proven, and easily implementable by teachers who mostly aren’t techies.

Among the educators walking the mile-high floors at ISTE, I saw a lot of principals and other non-tech people looking for solutions. Not “solutions” in the tech sense – solutions to problems with educational achievement. Are we providing the research, the real-classroom models, the teacher training they need? And are we making it plain to them how it works for them? If not, the Road Runner of technology growth in society may just keep streaking along ahead of us while we look around and find the ground under our feet has disappeared.

Mike Baum
Principal
Sophia Consulting LLC
mhbaum (at) gmail

Mike’s education blog:
http://mhbaumk12.wordpress.com/

On-line bullying has been a concern as long as the web has been around. Yet only now, with the proliferation of social networks, is it really getting its due. Today's New York Times has an outstanding article on cyberbullying and the confusing and inconsistent ways that schools are being asked to respond. I highly recommend this well written piece.

The central conundrum is that cyberbullying almost never takes place on school sponsored networks and equipment. Yet the bullying clearly has a direct impact on students, their interactions in the building, and their academic performance.

In old fashioned bullying physical presence was required. Because kids spent most of their day at school a great deal of it happened in the building. That gave schools a clear and well defined role in intervening and managing bullying - even if many didn't do a great job of it. At least the law and the expectations were clear.

From a school's perspective the rules for when and how to intervene in off-campus cyberbullying are unclear.

Further complicating matters is that the students themselves are developmentally at an age when they are experimenting with social interactions and often unaware of the consequences of their actions. The real goal should be educational, not punitive, so that as they mature they learn to manage these tools well.

Take it Kurt:

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.

When I interviewed teachers for the Best Practices in Implementing Video Games & Simulations in the Classroom white paper a couple of years ago they all told us that they had not experienced any bullying problems with software provided by the school. Most of the time the bullying takes place after hours and on equipment and networks that the school doesn't own.

So for publishers the good news is that if you build a system that schools will deploy this isn't likely to be a major issue. You should be ready to address it with research and a solid suite of administrative tools.

If you are encouraging kids to use external social networks and resources you may have think twice about how you introduce them and whether it would be possible to do on school sponsored sites like Nettrekker.

That's Mr. Mayor to you. For those of you who are not familiar this is foursquare.

From their site:

Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things.

That and lording it over people in my new mayorial capacity....

How could this translate to education?

How about something that isn't location based but is content based. I could "log in" to reading a particular book and watch the comment stream of others who are reading it too - or a movie - or anything I might chose to do with one of my mobile devices. In real time.

It would also be cool - imagine a kid claiming to be the Mayor of Moby Dick.

But Lee (you say) - this combination of kids and location/content based services seems ripe for bullying and or creeps.
If the service is school authenticated via the SIS then security issues can be mitigated for students. In my conversations with teachers they don't typically have cyber bullying or other problems with school sponsored systems. Their woes are from external systems - Facebook et al.

School authentication could allow global learning communities that have some layer of protection that schools should be providing.

If this app already exists (entirely possible) please let us know in comments.

Funny and scary at the same time.

J.A. Konrath on the end of print.

HT to Bob Carlton

My take away from the first day of the Association of Education Publisher's Content in Context Conference (#ciccon): educators have always needed Education Publishers, but they have never particularly wanted them.

What are you doing at your company to remain necessary in the digital age?

It's been four weeks and my iPad still has that new computer smell. Now that I've been using it in my workflow I wanted to post some additional comments on it's utility in an educational setting.

In general I think my original take holds up well - this is fantastic tool for consuming content, is extremely useful as an outboard content manager, and passable in a pinch as a creation tool (this whole post was written on it).

On a meta level it is truly amazing how natural the "point and do" nature of the touch interface feels. Once you understand the grammar of the device it all just flows. A mouse now feels clunky for most operations other than image processing or massive spreadsheets.

I don't think I will ever buy another laptop - although I will continue to need a desktop/office machine (for a while).

This post is organized in three sections:

• Consuming Content
• Managing Content
• Creating Content

Consuming Content

I've been using computers daily since 1983 and the iPad is hands down the best user experience I've ever had when it comes to content consumption. It isn't any one thing - screen size, portability, battery life, Wi-Fi + 3G always on access, multitouch, and a great line up of apps all contribute. New users will find that the temptation to over-consume content is a phase you need to pass through.

On-Line News (RSS)

My daily "newspaper" is now Early Edition - a nifty RSS reader that presents your feeds in newspaper like headlines for scanning. Tap on the heading and get the full article Best of all - just like a newspaper the feeds refresh every day and then disappear. No more opening up the reader after a week away and seeing 500 articles weighing down your conscience. I also scan the New York Times, BBC, NPR, and Newsy (video).

Books

As a straight text reader it is no better or worse than most of the eReaders I've seen. It doesn't work well in direct sunlight but is fine otherwise (I'm writing this on my shaded porch mid-morning with no problems).

I absolutely love the ability to tap on any word and pop the dictionary open, particularly for older books. I'm currently enjoying Grant's memoirs, no small book.

Some people have complained about the weight, and when you are lying on your back in bed it can get a little wearisome. If you are comparing it to a novel it is heavier, but when you compare it to a textbook (or four) it is featherweight. I bought the Apple case and the ability to prop the device up three different ways makes a big difference.

Games

Games are a hoot. Playing iBomber 2 using the accelerometer to angle your flight path just feels right. Fieldrunners is an addicting tower defense game that grew up on the iPhone but is much better in the larger format. Just about any game feels and plays better than on the phone (Mah Jong, Solitaire, Sudoku, etc).

For those of us who have been advocates for game based learning this device opens up a new avenue of exploration. Always on access and location awareness have some particularly interesting applications for augmented reality gaming within a community.

Video

The video wars are real and annoying. As more video goes to HTML5 this is going to wane - but regularly there are blank spaces on my screen where Flash should be. I expect this will be the issue the first competitors latch onto.

But don't be dismayed, there is plenty of video. I just fired up Netflix - being able to watch movies and TV on demand is going to be particularly nice. ABC has an app that streams their content over 3G. YouTube already worked just fine on the iPhone so no worries there.

And video is gorgeous. I'm actually looking forward to my next long flight!

Implications for Education:

Devices like the iPad will change how content is shaped and delivered. Portable true multimedia delivery with the power of databases on the backend is the leap we have been aiming towards for 30 years. That day has arrived.

As a replacement for textbooks this is a lightweight wonder. It should open up a wave of creative innovation for multimedia instructional content with real time formative assessment (via game-like experiences).

I know this sounds like hyperbole - but remember that as a tech veteran I was skeptical and planning on holding out for a generation or two - until I got my mitts on one for 24 hours. So many of the barriers to real multimedia in the classroom and beyond just melt away with devices like these.

Price is going to be the final frontier manufacturers will have to cross - then Katy bar the door. Your old publishing paradigm will not survive.

Managing Content

I've been using Things on my Mac to manage action items for myself and my team for a few months now. This friendly GTD manager has improved my effectiveness as a manager by an order of magnitude. The iPad and iPhone versions have allowed me to take it mobile and capture and assign action items on the fly (instead of transcribing them after a meeting).

I'm finding the triumvirate of devices isn't redundant, and having them linked and synced is a huge boost. There are some places I only have my phone, the pad is my choice for meetings, and my Mac is best at my desk.

My only beef at this point is that as with any evolving tech not all features are on all devices. Most notably the ability to assign an item to someone only works on the Mac. It is still infinitely easier to just drag it over their name once I've synced than transcribing it, so it isn't a show stopper. I'm assuming this will be resolved in an upcoming release.

Email works seamlessly - I connect to both IMAP and Exchange servers on my nine email accounts and everything is going smoothly. With the iWork suite installed ($30 for word processing, spreadsheet, and presentations) I have access to almost any attachment.

Integrated calendaring is wonderful - and having it synced with the desktop and phone is just as useful here as it is with my to do lists.

Both email and calendar are great examples of apps that have a high utility on my phone but which benefit from the larger screen of the pad. iPhoto also falls into this camp. As a general rule when you are managing stuff more screen improves usability.

Implications for education

Students have always been challenged to manage information - schedules and homework assignments in particular. Teachers face an even more daunting info management task as they juggle assignments, rosters of students (and their families), state and district standards, and instructional materials.

The iPad will be a real boost for both groups. At a basic level it will make automating and interacting with complex data much easier. Blackboard's demo of their iPad app shows how this can work.

But most importantly I believe it will make it easier to make connections and use information in on-line databases at the teachable moment. With 3G you can dig into your stuff anywhere at the moment of need.

Sure you can do most of this on your phone today - but after three years the scrunched over squinty stare at my phone is wearing thin. The iPad provides much more natural and human scale interaction.

Creating Content

The iPad is an imperfect content creation device, at least without a couple of additional tools. For short bursts of writing, photo editing, and simple drawing is performs admirably. More complex tasks can become a chore.

Admittedly my facility with the interface is still evolving and I've been so bowled over by the consumption and management tools that I have not done a ton of creation yet. My take on this could be quite different in six months.

Don't believe the hype about touch typing on this device - you might be able to make it work but I've reverted to a two finger hunt and peck style. The speed I get with this approach is similar to thumb typing on a Blackberry and is quite acceptable, but it is about half of what I can do with a keyboard.

I have found when taking detailed notes in meetings that an external Bluetooth keyboard is essential. I think this will also make it possible for me to travel without my laptop. For walking around a show floor I'll just need the pad - if I'm back in my room writing a blog post I'll be on the keyboard. (For the record this whole post was written without the keyboard.) No more paper notepad for me.
I think I will probably never buy another laptop. I'll have a full blown system at my desk for big tasks and my mobile tasks will be shared between the iPad and iPhone.

Implications for Education

We will still need computers in schools for content creation. If kids are writing a couple of paragraphs or using a worksheet a pad will suffice. At the primary grades a pad may be all that is needed. As the assignments get more complex students will need access to a variety of devices including full blown computers.

Ironically it is quite possible that pad computing will bring back the computer lab. As kids dash between classes juggling assignments, doing just-in-time research, and taking notes the highly mobile pad will rule. When it comes time to write a 5 page paper, delve into a complex set of scientific data, or draw an image existing platforms will have a role.

Over time this may change. The fate of scientific workstations may hold a cautionary tale for PCs (all flavors). Initially the workstations held their own and even flourished as low cost PCs flooded the market. The specialized hardware, large monitors, and data crunching capabilities had a place and earned a huge premium. But eventually Moore's Law caught up with them as PCs rivaled their specs. Poof they went to a niche of a niche.

In Summary

After a few weeks of steady use I'm convinced that pad computing will change the face of educational publishing.

The most immediate impact will be in instructional materials as publishers scramble to take advantage of the new interface. As a buyer I would move carefully in this environment - there are likely to be a few dead ends as we collectively discover the best uses of the new tech. Find those places where the impact will be the greatest and start there.

A second wave of benefits will come when the SIS and Data Warehouse folks design easy to use interfaces for their systems. Since most of these are web based already this isn't that big a technical leap - but it is a huge user interface challenge.

But the huge payoff will come when students can create and manage their content on these devices. Interactive wiki like textbooks, vast video libraries, and student portfolios should have a new and more usable place in teaching and learning.

That is - when the price comes down. Which it will.

Get ready.

Kid's virtual world Club Penguin has fallen short of the high-flying projections made when Disney purchased them 3 years ago.

Read this New York Times piece from today for the details.

I can't say I'm surprised by the result. CP always seemed thin on the engagement side - dress your penguin and run around and "speak" pre-approved phrases. More dot.com than user driven media. The tip off should have been when old model Disney snapped them up - the model made sense to them.

The article went on to catalog the woes of most of the kiddy virtual worlds that were getting so much buzz just a couple of years ago. Smells like 2001 all over again.

Meanwhile our old friends Whyville, Farmville and their kin continue to slowly build a solid base of engaged users by letting the kids largely run the show and by providing open and free places for people to learn.

Learning is the killer app - not being busy.

We shouldn't write them off - there are smart people running the show over there and they have time to adapt and learn. The question now is whether Disney will have the patience to see them forward.

An iPad has been floating around the PCI office for the past week (thanks to Randy Pennington's ed-tech jones). Will it be a game changer for education? Can it redefine how we deliver instructional content?

I've tried to refrain from commenting on the iPad until I could see and multi-touch it. Having worked at Apple for 7 years (back in the Pleistocene era) I'm wary of 1.0 releases.

It appears that my skepticism was misplaced in this case. My iPad 3G is now on order (yay!).

Here are a few impressions I've already formed. I'll continue to comment as my personal use matures.

The iPad size and interface make it the perfect content reader.

I've had an iPhone (which I love) for a couple of years. Reading web pages - even those designed for the iPhone - is an eye strainer for those us of a certain age. But for web browsing the iPhone was a huge improvement over the Blackberries I used for years. It was great - until I saw the iPad. Now it feels cramped. Sigh.

I used the phrase "content reader" with purpose. Unlike Kindle and other eReaders the iPad does a whole lot more than text - and in gorgeous color. Movies, animations, games and simulations, and music look and sound spectacular.

I refrained from jumping on the Kindle primarily because about 80% of my current reading is web sites and email. It does neither of those well. Besides, I've never been particularly impressed by recreating the book experience on technology - it just isn't a very imaginative use of the tech. It reminds me of putting plays on TV.

That said - books look beautiful on the iPad. Just don't plan on reading them in direct sunlight.

For education I can easily see the iPad (or something like it) displacing physical textbooks. Because illustrations can be animated (don't try it on the Kindle) and because external web links work flawlessly, the iPad stands alone today as a platform for education content publishing. At 1.2 pounds it slips in a backpack and it sits unobtrusively on a desk.

Stir in a full blown education management system with innovative content and you have a winner. Blackboard has a nice demo of their iPad application in the video below. I can see students and professors at the University level flocking to this experience.

Power to Last All Day

Power has been an achilles heel of several generations of mobile education devices. Because the iPad will run on a charge for a day or two it clears one of the quiet barriers to wide spread technology adoption in the classroom. Teachers and students need to know that the tech will be there whenever they need it if they are going to integrate into daily usage.

Want proof? Look at whiteboards. Until schools started installing them in every classroom teachers could never count on having access to the tech at the teachable moment. As a result they were not widely used. Long lasting power for mobile devices changes the game in the same way.

I saw an ad from Apple last night that this battery technology is in their next generation of MacBook laptops. I'm sure other providers will follow suit shortly. So this advance won't be limited to the iPad.

Small Bore Authoring

I don't think we are going to see the next great novel written on the iPad. But short bursts of tech like blog posts, notes, and and 1-2 page papers should be just fine. The lack of tactile response on the screen based keyboard makes speedy typing problematic. With an outboard keyboard it gets a lot easier, but then you have another piece of crap to haul around, semi-defeating the purpose.

Other media actually do better with multi-touch. Managing, cropping, and resizing photos with your finders - a snap. Editing video and audio by dragging things around - very cool.

I'm looking forward to heading out the on the road with nothing but the iPad. I can stay on top of email, write blog posts, and upload photos with ease (about 99% of what I do out of the office).

There are also presentation solutions - connect to a projector or whiteboard and take it away. There will doubtless be wireless solutions for this as well which will be really nice.

Problem - Price

Except for specialized applications the current price is too high for widespread educational adoption. Full fledged laptops are in the same range. The low end version is $499. The top of the line is $825. Throw in AppleCare and a couple of extras (case, adapters, etc.) and you are in the $700-$1000 range.

I expect Apple will drive down the cost curve as fast as they can - even producing education specific versions to create a market in the $200-$300 range. At that point it gets easier to justify replacing textbooks with the reader.

Competition?

It is too early to really tell who is going to take Apple on in this space. My guess is that people won't stand by for 6-8 months the way they did after the iPhone was released. Expect this to be more of a dogfight. My guess is that Google's Andriod platform and one other provider will emerge as the competitors.

This Mashable roundup has a good rundown on the likely candidates. I'm not sure that in the touch tablet form factor a scaled down Windows 7 will be better than a scaled up iPhone/Andriod OS, but time will tell.

I do believe that the iPhone App platform is a huge leg up for Apple out of the gate regardless of who their competition ends up being. Just look at the thousands of education titles and lectures that already exist.

What's A Textbook Publisher To Do?

For now this is an R&D platform not a distribution channel. I couldn't even bring myself to charge mine on the company card - I took it as a personal expense. But I want to use it, live it, and see how it can change my own workflow. With that experience in hand I hope to have a sounder vision of how the technology can be used in the classroom. It will definitely take off in the trade and home education markets first - schools will follow not lead.

Over the next year we will scatter some around the organization and let people play with it. We'll try some simple projects to learn the toolset, and then we'll get into the serious business of crafting solutions for students with special needs. The multi-touch interface holds huge potential for the population we serve.

We already discovered that Dragon Dictation on the iPad (signficantly better than the iPhone app) can support one of our employees who is deaf in small meetings. It allows more natural and spontaneous two way communication than having to use a sign translator. We speak and it goes to text, she types and we can read it.

Conclusion

The iPad feels in my bones like a game changer - in fact the last time I was this excited about a technology purchase was in 1985 when I purchased a 128k Macintosh. It is so intuitive and easy that a 2 and half year old can figure it out in a matter of seconds. Watch the video below. When she finds the spelling lesson she says "It has games!"

Seth Godin makes a critical point for instructional materials.

The platforms are changing all around us. Mobile phones, iPad, Kindle, Android, white boards, Moodle, etc.

Are you paying attention?

I refer you to four part series about technology substitution in the textbook publishing industry. Don't write the changes we are seeing off to temporary market fluctuations. By the time you notice the real trend it will be half over and you have little chance of catching up as the change accelerates.

The economic meltdown is only adding gasoline to a fire that was already going. The tighter funds get the more motivation our customers have to seek efficient alternatives to print.

How much of your development budget are you spending on R&D? The temptation in a down market is to hunker down and focus on low risk projects. I suggest that if you are not spending at least 10% of your development funds on cutting edge projects you are at a high risk of being irrelevant by the time the education market turns in 2014.

FETC 2010 provided an opportunity to assess the health of the Education Technology market. In today's guest blog my friend Mike Baum shares his take on the highlights and lowlights of this year's trade show

By Mike Baum

Coming to Orlando from Wisconsin in January, I expect warmer weather. I didn’t expect 50 degrees to be greeted as a warming trend. And when I saw the conference center adjacent to my hotel was hosting a national beekeeping convention with the alarming title “Keeping the Hive Alive,” I began to watch out for falling metaphors.

Traffic Report

The Florida Education Technology Conference (FETC) 2010 wasn’t all bad news by any means, but true optimists had their work cut out. Attendance and traffic, while possibly higher than last year’s debacle, were light and sporadic. Exhibitors by one account were down by 100, with absentees divided between business casualties of 2008-09 and firms keeping powder dry for ISTE (nee NECC) in July and possibly TCEA next month.

At least one long-time major exhibitor has permanently downgraded FETC to a “regional show” vs. the must-attend national show it once was. Companies still seem to consider FETC an important “announcement show” – more in a moment – but that’s due less to real significance and more to just the calendar, like the New Hampshire primary used to be.

Attendees

Booth visitors were mostly classroom teachers, some school administrators; of the few district people I encountered, most were IT with focus on the “T” – not engaged in curriculum decisions. Some shoppers, few buyers, at least at this moment.

To some extent this was to be expected: continued weak economy, a state whose budgetary problems are in the top 10 or 15, still early in the decision-making year. And as Lee’s last entry of 2009 noted, spending is likely to come even later this year than usual, nationwide. One bad swallow does not the Heimlich Maneuver make. Still, I think one can reasonably draw some conclusions – both negative and positive.

Implications

Negative: with apologies to my beekeeping friends, the buzz is over, at least for a while. One presenter at the show pointed out that we’ve come off a decade of education spending at 2X GDP growth, and that’s over. Much of that money came from rising property taxes driven by the real-estate bubble. The splash from that burst bubble is likely to dampen ed budgets for the next 2-3 years.

Tech spending may be further retarded by success: technology is ubiquitous in society and pretty plentiful in schools, so it’s not a question anymore of adding technology so much as what you do with what you’ve got, to really impact educational outcomes.

Vendors also have an increasing amount of “good free” to compete with – perhaps a dozen FETC sessions touted free resources from everyone from district or state consortiums (Florida especially is rife with them) to our friends at Google. So we all will have to come up with compelling educational reasons to make incremental or replacement purchases, at least for some time yet.

Positive: life goes on, technology is here to stay, and even if the market is stagnant there’s always gain in market share. NetTrekker formally announced expansion of their popular safe-search and web resource platform to the U.K. Discovery Education announced plans to enter the next Florida adoption head to head with traditional textbooks, as they did successfully in Oregon. Online delivery of content isn’t a panacea, but where it provides schools with a clear advantage it will sell. Expect pushback from the traditional publishers, of course, but historically they have trouble really focusing on ed tech.

What To Do?

The key, I believe, is finding fertile spots – I hate to call them “niches” – where technology makes it easier to do things educators want to or must do in light of larger trends. Such as?

Professional development – increased demand for “job-embedded” PD, which has to be largely online-enabled.

Writing – several people have pointed out that kids are actually writing more than ever before, between texting, blogs, and social networking – and if those messages are often short and cryptic, well, so is haiku.

Assessment – isn’t going away, must be delivered in short, teacher-friendly bursts to be really effective in improving outcomes.

Games – to many, a four-letter word, but increasing research (as presented by Lee at a fascinating session) shows they can demonstrate real educational outcomes if properly designed.

Targeted applications that help individualize, improve academic learning time, increase motivation.

Up here in the frozen north we know that a hard freeze is necessary every so often – kills mosquitoes, and many seeds actually require one to germinate in the spring. Maybe that’s an encouragement while we’re working to keep the hive alive.

Mike Baum
Principal
Sophia Consulting LLC
mhbaum@gmail.com

Mike is a business growth consultant specializing in K-12 marketing and product strategies. Former CEO of Renaissance Learning, he has 15 years of experience in the education market and over 25 years of helping companies become bigger companies.

The tribe gathered, bad coffee was drunk, stale muffins were eaten, and we shared insights and guesses about where education technology and publishing are headed in era of tight budgets and ARRA munificence. It was a typical first week of December in New York.

Here is the first of my overviews of what happened during the week. Subsequently I'll dig into the AEP CEO Roundtable, the MDR Christmas Party, and the AEP Hall of Fame Breakfast.

SIIA Education Technology Business Forum - Tuesday Dec. 1

International

The panel on International Opportunities discussed the trends outside of the US market - the growth of mobile phones as a platform, the demand for professional development to make sure existing investments are being used, and that no one (not even Pearson) can do go international on your own - partnerships are essential.

One point that was almost a throw away at the end but which is critical for companies just starting down the international path - translation is not localization. The management tools, images, and examples all need to be culturally appropriate.

Funniest moment - when Steve Dowling from Pearson was asked how companies smaller than Pearson can take advantage of international opportunities he deadpanned "We'll make you an offer..."

Investment

A second panel "Where are the Investment Dollars?" struggled to answer this question. Short answer - they are not there - come back next year. George Cigale, the moderator, jested in earnest that given what we heard from the investment professionals on the panel that it would be easier to raise $5 million through revenue tied to ARRA than to try to raise capital.

Investors see Education as the last inefficient media market and want to invest in companies that are going to create disruptive innovation. Incumbents who are trying to accommodate the current system need not apply.

Also - if you have already done all the hard work of building a product and proving that the business model works they would be interested in possibly, maybe, looking at it. Next year.

Part of the reason for this hesitance is that while the Stimulus is creating unprecedented opportunities for education companies, it is making valuations problematic since investors rightly see current performance as unsustainable.

My humble suggestion is that until investor groups demonstrate a willingness to actually take some risks alongside entrepreneurs that we stop inviting them to this event. We are like a battered spouse, always hoping they will love us next year if we just try harder. There are many examples of small education companies who have found alternative paths to capitalization - those are the examples we need to be elevating to the podium.

Fundamentally education can be an extremely profitable market with intense long term loyalty. The problem for most investors is that it is all about a mountain of slow nickels rather than a small pile of quick dollars.

We are the proverbial turtle and most investors have the patience of a gerbil. One good outcome (hopefully) of the current downturn is that it will wring some of the quick-buck-at-any-cost mentality out of the investor community. A return to fundamentals will greatly help education.

Post Stimulus Outlook

This panel tackled the question of what a post stimulus market will look like. Richard Sims, Chief Economist for the NEA, shared a frank and rather brutal analysis of what lies ahead for education budgets. The punch line - while real estate started to tank in 2006 it wasn't until 2009 that actual tax receipts started to suffer at the state and local level. There is a three year lag in the funding flow. This matters because 38.5% of education spending comes from real estate taxes.

If the market bottoms out next summer we have 3-4 years of declining state budgets ahead of us. There are 9 additional states who will find themselves in California's shoes in 2010 including NJ. FL, and IL. He projected that it will be somewhere between 2018 and 2020 that we return to 2006 levels of funding. Get used to it.

He was also not as concerned with the debt we are running up - but only if we spend it on things that generate growth in the long term. Debt financing is a common model for companies - and the US has shown before that it can also work for countries.

Companies have to be focused more than ever on the parts of their solutions that help districts be more efficient and that deliver savings over traditional ways of doing things.

Obama's Education Technology Policy

Karen Cator, the new head of Education Technology at the USDOE, spoke about the plan they are assembling to drive technology usage in schools. I'll write in more detail about this later but the bottom line is that the tech plan will focus on enabling the four assurances included in ARRA. They intend to use the bully pulpit to make sure that our tech dollars are going for useful items rather than flashy products that gather dust.

Summary

I came away from the day inspired by the entrepreneurs that are working hard to build interesting businesses in the education market. I also came away chastened by the pessimism of the investment community and hard realities of our economic situation.

Those of us in the business need to get up every morning willing to make a difference in children's lives and focused on doing it in an efficient and sustainable manner.

Technorati Tags: AEP Hall of Fame, Association of Education Publishers, CEO Roundtable, Ed TEch Business Forum, ETBF

The education publishing tribe's annual gathering is in New York this week. Today kicks off with the SIIA Ed Tech Business Forum (sold out) at the Princeton Club followed by the AEP CEO Roundtable (2 seats left) and the MDR/Peter Li Christmas Party tomorrow (by invitation), and the AEP Hall of Fame Breakfast on Thursday.

This annual trek is an important part of the culture of our industry and if you have not participated I encourage you to make time next year. I love me some social media - but there is no replacement for looking people in the eye, handshakes, and hugs for old friends. 95% of communication is non-verbal after all.

Over the next few days I'll be putting up a few posts about the events this week. My intention is not to provide general reporting, but to drill in on a few things I find interesting. We'll see how that goes.

New York in early December is a special place. The air is crisp and clear, the store windows are all dressed for show, and the expectation of Christmas hangs in the air. Make your hotel reservations early and stay to see the tree lighted!

Technorati Tags: Association of Education Publishers, CEO Roundtable, Ed TEch Business Forum, ETBF, MDR, New York, AEP Hall of Fame

literacy n. The condition or quality of being literate, especially the ability to read and write.

Surpise! It turns out that the generation in school today is writing more and reading more. Several recent reports provide evidence to support this startling claim. The internet - a time pig that has consumed us with new ways of doing things - has wings.

This trend is global - according to the CIA literacy rates went from 50-60% in the 1970's to over 80% by 2005. Teens are leading the way. TV is for geezers.

If you are an education publisher are you stuck in the paradigm that kids are reading less? Are you aware of the kinds of writing they are doing and are you building it into your products?

Reading

Publisher's Weekly reported last week that the lone bright spot in trade book publishing is the teen market.

"In an industry without a lot of good news to report, the one consistent bright spot has been publishing for teens. While adult trade sales are expected to fall 4% this year, juvenile and young adult sales are expected to increase 5.1%, according to the PW/IPR Book Sales Index."

"When asked what formats they prefer, 79% noted paperback while 74% said hardcovers. Audiobooks were favored by 6%, while e-books were noted only by 6% and 13% had no preference as to format."

New technologies are driving up the reading habit.

Libraries that have instituted game nights have seen teen circulation of books soar.

"...once teens come to library because of gaming, they also find time to study, to check out books. Most importantly, they also find time to learn. They learn about information technology, they develop research skills that will serve their life-long learning needs."

"Gaming in libraries? You bet! with an investment of about $900, (less than 1 tenth of 1% of budget) we have over 3,000 new young adult library users."

"...receptive coding skills, the ability to immediately recall a word or series of numbers. This type of testing indicates greater focus and attention, a key issue for children with ADHD. The more times the kids played the game, the better they did."

The evidence shows that todays kids are reading more and that new technologies can have a positive impact on old habits.

Writing

In September I shared an article from Wired about the revival of the written word in the age of social media. An excerpt is here:

Work done at Stanford shows that todays students are writing more than their parents - in fact 38% of their writing is has nothing to do with school. Better yet - they are writing for an audience - or at least an audience wider than a single Professor.

Here are a couple of key quotes (emphasis added):

"...young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text."

"It's almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment."

"The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing. In interviews, they defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world."

We are seeing the same pattern in literacy that we have seen in other media as they digitize. Increased exposure and access leads to an increase in demand. Movie studios fought HBO tooth and nail - until they realized that more people were going to the theater. The web - with its heavy emphasis on text - is leading a revival of literacy skills.

I can see my generation huddled around a TV watching Dukes of Hazard reruns muttering to ourselves that "three channels of TV were enough for us - why do these damn kids need all these books. Don't even get me started on all that high falutin writing they are doing...."

The younger generation is leading the way as they absorb and reflect the values of the internet culture. Engage, advocate, make, connect, reach out, sift. Read. Write.

By Guest Blogger Randy Wilhelm - CEO of netTrekker

One of the most obvious ways to engage students is to give them access INSIDE of school to all of the amazing Web 2.0 tools that engage them OUTSIDE of school. Who hasn’t tried to get through to his 15 year old with an iPod cranked in his ears and a cell phone glued to his hands?

But as students’ familiarity with and reliance on the Web 2.0 technologies grows, schools are still fighting the battle of how to incorporate these engaging tools while keeping kids safe and protecting them from inappropriate content and online activities.

Safe Search Awards

To help answer the question of whether safe search is useful search, we sponsor the Safe Search Awards program. Each year netTrekker honors the 100 top districts that encourage students to search widely and safely. The Awards Index is broken out by small-, medium- and large-sized districts.

Top Award Winners

• Large District - Forsyth County Schools in suburban Atlanta finished first for the 3rd straight year (over 7.3 million safe searches)
• Medium District - Tangipahoa Parish School System in Louisiana (1,875,328 searches)
• Small District - Austin Public Schools in Minnesota (675,485 searches)

7.3 million searches? For 32,000 students? 228 searches for every student is a lot of information access no matter how you measure it. Students are finding the information they need via safe search, and they vote with their fingers every time they access content this way.

Why are students using these tools so extensively? We provide vetted and relevant digital information (content, images and videos) that they can source, evaluate and incorporate into their learning projects.

Teachers also need ways to quickly and easily find digital resources that meet individual learning needs.

Publishers Wanted

Content provided by Educational Publishers is particularly useful in an engine like netTrekker that focuses on instructional relevance. Publishers have an opportunity to proactively deliver their digital content through netTrekker, reaching over 10 million students in thousands of schools. If you're interested in learning more about this option contact Alan Whisman, Director of Business Development at awhisman@nettrekker.com.

netTrekker is honored to help schools with the foundation of safe search. Ten years in and we continue to develop our safe search tools into a solution that brings together educational content and web 2.0 resources to engage students in a more personalized learning experience.

It is something good for kids, and that is what we are all about.

--------

Disclosure - netTrekker is a former client and Randy and I sit on the AEP Board together.

Clive Thompson over at Wired has a great short essay on the modern revival of the written word in the age of social media. He cites work done at Stanford that shows that todays students are writing more than their parents - in fact 38% of their writing is has nothing to do with school. Better yet - they are writing for an audience - or at least an audience wider than a single Professor.

Here are a couple of key quotes (emphasis added):

...young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text.

It's almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment.

The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing. In interviews, they defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world.

First Hand Experience

Writing to engage an unknown audience is a skill that, until very recently, only a few of us have had to master. My blogging experience has convinced me that this is a good habit of mind to develop. When I have to explain my thinking in an on-line context I'm forced to organize my thoughts into a logical sequence and put some metaphorical polish on them. Its a mental workout.

When I started this blog over 2 years ago I realized that I hadn't written for an audience in decades. Other than a couple of brief forays into campus journalism I'd almost always written for someone I knew on a topic that was an assignment or an internal work project.

When we are sharing a drink at the EdNet reception tonight I'll be able to speak with a bit more authority and ease than I could pre-blogging.

Implications for Publishers

A critical part of engaging and motivating today's learners is incorporating the new literacy tools into teaching and instruction. Just because writing is an assignment doesn't mean the only person who counts is the teacher.

Imagine an assignment where the grade involves engaging others with your writing - provoking a thoughtful response to your ideas. Wouldn't this be far more interesting than regurgitating the facts? Wouldn't it be more authentic? Wouldn't the engagement provide a wider view for the instructor to gauge the work of the student?

Here are a few questions to stir the pot as you look at your own materials.

• What are you doing in your products to encourage writing that is visible beyond the classroom?
• Are you engaged in social media yourself - learning first hand the new craft of writing?
• Have you created an on-line space where students can share their ideas?
• Do you reference tools and resources that allow students to blog, wiki, tweet, and plurk?
• What are you doing to help teachers make this transition?

Student Information Systems (SIS) and Data Warehouses (DWS) are the bedrock enterprise software systems in K12 school districts. The K12 Decision Support Systems Market Report is now available. The 118 page report is based on a survey of over 300 district level IT Directors.

ARRA Accountability Market Intelligence

Given the strong emphasis in ARRA on data-driven decision making (D3M) and accountability auditing, the information in this study will provide valuable insight into a market with an urgent and well funded need. The report is a map of territory that has been uncharted.

The Education Recovery site states the stimulus funds will be carefully audited:

ED will hold ARRA fund recipients accountable through reporting and monitoring...ED will monitor all ARRA programs throughout the life of the grants...This includes annual reporting of participation and performance data and site visits to many States.

Report Content

The information is tailored for the needs of SIS and DWS vendors, partners, investors, and policy makers.

The report covers:

• Market share trends
• Intent to purchase by segment in the next 36 months
• Brand awareness and market momentum
• Customer satisfaction levels and causes
• Pricing models and preferences
• Product lifecycle
• Implementation models and timing
• District IT infrastructure (including SIF implementation)
• And much much more.

This study builds on the popular 2003 SIS Trends and Opportunities Report. I have had many requests over the years for a follow up study to show how the SIS market is evolving. The new report leverages the 2003 information to provide a longitudinal view of the SIS market.

As the folks at Educational Systemics and I considered our options we decided that we also needed to cover the emerging market for Data Warehouses. Many districts have installed these systems in the past 7-8 years and we wanted to know what this important new segment of the market looks like. We added a section to the report for this market segment and the insights we gleaned should be useful for decision makers as they evaluate what is next.

Purchase Information

More details about the report are available at K12-Decision-Support.com. You can purchase off the site using any major credit card. Important - SIF, SIIA, and AEP members get at 15% discount.

The 118 page PDF (1.5 mb) will be mailed to you within 24 hours and is for distribution within the buying organization.

You can also contact me with any questions you have about the report by emailing me at info@k12decisionsupport.com.

Many Thanks

Any project of this scope is a collaboration among many people.

• The team at Market Data Retrieval (MDR) were fantastic sponsors who provided a helping hand at many crossroads.
• Our media sponsor Technology & Learning provided the valuable initial lift to get the project going and will be reporting out some of the findings in their magazine and web site.
• Educational Systemics was critical during the survey design phase - making sure we got the questions right. They will be providing follow up consulting services to those who are interested.
• Larry Nelson stepped in at a critical time and wrote the Data Warehousing section.

We'll be blogging here and over at the report site on some of the high level findings in the next few weeks. Be sure to add both sites to your RSS if you are interested in following this thread.

Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) are all the rage in education right now. Market penetration is about 15% of classrooms and climbing like a rocket. Is it time for publishers to jump on this bandwagon? If so, which digital whiteboard is right for you?

I spent the better part of my time at the National Education Computing Conference (#NECC09) in Washington DC this week attending presentations put on by Smart Technologies and Promethean. My goal was to evaluate whether PCI Education should embrace these tools as part of our publishing plan.

The Good

I'm excited about what IWB's can do for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) (the market PCI serves). The ability to project large images and the engagement that comes with directly interacting with the media have the potential to improve instructional outcomes. The boards are kinesthetic, visual, and with the addition of speakers even auditory. All students can benefit from this, but IDD students in particular should get a boost.

Both companies have created on-line spaces where teachers can share lessons they have created. Promethean has the edge here - they have over 350,000 teachers in their community Promethean Planet, making it one of the largest on-line teacher communities in the world. Smart's Teachers Hub is smaller but has a nice mix of resources and professional development.

Another very strong development is a range of tools that are platform independent. One of the metaphors that the white board companies are batting around is that their toolsets (IWBs, response systems/clickers, and audio projection systems) are the "operating system of the classroom." The problem from a customer standpoint and a publisher standpoint is that realistically you only want to support one OS. RM's Easyteach has long had a suite of tools that run on any board. Promethean is promising that if you develop with their tools that the projects can run on other's boards. From a publisher's perspective this is good - but the reality is that few schools will want to invest in a white board which includes software and then go buy a different system. A solution exists today - but for this market to mature more work remains in this area.

The Bad

The tools are still evolving. Many of the examples that I saw were eerily like HyperCard projects from 15 years ago. The gap is that there isn't very much database functionality behind all this - just a flip chart based screen by screen metaphor. Both companies will kick me for saying this - but the closest application to what they provide today is PowerPoint.

Doing animations, and creating interactions seems to involve a series of tricks and work-arounds. Teachers who embrace the technology won't have any difficulty mastering these techniques - but for the rest of the world the tools are not quite as robust as they need to be for easy local authoring. With the amount of investment going into this space it is only a matter of time before the products mature.

If I were in the white board companies' shoes I'd go buy HyperStudio and build out from there. If I were a teacher and wanted to author a bunch of stuff this is the tool I'd use. Maybe a new entrant like Polyvision's Eno will will do this - they seem to be willing to break the mold and they don't have too much invested in a proprietary tool set.

Very little energy has gone into protecting copyrighted materials even as both companies are wooing publishers. Digital Rights Management is a hornets nest and I can understand why the white board providers want to shy away from it. I'd give the edge to Promethean on this one - they have created a "safe" mode where a publisher can release materials but local printing can be blocked (even screen scraping).

A side note - in many cases this is not an issue of the publisher wanting to place unreasonable restrictions on the use of materials. For a lot of older content they simply don't have the rights for open digital distribution.

The Ugly

As Doug Stein wrote on this blog recently the biggest danger of focusing on IWBs is that without systematic reform and professional development it reinforces the Sage on the Stage teacher role.

At its root the competitive arena is a complete rehash of the Mac vs. Windows battles of the early 90's.

The companies are going at each other with the same arguments that Apple and IBM/Microsoft used. Smart touts their worldwide market share (60%) and the need for kids to use the same tools they will encounter in the workplace (see IBM PC marketing). Promethean pushes the meme that their tools are designed specifically for education and are therefore more appropriate for schools (see Apple education marketing). On this one I have to side with Promethean. Their tools do look much more appropriate for the classroom and their student response system (clickers) are much more advanced for input and assessment.

On the customer side we are seeing administrators make the same mistake of assuming that the technology in and of itself has some magical quality that will change and improve what happens in the classroom. In many cases this is driven by a hard nosed career calculus - in the early '90's one of the most visible statements a new Superintendent could make was putting computers in schools. It was expensive, visible, and doable within the 3 year average job tenure they had. IWBs fit the same bill.

Sadly what we learned was that technology without extensive professional development changed absolutely nothing. This was the real lesson those who want to learn from history should take away from this battle. Fortunately Secretary Duncan appears to get this and while he has touted white boards as something ARRA funds should go towards he has also stressed the need for training.

Summary

What do I recommend?

Publishers should start working with IWB toolsets and figuring out the design challenges associated with creating interactive content in large screen format. IWBs are here to stay and their penetration into classrooms is going to climb. Getting familiar with the tools and how your materials can be developed so they are IWB friendly is important. I'd pick one of the cross-platform toolsets - Promethean or RM - or even just work in PowerPoint or HyperStudio.

On the school side I think both solutions are viable although I'd skew towards the Promethean solution since they are so focused on just the education market. It shows in their on-line resources, their development tools, their peripherals, and in the maturity of their approach to the market. New entrants like Polyvision's Eno also deserve a close look - they have a smaller footprint in the classroom and on your budget.

How can technology and innovation reshape education? Union Square Ventures put on Hacking Education - a conference that brought educators and entrepreneurs together to hash this out. Unfortunately they didn't have any practitioners from the education technology and publishing industries there. After reviewing the well written summary of the discussion I put together the following extended comment to add the perspective of someone who was there, did that, and got the t-shirts.

As someone who has spent the last 18 years in the Education Technology and Instructional Materials businesses I feel the commentary misses the mark from a business perspective. This isn't a critique of what was was covered - many of the participants are people I admire and cite frequently - Danah Boyd, Fred Wilson, Katie Salen, Steven Johnson , NT Etuk etc. It is meant to talk specifically about the business challenges of translating these great ideas into practice.

It might be tempting to dismiss folks who have been in the trenches as old school - people who "don't get it" - but some of us are not clinging to old paradigms but working hard to create new ones. Experience may blind us to new possibilities - but it may also guide you around some of the land mines many of us have already stepped on.

Most of us who have followed this path have been guilty of advocating massive changes through technology. Sometimes this takes the form the kind of carpet bombing Danah talks about - just throw enough CPUs/Bandwidth etc at the problem and it will magically happen. Other times it is the old saw about having a hammer and the world looking like a nail - see game based learning.

Both approaches share four problems:

1. They never address the scale issue. You can always find success with a few small experiments. If you have been around the market you see the same examples trotted out again and again. As a sales rep for Apple 18 years ago I told stories exactly like Gepettos. They are heart warming inspirational tales of learning and adventure - they are not a scalable business model.

We educate 54 million children in this country - develop a solution that will work for more than 500 at a time and you have something. Remember that in most communities the school system is the first or second largest employer. We spend $550 billion a year on education in the US - second only to the military. You can't run from the scale issue if you want to create businesses that serve the market as opposed to a very narrow niche.

2. Educational practice evolves incrementally and nothing ever goes away. Video games will have a huge impact on learning (they already are) but they are just one more tool in the bag. When a teacher uses and interactive white board it is the functional equivalent of scratching charcoal on a cave wall.

I believe we are at an inflection point and that education is ready for real technology substitution (see this in depth series here about it) but it will probably take a different form in education than it has in our personal media diet.

The most interesting design challenge in our market today is designing systems of instructional products (print, tech, professional development, social media) that amplify and compliment each other. To date most of the energy has gone into siloed products created by technologists or print publishers without any meaningful cross over. Most print publishers create technology that attempts to recreate the book experience on-line - snore. Most technologists are on a mission to kill traditional practices. Both miss what educators are asking for - blended products that use the best of all media.


3. The user developed content model assumes a motivated learner. On-line classes work best for the same students traditional correspondence courses worked for - i.e. not your potential drop outs but those with an extra dose of motivation. See item 1 - I've seen dozens of businesses that were able to get a few hundred users doing creative and interesting learning on-line that were never able to scale up.

Apex Learning which does on-line classes finally settled on AP level courses because those students work well for the environment. The rest of our learners need an actively involved coach and guide to work with them - a teacher. Products that are designed for a blended environment are the scalable answer for broad numbers of students - some on-line some real world.

The group talked about how kids are required to attend school by law. You also need to factor in that schools are required by law to educate all kids, including the ones who don't want to be there. It is a two way street. Innovative materials can go a long way towards addressing this - Tabula Digita's Algebra games are a great example of using technology to improve engagement with the content. UGC won't magically help these kids.

4. Poorly designed economics. Every time an idea runs into problems addressing scale or market needs people start talking about the home school market followed by the private school market. My BS meter goes off whenever I see this in a business plan (or comment thread). These are sizable markets - but each is only about 10% of the whole in students and considerably less than that in dollars. From a distribution standpoint they are also the most diffuse - making it extremely expensive to reach them for very small sales.

The web is definitely helping here, but at the end of the day if you are only going after these segments you are not hacking education - you are chipping away at the fringes. The biggest change will come from working with public schools to address the needs of a broad range of learners.

Christiansen's work would tell you that these are the markets where the innovation will occur first, but I'm not convinced. I think there are segments of the public system where disruptive changes can flourish - ELL and Special Education are two examples. Traditional materials don't work for these kids (disclosure - I'm CEO of a Special Ed Publisher).

Atomized Instructional Content as a Business Model

Another idea that runs into problems with the economics is atomized content. There has been a huge amount of buzz around this for the past few years - the idea being that if we can just turn instructional materials into the equivalent of iTunes teachers will be free to pick and choose the best bits and assemble them in meaningful ways.

This is a very seductive concept but misses an important distinction about educational content. A lesson structure is a bit like an operating system on a computer. If cut/copy/paste are done differently in every application it is very difficult to scale a platform. The user can't use a common base of experience to manage other tools. The same holds true for instructional materials. I'm not advocating traditional textbooks but something in between. Strands of content that can drop in for a week or two rather than an entire years worth.

Try this thought experiment from a business perspective. Assume you have a front line supervisor who has 25 direct reports. Best practice would argue for between 5-8 reports. How much time will that Supervisor have to think strategically about the business? Now imagine that they are required to submit daily and weekly progress reports on all 25 employees - no slacking off on a few of them for a week or two. This is your average teacher. They don't have time to assemble mix tapes of content for all their students.

This conference asked all the right questions. But Education is not a mirror of other markets. I stopped reading the newspaper and my life became richer through social media and blogs. But I can't imagine my kids getting a great education (as they have) if it was left up to our family to sort it out on our own. We need an educational system and if you want to build a business (at least in the near term of the next 5-10 years) you will need to find your entry point into the one that exists.

This is an enormously interesting time to be in the education market. We share the belief that the ultimate killer app is learning - the mind is wired for it. The businesses that can re-engineer publishing to support 21st Century learners and educators will have a bright future.

Related Blog Posts

Education Marketing 101 - A four part primer on entering the K12 Education Market.

Technology Substitution and Textbooks 4 part series

10 Ideas for Building Education Products for 21st Century Learners part of the Information Overload series

Serendipitously the New York Times published a front page article yesterday about "The Story of Stuff", a short movie about man's impact on the environment. It makes the point I was after in Sunday's post about the power of story-line in instructional materials. The movie has gone viral globally (7 million views) because it encapsulates the lesson in a broader narrative that kids (and grown ups) can connect to their own lives.

Some quotes from the article that support the contention that we can use stories more effectively in instruction and that we can trust kids to make up their own minds when given a chance to.

"...many educators say the video is a boon to teachers as they struggle to address the gap in what textbooks say about the environment and what science has revealed in recent years."

"Mark Lukach, who teaches global studies at Woodside Priory, a Catholic college-preparatory school in Portola Valley, Calif., acknowledged that the film is edgy, but said the 20-minute length gives students time to challenge it in class after viewing it....Mr. Lukach’s students made a response video and posted it on YouTube, asking Ms. Leonard to scare them less and give them ideas on how to make things better. That in turn inspired high school students in Mendocino, Calif., to post an answer to Woodside, with suggested activities."

We are collectively discovering the value of social media tools like Twitter. As we do this we wander blind alleys and make surprising discoveries. Forthwith a peeve and a rave about micro-blogging.

Peeve - People who tweet that they are about to do something. So what? How about you tweet after you have done it and have something interesting to say. "I'm off to the mall" Fascinating - yawn.

Rave - Genuine kudos handed out freely. Yesterday a friend (@perludus) had to return a pair of shoes. He tweeted "Three cheers for @Footwise! Returned my shoes that wore through the sole in 2 months w/no questions asked!" Positive energy put into the system always comes back to you. It also makes others feel positive about the world. All that in 140 characters - cool.

Bonus Round

Peeve - Overposting. I now routinely check the tweet thread of people I might follow to see how frequently they post. Any more than a couple of times a day and forget it. Sorry - no one is that interesting. (An occasional burst when you are live tweeting an event is fine.)

Rave - Breaking News (@breakingnews). Get headlines long before they show up on mainstream web news sites.

Productivity Tip - Treat twitter like a room with friends in it. When you are busy elsewhere you don't hear the conversation and that is just fine. When you can drop by you get to hear what is going on and chime in. If you try to experience it like email where you have to see every tweet you will develop the twitter twitch (twittcher?).

Danah Boyd - one of the most incisive thinkers about how new technology is reshaping our lives (and more importantly to readers of this blog the lives of teenagers) - was recently hired by Microsoft Research. She gave a talk that summarized at a high level the history of social media, how teens and adults use it differently, and policy and behavioral implications for all of us to consider.

Social Media Is Here to Stay - Now What?

Its brilliant. Go read it. It will only take about 15 minutes and you will learn something - I guarantee it.

Here are a few select nuggets:

"For users, Web2.0 was all about reorganizing web-based practices around Friends....While many of the tools may have been designed to help people find others, what Web2.0 showed was that people really wanted a way to connect with those that they already knew in new ways. Even tools like MySpace and Facebook which are typically labeled social networkING sites were never really about networking for most users. They were about socializing inside of pre-existing networks."

"Many who build technology think that a technology's feature set is the key to its adoption and popularity. With social media, this is often not the case. There are triggers that drive early adopters to a site, but the single most important factor in determining whether or not a person will adopt one of these sites is whether or not it is the place where their friends hangout."

"Social network sites became critically important to [teens] because this was where they sat and gossiped, jockeyed for status, and functioned as digital flaneurs...Adults, far more than teens, are using Facebook for its intended purpose as a social utility. For example, it is a tool for communicating with the past."

"The key lesson from the rise of social media for you is that a great deal of software is best built as a coordinated dance between you and the users."

"Policy makers in this country are hell-bent on "solving" the safety problem, but what they're trying to fix is not what's really happening. Yet, in trying to address public fears, they run the risk of putting more kids in harm's way AND forcing companies to build technologies that would help no one. As parents, citizens, and a corporation, we have a responsibility to understand what is actually going on here. (One of the advantages of adult participation is that they're starting to grok what's really going on on these sites and the fears are subsiding.)"

"This is a systems problem. We are all implicated in it - as developers and policy makers, as parents and friends, as individuals and as citizens."

It has been amusing for the past 10 years to smirk and say "Well, this internet thing - it's just a fad..." when discussing educational policy with print advocates. The reality is far more sobering and frankly more uplifting than the arch cynicism of the joke.

Below is a chart showing internet usage around the world and the growth since 2000. Staggering growth is an understatement. While we reach saturation in North America (at about 70% of the population) Africa is only at 5.6% and Asia is at 17.2% and already has has the most users of any area even at this low penetration level.

I'm inspired by this data - it speaks to a potential for building connections between people that is expanding at a dramatic rate. In the world of education this brings home how essential the skills of communication, team building, and diversity already are and how central they will be to the world today's First Graders inherit.

This growth also means there will be millions more voices we can listen to easily - making sense of this is one of the central challenges of our time as educators and as a culture.

Let's use our powers for good.

------------
Hat tip to John Hamalka for this graphic at the Life as a Healthcare CIO blog. I find his insights about IT in healthcare provide advance warning of what we will see in education. He also does a "Cool Technology of the Week" post every week that I enjoy.

This article is based on notes from a panel at the Ed Tech Industry Forum in New York that took place in December. The insights the panelists shared are no less relevant now that we are into the new administration and sorting out the economic stimulus.

The panel consisted of:

• Moderator - Todd Brekhus - VP and CMO Plato Learning
• Francis Alexander - VP - Scholastic
• Robert Iskander - CEO VIP Tone
• Dr. Steve Ritter - Chief Scientist Carnegie Learning

The common threads that emerged from the comments are summarized as:

• There is opportunity in this economic climate - children still go to school and it is a political priority.
• Everyone needs to sharpen their game and focus on articulating value more effectively.
• SaaS is a mixed bag - lowering initial costs but setting up a long term commitment School Districts may hesitate to commit to in this climate.
• The Obama Administration will be friendly to NCLB reform and technology.
• Technology enabled individualized instruction is a growing trend.
• Customers are implementing books first, technology second.

Q - The Education Market has observed downturns in the past, yet companies have come out stronger with new products and more efficient business models. What is your view of the current economic situation and the education market.

Francis Alexander (Scholastic) - There is one evergreen resource - children. There is opportunity - but you have to be a lot more focused and sharper about how you approach your customer base. Even in California there are categorical funds that are available. Warren Buffet still sees education as the one growth sector in this economy. There is still a demand for innovation and schools have an urgency around closing the achievement gap and improving test scores.

Scholastic has found that a message about being safe and proven and being proactive about helping customers find federal funding for products resonates.

Robert Iskander (VIP Tone) - The economy is disruptive on a scale that was unanticipated even 3 months ago at EdNet. Education is going to be fine - the downturn will be selective. Companies that have a balanced portfolio of consumer and enterprise will do better than pure play on one side or the other.

There are areas of growth - but they share a focus on cost savings for the customer. Virtualization, technology consolidation, etc. Value propositions that will save money based through innovative technologies will be the winners. It will be a selective process. Virtual learning will keep travel and other expenses down.

Steve Ritter (Carnegie Learning) - Making the transition from relatively good times is going to require a huge amount of focus. It requires knowing your customer and keeping them satisfied. One of the nice things about education is that doing well saves them money by reducing dropouts - efficiency is not just about running operations less expensively but about improving educational outcomes the first time around.

Todd Brekhus (Plato) - Subscription based SaaS models are going to be a real challenge from an ongoing retention model because budgets are under pressure. On the flip side the up front cost of SaaS is lower so it is a mixed bag. They work hard to define a return on investment in dropout prevention etc. and articulate that for their customers. The ubiquity of data systems is helping here. Forty two states now have data systems to monitor policy in action.

Q We are at an inflection point. What is your long term view of long term trends.

Steve Ritter (Carnegie Learning) - More individualized instruction is a broad trend.

Robert Iskander (VIP Tone) - Everything is going to move to a web service given the cost savings vs. legacy systems. Content as a Service, Software as a Service, People as a Service. How do we integrate all of these into a single platform with 24/7 delivery and platform independent. This is what his company does - so his perspective is understandable but a bit narrow on this topic.

Francis Alexander (Scholastic) - ACT.

• A - Accountability is stronger than ever even post NCLB but the nature of the assessments will change. Obama's people are tired of "autopsy" assessments - they want more "well kid" check ups (more formative assessment and less focus on summative measures). Response to Intervention (RTI) is going to accelerate because of this.
• C - They expect a big push to college readiness starting all the way back at early childhood education. This will be accompanied by a move to IEP's for all students and long term mentors beyond their teachers.
• T - Technology is the enabling environment for this. It will move the emphasis from textbooks to on-line delivery.

Q - We have a major political change in Washington and throughout the country. What impact will will these changes have on funding at the federal, state, and local level. How will this affect the education market?

Francis Alexander (Scholastic) - Obama's team are starting to talk about where education fits into the stimulus package. The UKs stimulus package does address this - particularly for infrastructure things like e-Rate. Obama has talked about $500 million education in matching grants for education technology. [Note: the final Education number in the stimulus was over $50 billion].

Robert Iskander (VIP Tone) - e-Rate is tied directly to the economy since it is tied to phone bills. As people switch to VOIP it will decline. NCLB is a bit question mark. The eventual revisions may involve more technology but it isn't clear yet. Hopefully the bailouts will affect the Department of Education as well.

Steve Ritter (Carnegie Learning) - He expects Obama's administration to be more friendly to education technology. They also expect to see technology spending to become more mainstream in schools - it is becoming part of the way they do business.

Q - What tactics can companies employ during a time of economic difficulty to remain healthy and vibrant.

Robert Iskander (VIP Tone) - If you don't have cash you were expecting business as usual. Companies in this position are going to be making severe cuts. Strategic investments will have to wait. If you do have cash in the bank this is a great time to buy people who don't have cash.

Steve Ritter (Carnegie Learning) - The key is focus. Don't try to be everything to everyone. Geographic focus on a state by state basis. A lot of schools don't have enough bandwidth to run SAAS - so a local installation option is important.

Francis Alexander (Scholastic) - Everyone needs to control costs and cash. They expect the market to come back and when it does being in technology will put you in the right place.

Todd Brekhus (Plato) - Stay hyper-focused on delivering only the features that are essential and usable to drive renewals and keep your costs down.

Q - There are a lot of smaller companies and start ups here at the conference. What advice do you have for them to keep in mind during this time in our economy?

Steve Ritter (Carnegie Learning) - Focus more on your customers than on your technology. This is the time to understand what they need and how they operate. Your technology may be great but if isn't filling a real need you won't go far.

Robert Iskander (VIP Tone) - If you don't have money in the bank then stop what you are doing and go raise it. If you do have it focus on profitability in the short term.

Francis Alexander (Scholastic) - Be a good smart partner to school districts.

Todd Brekhus (Plato) - Focus on solutions not products. Make sure your return on investment is well articulated for all stakeholders and customers.

Audience Questions

Q - With all the emerging SAAS models are we exposed to a global marketplace? (Asked by Nelson Heller)

Robert Iskander (VIP Tone) - Knowing customer requirements is essential - US companies have a leg up in servicing this market. With a strong dollar there are some interesting opportunities to invest outside the US (India, Australia). Open source is going to play a big role in this economy.

Todd Brekhus (Plato) - This panel is made up of content companies - we believe good instructional design sells. There is a play for the objects - but the value chain hangs on how the content is presented to students and how it demonstrates improvement against standards. Most of the open source materials don't do this.

Q - Should you focus on print or technology in this climate?

Francis Alexander (Scholastic) - Scholastic drives delivery of book content across multiple media. They are working towards blended delivery. It isn't an either or but what serves the current need best.

Steve Ritter (Carnegie Learning)- They have seen strong growth in the print line. They expected it would be blended - but currently districts are phasing product in by doing the print first and bringing in the technology later.

A new free white paper that tackles the practical challenges teachers face when they use video games was released this week by the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA). I was the author of the paper and the co-chair of the working group that produced the paper.

Barrels of ink and pixels by the gigabit have been spilled trying to answer the question "Do video games work as teaching tools?" We started from a simpler perspective - assuming that games can support learning what are the practical tips that teachers can use to boost the odds of success? We interviewed the pioneers in the classroom and at the companies that have developed successful games and summarized their hard won insights in the paper.

I excerpt the executive summary below and over the coming days will post some of the more detailed findings. For the complete paper visit the SIIA's website and download the PDF.

Most of what we surfaced is applied common sense that goes with any supplemental implementation. There are some key differences with games that we emphasize in the paper.

The paper is organized into three main sections:

1. Selling the Idea - How can you convince your school to try games?
2. Preparation - What should the teacher do to prepare themselves, their students, the classroom, and the technical infrastructure?
3. Implementation - What classroom management approaches work best with games and simulations?

Summary ...

The effective deployment of any instructional resource requires the support of teachers. Educators cannot feel threatened, be uncomfortable, or lose control when they use something new. With EduGames, the potential for all three of these issues is higher, so a well crafted strategy to address them is essential. Administrators need to understand their unique role and see resources that they can use to explain the project to stakeholders. If an administrator is driving the deployment, he/she needs to be prepared to support a wide range of teacher familiarity and comfort with EduGames. Administrators will need to be equipped with research and references that can be shared with parents and the press. Information Technology groups will prioritize stability, efficacy, network safety and cost control when they evaluate new products. Advocates for EduGames need to earn the trust of IT early in the process, or the project can be shut down before it even begins. Students should not feel threatened, and they need to understand how it will work. They also have sophisticated filters for good games and won’t easily tolerate poor design. As with any new instructional resource, gaining parental support is an important part of the political process. Widespread misconceptions about games can stall efforts unless you are prepared to address them. Regularly inform parents of the purpose, scope, and results of the project. Demonstrate the connection to 21st Century Skills to earn the support of the community. Where possible invite parents into the process.

A holistic approach that addresses technical infrastructure, installation, support resources, professional development, and lesson planning covers most of the bases. Because EduGames are still largely unknown to most educators, implementation services can not be optional. In order to reach sustained -- rather than experimental -- usage, schools and districts need to dedicate time and money to preparing the environment thoroughly. Districts vary widely in technology infrastructure, the openness of IT to new solutions and their general policies about games and learning. However, in general, advocates need to acknowledge that games need extra support and cooperation from IT. Implementing any new instructional approach requires professional development. Even teachers who are gamers do not intuitively know how to use games in the classroom. Tightly link professional development and initial student use -- any delay can lead to problems. Plan on a minimum of a ½ day on-site with hands-on time in teams. Teachers need to understand how the activities connect to the standards, what the goals are for the exercise, and which students it can benefit the most. They should also introduce the games at a pace they are comfortable with. Teachers are the lynch pin to success. Get the right teachers on board, and they will inspire their students and the other teachers in your building. Ideally you want people who are leaders – politically, technically, and pedagogically.

The majority of the comments we received on teaching strategies related to blended learning. Mix game play with discussion, lecture, reading and writing to gain the most benefits.

Panelists encouraged others to tap those aspects of games that make them fun – competition, failure, and transgressive play.

Lessons and game activities should be organized so they can be “consumed” in a 45-50 minute class period. It can be useful to start small in order to accommodate the natural learning curve teachers and students will need before they become proficient with a new resource.

There are pedagogical and practical reasons for having students play in teams of 2-4 rather than alone. Pedagogically, games force collaborative decision making. Grouping helps reduce barriers to learning by grouping proficient gamers with non-gamers. Practically, working in teams lowers the technology footprint needed, and it allows students to cover for each other during absences.

Classroom management for EduGames is very similar to any hands on activity.

An actively involved teacher providing content expertise and focus moves things along.

Games appear to be particularly good at encouraging peer tutoring.

To date, behavioral issues like bullying have not been an issue.

Backend integration with the school’s management systems relieves a lot of the administrative burden from teachers.

Given the novelty of game-based learning, many educators remain skeptical of the games’ ability to facilitate learning or to embed assessments appropriately. It is important to provide external validation of the learning that is taking place. Over time, if games deliver as promised, we expect educators to become more comfortable with in-game assessments.

Guest blogger Michele King provides a practitioner's perspective to Randy Wilhelm's post Web Content is a Source for Differentiated Instruction. Michele is an administrator at a large urban school district and a former 1st Grade bilingual teacher.

By Michele King

As the Instructional Support Coordinator for a large urban district, I am responsible for transitioning our district away from print-based instructional resources to a database driven solution accessed by teachers over the Internet. I read Mr. Wilhelm’s post with great interest and my experience working with teachers closely aligns with the “Schools and Generation Net” survey results.

A compelling finding out of this survey is that 60% of educators agreed districts need to be investing more in digital resources, shifting dollars away from print materials. Teachers perceive (and rightly so) that district level staff typically drive this decision. Instructional trailblazers are often on their own in the digital frontier.

Who are the 40% that disagree with investing more in digital resources? I call them the “binder” teachers – those that cling to papers from days gone by as their primary source for instructional planning. I’ll never forget the occasion in which I visited a teacher’s classroom and found her preparation centered on boxes labeled by months. I could almost hear her thinking, “Oh, it’s January, I better dust off my February box and pull out my Valentine activities. What copies do I need to be making?” The only differentiation I observed was by calendar month.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the current New York Times best-seller, Outliers, wrote a very interesting article for The New Yorker called “Most Likely To Succeed”. The article discusses how to determine what makes one a “bad” teacher versus a “good” teacher. A key premise of the article is that teachers have to be sensitive to the individual needs of students (hello, differentiation). I wholeheartedly agree with that premise, however, what the article does not discuss is that teachers need help in gaining access to appropriately aligned resources that enable them to deliver instruction in a more targeted and effective fashion.

The first phase of our online instructional guide initiative is to flat line the current curriculum and restructure it into a web-friendly format. The idea is for content to be easily accessed and consumed by the teacher for instructional planning purposes. As I rolled out our pilot program to a dozen or so schools, every single time I presented at least one person brought up the need for more efficient access to web-based resources. Our teachers are hungry for a cultural transition in the schools (and school districts) away from the binder-based mentality to the 21st century notion that teachers should be able to efficiently access what they want when they want it.

Imagine that!

Are you Twitter curious? For the past few months I've been on the fence about Twitter - lurking but minimally engaged. Like all new technologies as people play with it they are discovering what it is best for. Recently I've watched as my friend Charlene Blohm has begun leveraging it to help drive her business.

Twitter seems to be following a similar path to other new technologies. The enthusiasm of early adopters misrepresents what the technology is really capable of. Think LaserWriters/Postcript and flyers with 23 different fonts on them (circa 1986) or web pages cluttered with frames (circa 1998). Once the dust settled and a "grammar" of usage emerged we all benefited. But every new technology has to pass through a stage of wild and random experimentation to get there.

Twitter is passing out of this stage right now so it is a good time for the rest of us to engage with it.

I was picking Charlene's brain yesterday about Twitter commands and resources (the company's web support sucks) and she gave me this list of articles and resources that can help you get started.

Getting Started With Twitter (by a teacher)
Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals
List of Twitter Commands
How to Use Hastags [to track topics and events]

Coming Attractions

In the next couple of weeks I'll do a post on What Twitter Does Well and another on How to Abuse Twitter. In the meantime you can start following me by tracking Embir.

Other Education Publishing related twitterers that I know if (there are 10's of thousands out there).

Charlene Blohm & Associates
Nettrekker / Thinkronize
Gary Stager
Cool Cat Teacher
TechnoLibrary - Carolyn Foote
360Kid - Scott Traylor
Terry Anderson
Richard Carey
Liz Strauss
Education Week
School Library Journal
PBS Learning Now

Please add others in comments. If you are new to Twitter - welcome to the conversation.

Today guest blogger Randy Wilhelm - CEO of Thinkronize shares insights from the 3rd Annual "Schools and Generation Net" survey.

By Randy Wilhelm

As the father of five school-age children, I am reminded daily that each child is special and each one learns differently. For instance, I have one son who learns best when he can hear the text he is reading at the same time. Another of my children is very tactile and has to touch something to understand it.

When we set out to commission – our 3rd annual “Schools & Generation Net” survey – I expected that teachers and principals well understood the critical need for differentiated instruction. However, when the results were tabulated, what made me sit up (and put down my iPhone) was the overwhelming majority (85%) that looked to the Web as a solution – and even more telling, the 60% of educators that agreed that their districts should invest more in digital resources, shifting dollars away from print materials.

The headline from the survey results, “Educators Want Web Solutions to Avoid Traditional Cookie Cutter Instruction,” points to the fact that today’s classroom is not well equipped for customized learning. Because kids learn differently and assimilate information differently, “one text for all” doesn’t cut it. Teachers need other instructional materials to help kids learn.

Today’s teachers are challenged to find resources that are both aligned to state standards and designed to engage every child in the learning process.

• The survey found that more than 70% of principals and nearly 70% of teachers expressed a need for assistance in finding resources that meet state curriculum standards.
• Four out of five educators (80%) agreed that they need multimedia Web resources, such as digital images, video, animation, and voice, to both stimulate and motivate their students.

Bottom line? In today’s critical economy, where the squeeze is being put on everyone – including our precious schools, we are spending a disproportionate amount of dollars on print instructional materials. We need to re-look at the 1-2% of state expenditures that go toward instructional materials and the $4 billion spent on print materials and invest those dollars in digital resources that provide every child with a customized learning experience, every day.

Update: Michele King responded to this post with a practitioner's perspective on how web tools can help teachers plan for differentiated instruction.

Related Posts:

Instructional Monocultures

Print and Technology Blending

Teachers and the Internet: Five Things You Need to Know

A Wave of Change Sweeps Over the Industry (series on Technology Substitution)

What are the prospects for raising capital for education technology companies in the current financial meltdown? Last week at the SIIA Ed-Tech Business Forum a panel of investors tackled this question. The panelists presented some solid and detailed advice for investors and companies seeking capital during the recession.

Key Points:

• Many investors are seeing Education as a safe harbor in a turbulent market, it is seen as relatively recession resistant. Education's profile is rising as a marquee investment arena for the next 10 years - it is a good time right now for education.
• Take in as little as possible at as light a valuation you can get because valuations are going to be low for a while.
• The strong are going to win big in this downturn. Access to capital is going to be an important differentiator in this market.
• Most venture firms are not looking at new deals, they are focused on down rounds and propping up existing investments. They are also all moving up the deal chain to safer investments than they make in normal times. If you are raising money be aware of this.
• It is all about being profitable per customer in this market. Hope isn't a strategy - go get paying customers and drive a lifetime revenue model
• Focus down on the core of what you have to provide and strip the organization down to doing just that. Have a crystal clear picture of who your customers will be, how they will find the money, and what are the essential features.

• Moderator - Chris Curran, Managing Director Berkery Noyes
• Frank Bonsal III, Partner New Markets Venture Partners
• Kevin Custer, Founding Partner, Arc Capital Development
• Lou Pugliese - President Learning Diagnostics

Most investment groups are setting the bar higher for new deals. Investors are looking for $10m Revenue and $2m EBIDTA which leaves out most K-12 Ed-Tech companies. Companies at this size need capital to invest in Sales and Marketing to scale up. Lots of education companies with good products in the last 10 years have failed because they couldn't get past this hurdle.

His slides include a list of the private equity investors in education and a list of 100 deals that have been done in the education space in the past two years.

Follow below the fold for details on each panelists comments and the audience Q&A.

Continue reading "Raising Investment Capital - Strategic and Private Equity Perspectives - Education Technology" »

This panel is made up of seasoned veterans of the M&A markets for Education Technology companies. They addressed the K12, Higher Education / Post-secondary, and general M&A climate.

The panelists are:

• Moderator Jeff Fromme - Dorsey and Whitney LLP
• Robin Warner - Managing Director at Van Tulleken Company. K-12 Market
• Vivek Kamath Director Berkery, Noyes & Co. - Higher Education.
• Mark Marchesano with the Jordan, Edmiston Group (JEGI). M&A in a Turbulent Market.

Key insights:

• Look to the UK market - it is an 18 month leading indicator of what is going to happen in the US market.
• Professional Development is now mandatory for all solutions in the UK. Are publishers using this to hold open source at bay or is this a real switch taking place?
• The US market is contracting - there are fewer strategic buyers because they have all merged and the Private Equity guys are sitting things out for a while.
• Buyers don't want to take any risk right now - only companies with proven business models, strong teams, and organic growth need apply.
• For profit higher ed is growing - the economy is actually helping with this as people look to expand their skill base.
• Expect to see many buyers looking for bargains over the next couple of years. Don't expect to see much in the way of IPOs.
• In K12 multiples are higher (almost double) for companies that have a strong technology component - but it has to be integrated well - it can't be a bolt on.
• Multiples are higher for Higher Ed than K12.

Continue reading "Financial and Industry Analyst Views on the Education Technology Market" »

I will be blogging today from the Software Information Industry Association's Ed Tech Forum 2008. The event is taking place at a monument to mid-20th Century American hegemony - the Princeton Club in New York.

This is the first year they have had a real blogger friendly environment - they have set up a table with power and easy access. The other bloggers here are Annie Teich and Ken Royal. Several of us will also be tweeting the event - look for the tags edtech08 and #etbf.

Products designed for the classroom must meet the needs of teachers first. If students are the primary users of your instructional materials this may sound a little backwards - but it isn't. Teachers can make or break your product before a student ever sees it.

Designing for teacher ease-of-use should be a core competency at any education publisher.

Today we tackle issue #4 in the series on selling and marketing to educators.

Part 1 - Obey the Calendar
Part 2 - Education is not a target market - it is an industry
Part 3 - Education is a zero sum market

In the rush to get a product to market too often education publishers overlook the features and resources that make life easy for the teacher. The problem isn't that teachers are lazy, as many in the business world tend to fantasize, quite the opposite. The challenges and demands on a teacher are every bit as daunting as mid-level supervisors in large companies. Their time is at a huge premium and to manage their workload they develop detailed processes and structures - known more commonly as lesson plans.

Your Challenge

Your product has to insert itself gracefully into this workflow or it will fail because the teachers won't make room for it. They already have things humming along, thank you very much.

If students can learn more effectively with your products shouldn't teachers be willing to bend a little to make this happen? Yes they should - but even the most elegantly designed product requires the teacher to go through a learning curve. The time they invest in learning how to use your product shouldn't be amplified by additional time demands because your product isn't complete.

Almost anyone can find a small group of teachers willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make a new product work. Don't be tempted to conclude that all teachers will be willing to put this amount of effort in. If your goal is to reach a broad cross section of classrooms you have to design for the average teacher.

Poor teacher design surfaces differently for technology providers than for print publishers. The software paradigm of iterating to success tempts ed-tech companies to cut corners on teacher tools. The most common oversight is that companies assume that teachers will key in student rosters. I can almost always tell who knows something about the market when we get to this part of the presentation. Inexperienced companies will hand wave past this topic - assuming some kind of magic will occur to get student names into the system. Those who have been around the block a time or two will have a thoughtful approach that doesn't burden the teacher too much.

Populating rosters is tedious and time consuming. In districts with high mobility rates accuracy is a huge problem - the average district has a mobility rate of 20% but I've seen extreme examples of up to 90% where there is a high migrant farm labor population. There are simple solutions (.csv files) and more automated options (SIF) but you must think this through.

Textbook publishers have a different problem - since they tend to see a product as complete and done when it is published any aftermarket additions are outside of the normal workflow and are unanticipated expenses.

In these cases it is more often a case of not including supplemental resources that your target population needs and/or that your competition is providing. Examples include ELL teaching guides, standards correlations, presentations for electronic white boards, and on-line homework help. None of these things are particularly hard to add to a product - but they erode your profitability, and play havoc with your schedules - and you can't sell much until you have them.

A Caveat

Is it possible to go too far in accommodating teachers? Yes. The trick is to balance an almost endless set of feature requests and enhancements with what is essential and compelling.

Companies in this market have to strike a balance between business and learning - and the best way to do this is to have a team that is a mix of former educators and business people. Go too far in either direction and you are out of business. If the educators rule the roost your products will be perfect but marginally profitable because of all the extras tossed in. If you apply rigorous business standards only you won't address the core needs of teachers and you won't sell much.

Your goal should be sound business decisions that are educationally appropriate.

The Solution

There are a few things you can do to reduce your risk of alienating teachers with a new product.

• Ask at every turn during the product planning and development "how will a teacher implement this and how can we make it easier?"
• Make sure you understand teacher's priorities so you can optimize your development options. Talk to a lot of teachers, visit classrooms, observe how things are done today. Dig into the details. Make sure everyone on your team has an opportunity to do this if possible. Don't extrapolate from a small sample - talk to as many people as you can afford to.
• Hire former teachers if they have the right skill-set. Sales, mar-com, and product marketing are all areas ex-teachers can thrive in.
• Many education companies encourage employees to volunteer in local schools partly because it is a good thing to do and partly to get exposure to the reality of the classroom.
• Develop an educator advisory board and challenge them to think about the average teacher (the folks who participate in advisory boards tend to be the same ones who would put extra effort in to use your product).
• If your budget and schedule permits, build a pilot phase into your roll out where you do a limited deployment to a handful of classrooms. Incorporate the feedback prior to general release.
• Watch the competition closely. Often something that wasn't required becomes so once a competitor is offering it. Better yet - make the competition respond to you by innovating.

In times of disruptive change the cutting edge is the safest place to be.

To many people this seems counterintuitive. If there is rapid change the inclination of most people is to circle the wagons around the familiar. But, when the market is moving, breaking camp and moving forward is actually a lower risk approach. If you are taking risks in your job and trying to invent the future you are actually in a safer position than those who cling to the status quo.

Education Market Forces

The education market is in a period of rapid disruptive change driven by multiple forces.

• Technology is upending traditional textbook markets
• State budgets are under assault from the financial meltdown
• The textbook industry has consolidated into three major players who are using global sourcing to drive down costs for an increasingly commoditized market
• Open source and Web 2.0 technologies are putting the tools of production directly into teacher's hands
• Content is atomizing and moving to the web
• Teachers are buying everything else on the web - you're next

"A" is an incrementalist. In a normal market she will prevail through a steady series of improvements in products and processes. The education publishing world is largely made up of A's.

"B" is an innovator. In normal times B's position is really risky but it is the safer place to be during disruption. Generally speaking there are more B's in Educational Technology.

Whose shoes would you rather be in today? An A trying to hold a position by doing more of what "always worked" or B who is already where the puck is moving?

Like all generalizations this doesn't do justice to the complexity of the environment but I think it speaks to the major trends we see going on in the market. The old line publishers are struggling to respond to the market changes because the balance of power still tilts to the "A" textbook publishing executives. Their incremental approach isn't working but they don't know any other way to tackle the problem.

Sources Of Innovation

Look to the small and mid-size companies - both print and technology based - for the innovations that will drive the future of this market. These companies are being forced to deal with the disruptions more directly since they have a smaller margin for error than the big guys. They are also scrappier in their general approach and more amenable to innovation. I also expect to see change sweep the supplemental market long before it comes to the basal materials market for the same reasons.

Consider the book - not all the innovation we are going to see will be technology based. Books themselves will evolve to reflect the new learning ecosystem. Publishers need to look at every aspect of books and consider what can go in the age of the Kindle, youTube, and Wikipedia. Will the textbook of tomorrow be shorter and have a fully integrated companion site where most of the content is created by students? Its possible. Are you waiting for someone else to try it? Why?

There is innovation going on in the large companies (e.g. Pearson's forays into blended tech/print products) but most of it is not life or death the way it is in the smaller players.

Innovation is needed across the entire business model - sales, marketing, editorial, operations, and support are all being affected by the explosion of information in the hands of our customers. This kind of systemic change is really difficult and will take several years to sort itself out.

So step out of your comfort zone, try a few things that scare you a bit. The first step is just to become familiar with the new technologies for your own use. Once I got started it was like going back to graduate school - it was a blast to be learning new things every day. You need to re-experience this kind of learning - because it is precisely what we should be providing today's students in school.

There is a global community waiting for you.

Related Posts

Here are several related posts which expand on concepts in this article.

Textbooks vs. Education Technology - Clash of Paradigms on the different management cultures and how they put the "fun" in disfunction.

Education Publishing - A Wave of Change Sweeps Over the Industry lays out the quantitative case for technology substitution finally happening at scale and what it means for publishers.

10 Ways to Build Instructional Materials for 21st Century Skills presents some ideas on what innovations to focus on if you want to make real change.

Piping hot education related blog topics served here! The debate over formative assessment, the top 10 sites for educational games, crowd-sourcing the next great novel, controversy around Microsoft's new ads, the relationship between quality and advertising, and a hilarious spoof of Politicians all get the nod this week.

Education Week has a very interesting article about Formative Assessment. Given the burgeoning mantra that formative assessment makes the biggest difference in outcomes it is revealing to see how little consensus there is on what it really is. Is it a practice or is it a product?

John Rice has a list of the top 10 sites for free EduGames. It is worth a peek and linking through to get a sense of what kids are actually playing. This should dispel the myth that EduGames need to rival commercial games in graphics and sound. What matters most is fun game play.

HarperCollins launches Authonomy. The site uses crowd-sourcing to allow readers to vote on the next best seller. Springwise has a quick overview - Publisher Hopes Crowds Will Spot Next Bestseller. I'm working on a similar project for a client in education - should be interesting.

Microsoft's new ads - love 'em or hate 'em? Seth Godin thinks they are rot that won't fix what is wrong - What Ads Can't Fix. His thesis is that the company has a solid business serving the stolid core of the market, and ads are not going to turn it into Apple. Ben McConnel believes they are a great opening salvo in redefining who Microsoft is by reclaiming the definition from Apple. As a bonus all the ads are in his post if you want to see them. In this debate you could substitute mainline textbook publishers and come up with largely the same analysis - both posts are worth a 2 minute read and some reflection.

As always Indexed nails her topic. This graphic about quality vs. advertising is amusing and revealing. We know this is how the education market works - one teacher tells another when they like something. I think of her wry charts as Mad Magazine for grownups. There is no connection to the link above about Microsoft. Really.

The Front Fell Off. Perhaps because we are dealing with a financial disaster this comedy skit resurfaced recently. It is a drop-dead funny take on a Politician evading the truth and trying to sound like they have a clue when they really don't. It is non-partisan so enjoy.

Barack Obama is proposing significant new investments in early childhood education. More attention has been focused on his drive to recruit an army of new teachers but I believe the early childhood focus is equally important.

Why? As students age the gap between low performers and even average performers gets so wide that it becomes much harder to bridge it. The chart below illustrates this concept.

[This chart is for illustrative purposes only]

In the early grades - K-3 - the focus is on acquiring basic skills in reading and math. As soon as the shift to applying those skills to learning other subjects occurs in 4th and 5th grade the gap begins to widen. By the time students have reached 7th grade it is often so great that only heroic efforts can help. When a student drops out in 10th grade the cause can be traced all the way back to 2nd grade or even Kindergarten. Obama's experience in the Chicago Public Schools taught him this lesson.

We can see this clearly in the product lines of the supplemental publishers. Their materials for the early grades are mostly targeted interventions, what a friend dubbed "workbookity" stuff. Their materials for secondary schools are comprehensive alternative textbooks. In secondary schools the gap has widened so far that you can't teach all students with the same textbook because the low performers simply can't read it.

Oral language is hard wired into humans but reading and writing are acquired skills - very similar to music in that practice helps enormously. Hence the focus on fluency in the National Reading Panel's report. By the time students reach the 6th grade students who read regularly have often read at least 1 million more words than students who do not. That makes a huge difference.

So targeting the early grades - when the gap can be closed quickly and easily - is an essential part of school reform. Yes - it will take 12 years to see the benefits - but they will be long lasting throughout the lives of the children who benefit. I believe Obama has got this issue right.

Does this mean that there is no hope for kids in the higher grades? Absolutely not. One of the reasons I'm so passionate about video games for learning is that the research out of Harvard and other universities who are studying this topic shows that it disproportionately benefits students in the lower third of performance and that the biggest benefits come in the middle school years. The Tabula Digita study out of Florida is only the latest in a string of studies suggesting that this one way to reach these kids. One other interesting finding - for every 2 hours that kids play game they spend an hour reading about them.

As print and technology products in education blend together the distinctions between textbook publishers and ed-tech providers are blurring in some very interesting ways.

A recent report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press on how on-line and traditional news media are blending together raises some provocative questions for how this will play out in education.

Several years ago schools bought technology and print products from completely different budgets and with very different purchase processes. As educators have become more sophisticated about what technology can do and what it can't do they are demanding that providers blend the best of technology with the best of print.

We are already seeing this play out in how people consume news and the Pew study sheds some valuable light on this topic. Here are four big ideas that came out of it for me.

1. The Integrators - the 23% of the population who are actively using traditional and new media - tend to be affluent, highly educated, and middle aged. They grew up with traditional media and are comfortable with it, but due to their interest in politics and sports are using on-line media to dig deeper and in more personalized ways than the general public. This group corresponds to the teaching corps in this country. If you want to sell instructional products to schools teachers are the gatekeepers - if they won't use it in their classroom you have no sustainable business. To reach their comfort zone you will need to blend the old and the new.

2. Net-Newsers - this is the most affluent and best educated group but also the youngest. 30% of them watch news clips on the web - only 18% of them watch the evening news on TV. They also are the heaviest consumers of news - digging in all day long. This group corresponds to students. While you may produce blended products in order to sell to teachers you need to make your on-line offerings rich enough to satisfy the younger users - it will be their primary interface to the content.

3. The use of print will decline - but not go away. The numbers in the report about newspaper usage are a wake up call to textbook publishers. In 1993 58% of the population read the paper daily, by 2008 this was down to 34%. Nightly network news saw an even greater drop - it went from 60% down to 29%. Meanwhile on-line went from 0% in 1993 to 37% in 2008.

The pied pipers of ed-tech who sing sweet songs about the end of print are going to have a wait a long time for that to happen. But - I do believe that just as newspapers and magazines are getting thinner and thinner our textbooks will slim down as more of the content moves on-line. The rise of the Kindle and other reading devices may also spark an evolution in how we consume "print" in the same way the youTube is changing how we consume video.

4. Politics and sports are a key drivers of on-line usage. Both the Integrators and the Net-Newsers valued the on-line tools for the insights into politics and sports. Social studies is probably the area where having on-line content that changes on a daily or weekly basis has the most value. Districts that want to bring parents into their own web resources might stress school sports - something that not even the most dedicated local paper can do for every school in their area.

Publishers can learn valuable lessons about how this transition is likely to play out in schools by watching what has happened in the news arena. This study is worth a look if you are interested in this topic.

Related Posts

Textbooks vs. Education Technology - Clash of Paradigms
The Future of Education Publishing
Web 2.0 and Education Publishing
Open Source and Education

Hot sizzling education publishing and ed-tech related links here! Obama's call for more teachers, kids media preferences, 2.0 de jour, and assessing 21st Century skills all get a nod in a short week.

Eduflack talks about Obama's call for an army of teachers. I confess that I worry about federalizing education too much, we don't need more Reading First scandals. Having 50 laboratories is better than 1. Another wag noted a contradiction on the right - if the free market knows best and if education is the foundation for economic growth why aren't conservatives fighting to pay teachers more? That would bring higher quality candidates into the profession via market forces.

Kids 10-14 prefer the internet to TV. AHCI Lunch has commentary on a New York Times article that revealed this finding about teens media preferences. Here is my question - why didn't TV take off in the classroom given the power it holds over our culture? One of the core arguments about why internet tools, social media, and virtual worlds should be in classrooms is that they are where the kids already are. The same could be said for TV at any time in the last 50 years.

I believe the reason on-line tools will take off is that TV is passive while the internet and social media are interactive and social. TV is a baby sitter, the internet is a tutor. But it could be that there are larger institutional barriers to technology diffusion in the classroom that we can learn about from TV's failure to penetrate deeply into teaching and learning.

Web 2.0 vs. Enterprise 2.0? Elearnspace does a nice job of mapping out the differences and talking about what it means for learning. K12 Education is most definitely in the Enterprise 2.0 camp which has implications for the kinds of products that need to be built and the speed at which they will be adopted.

Will Richardson has some great comments about Assessing Network Building and how critical this 21st Century skill is. It is related to the observations I've made about homing - the ability to vector in on the most important information in a sea of data. If you know of anyone doing interesting work on assessment in these areas post a comment. I've seen a lot of talk, but very little in the way of real solutions or products.

Fresh hot blog links to education topics here. These are some of the posts that caught my attention recently - enjoy.

Facebook for Teachers. This article is sad - lots of promise and money invested by people who just don't get it. One district can not support their own social network - it takes hundreds of thousands of users to make these communities vibrant. How about we look at what is actually happening on Facebook for teachers? I Am Teacher - a Facebook plugin from We Are Teachers - already has almost 10,000 active users and over registered 50,000 users.

Video Games Improve Cognitive Skills. The title says it all. Go read about it on Richard Carey's blog.

John Rice has a nice summary of Seven Question to Ask Before Using a Video Game in the Classroom. I do disagree with John on two points.

• I don't believe the majority of teachers want to modify games - even in the commercial game world modding is restricted to small group of devotees.

• I also don't believe Edugames need to match commercial grade production values. Look no further than the casual games kids are playing on the web by the millions for evidence. Game play trumps graphics (see the Wii too).

"I suspect a lot has to do with the principal - whether the school is together as a unit...I never believed you solved the problems with a better building."

A kid booted from Little League because he is too good? Eduflack has a suitably angry take on this. This story is "man bites dog" rarity - but the overall point is well taken. Punishing gifted kids is how you turn a country dumb.

The Ignite Presentation Method - this is a pretty cool concept. 5 minutes to present your idea and the 20 slides automatically change every 20 seconds. One idea per slide - razor sharp focus on your message. See my post Powerpoint=Billboard on a related topic. Imagine the power of teaching kids to communicate with this level of focus and discipline?

Videogames in the Library? Wouldn't installing a Wii or an xBox bring a lot of unruly teenagers into a refuge of quiet and intellect? It turns out that putting computer games in a library brings in a huge wave of new patrons and dramatically increases circulation - of books!

Two recent items support the thesis that games can benefit libraries and patrons. The most interesting aspect to me is that it may move libraries from being relatively static storehouses of knowledge to dynamic studios where knowledge is crafted, shaped, and extended.

The American Library Association is sponsoring a study to gauge the impact of games on learning and literacy. Why? The gamer blog 1Up has the money quote from Dan Barlow:

"...once teens come to library because of gaming, they also find time to study, to check out books. Most importantly, they also find time to learn. They learn about information technology, they develop research skills that will serve their life-long learning needs.

"Gaming in libraries? You bet! with an investment of about $900, (less than 1 tenth of 1% of budget) we have over 3,000 new young adult library users."

Maggie Hummel presented at this year's Games Learning & Society conference gave a detailed preesentation on how the Park Ridge Public Library outside of Chicago transformed their relationship with teens by incorporating games. She made several excellent points:

• Public libraries can't force kids in -they don't have the leverage a school does - but they share the same mission of learning.
• As a result they are freer to experiment and try new things (yes lots of innovation is going on in school libraries)
• This was a tough sell to the board - they feared that kids would only come to play
• Actual results - they doubled book circulation for young adults. Their summer reading program went from 280 to 420 in one year.
• They moved to sponsoring competitions - which has brought out whole families
• In a natural progression the library is now sponsoring game writing workshops and youtube movie workshops taught by High School students.

It is important to note that this is all additive - the existing role of the library does not go away. The library experience is richer not poorer when games are added to the mix.

Impact on School

What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth? - Cicero

If you can't convince the School Board to allow games in the library perhaps the Library Board will be more open minded - the evidence says they should be!

Additional Reading

Study on penetration of games in Libraries

Information is expanding exponentially. Applying database concepts to your information diet can mean the difference between overload and sanity, chaos and productivity. Database fluency is mandatory in a digital world. Students and teachers should be practicing and refining this skill so that today's learners can make the most of the sea of data they swim in.

Almost anything you encounter in digital format can be managed using database techniques. At their root Facebook (relationships), iTunes (music, movies, tv, books, etc.), del.icio.us (bookmarks), flickr (photos), Moodle (lesson plans, learning management), and We Are Teachers (referrals) share a common database DNA. Even blogs through their categories and tag clouds are databases.

Email is an example. Treat the sender's address as a data point. Then set up rules (database queries) to have all your boss's emails sent to a high priority folder and Aunt Mabel's political ravings sent straight to the trash. This approach allows you to target the urgent items amidst a sea of dross.

The Education Need

Educators and educational publishers have a vital role to play in our move to a database driven world. Why?

• Students need to develop database fluency if they are going to get the most out of their digital lives. Learning Management Systems (LMS), social networks, and on-line research are all core tools for 21st Century education. Database fluency should become part of the curriculum along with textual, numerical, and visual fluencies.
• Teachers need access to networks of peers, experts, and content to be able to deliver on the promise of individualized instruction.
• Administrators and Policy Makers need to measure results across groups and efficiently allocate resources.

The Goal

The end result should be personal growth, valued relationships, and effective organizations. But in the first flush of widespread adoption we are losing sight of this. Consider the statement "I "friended" 1,000 people on Facebook therefor I have 1,000 friends." Wrong. Many people are confusing the database with their relationships.

A teacher could take the Facebook example above and build an interesting set of discussions around the meaning of friendship, how to find a small network of people who are interested in the same things you are, what you can do to contribute, and how to manage the relationships that emerge. It isn't creating huge numbers of meaningless connections that matters - it is finding the needles in the haystack of humanity that you want to build bonds of friendship with.

Database Fluency

What is database fluency - what are the core skills proficient users need to master?

• Ubiquity - See every digital file you touch as a potential data point. Emails, MP3 files, Word documents, student records, and your photos are all potential data points.
• Searching - Understanding how to craft logical questions that return useful information takes ongoing practice ("and", "or", "greater than", "before", etc.). Learning to to harness the advanced search features almost all applications have is another part of this skill.
• Homing - The ability to find what is meaningful and valuable in large data sets by asking the right questions at the right time. Is this a reliable source? How recent is the data? Does this address the question I set out to answer? Is it usable or a tangled mess? How does it compare with other results?
• Tagging - Users tag data elements to personalize them. This can be through formal taxonomies provided by the database author ("Male, Female") or informal folksonomies created on the fly by users (flickr tag clouds). Since tagging is so open-ended having some basic rules in place can help insure you are able to use the tag cloud later to search the data.
• Cleaning - Any collection of data gets messy after a while - knowing how to clean your data just like you clean your room is an essential part of working with large data sets. Without maintenance your searching and tagging get bogged down.
• Reporting - Creating clear usable reports that make the point you are after is an important part of turning data into information and eventually into wisdom. When is a table better than a bar chart? Should I focus on 5 or 500 names?

How these elements appear in different applications varies widely - understanding the underlying dynamics helps harness their power across many environments.

RSS readers click through to see the full article - 3 detailed examples that bring these concepts to life and some suggestions on where to start.

Continue reading "Database Fluency - Core Skill for the 21st Century" »

Why can't teachers buy lessons like people buy songs off of iTunes? Are publishers at risk of irrelevance if they don't proactively solve this problem for their customers?

I have noticed that my music habits have changed dramatically over the past 5-6 years. With the advent of iTunes I was no longer bound to buying albums - I could sample and just buy the songs that sounded good to my ears. Most albums have 2-3 good songs, several so-so songs, and a couple of clunkers. I only want the good stuff thank you very much.

Musicians put a huge amount of energy into creating albums that presented a sweep of music in just the right thematic sequence. Decades of practice dictated that this was something that customers wanted. Only - once they had a real choice - they didn't. It was vanity not reality.

Are textbooks and other "comprehensive instructional materials" the same? Teachers have "lifted the best and ignored the rest" since the first textbook was published, so anecdotally they are very similar.

But publishers pride themselves on providing a "coherent" schema in their materials. They regard this as a huge part of the value they add to the process. Like musicians they can fool themselves because there are no affordable alternatives (in time or money) - yet.

Will textbooks suffer the kind of profitability collapse that the music industry has gone through as the business model shifted? I honestly don't know. One thing the textbook publishers have on their side is time - education moves more slowly than the consumer market. But that shouldn't lull publishers into thinking they can avoid the central question through the usual lobbying, legislation, and front list development. It just means they may have time to adapt before they become irrelevant.

Here are some links for additional reading on this topic.

Links:

iTunes U is Apple's foray into this - but it is mostly at the lecture level for students - from what I can tell it is not optimized for teachers to collect, manage, and share - yet. Apple is probably the furthest along with this - which given their role in transforming the music industry should give all the publishers pause.

Hotchalk is taking a stab at this with their site.

McGraw-Hill has experimented with iTunes University.
MyScribe claims to be iTunes for textbooks - but you still have to buy the whole dang book.

Adaptive Curriculum (a client) is providing atomized content - they have hundreds of science and math activities that can stand on their own and be integrated easily with other materials. Their business model is to sell a subscription to the whole collection rather than the individual bits.

If you know of more projects in this area please let us all know in the comments.

(FYI comments are moderated to filter for spam - they will appear within 12 hours of posting.)

Education technology bloggers have been a busy lot with NECC 08, end of school year, and lots of new products to play with. Here are just a smattering of some of my favorite posts from the past few weeks. Enjoy.

John Rice flagged an article showing that putting games in libraries increases reading. This jibes with a presentation I saw last week at Games Learning & Society - a public librarian started doing game nights and they saw their youth circulation double - for BOOKS. This is going to make several people in my house happy - Mrs. Education Business Blog is a middle school librarian and the EBB spawn are avid gamers and readers.

Danah Boyd shares some meaty insights on status and online behavior for teens. The money quote:

In his book "Geeks, Freaks and Cool Kids," Murray Milner Jr. suggests that teens' particular obsession with status is because "they have so little real economic or political power" (2004:4). He argues that hanging out, dating, and mobilizing tokens of popular culture all play a central role in the development and maintenance of peer status. Just as these activities take place in school, they also take place in networked environments.

Continuing in the meme of bad marketing that I've been on lately David Armano names several bad habits marketers fall into. Funny and instructive at the same time. My personal favorite - shiny object syndrome. Let me know yours.

Want to have your pre-conceptions about school challenged? David Kirkpatrick compiles a list of provactive questions nobody dares to ask about education. I don't agree with everything on the list - but it it made me stop and think.

If you come across something interesting in your web perambulations pass them along!

ISTE's National Education Computing Conference (NECC) 2008 is in full swing in San Antonio.

The Education Technology maven's tribal gathering is bigger than ever. A sign over the entrance reads "The Worlds Largest Education Technology Exhibit." That's a Texas sized ambition.

Here are a few impressions from day one. I'll write a more detailed analysis after the show closes.

There is a huge amount of energy here. The show floor was thronged until closing and sessions are well attended. Even the Press Suites are jammed. Oddly, the scene on the Riverwalk tonight was a bit subdued (I don't know if that is because people were tired from a long day or if we just missed the big party).

The electronic whiteboard guys rule the roost. It appears that Promethean (who has the most prominent exhibit at the show) is spending well over $100k just to have staff here. Smart has a big presence as do RM and all of the players in that space.

Meanwhile the computer companies are largely AWOL. Apple doesn't even have a booth.

Who is making the smarter decision? Are the whiteboard companies making hay while the sun shines or are the computer guys moving all their spending to the web where they can reap the rewards year round rather than over 3 days?

There are still lots and lots of really interesting little companies springing up - ed tech is a lively sector. While education funding may be static or down slightly the ed tech niche is up considerably. This is based on both the number of attendees and the word from vendors.

Am I getting older or is the hall getting noisier? It seemed to me that the noise level is getting ratcheted up as more people do booth theaters with mic'ed presenters. Part of this is just the high level of activity on the show floor, but some of this is an escalating problem that will spell trouble in the long run. Vendors need to have consideration for each other and for their prospects. One large whiteboard vendor that had a huge staff presence (ahem) was making so much noise for most of the day that it was hard to conduct a conversation two aisles over. Ultimately this will drive people outside for some peace and quiet. Oh, and you kids stay off my lawn.

San Antonio's exhibit hall has a weird layout. It is so long and twisty that it takes forever to get from one end of the show to the other. This didn't seem to hurt booth traffic, but it did make finding people a real pain in the rear.

So far it is shaping up to be a great show. All Y'all come back and read more about it later.

The Obama and McCain campaigns squared off at the Great American Education Forum sponsored by the Association of Education Publishers (AEP)* in Washington DC today. Educational policy experts from the campaigns addressed a wide range of positions the candidates are staking out from vouchers to the federal role in education.

Jeanne Century, Director of Science Education, University of Chicago represented the Obama campaign and Lisa Keegan, former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction represented Senator McCain. A panel of publishing industry experts** posed questions followed by a press conference. This is the first head to head discussion of education priorities between the two campaigns.

Given that Education is consistently rated as one of the top 2-3 issues (Pew May 29th) it is surprising that it hasn't been more visible in the campaign trail so far. The forum was valuable because differences in approach, philosophy, and policy emerged during the discussion.

On most of the issues the differences between the candidates positions are more matters of emphasis. Generally speaking the McCain position is that we already know what works, we just need to let the states sort that out and help them do more of it. Obama wants to take a more pro-active and comprehensive approach to addressing not just K12 but lifelong learning. Both camps support helping teachers be more professional and helping them follow best practices that help kids prepare for the 21st Century.

Follow below the fold for a detailed look at the positions of the campaigns. RSS readers click through for the full article.

Continue reading "The Great Education Debate - Obama vs. McCain at AEP" »

How will the economic downturn affect education budgets? How are executives at publishing houses and education technology firms planning for the recession?

Education Week noted a couple of weeks ago:

"...states across the country are confronting deteriorating budget conditions that have tied the hands of legislators and governors hoping to spare K-12 education...Altogether, the 2009 budget gaps—the difference between what states are expected to collect in revenue and what they’re expected to spend on services—will exceed $26 billion, the NCSL says."

Most of the respondents are President or Vice President level executives. They come from a nice mix of large and small companies and a combination of print, education technology, and companies that serve those companies. This is not a scientific survey, take it as a directional pulse of what people are thinking as they do their business planning for the 2008-2009 school year.

In today's post I share some of the high level findings. In the next few posts we'll hear the detailed comments from some of the respondents to give you a more nuanced view of the data.

Across the Board - Pessimism

The is an almost universal expectation that the downturn will affect education budgets. 23 out of 30 expect a negative impact on business. Not a single respondent expected an increase in spending and only 7 said the market would remain flat.

Immediate Impact - Something New

Perhaps the most significant finding is that 63% expect the impact to be either immediate (they are already seeing it) or in the next six months. This is a big shift from past downturns where it took 18 months for the downturn to flow through tax receipts to school budgets.

In part this is attributed to the heavy reliance of many districts on local property taxes. With housing prices dropping across the board it is clear locally what the impact will be. Because schools will always try to avoid laying off people if they can many companies saw cutbacks as far back as last fall as districts anticipated lower 2009 budgets.

Another interesting insight is that ed-tech companies think the impact will be longer term while the print companies expect it to be more immediate. My guess is that seeing a couple of adoptions postponed really rocked the print world.

One additional reason cited for a more immediate impact by several people was the impact of increased prices for fuel and food.

Several respondents noted that Federal spending will remain constant or increase after the election in the fall. The downturn will be concentrated in the 88% of education spending that comes from state and local taxes.

Impact Will be Mild

The good news is that the general expectation is that the downturn will be relatively mild. Only 8 of the respondents expected it to be a significant downturn. Several people noted that the impacts are being felt in 23 states this time as opposed to 48 in 2001.

Folks who thought it would be mixed expected to see some areas of their business doing better (e.g. supplemental) while others were challenged to make the number (e.g. big ticket items).

This is one area where there was a real divergence between the largest companies and the rest of the market. 6 of the 8 people who think the impact will be significant are with very large firms.

Districts Will Delay Big Decisions

One explanation for the pessimism of the large companies is that people are seeing districts delay or defer large new projects - even adoptions. This would have a disproportionate impact on the largest companies. Smaller company's products fill in gaps and are easier to justify right now (as long as they target an urgent need). Several respondents noted that they are already seeing this in the decisions districts are making today about the 2008-2009 school year.

About the Respondents

I contacted 74 people on my LinkedIn network and 30 responded.* 67% are Executives with a specific industry focus, 23% are consultants who look across a wide variety of companies and the other 10% were Line Managers or Sales Reps.

Responses came from a wide variety of companies.

Industry Services includes management consultants, list providers, market research, and executive recruiting.

We also got a nice mix of company sizes.

*If you are interested in participating in future straw polls lets get connected on LinkedIn.

What do large school districts need from ed-tech providers? Michael Casserly Executive Director of the Council of the Great City Schools spoke at the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) conference this week in San Francisco. The speech was direct, honest, and well balanced in tackling some difficult issues like NCLB.

Towards the close of the speech he made the following 10 requests of the Ed-Tech community. I've added my perspective from the industry's side of the conversation.

1. Provide tools that build academic vocabulary and develop high order thinking skills. I found this an interesting request given that all the major publishers and several mid and small sized publishers have materials that do all of these things. Either we are not meeting the real need with our products or we are not getting the word out effectively. This should give all of these providers cause to reflect on their offerings and their go-to-market strategies.

2. Provide targeted intervention materials for Special Education (SPED) and English Language Learners (ELL) - specifically age appropriate materials targeting different ability levels. This is a similar problem to issue #1, there are a fair number of existing resources in the market already, but most of them are print based. One area where technology could make a huge difference is flexibly scaling basal textbook content to the student's ability level. Doing this with print presents two intractable problems - the sheer number of variations needed is prohibitively expensive and the stigma associated with the lower level books causes kids to resist using them. On-line everyone is in the same application and the number of variations is limited only by the sophistication of the software engine.

3. Develop virtual environments to stimulate inquiry based learning when the real materials would be too expensive or dangerous. This is an exciting area with a lot of activity. My article in Cable in the Classroom covered this very ground. Virtual worlds do present a challenge in districts with high poverty around equity of access to technology. The path of least resistance here may be cell phone based interfaces similar to what is happening in Japan and Europe.

4. More group learning resources using technology. Honestly - I was writing like crazy and missed the substance of this request. If you were there and recall please explain in the comments. [Update: see Charlene Blohm's take on this in comments.]

5. Clarity from publishers on what our materials do and don't do. There is a feeling that technology vendors have either over-promised or omitted important product shortcomings. Fair enough. The temptation is always there for vendors to do this - but in the conversation economy it can be deadly. Trust is the coin of the realm. Sales Management has a responsibility to set the right tone of integrity and honesty.

6. Provide clear alignments to standards in a deep and meaningful way. They would also like to know where we don't meet the standards - don't force them to figure it out on their own. Vendors might be more inclined to do this if we feel that it is more than a check-off item. The cost of doing correlations and maintaining them is significant and yet from what we can tell once they are submitted they are never used again. We do this little Morris Dance around the standards and then districts buy the book with the prettiest cover.

7. Stick by them - they are in it for the long haul and they need business partners to trudge that road with them. This is a legitimate request but a hard one to implement due to the management turmoil many large districts suffer from on an ongoing basis. It can take years to position a sale in a large district only to see it derailed by a reorganization or funding re-allocation. Only the largest publishers can make this kind of sustained commitment which limits the range of innovative solutions that the large districts see.

8. Longitudinal follow up with effective professional development. He also requested that we bundle PD into the cost of the products - if PD is an add-on option there is the temptation to skimp in this area. This request is consistent with the thesis that we are going to see a Negroponte switch to districts paying for PD and getting the materials for free. Of course, the easiest way for districts to insure that this happens is to issue their RFPs with PD bundled in. Until that happens vendors who are competing on price are going to leave it out. Amplifying this temptation is the fact that PD is frequently the item with the lowest contribution margin at publishers and ed-tech vendors.

9. We should resist customizing our products for one district - too many districts have had been left behind on legacy code as a result of this. I'm really not sure that the vendors are at fault on this one. This usually happens when a large district flexes their market power by demanding special attention. I've known vendors who have walked on these deals because they see the problems down the road, but there is almost always someone willing to bid it exactly the way the district requested it. See my comment below on how the Council itself could play a positive role in these situations.

10. Provide software tools that help them use data more effectively. This includes longitudinal tracking systems, dashboards, and benchmarks. This is an area where lots of companies are doing important work. Student Information Systems, Data Warehouses, Assessment Reporting Systems, and Learning Management Systems are complex software systems that are evolving rapidly. This is also one of the areas where technology, used effectively, can provide real tools for change.***

On top of all this he added a bonus request. He asked that vendors resist selling products when the district wants to use them in an inappropriate way (wrong age level, insufficient infrastructure, etc.). This is related to item 9 above. If a vendor feels they are being pressured to do something like this it is hard to push back, particularly in a competitive situation. Responsible vendors will walk away - but there will always be someone who will make the promise to win the business. I think there is an opportunity for the Council to be of service in this area. If the responsible vendors felt they had place they could go before these deals were sealed it might make a difference. The Council could put a word in with the district that they were headed in a risky direction.

Large Districts (and States) need to resist the temptation to use their market power in ways that ultimately hurt their own interests. There are perfectly legitimate uses for that market power so I'm not advocating unilateral disarmament - just suggesting that some restraint is needed on both sides. Districts shouldn't make unreasonable demands and vendors shouldn't make unrealistic commitments.

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***I'm working on the Data Driven Decision Making Report that will be released in the next few weeks. It is an in-depth look at the SIS and Data Warehouse market and is a follow on to the 2003 report. If you would like more information please use the contact us link and reference the report.

By Randy Wilhelm, CEO Thinkronize - Guest Blogger

Did George Washington's dog play multiplication math games with Abraham Lincoln's animals during the Civil War?

I would guess the answer is a resounding no. However, a new Index reveals the most popular keywords that K-12 students are searching for on the Internet. It includes these terms in the top 15. netTrekker d.i.’s quarterly “Top 15 In-School Search Index” for spring 2008 will be announced on Wednesday, with Games coming in at #1, Dogs at #2 and George Washington, at #5.

Search engines like Google™ and Yahoo® frequently pull together lists of the most popular keyword queries, underscoring our nation’s interests and fixations and showcasing trends and patterns. This index, however, offers a different view—a real-time school-based mirror of what our children are searching for—both for academic purposes and out of genuine curiosity.

With five school age kids of my own, an academically curious wife and wireless-device-addicted me, I think our humble family averages about 50 searches a day. And, as my sons are crazy about electronic games and occasionally pine for another dog – I can certainly understand the top results of the netTrekker d.i. ranking. Although it would have been heartening to see more academic search terms in the top 5, it is comforting to know that kids will be kids, whether at school or at home.

Every day, across the nation, our digitally native students are punching search terms into their school’s Internet browsers. Now, with this first-ever quarterly index, we have new insight into what our nation’s students are learning about, care about and want to know more about.

Following are the top 15 most active keyword searches in schools for the spring quarter, from February through April, 2008:

Rank Keyword
1 Games
2 Dogs
3 Animals
4 Civil War
5 George Washington
6 Holocaust
7 Abraham Lincoln
8 Multiplication
9 Math Games
10 Weather
11 Frogs
12 Fractions
13 Planets
14 Sharks
15 Plants

About Thinkronize - They are the creators of netTrekker d.i. the #1 K-12 safe search engine.
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Lee's Comment

For publishers, teachers, and students who are building on-line activities this index will be a great asset. By using these popular search terms as starting points for long-tail keyword phrase mining you will be able to find phrases that are easy to rank high on.

The Dig function in Wordze is one place this would be invaluable. For example - if you start with "George Washington" you can find 3094 phrases that are possibly related. While George Washington" would be extremely difficult to rank for (30,000+ searches a month and 18,700,000 pages) "George Washington Biography" has much less competition (3,899 searches a month and 440,000 pages). Quantitatively this means the second phrase has 10% of the search volume but only 2% of the competition. With web savvy writing you could create content that would surface at the top of that list much more easily than plain "george washington."

Big kudos and thanks to nettrekker for creating this index.

The reaction of many parents and educators to the idea of playing games in school is horror. School is supposed to be serious hard work. What these people don't know is that in modern video games doing tasks repetitively to slowly build skills and status is the norm not the exception. These games are all about "hard" play.

Gamers have a term for this - grinding. Grinding is spending two months getting your mining skills up so that you can make a special suit of armor for your friends. Grinding is repeatedly doing some menial chore for a faction so you can earn status with them and get access to skills they can teach you.

Educators also have a term of art for this kind of activity - they call it building fluency. We learn most of the hardest skills in life through a slow process of accretion that amounts to building fluency. According to reading experts a child needs to read several million words in order to become a fluent reader.

Accelerated Reader is essentially a game about reading that is a long steady grind. Like a game you get rapid feedback, frequent promotions, and status from completing the tasks. It didn't get to be "the world's most widely used reading software" by mistake.

But the concept of fluency goes far beyond reading. Learning to play an instrument, writing, using a knife, flirting, skateboarding and thousands of other human activities all share the need to grind it out over time to develop that effortless fluency that is the mark of an expert.

This raises the question of why a child would engage in the grind to fluency? My theory, based on gamer culture, is that it is a critical part of building identity. Players will do routine and menial tasks over and over again to build the story line of their character in the game. It is a fundamental building block of identity - if it was easy there would be no status associated with becoming fluent.

How does this apply to school? Many (not all) low performing students don't have a story thread in their lives that helps motivate them to grind in school (doing homework). Students who are high achievers generally have a story line that is central to their identity that gives the grind meaning and a purpose. Without that story line much school work is just tedium.

If this is true (a big if) what is role of publishers in helping educators and parents guide students to the stories that will motivate them? I believe our role is to bring new tools and approaches to bear that have more story embedded in them, stories that students can appropriate and make their own as they build their identity.

If you want clues on how to do that - you only need to head down to your local Game Stop.

It has been a while since I did a round up of blog articles, time to clean a few items out. Rather than dump a long list I've picked four articles I've found particularly interesting in the past few weeks.

Matt Mihaly over at The Forge notes that MMO's/Virtual Worlds are some of the most valuable private tech firms in the world. I would add to Matt's observation that 3 of the 4 firms he cites in the top 20 are for kids. Silicon Alley Insider's original article is here.

Chris Anderson over at The Long Tail has an interesting take on the decline of the newspaper industry that is directly relevant to education publishing. Sure, readership is down, but at $45b it is still twice as big as Google and Yahoo combined. The money quote:

The truth is that the newspaper business is still a huge industry and will be around in one form or another for the rest of my life. That is not to dismiss the declines, but only to note that there's still a lot of money there and what is required is strategic change, not giving up the ghost.

The Happy Worker Kit - coming to an office near you soon. Funny.

Virtual Reality and Education have a long and checkered history.

On-line worlds give students opportunities to experience things that would be too expensive, too dangerous, or too time consuming in the "real" world. It allows us to distill an experience into it's essence while allowing learners to be active agents rather than passive recipients.

That said I would argue that the word "virtual" has little or no meaning for today's students. It is an artifact from a time when the internet was not a pervasive presence. In todays on-line social spaces teens are making friends, sharing experiences, flirting, competing, earning status, and defining their identities. There is very little that is "virtual" about any of this for them - it is just one more aspect of reality.

As anyone who has spent more than an hour or two developing an on-line avatar can attest you begin to invest your identity in that character - it starts to have a "real" world impact on your self-perception. As a testament to this one on-line world for teens knows that if they can get students to visit at least 10 times they will be on the site for 2-3 hours a week for at least 18 months. Once the on-line identity has progressed past a certain point it begins to address real needs for recognition, status, play, and identity.

For publishers this means thinking of ways to tap these virtual worlds to support the core goal of teaching in the classroom. How much could you improve outcomes if you could find a way to have students voluntarily engaging for an additional 2-3 hours a week for a year and a half? Those improved outcomes are very real, not virtual.

Seeing virtual and real world experiences as separate is an outdated paradigm that may be limiting what you can do with your products to improve learning.

New York, Texas, California, and Florida have opted out of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and will be abandoning all high stakes testing. It is unclear at this time if other states will follow, although indications from across the political spectrum are clear there is strong interest.

In a joint press conference the Chief State School Officers for the big 4 expressed a commitment to move the money they are currently spending on high stakes testing into Art, Music, and Intramural Sports.

"Frankly we were not seeing real gains. We kept tweaking the tests and measurements to give the illusion that progress was being made - but at the end of the day it was the same old same old" stated one Chief. Another added that it was difficult to measure whether the tests were really making a difference. As he pointed out - "the mortgage crisis was driven by people educated 15-30 years ago, it is hard to see how today's students could be dumber than that."

In related news Pearson announced that in response to the announcement that they have added Video Professor to their eLearning line-up and are excited about the opportunity to start adding the Pearson portfolio into the beloved late night cable advertorials. "We think NovaNet and Pearson Inform will be big hits with this audience and we are excited to be extending our elearning reach into new markets."

They plan on rolling out new video products targeted at the revived art, music, and drama markets. The announcement stated "Schools have thousands of laserdisc players in their inventory and we are proud to offer them a new use for this technology. Think of it as Gray-Ray and we all win!"

In response to these developments a spokesman for Houghton/Harcourt sniffed that this was a clear sign that it is time for Pearson to drop out of the race for dominance so that the nation can come together for the fall back to school season. He then added that if Pearson was as experienced as they keep claiming to be why did they buy the now moribund testing side of Harcourt? He added "Books, books, books - thats where we see all the action and growth over the next 15-20 years. Glad we dodged that assessment bullet in the Harcourt acquisition."

Tom Chapin's satirical song "Its Not On The Test" is worth a look. Even if you are a fan of No Child Left Behind this issues he raises need an answer.

I particularly like the jab at shout TV which reduces all discourse to name calling. Education reform is a deep and important topic and our current confrontational political culture isn't serving us well in this - or many other - areas.

He has a web site with good links and more information at Its Not On the Test.

Yeah the video production values could have been better - but the music is great and the message is delivered in a fun way using the kids.

Information Overload and Education Publishing Marketing penned (keyed?) by yours truly was published today on the AEP blog. This is a summary of the longer series I did last year on information overload. If you want a quick introduction or need a refresher hop over and take a look.

While you are there bookmark the blog or better yet drop it into your RSS reader - on a regular basis senior people from the publishing industry will be writing about the business.

Curious about how Web 2.0 is going to affect education? Steve Hargadon has distilled into one blog post an excellent summary of the trends that are leading us there and what teachers can do to help their students thrive in this new environment.

Much of what Steve talks about has been part of a vision for education long before computers were going into schools. There is a clear link from Dewey, Piaget, Vigotsky, and even the constructivist critic Mayer to the ideas Hargadon lays out.

Both the technology and the culture that surrounds it have matured to the point where this vision can transform into the dominant paradigm. Quantitative and anecdotal evidence backs this assertion up.

He describes in some detail the following shifts that are taking place:

• "From consuming to producing
• From authority to transparency
• From the expert to the facilitator
• From the lecture to the hallway
• From "access to information" to "access to people"
• From "learning about" to "learning to be"
• From passive to passionate learning
• From presentation to participation
• From publication to conversation
• From formal schooling to lifelong learning
• From supply-push to demand-pull"

"We've spent the last ten years teaching students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content – now we have to teach them to create appropriate content. They may be "digital natives," but their knowledge is surface level, and they desperately need training in real thinking skills. More than any other generation, they live lives that are largely separated from the adults around them, talking and texting on cell phones, and connecting online. We may be afraid to enter that world, but enter it we must, for they often swim in uncharted waters without the benefit of adult guidance."

For publishers I've outlined similar ideas about what is happening and what you can do to participate in this movement in the following series of posts.

Information Overload Series

Part 1 - It’s all in your head - really

Part 2 - A cure for “a poverty of attention”

Part 3 - 10 Ways to Build Instructional Products For 21st Century Skills

Part 4 - 10 Ideas to For Marketing & Selling In An Age of Infinite Input

Summary - Closing Thoughts and Resources

What is the future of publishing? I moderated a distinguished panel at the IIR Education Industry Investment Forum in Phoenix last week that tackled this question. The general thrust was that publishers need to adapt to a new environment or they will be left behind.

Nader Dareshori CEO of Aptius Learning and former CEO of Houghton Mifflin addressed the real business of publishing – spreading ideas.

Reid Lyon (bio) the architect of Reading First and CEO of Synergistic Education Solutions tackled the question of context – how materials are used matters more than the materials themselves. Publishers need to think build this into their products and business models.

Hakan Satiroglu CEO of xPlana covered how new tools are changing the structure of what is offered and how traditional publishers are struggling with this new paradigm (see my post on this topic here).

Bobbie Kurshan CEO of Curriki talked about how the Open Source community is going to play in the creation of content and how publishers can benefit for participating in the community. (see my post on Open Source in Education here).

As moderator I discussed how publishers need to move away from trying to recreate the book experience on-line to leveraging experiences only the technology can provide like virtual worlds and video games.

Follow the “keep reading” link to find an extended description of each panelist's key points and some notes on the Q&A portion of the session. (If you are on an RSS reader you may need to click through to the original article to see this link).

Continue reading "The Future of Education Publishing - Panel Report from the Education Industry Investment Forum" »

Does real learning happen in virtual worlds?

Cable in the Classroom Magazine published an article I wrote on this topic in their March issue.

The premise is:

"There have always been scientific concepts our children should experience that are too dangerous, too expensive, or too time-consuming for school. For these activities - some of the most thought provoking in science - we have had to settle for lectures and reading.

Virtual worlds change this equation. In a virtual world, students can use million dollar apparatus, experiment with lethal substances, and compress years of activity into a few weeks...."

If you have thoughts on what I wrote leave a comment here and I'll respond.

Download the complete article (PDF) by clicking on the image to the right.

All the links referenced in the article are below the fold - continue reading to see them.

Continue reading "Virtual Worlds = Real Learning" »

Students at Westlake High School in Austin TX are in their second year of creating a virtual Vietnam Memorial to those who died in the war. Carolyn Foote, the Librarian at Westlake, has written movingly about it on her blog.

Students are assigned a soldier, conduct research, assemble a presentation, and then post it all on the web. This has spurred the interest of veterans one of whom said:

“Your school is about to do something that none of us thought would ever happen. Our beloved leader will be known to many in a time that others have been forgotten. You truly are paying a tribute to one of the finest men that ever lived.”

It is part homework, part public service, and all heart.

I'm pleased that my son is one of the students working on the project this year. We've already had some interesting dinner conversations about it and we are looking forward to seeing the final results posted online.

If you want to track the project the students have a blog.

In Japan novels are serialized for cell phone delivery and published as dead tree editions only after they are hits. John Rice has a great post on on this at his Educational Games Research blog.

While this works because of Japan's rather unique commuting environment the central point that any reading helps build fluency is well taken. Here is the money quote:

"It boils down to literacy events in the life of a child. The exposure to text, in whatever venue, increases the reading and writing skills of children. If children read a book, a comic book, or the story line in a videogame, they are reading. And that makes all the difference."

Second, the Japanese are not fighting the new tools but finding ways to use them effectively. Cell phones can be disruptive in schools and there are definitely places they don't belong. On the other hand the blanket prohibitions that many schools have in place show that they haven't been provided with products like this that take advantage of the new technology for learning.

Products like Amazon's Kindle and Sony's eReader are interesting and may be better platforms for delivering educational content but they cost almost as much as a laptop. On the other hand, most kids have access to a cell phone today at no cost to the schools at all.

It would be interesting to see an ed-tech company partner with a publisher to reach out to students here in the US with something similar.

What do Web 2.0 and Social Networking mean for Education Publishing? On February 7th I was on a panel at the Association of American Publishers (AAP) in Sacramento that tackled this question.

Ann Flynn Director of Education Technology at National School Boards Association (NSBA) reviewed the excellent study they released last fall that explored how these tools are being used in schools.

Sheryl Abshire CTO from Calcasieu Parish School System in Lake Charles, Louisiana talked about they are handling the very real complications that come with introducing these disruptive technologies into schools and classrooms.

My talk focused on why these tools are so wildly popular. If Web 2.0 tools are solutions - what problem are they solving?

In a nutshell - we have moved from a world of information scarcity to a world of information overload. People are adopting these tools because they help them focus their scarce attention on things that are relevant to them, and they know they are relevant because they have been vetted by their collaborative network of peers.

Regular readers will recognize many of the themes from the Information Overload series I did last fall.

For those who are interested here are my slides AAP Lee Wilson-1.ppt (3.8 meg file - lots o' graphics). [Update - Link Fixed]

Related blog posts:

Information Overload
Web 2.0 Education Marketing
Textbooks vs. Education Technology - Clashing Paradigms

Ed Note: Do videogames embody the best in cognitive theory? In Part 2 of his series on educational video games guest blogger NT Etuk explores the work of James Paul Gee. Part 1 is here

By NT Etuk - CEO Tabula Digita

Why do videogames work? Why are gamers so willing to learn in these environments but so unwilling to learn in school?

Fortunately, some of the answers lie in the research of an extremely well regarded literacy professor. Dr. James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State, and the author of the book "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition”

Dr. Gee as an educator was curious about why videogames were able to do so much that our education system was having trouble doing – continuously engaging students, making students feel safe failing (not silly), unafraid to ask questions, and providing contextual learning that makes the learning relevant to the learner.
So he set out to answer these questions. His book is an excellent read and I encourage everyone to read it, but for the sake of brevity, I will pull out a core part of his findings.

Dr. Gee found that commercial videogames are built on a set of design principles, and that these principles translate into some of the more fundamental learning principles that cognitive theory has validated.

Among them are:

1. Active, Critical Learning Principle – [In a videogame] all aspects of the learning environment are set up to encourage active and critical, not passive, learning.

2. “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle – [In a videogame] learners can take risks in a space where real world consequences (i.e. grades, risk of looking silly) are lowered.

3. Achievement Principle – [In a videogame] there are intrinsic rewards from the beginning, customized to each learner’s level, effort, and growing mastery and signaling the learner’s ongoing achievements.

4. Practice Principle – [In a videogame] - learners get lots and lots of practice in a context where practice is not boring (i.e. in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). They spend lots of time on task.
5. Multimodal Principle – [In a videogame] - meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities (images, texts, symbols, interactions, abstract design, sound, etc.), not just words.

These are principles built into all good videogames. I have listed 5, but there are 36 that Dr. Gee documents.

As you read through them, hopefully it becomes clear how videogame systems can actually translate into tremendously powerful and flexible learning systems. Tabula Digita [link] and other companies pioneering this arena embrace these principles and look to embed as many of these principles as possible in the design of our games.

The good thing is that school systems are beginning to realize the inherent power of simulations. I can only speak from our company’s experiences, but Tabula Digita games and simulations have been accepted in some of the largest and sometimes most conservative school districts in the country, including Plano ISD, Orange County - Florida, New York City Public Schools, Forsyth County, and Chicago Public Schools among others.

Educational gaming methodologies and pedagogical approaches have been accepted as superior by some of the most rigorous judges out there. Orange County educators published a list of 54 intervention products that they recommend their teachers use. Tabula Digita simulations received the highest Rubric score of ‘A’ and the highest educator recommendation rating of 4 stars. Only 4 other products were rated so highly. Two were non-computer based.

And students are singing the praises of educational games and simulations, with approximately 88% of the students who have used our software recommending it to other students and over 90% saying they wished more simulations were in their classrooms.

There is a paradigm shift that is occurring in education and it’s being forced by our industry’s ultimate customer – the student. Today’s child demands immersion. They demand experience. They demand engagement. And their expectations of how they receive, interpret, and absorb information are growing more sophisticated every day. As educators, if our methods don’t adapt to their needs, we run the risk of irrelevance. And if we’re irrelevant then we run the risk that we can’t talk to them. And if that happens, then how will they ever hear what we have to say …. ?

About Tabula Digita:
Tabula Digita is the award winning publisher of the DimensionM series of educational videogame titles. DimensionM titles encompass action and non-action titles and allow students to play other students within classrooms, across schools, and across the country, all while learning and increasing achievement.

Related Blog Posts

Link to Part 1 in this series.

Slaying Myths About Video Games In Schools

Virtual Worlds for Education - 1987 Redux?
Games for Education- Essential Resource Links

Continue reading "Video Games Embody the Best in Cognitive Theory - Part 2" »

Ed Note: Are video games and simulations essential learning tools for the 21st Century? Guest Blogger NT Etuk responds to my post about Ethics in the first of two posts on this topic.

By NT Etuk – CEO and Co-Founder, Tabula Digita.

Video games and simulations are among the most efficient learning tools ever built. Period. This is not a guess. It is not a hypothesis. If you don't agree I'd like to share the perspective of someone who is working with schools to incorporate video games into classroom practice.

But first, let’s reset our minds about videogames. If you can, forget all of the media hype. Forget all of the preconceptions about how good or bad they are for children. Instead, let’s take a fresh look. Let’s view videogames from a new perspective and together let us really see what’s happening …

In fact, let’s look at this through the eyes of a child …

Process Matters

When a child picks up a new videogame, he or she knows very little about the game. He or she knows little about the world the game operates in, the rules of the world, the rules of his or her character, or the rules of the interaction of his or her character with that world. The child doesn’t know what problems they have to solve to advance through the world, and in many cases the child doesn’t even know how to solve those problems ahead of time!

Yet, to win (and that is the goal of most videogames), he or she must learn those rules, master those rules, learn the problems, solve the problems, and fail a hundred times before finally succeeding!

Imagine a system so ingeniously designed, so pedagogically efficient that it takes a child from beginner to master in 40 to 60 hours (the standard amount of time a game plays), forces them to fail dozens of times before achieving ultimate success, but is so inspiring and so engaging that they solve the problems on their own, actively ask friends for help, and even do research to find answers.

Content Matters

Now imagine that what they’ve mastered, what they’re curious about, what they ask for help on, and ultimately what they succeed in is not Super Mario Brothers … but Algebra …

Now – if you were asked to design a system of education, wouldn’t that result be your goal? If you were an administrator or a principal and you were asked to manage a system of education, wouldn’t you be hoping that was the behavior of your students? And if you were a teacher, wouldn’t you be begging for the tools to help that become not just a dream, but a reality?

Of course! We all would! So as educators, we actually owe it to ourselves and to our students not to be frustrated by the videogame medium, not to be afraid of the technology, not to be suspicious of the engagement factor, but actually to embrace it and to ask the critical question “Why?”

In the next post we explore the question of why this works.

A Note from the Author:
This is the first in a series of discussions around the idea of educational gaming, simulations, and immersive learning. It’s a small snippet meant to start a dialogue. I’ll try to keep the piece short so we can dialogue together – so please, any questions, answers, retorts, replies – please post. More than happy to hear them and respond.

About Tabula Digita:
Tabula Digita is the award winning publisher of the DimensionM series of educational videogame titles. DimensionM titles encompass action and non-action titles and allow students to play other students within classrooms, across schools, and across the country, all while learning and increasing achievement. View Tabula Digita titles at www.DimensionM.com

What tools do teachers find useful for learning and teaching? The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies out of the UK conducted a survey in 2007 that asked people to submit their top 10 tools - they then came up with a list of the top 100.

This survey is very unscientific, 107 self selected responses. Take it with a large grain of salt. On the other hand the questions it raises are fascinating.

• Could it be that the age of education specific software is coming to an end?
• Are educators embracing general productivity tools as the solution?
• Will they need scaffolding to bring these tools into the classroom effectively?
• What will be the business model to support this trend - will it be Professional Development instead of Software Systems?
• Will schools tolerate or even encourage "free" products that are advertising or sponsorship driven?
• If schools do move to a sponsorship model what implications does that have for traditional media like textbooks?

If you are attending the panel on games and learning tomorrow the correct room number is 320 EF. I posted an incorrect number yesterday. Hope to see you there.

(First post from the iPhone. Works like a charm. )

FETC 2008 starts tomorrow and I'm looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues from across the Education Technology industry.

I'm participating in a panel discussion on Thursday afternoon about games and education that will balance practitioners with vendors in a discussion about the state of games and learning. From the practitioner side John Rice of the Education Games Research Blog will be there along with Gary Weidenhamer, Education Technology Manager at Palm Beach County District. Dave Martz from Muzzy Lane Software and I will be speaking from the business perspective and Karen Billings from SIIA's Education Division will be moderating.

The panel runs from 1:50-2:45 PM Thursday in room CS4. Hope to see you there!

PS - Check the on-site notices - the room may change.

By Guest Blogger Randy Wilhelm


Educator's love the internet but they have valid concerns about using it in the classroom. Thinkronize’s study, “Schools & Generation ‘Net” uncovered compelling insights from nearly 1,000 principals and library media specialists. Relevancy, commercialization, information literacy, instructional validity, and children's safety were all significant issues. Today we look at 5 ideas that can help you rethink your on-line offerings to fit into today's classrooms.

1. The Internet is a Valuable Instructional Resource
First the good news. Our survey confirmed that educators value the Internet, with 90% rating it as an “excellent,” “very good,” or “good” educational resource.

2. Concern over Relevancy and Commercialization of the Net
The study found that educators are worried about the quality and relevance of sites students find on the Internet with the following ratings:

• 79% expressed concern about useless or irrelevant search results.
• 78% percent expressed concern about students being redirected to commercial or pay sites.

3. Information Literacy is Low
When it came to information literacy, there was concern over students’ ability to judge online information sources critically. Our study results showed:

• Only 4% “strongly agreed” that students were equipped to think critically about the accuracy, authority and possible biases of the information sources they encounter, with the rest expressing responses in varying degrees of uncertainty.
• When asked about the teacher’s role, 88% “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed that teachers need additional professional development in this area.

4. Web use for Instruction/Curriculum
We asked about teachers’ use of the Internet and student searching being integrated into the school’s curriculum. Our findings included:

• Over one-third of respondents (35%) reported that “almost all” teachers in their schools use the Internet regularly for instructional purposes.
• 81% “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed that student searching on the Internet has been integrated into the curricula.

• Installing filters – 97%
• Giving students instructions on safety – 79%
• Giving faculty instructions on safety – 75%
• Providing parents with tips and information – 56%
• Purchasing special search engines – 32%

The bottom line – educators believe there is significant room to improve the Internet as an educational resource. And, in order to keep the Internet a valuable resource, tools like filters, training, and safe and contextually relevant search engines, like netTrekker, are critical.

Link to first article in this series.

Open Source culture in K12 Education will have a profound impact on our industry over the next 10-15 years. Open source already touches instructional content, classroom management, student information systems, and IT services. Where else will it find a purchase?

Ironically, the attempts by the old guard industries to protect their traditional interests in a digital age are accelerating the change. The more restrictive copyright and trademark laws become the more incentive there is to create open source content. Many education publishers are going to find themselves in a Chinese Finger Trap - the more they struggle the worse the problem will become.

The music industry is proving that no one ever "wins" an argument with their customers - the question for education is whether publishers can remain relevant in this new era by learning from other's mistakes.

Success in this new reality is going to require a new paradigm - one that actually takes a less restrictive approach to copyright and puts more focus on services and support. This upends the traditional economics of education publishing where the customer buys the content and services are freebies tossed in to seal the deal.

Producers As Owners

The other profound difference that we are likely to see in the coming years are producers of instructional content going into business for themselves rather than having to go through big publishers.

Recently I came across a trio of blog posts from other industries that all point to where education is headed.

Matt Haughey commenting on the meltdown of the music world posits that the future of all music is the classical music market. He notes that despite low sales for CDs, zero copyright protection, and tech savvy fans who can download at will "classical music remains an industry and there are tens of thousands of professional classical musicians worldwide that make a living from it. It’s not all glitz and glamor, but there are classical music labels that are doing alright and plenty of live events generate a decent amount of revenue even in modest-sized cities."

Marc Andreeson believes the writer's strike may be the end for Hollywood as we know it - content creators don't need the studios nearly as much as they used to. In education any teacher with page layout software and a Lulu account can print books on demand. Here is an example that addresses professional development for science teachers.

"Any CIO not using open source "should be fired" upends the old saying that "no one ever got fired for buying IBM". Given that IBM has become a global supporter of open source projects including this one in K12 in China it may not be as strange as it sounds. Hat tip to Chris Keene for providing the link.

One of the more interesting aspects of this is that open source may lead to a reversal of the publishing industry consolidation we have seen over the past two decades. Smaller publishers can create brand identity around an editorial voice, and the new economics of production and distribution mean that more niches are going to be mined by new players. This is similar to what has happened in broadcast TV and cable. The big 4 networks remain the largest providers, but their share has been inexorably eroded by the niche channels.

Education Open Source Projects

All systems in K12 are seeing open source solutions come on-line. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list, the purpose here is to show how broad-based the impact already is.

Instructional Content

• Connexions currently has 4,846 reusable instructional modules.
• Curriki is a wiki for lesson plans.
• We Are Teachers is a new service that allows teachers to share and recommend resources.
• California Open Source Textbook Project is an interesting idea with pathetic execution so far. Don't judge the concept by this one attempt.

Instructional Management

• Moodle - a complete on-line course management system with worldwide support.

Decision Support

• Focus/SIS is a complete student information system.

IT Infrastructure

• Linux - if you surfed the web today you used it and didn't even know it.
• Web services - a wide range of products that provide the backbone of most web sites are open source.

Conferences

• Open Minds which was this past October focused specifically on open source projects for education.

Support Services - Companies Selling Support Services for Open Source Solutions

• EN@ - Education Networks of America provides a wide range of support services.
• Moodlerooms providing hosting, configuration, and training for Moodle.

None of these projects (with the possible exception of Moodle) are huge yet - but the outlines of a major change are there for anyone to see.

With sometimes patchy support, rough edges, and the freewheeling nature of the open source world it is easy to dismiss it as a fad. Likewise, open source advocates are prone to making claims that the world as we know it has changed. In my opinion neither position is logical. Too much is in flux right now for us to know what the market is going to look like in a few years.

But we know enough to understand that change is on the way. Are you getting ready?

Related Articles:

Education Publishing - A Wave of Change Sweeps Over the Industry

Information Overload

Textbook Price Cure

How should we design textbooks and education technology for a world where information is no longer scarce or hard to find? It is time to rethink how we build education products based on new paradigms of information management.

In Part 1 of this series we explored the broken paradigms about information that are driving most of batty. In Part 2 we explored strategies for adopting a new information paradigm to help us survive and thrive in the new climate.

Today we take a look at ten ideas for how we can build products that tap into the new zeitgeist. These are nuts and bolts tactics publishers can use to rethink product development.

In what follows I assume you have read the two prior installments. If you have not you may want to spend a couple of minutes on them first. In a nutshell we need to move from scanning and hoarding “scarce” information to treating it as an infinite resource that can be accessed as it is needed. Just-in-time instruction is no longer for adult learners only.

10 Ideas to Try

1. Start with a call to action. Traditional textbooks are set up backwards for today’s learners. Rather than tacking some practice problems on at the end of the chapter start with an activity that will motivate learners to seek out answers. This is how they work in the rest of their lives and we should mirror and model it in teaching. Projects, thought experiments, team challenges, and research activities are all examples of experiences that promote information seeking. These can be classroom discussions, paper-based activities, or on-line challenges (virtual worlds, games etc.).

2. Network your learners - Often we treat collaboration as cheating - but in a world of Facebook and Twitter we have no choice but to harness it. Encourage people working on the same problem to find each other through virtual study groups, student written FAQs, and peer-tutoring. Imagine a system that could help students working on the same problem all over the world find each other on any given evening. There is a precedent for this in on-line games where players can join a queue of people who are looking for others working on the same challenge. Another feature from the on-line game world that you might consider incorporating are guilds - formal associations of players who assist and help each other out. These strategies apply for teachers too!

3. Design instructional approaches that are open - Publishers have worked under the conceit that their materials were self-contained systems. You can’t build self-contained products anymore so don’t even try. Assume that teachers and learners are going to use your materials as a small part of a much larger set of resources.

4. Build for Dynamic Content - It is more important that you provide a framework for asking questions than the definitive set of facts. We can and should provide a core set of facts, but anticipate that new information will be available before the paper is dry on a new book and make a place for it in your on-line presence.

5. Build RSS into your products - Proactively deliver a steady stream of new content to users. For example, recent data on global warming shows that most of the projections were flat out wrong - they were far too conservative. Structure RSS streams for students, parents, and teachers. Will Richardson at Weblogg-Ed has some interesting ideas on this topic.

6. Adopt a software business model of continuous improvement. I’ve written elsewhere about the difference between book publishing and software development. This is clearly one area where you will want to build a business model (pricing, editorial resources) that assumes you will be improving a product long after it is “published.”

7. Encourage advanced on-line search techniques. This is one of the most important skills we can give students - and many of our teachers are not equipped to coach students in this area. There is an opportunity for publishers to provide the scaffolding for this skill. Tap into the advanced features of Google search or if you want a safe walled garden use NetTrekker. Hire a Librarian to show you how to do this.

8. Plant virtual easter eggs. Seed the web with relevant actionable content (web sites, wikis, and blogs) that good searches will find. Don’t rely completely on serendipity when kids are searching for content. Learn to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so your content floats to the top.

9. Build a two way street - Expect kids to find other relevant materials in their searches. Teacher materials should support incorporating outside information. Allow students and teachers to send you resources that they create or find as they work with your materials. Reward and recognize them for this - make it a competition and you will harness the power of user generated content.

10. Don’t be part of the problem. Filter what is included in everything you do to make sure it is relevant, important, and actionable. Strictly limit the outbound amount of content you generate - don’t overwhelm your audience with spammed content. Be a good information provider in a world of overwhelming information flow. Less is more.

Next Steps

Some of this may look a little weird - it runs against long established paradigms. But these ideas are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I challenge publishers to take one product suite and try all of these ideas with it. Don’t change your whole catalog, but when you do try it don’t use half-measures. Give it your all. And if you would like some help putting these ideas into your context give me a call.

Next in this series we look at how information overload is changing how we should be selling and marketing products.

In comments let us all know about products that are already employing these ideas, suggest other strategies that we could try, or just tell me where I’m wrong.

Information Overload Series

Part 1 - It’s all in your head - really
Part 2 - A cure for “a poverty of attention”
Part 3 - 10 Ways to Build Instructional Products For 21st Century Skills
Part 4 - 10 Ideas to For Marketing & Selling In An Age of Infinite Input
Summary - Closing Thoughts and Resources

Welcome Technology & Learning readers. My article Getting It Wrong - Slaying Myths About Video Games covers 5 misconceptions many teachers about video games and was published in two parts in September and October.

If you are interested in learning more in on the topic of games in the classroom here are two resources to help you.

John Rice's Education Games Research is essential reading on the subject. John is a Technology Director for a School District here in Texas and has published research in this arena. He writes from a practitioner's perspective but also with a good eye for research validation.

Richard Carey has put together an excellent resource over at Squidoo which provides automatically updated links and resources on the topic of Serious Games, Simulations & Learning. You can find books, blogs, and other items of interest at the site.

I also write regulary here on this topic and you can find all the relevant articles by clicking on the Serious Games link in the sidebar.

On a less serious note you can also read John August's Seven Things I Learned from World of Warcraft.

Do video games belong in the classroom?

Part 2 of the article I wrote for Technology & Learning Magazine is up on their website now.

The myths covered this month are:

Myth #3—Learning elements leach all the fun out of games
Myth #4—Teachers don't need to be involved in the game; kids can do it on their own
Myth #5—There isn't any scientifically based research to support the use of video games for learning

The lede:

"Do video games and simulations really belong in the classroom? A growing body of evidence—from education conference sessions to ramped-up gaming research and university pilot programs—all point to the affirmative. However, sensationalized press accounts, a personal lack of familiarity with games, and other factors still contribute to a broad skepticism of their value by educators, parents, and the public. Last month, we addressed the first two of five commonly held myths about video games. Here, we examine the remaining three."

Part 1 from last month is here. The myths debunked were:

Myth #1—Games are all about twitch speed, not higher order thinking skills
Myth #2—Games are just about violence and sex

Enjoy - then come back here and add your thoughts or tell me what I got wrong in comments!

In response to Education Publishing - A Wave of Change Sweeps Over The Industry Randy Wilhelm – Co-Founder & CEO of Thinkronize (publishers of netTrekker) posted a comment worthy of guest blogger status. Randy is a friend and colleague from industry associations and he speaks passionately about what students and teachers need in the 21st Century.

I particularly agree with Randy’s comments about Librarians – in an ocean of information it helps to have a navigator!

By Randy Wilhelm

It has been said that if Rip Van Winkle awoke in the 21st century after his hundred-year-slumber, he would still recognize the classroom. While other industries have made the transition to digital content, the movement in education has been slow going. Until there is a massive investment in technology infrastructure, and a major training effort of our teachers, the bulk of classroom instruction will be tied to print-based materials.

Every year the textbook publishing industry receives a windfall in the high-stakes sum of $8 billion from our nation’s K-12 schools. However, new print editions of our children’s’ textbooks are only distributed every five to seven years, so although their math books might be relevant, their social studies and science texts are vintage the day they come off the press.

That said, I have witnessed hopeful signs of transition. In my role as CEO of an Internet education company, I have seen a meaningful upswing in schools investing in digitally delivered content and products and have been pleased to see that teachers and students are increasingly embracing the Internet.

For example, in many classrooms nationwide, students are now learning with engaging digital content delivered via white boards, or podcasts, creating presentations using multimedia materials and collaborating on these projects using blogs – all signs of progress towards where our classrooms need to be to meet today’s 21st-century learning environment.

My company is witnessing this progress as well. Specifically, from school year 2006 to school year 2007, subscriptions to our K-12 product netTrekker d.i., [http://school.nettrekker.com/frontdoor/] -- delivering safe, relevant digital content to every desktop-- saw an 84% increase. We recently hit the 10 millionth student mark and netTrekker d.i. is now used in 19,000 schools – an increase of 2,000 from last year -- in all 50 states including adoptions by key districts and states nationwide.

So who gets the credit for these promising signs of change? Teachers and students are playing a grand role in the digital transition. Many teachers see their jobs as preparing students for the technology-driven world they'll face as adults and understand that technology offers new solutions for differentiated instruction. And our digitally-native students are raising the bar by demanding that they are taught in the same way that they receive the bulk of their daily information and entertainment – electronically!

And, remember your old school librarian – glasses on a chain around her neck and the Dewey Decimal system on her mind? Well, meet today’s librarian – now also called “media specialist” – whose responsibilities include integrating digital media into both the library and classroom. No longer does she see herself only as the facilitator of information from books and traditional print media – she is now a conduit to all forms of information, print or digital – in whatever format her students need. This is an exciting transformation and one I’ve seen many librarians/media specialists nationwide embrace willingly.


An upcoming independent research study from Interactive Educational Systems Design (IESD) will query both principals and library/media specialists looking at educational issues relating to students, teachers and the Internet. The study will hone in on issues such as Internet safety, information literacy and the professional development and tech-savvy of our teachers. Perhaps the results of this research will be more telling - and promising - in terms of changes in trends and attitudes.

In the end, the future of our children depends on the progress of our educational system. We’re at a pivotal crossroads. The transition from textbooks to digital content –embracing the Internet for its contextually relevant, safe educational content – is vital if our children are to be well equipped for the global challenges of the 21st century.

Teaching metaphors, the role of school in society, bad (i.e. wrong) press for video games, glitz vs. content, banned books, racism in games, phishing games, and monkeys at the keyboard. All featured on this weeks roundup!

Teachings of a Zen Gardener over at PickTheBrain is a beautiful analogy for what teachers do.

The always excellent Will Richardson posted “School as Node” over at Weblogg-Ed. The original post he references talked about revolution but Will argues that we need to engage in a conscious act of evolution. This is a nice follow on to the articles just published here by Paul Schumann.

Unconscionable. Really. Newspaper Seriously Errs Reporting Videogame Study at Educational Games Research. We deserve a better press than this - oh wait we have the web now.

Logic+Emotion published When Presentation Eclipses Story. Textbook publishers are on the horns of a dilemma here - pretty covers and whizzy free-with-order stuff sells books - but at the heart of it we should remember that it is about kids understanding the content. Its also a good reminder for anyone doing a presentation.

Sad but true. Starting to notice - the only people school firewalls keep away from resources are the teachers - students know of every proxy on the planet - from the Classroom 2.0 blog. Related to my entry Disfunction Junction

Love this list - Banned Books: Have you read one? from Clarksville, TN Online. I'm a piker - I've only read 18 of them. But this gives me some ideas..

On the edugaming front at the The Forge · Straight From Central Casting is a disturbing reflection on the role of racism when creating "the bad guys" in game design. Think this doesn't matter for the real world? Head over to DailyKos to read a hilarious send up of anti-muslim stereotyping.

Play this game! Over at PC World Phishing Game Warns Users highlights a great educational game that everyone should play. I consider myself fairly savvy and I only got about 75% right the first time through.

Hat tip to Paul Schumann - this is a really cool video of a crowd game using technology. Look at the intensity - we want that in our classrooms!

Must see video - Chimp vs. Pacman.

[Ed] This entry concludes are guest blogging by Paul Schumann on technology substitution in the K12 market.

Click here to read the introduction to this series.

Click here to read Part 1 – Methodology and Reference Library Case Study

Click here to ready Part 2 - The Data for Supplemental Publishing, Basal Textbooks, Student Devices, Delivery Platforms, & Electronic Media

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Conclusion and Recommendations

Paul Schumann, Glocal Vantage, Inc.

Without a comprehensive study of the usage of educational materials in the K-12 classroom, it is going to be impossible to detect and understand the changes in education that are already underway. Three major substitutions have already begun that we can’t detect with traditional market reports based on sales:

1. New theories of learning: See for example the connectivism movement of George Siemens at the University of Manitoba and the recent book Presence by Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers in which learning is based on the future rather than the past.

2. Utilization of social technologies: See for example Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson and the Learning Technologies Center

3. Collaborative User Generate Content: See for example Wikipedia , Wikibooks, the Open Content Network and the generalized interface for instructional modules (SCORM)

Open Source Content

"Open" content is developed through a collaboration of volunteers who care enough about the subject that they devote their minds and resources to create something of value. A current example of open content creation is Wikipedia.

From "About Wikipedia":

"Wikipedia is a free-content encyclopedia, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. The site is a wiki, which means that anyone can edit articles simply by clicking on the edit this page link.

There are 13,000 active contributors working on over 1,800,000 articles in more than 100 languages. As of today, there are 793,168 articles in English; every day hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to enhance the amount of knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Visitors do not need any special qualifications to contribute, and people of all ages help to write Wikipedia articles.

All the text in Wikipedia, and most images and other content, is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Contributions remain the property of their creators, while the GFDL license ensures the content will remain freely distributable and reproducible."

It appears that in the future, many reference works will be both free and open. This trend will accelerate the decline of the printed reference industry, and may mean the same for the proprietary electronic reference industry unless that industry can determine how to participate in the free and collaborative information trend.

Not only is this trend well underway for the reference publishing industry, it has started in the textbook industry as well. A recent conference "Reconsidering the Textbook: and an article on that conference "The Future of a Dinosaur" are good places to begin an understanding of this trend. The same type of trend is also apparent for scientific and technical journals.

Technology Standards

An enabling technology for open content development is SCORM, described in an article by Robert Brumfied in “Gathering SCORM Could Transform eLearning: Emerging Standard Enables Accessibility, Interoperability of Digital Content”:

"The Sharable Content Object Reference Model--or SCORM--is a collection of standards and specifications adapted from multiple sources to allow for the interoperability, accessibility, and reusability of digital learning materials: everything from a video clip illustrating how cells divide to a PowerPoint explication of a sonnet.

The SCORM specifications are becoming increasingly important for ensuring that digital content can be integrated into any learning management system (LMS) software, regardless of its manufacturer. What's more, SCORM is opening the door for the creation of "digital repositories," or collections of sharable, reusable online content that educators can search through to find items they can incorporate into their own instruction."

Recommendation

This meta research study only scratches the surface of the transformation underway. In order to save the great wealth represented by the industry and the many lives and careers affected by the transformation, a large scale study should be implemented quickly where the appropriate longitudinal data can be collected and analyzed, and strategies developed to chart a roadmap for navigating the transformation.

Other Articles in this Series

Introduction
Part 1 - Reference Libraries and Open Source
Part 2 - Supplemental materials, Basal textbooks, Student Devices (Laptops, handhelds), Delivery Platforms (CD-ROM, Internet), and Electronic Media.
Part 3 – Conclusions & Recommendations

[Ed] Today’s installment shows the data on Supplemental Products, Basal Textbooks, Student Devices, Delivery Platforms, and Electronic Media.

Click here to read the introduction to this series.
Click here to read Part 1 – Methodology and Reference Library Case Study
Click here to read the next and final installment - Conclusion and Recommendations

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Part 2 - Supplemental Products, Basal Textbooks, Student Devices, Delivery Platforms, and Electronic Media

Paul Schumann, Glocal Vantage, Inc.

Supplemental Products

The educational supplemental products market is fragmented and complex. However, at a very high level it is possible to discern substitutions that are occurring. Print based supplemental products are in a steady decline. Electronic media based supplemental products are steadily increasing and will reach 90% of the market in 2020.


Data: Association of American Publishers, 2004

Basal Products

It would appear that the electronic substitution for print in basal education products has begun. While the data indicates that the substitution is in the early stages, it does seem to indicate that it has begun. The data source for this is suspect as it is the results of two surveys without guarantee that the two survey populations were representative samples. Research in the field of substitution analysis generally agrees that if the substitution reaches 5%, the substitution models are accurate.

Data: Association of American Publishers, 2004

Student Devices

Student devices have changed from desk top to lap-top over the years, and are now changing again to other types of devices. This substitution is summarized in graph below.


Data: America’s Digital Schools, The Greaves Group & The Hayes Connectio, 2006

While the number of data points is small, the data fits the Fisher-Pry model well, and supports common knowledge. Desktops are in decline and laptops have reached their maximum penetration of the market. Other types of student devices are rapidly gaining share of the market. While there is data presented in America’s Digital Schools on a number of other student devices, with the limited number of data points, it was impossible to segment the other device category. However, thin client, handheld, cell phones and portable gaming devices seem to be on the decline. While, tablet PCs and student appliances are gaining market share.

Update 10/11/07 - Tom Greaves pointed out that in the student devices market we should include the $200 "laptops" that are just now coming to market from a variety of sources. Depending on whether you place them in the "Device" Category or the "Laptop" category the statements above would change.

Delivery Platforms

In “A Study of the Grade K-6 Supplementary Instructional Materials Market”, the authors use instructional time used as a measure of the penetration of various materials and technologies. This is a much better surrogate measure of the penetration of new technologies and concepts into the market as it doesn’t depend upon the cost of the technology or material. (This approach should be the basis for a thorough study of the substitutions ongoing in the education arena.) However, the data is limited. What is does show is that CDROM and the Internet are gaining share of instructional time at the expense of other media, as shown in the graph below.


Data: Study of the Grade K-6 Supplementary Instructional Materials Market, Hagen Marketing Research Inc., Lois Eskin Associates & Professional Publishing Services, 2004

Ultimately, it appears that the Internet will be the primary method for computer based instructional delivery.

Electronic Media

There are multiple substitutions occurring within the media for K-12 classroom instruction. Modular software and video are loosing market share. Comprehensive courseware is gaining market share now, but will reach its peak of market share in about 2010, and then begin to decline. Online courseware is gaining market share now and will reach a penetration of 60% by 2020.

Data: The Complete K-12 Report, Education Market Research, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 & 2001

[Ed] Tomorrow we share Paul’s conclusions and recommendations.

Other Articles in this Series

Introduction
Part 1 - Reference Libraries and Open Source
Part 2 - Supplemental materials, Basal textbooks, Student Devices (Laptops, handhelds), Delivery Platforms (CD-ROM, Internet), and Electronic Media.
Part 3 – Conclusions & Recommendations

[ed] The business of textbooks and educational technology are in a period of disruption and change. Today we present part one of a three part series that takes a quantitative view of this change. This study uses modeling techniques that have proven themselves in numerous other industries. The implications for education are fascinating and challenging.

Click here to read the introduction to this series.
Click here to read Part 2 - The Data

In today’s installment Paul Schumann gives an overview of the methodology and uses the Reference Library Market as a case study. We start with this market because we have a relatively complete set of data and it demonstrates the model well. He then turns his attention to Open Source content and how this will affect the market. In later installments we look at markets where the data is sketchier but still conforming to the model.

Tomorrow – Supplemental Materials, Basal Textbooks, Student Devices (Laptops, handhelds), Delivery Platforms (CD-ROM, Internet), and Electronic Media.

By Paul Schumann, Glocal Vantage, Inc.

Introduction

Information technologies diffuse through an industry by improving procedures, processes and products. The diffusion usually begins with incremental changes aimed at improving costs, or more broadly, efficiency. This is like a virus infecting a living cell, the informed or informatized (we don’t have good language to describe the result) is transformed into something new. Informed segments of the economy then multiply their effects on the industry radically changing it or destroying it.

The K12 publishing industry is one of the industries being so affected. Information technologies have found their way into the processes of printing books, their distribution, the way they are sold, and even the way we communicate about the books. Now information technology is altering the very nature of publications, especially in textbooks and supplemental materials used. The information technologies developed to aid social change and societal development have begun to impact the industry, threatening to destroy it.

This series of blog entries summarizes the meta research done on the industry highlighting data that indicates the nature and rate of substitution of information technologies for print. There are two overall conclusions from this study. First, that there are indications of the substitution going on in a number of areas. And, second, that we lack a coherent set of data on the industry that would enable us to make firm predictions.

[Ed note: The Association of Education Publishers AEP is undertaking a study that may help with this – no link yet.]

Substitution Analysis

For 36 years Substitution analysis has been a well accepted method of technological forecasting. In these analyses, the Fisher-Pry model was used. The Fisher-Pry model predicts characteristics loosely analogous to those of biological system growth. It results in a S-curve (sigmoidal curve) familiar to many. It is shaped like an escalator. These natural growth processes share the properties of relatively slow early change, followed by steep growth, then a leveling off as size asymptotically approaches a limit.

Reference Library Case Study

We start with a look at the substitution of electronic media for print media in the reference library. The surrogate data that we have is that provided by Association of Research Libraries. The data that ARL provides is a measure of expenditures. Sales figures are quite often used as they provide an aggregate way of indicating the impact of the new technology on the market.

The Fisher-Pry substitution model is often used to analyze a substitution like electronic for print media in the reference library. The relationship between the fraction of total market taken by the new technology, f, is often given as:

f = 1 /(1 + c exp(-bt))

where t is time, and c and b are empirically determined coefficients. In this case b and c were determined from the data provided by Association of Reference Libraries for the years 1992 to 2004.

When these data are analyzed utilizing the Fisher-Pry method, the graph shown in Figure 1 results. It clearly indicates that the substitution of electronic for print is well underway in reference materials. The crossover point will occur in 2008 and 90% substitution will be achieved ten years later.

Figure 1. Data: http://www.arl.org

Taking 1990 as the beginning of the substitution, and the middle projection, the time to 90% substitution by electronic media will take 28 years.

One of the interesting, and most insidious aspects of this type of substitution, when the substitution is taking place in a growing market, is that a large percentage of the substitution has taken place before the old technology sees two successive years of decreased revenue. This is the case here as well. Fifty percent of the total time to 90% substitution has elapsed before the print media have experienced two years decline, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Print Revenue Projections During Transition.

Free Open Source Content – A Special Challenge

There is an additional substitution going on and that is collaborative user generated content for traditional publishing. The reference industry is a pioneer in this substitution in Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page]. This is a substitution within the electronic reference resources, and unfortunately we have no data to indicate how this substitution is progressing. Revenue is not a good surrogate for this type of substitution as the results of the Wikipedia effort are available for free. The only possible measure would be the number of accesses or amount of time that people use Wikipedia versus other traditional reference resources. Wikipedia is certainly growing fast (Figure 3), in spite of professional criticism of the quality of the effort. Figure three indicates the growth in the number of English articles. The number of English articles is projected to be:

2007: 1.7M
2008: 4M
2009: 8.5M
2010: 18M

Figure 3. Wikipedia Articles in English - Source: Wikipedia

The transformation of the reference library is not complete. There are many factors, trends and driving forces that could affect the future of the reference library. I think that the two most important trends affecting the future of the reference library, and by association, the reference publishing industry are: search engines vs. indexed collections, and proprietary vs. open content creation.

Search engines select information to be delivered to you based on your keywords matching them to the content of documents it searches, based on the algorithm of the search engine. It does not deliver the information that is "best" for the purpose of the researcher, as a reference librarian would, nor does it verify its authority, as indexed and abstracted peer reviewed articles/books/reports does. Most search engines will deliver documents that are current, are used frequently and are linked to my other documents (a type of authority measure). What search engines provide is quick, cheap access to over a billion web sites in the world. Given the high costs of the traditional system, and the rapid improvement of search engines, I see search engines providing a lot of the services now fulfilled by reference librarians, and the reference publishing industry.

[Ed note: I wrote about this trend in the articles “Living in a World of Infinite Input” and “21st Century Skills – The Foundation Skill”. I believe the role of the reference librarian will evolve but will be even more critical as information expands exponentially.]

Other Articles in this Series

Introduction
Part 1 - Reference Libraries and Open Source
Part 2 - Supplemental materials, Basal textbooks, Student Devices (Laptops, handhelds), Delivery Platforms (CD-ROM, Internet), and Electronic Media.
Part 3 – Conclusions & Recommendations

Textbooks and Education Technology are changing in disruptive and dramatic ways. Technology substitution is driving a great deal of this change. The recent sale of Harcourt’s various divisions to Pearson and Houghton/Riverdeep is only the tip of the iceberg. Education Publishers of print and technology products, large and small, are all wrestling with these changes.

The changes are affecting every aspect of our business including how products are created, priced, sold, packaged, promoted, and even what the basic definition of a product is. I believe these changes are only beginning and that they will accelerate in the next several years. Anecdotal evidence includes attendance at shows like the recent IRA (empty) and NECC (swamped). Sales of electronic whiteboards (Promethean, Smart, RM) are skyrocketing. Pearson swept the California Social Studies adoption with a hybrid technology and print product.

We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

A Quantitative View

There is a more quantitative way to study this change. Over the next few days we will be publishing a study done by Paul Schumann a futurist and business analyst who has studied the sources and rate of change across many industries at IBM and as an independent consultant at Glocal Vantage. He has taken a detailed look at the Education Market and his findings have profound implications for where our industry is headed. Paul has published another version of this study on his blog Innovation Travelogue.

Paul’s analysis is a quantitative tour through what we can expect in the coming years. The punch line is that we are at the beginning of the product substitution shown in the chart below. Don’t discount the dramatic nature of this prediction. When disruptive technologies hit an industry the change often sneaks up on the unprepared and is largely over before there is time to react. Consider the tale of print encyclopedia’s which saw the value of their products plummet from over $2,000 to under $5 in a 3 year period in the 1990’s when CD-ROM based products were bundled with other software.

Here is a small sample from the report:

“One of the interesting, and most insidious aspects of this type of substitution, when the substitution is taking place in a growing market, is that a large percentage of the substitution has taken place before the old technology sees two successive years of decreased revenue. This is the case [in Reference Libraries]. Fifty percent of the total time to 90% substitution has elapsed before the print media have experienced two years decline”

Think about that.

Other Articles in this Series

Introduction
Part 1 - Reference Libraries and Open Source
Part 2 - Supplemental materials, Basal textbooks, Student Devices (Laptops, handhelds), Delivery Platforms (CD-ROM, Internet), and Electronic Media.
Part 3 – Conclusions & Recommendations

Below the fold a bio of Paul Schumman

Continue reading "Education Publishing - A Wave of Change Sweeps Over The Industry - Introduction" »

Interesting links on education publishing, education technology, and virtual worlds in education.

Research shows schools that fund Libraries have higher scores. Annie Teich at Crazy for Kids Books talks about some work that AASL is doing to shed light on this. I'm surprised this research hasn't been done before.

Student blogger censored by Judge for disparaging administrators. Everyone agrees that the student used unfortunate language on her personal blog to describe school officials, but the Judge sided with the school in abrogating her free speech rights. This one will get appealed. See my article on the disconnect between new technology and schools.

Effects of videogames on spatial learning and awareness are long lasting (and even between the genders). Commercial Gaming guro Damien Schubert comments on some fascinating early results from research in this area.

Google gets into virtual worlds? Raph Koster and others are reporting that it looks like Google is partnering with ASU on a virtual world build on top of Google Earth. Does this have anything to do with James Gee moving down there recently?

Teachers excited about learning due to new technologies! Carolyn Foote at the excellent Not So Distant Future blog talks about how excited she and her peers are about learning and collaborating internationally and muses about how we can share that with the students. (Disclosure - my son attends her school).

Serious Games are not just for kids. John Rice over at Educational Games Research does a nice roundup of some of the recent news around Seniors and videogames. The cognitive benefits apply to all ages!

We need teachers more than ever with new technologies. I agree. There will be more on this in part 2 of my article in Technology & Learning.

Update on game engines for Education. Richard Carey does a nice job of updating his reporting on this critical topic.

The perfect marketing plan. Solid advice on making marketing plans mean something from John Jantsch at Duck Tape Marketing.

Hi-larious IBM video from the '60's about home shopping. Oh well - they did the best they could. They did see the basics - they just had no way to imagine the real breakthroughs and the many ways that society itself would change.

My article busting myths about video games and learning is on Technology & Learning's website now - you can find it here. The prior link was to the flash version of the whole magazine.

Many many many thanks to Jo-Ann McDevitt who encouraged this and especially to Susan McLester who was a great teacher and editor on this project. Give T+L some love - go read the whole thing there.

Here is a teaser from the lead -

"...When you look past the Orcs, Gnomes, and other fanciful inhabitants and elements, you find Blizzard has built an elegant and engaging learning management system. WoW does an outstanding job of guiding players to their zone of proximal development and provides a neverending stream of feedback and fresh challenges while leaving the player in charge. My guess is that philosopher and psychologist Jean Piaget would be proud and amused to see his ideas implemented in this context and on such a global scale."

If you want to see the Flash version of the whole magazine it is here. The article starts on page 16.

As always - come back and tell me what I missed!

Technology & Learning published the first part of my article on myths about games in the classroom today. [updated to connect to the non-flash version]

This is a two part series. In next month's issue I look at three more myths and suggest some paths forward for those who are interested.

It got a nice review on John Rice's Educational Games Blog.

As a side note it was kind of cool to see my WoW character on the opening page. If my sons hadn't been at camp when I wrote it we would have had all three of us together.

Go read it - then come back here and tell me what I got wrong!

Second Life in Education is a hot topic. In that vein EdNet had a strong panel that included folks from SRI, a Teacher who has been using it extensively in her school, and a representative from Second Life. This is the first of three articles on this presentation.

First off, I find it interesting that Second Life is getting most of the visibility in Education when other virtual worlds (Habbo Hotel, Whyville, etc.) are doing far more with K12 age kids and some have more intentionally educational content on them. Chalk it up to Second Life being a media darling and to good outreach from their Education team. If you are interested in this arena some of these other worlds merit a look.

SRI - An R&D Perspective

John Brecht from the Center for Technology in Learning (CTL) at SRI kicked things off. He talked about Lakamaka, a project that focused on language learning in context. In Lakamaka the narrative thread is built around travel - you need to check into hotels, order meals, etc. They have a developed voice recognition engine which allows players to practice their language skills without access to native speakers.

He then shared the lessons learned from this project. They are:

Second Life is a big investment, but not where you think it will be. The software itself is free and content is inexpensive. It is expensive to train teachers how to use the new tools and it requires a high end machines (this alone is enough to give many schools a pause).

Focus on the interactivity aspects - that is where the power lies. It is a great tool for collaborative interactivity, immersion, visualization, and simulation.

Don’t make 3D PowerPoint sites. This isn’t a good environment for virtual lectures, it isn’t great for media delivery (even with high end machines), and chat is better in RL (real life).

Integrate it into existing practice. It isn’t going to replace what works well, so spend the time to figure out how it can compliment the learning ecosystem.

He also listed the challenges of working with Second Life. There isn’t a plug in architecture (its coming), security for teens may be an issue since everything runs on Linden’s servers, and it is relatively high maintenance since Linden does weekly updates.

Brecht also mentioned some worthy alternatives to consider if you are doing development work in this area including Croquet , Sun's Wonderland , Multiverse, and private worlds from Sony and Microsoft. He might have added Muzzy Lane and Numedeon’s NICE to this list as well (both of which were specifically built for educational use).

Tomorrow - Ramapo Middle School - A Practitioner’s View

Breaking down artificial boundaries in the world of Education emerged as a theme today at EdNet in Chicago. This applies to the curriculum, but it also applies to how schools are managed - it may be a new overarching meme for education.

Chuck House from Media X at Standford kicked things off with a keynote that touched on a lot of interesting ideas. One of them was that the big challenges our society faces (e.g. global warming, terrorism) cross many disciplines. Addressing them demands the ability to weave disparate ideas together. We need to proactively teach that skill. In addition, how we access knowledge via the web is going to force schools to start breaking down the artificial barriers we have set up between subject areas.

This thread was picked up early in the afternoon by panelist Jackson Grayson from the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC). One of his central points was that most schools don't do process management very well - they manage inputs and outcomes well but they don't focus on what happens in the middle, which all about process. Moreover - when they do focus on process they do it in silos - they look at finance or curriculum but don't look at where those things intersect. Echoing Chuck's presentation Jackson noted that the big issues schools face require a systemic approach that crosses boundaries.

As publishers we have our own set of challenges in this area. We tend to silo products - print vs. technology or basal vs. supplemental - in ways that may not serve our customers well. Some of the more interesting projects - like Pearson's California Social Studies submission - have shown the power of breaking those barriers down.

This is a great meeting for making contacts, catching up, and getting some new ideas about our business. Many thanks to Quality Education Data and their many sponsors for supporting the meeting.

On-line games and virtual worlds were the theme at this year’s Austin Game Developers Conference (AGDC). This is the third of a few roundup articles about the conference with a focus on topics of interest to education and education publishers.

The parallels between how the web is changing the game industry and the world of education publishing are fascinating. Because of the inherent lag in the education market we can learn a lot from how gaming companies are adapting to the web’s incursion into their business.

Raph Koster - Designing for Everywhere

Raph, President of Areae, started by pointing out that 7 of the 8 largest MMOs are web based, not CD-ROM based, and that they have millions of monthly users. His message to the game developers was that by their standards the web based MMOs have horrible interfaces and very low production values. Game developers need to break out of their paradigms and start thinking of games that can be separated from their interface and design and still be compelling. Water dripping from your sword in foggy moonlight is cool, but it isn’t the game. Can you play on a phone? Can you play it on your TV? Could you play it on paper? Can you interface to the game from your GPS? The customers are already going there, better follow!

For publishers this has some interesting parallels. Textbooks in particular have become highly focused on their covers and the free-with-order stuff that wraps around them. Publishers rightly take a great deal of pride the production quality of the products including the instructional design. But, in the age of the web that production quality isn’t nearly as important as it used to be.

One could argue that the most successful textbook product today is Wikipedia which gets 7 billion page views per month for a two color interface. In this view of learning the impact of textbooks is a rounding error.

This was a sobering reminder of how much the web changes the game even for industries that we tend to think of as cutting edge. It will only be more disruptive to industries that are unused to rapid change.

I’m gong to write a deeper and long post on Raph’s design ideas in the next couple of weeks.

Denis Dyack - The Medium is the Message

Dyack, President of Silicon Knights publishers of Too Human, Metal Gear Solid, and Eternal Darkness was an excellent late addition to the agenda.

One of the more interesting ideas (among many) that he shared is that Video Games are the 8th Art Form. This concept grew out of early film theory - Ricciotto Canudo (1879-1923) called cinema the 7th art form when it blended the spatial arts (architecture, sculpture, painting) with the temporal arts (music, poetry, dance). Dyack’s thesis is that with the addition of interactivity video games have created an 8th art form.

Because it is so new we are still finding our way with it, for example learning to write stories for video games is still in its infancy - we really don’t know how to do it well yet.

For education this presents some interesting challenges. A good game requires a narrative thread (even Pac Man had this) but we rarely build education products around a story. Its all about standards and pedagogy and correlations and if we add something to it we tend to focus on adding images and design elements.
What is puzzling about this is that education at its root is passing on access to our collective knowledge, and that knowledge is nothing more than the story of man’s messy tragicomic progress.

One of the most interesting histories I’ve ever read was George Stewart’s “Names on the Land” published in 1945 which tells the story of American History through the prism of how and why we named places.

As one reviewer on Amazon put it:

"I myself half-expected this book to be organized by state, perhaps in alphabetical order. This is not the case. Stewart has organized his data by THEMES in naming, and how these themes have emerged in our history. Therefore, the book (very roughly) follows our history chronologically, as various naming trends have come and gone, in the context of various cultural waves. This pattern tends to approximately follow the "peopling" of the continent (by descendants of Europeans) from east to west."

Sulka Haro - Fostering Open-Ended Play: Unleashing the Creative Community

Sulka Haro, one of the founders of Habbo Hotel was the keynote on the second day. Habbo has been around since 2000. Today they have 7.5 million unique players per month and their largest demographic is 13-16 years with a 51%/49% split between boys and girls. Their user base puts them in the same league as World of Warcraft (see Koster’s point above) but they have done this with an unconventional model.

In Habbo users create a character and get a room they can decorate. Haro described their business as giving users tools and space with the confidence that something will happen. Access is free but users buy “products” like furniture to decorate their rooms through micro-transactions. This might not look like much - but they have built at $50 million business around it.

They believe there are a couple of reasons they appeal to the 13-16 year old demographic - and these are highly relevant for education publishers.

1. Kids at this age are developing their identities and starting to engage much more with the social aspects of life. Today’s 14 year olds were born in 1994, after the web came out. An environment like this feels natural to them. If you are building products for this group a web based component is expected and they are sophisticated consumers of on-line resources so you’d be well served to get it right.

2. The site is really about open play - something that kids this age still remember how to do but lack the social permission to do in real life. Habbo provides an outlet for this. One example he gave is that someone built their room into a McDonalds and kids will go and “play” a minimum wage job for a couple of hours at a time.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of their model is that the content scales with the user base. Haro’s formula was f(players)=f(content) because as the players create content the content scales to the size of the community. He dislikes the phrase “user generated content” (UGC) and prefers “player created activity” which actually describes it in a way a player might (not a publisher).

This talk was relevant for showing a very real alternative business model and a model of a user driven virtual world that is extremely successful with teenagers. To Koster’s point about interface and UI - if you looked at Habbo from a traditional gamer perspective it looks simplistic and even ugly. Yet more kids are "playing" it every month than any video game available (WoW has all ages).

What could publishers do with their vast backlists if they could atomize them and make them available through microtransactions in a virtual world - allowing kids and/or teachers to build their own learning libraries?

Other articles in this series:

Morhaime From Blizzard

Nurturing Influencers for Education Products

The panel on Managing Influencers at the Austin Game Developers Conference yesterday got me thinking about a frequently ignored aspect of the K12 publishing world - building and nurturing communities of key influencers around education products.

In education influencers are the people who speak at regional trade shows, who write blogs and podcasts, who participate in on-line forums, and who serve on state and national committees. We often rely on our Sales Reps and the Curriculum Consultants to handle this aspect of the business. But managing influencers is very different than maitaining good relationships with key customers and it is fundamentally a post sales responsibility.

"Managing key customers" is a transactional view - it is about the next sale. Reps will tell you that relationships are the key - and they are - but they are based on transactions. Influencers want a different kind of recognition - they want to be respected for their ideas not for their wallets. This means they need a different approach. As one of the speakers put it - "Marketing brings customers in - Community Management keeps them there."

What lessons from the on-line Community Managers in the game world could we benefit from in education?

1. Assign influencer management to customer support not marketing or sales.
2. Treat this as a high level hire not entry level. The people managing influencers need to be able to go toe to toe with them. Ex- Principals, Lead Teachers, Department Chairs would all be good candidates.
3. Make sure the program is tightly in sync with Customer Support and Marketing - no surprises either way should be the mantra. When things go wrong you want your Community Managers to be able to quickly tap the influencers for feedback.
4. Listen more than you talk to them. And when you do talk make sure it is a conversation not a sales pitch.
5. Don't over use them - you can burn influencers out by bombarding them with information and requests.
6. Support their credibility - don't ask them to only talk about your products or only say good things about them.

Mike Morhaime, President & Co-Founder of Blizzard Entertainment kicked off the Austin Game Developers Conference (AGDC) this morning. Blizzard produces the wildly successful World of Warcraft on-line multiplayer behemouth (9 million+ players worldwide). AGDC is focusing on on-line games this year and a packed auditorium was eager to pick up some pearls of wisdom from the industry leader.

Blizzard matters to education because when you strip away the Orcs and Elves under the hood they have built an extremely elegant learning management system. As the undisputed world wide leader in the MMO space we have a lot to learn from their approach to building products and structuring their business.

Morhaime started by taking us over some familiar ground - the extreme rate of change we are living through and how it is difficult for us to see it from the midst of it. For example, in 1991 it took 9 hours to fly from Los Angeles to Paris. If airlines had kept pace with the rate of improvement in computer speeds it would now take 2 minutes.

My surprise of the morning came when he revealed how Blizzard has deep roots in the Education Technology space. They were founded in 1991 by three recent UCLA Engineering Grads with 2 PCs in an apartment. In 1993 they were purchased by Davidson and Associates. Through various corporate mergers they are now part of Vivendi.

One has to wonder if some of the lessons from ed tech about neurscience and learning rubbed off on the game guys - after all the first task a successful game has to master is teaching the user how to play the game. Without this it becomes an excercise in frustration - i.e. a bomb of a game. It is an economic imperitive that they get this right. Hence the elegant learning management system underlying the whole game.

From there he walked us through a series of solid business advice from a hugely successful company. There wasn't anything earth shattering, but then success is usually built on solid execution of some great ideas. In order they are:

1. Gameplay first

Their first priority is always to make great games. If they don’t get this right none of the rest of it matters. The game market is like a donut - in the center are the core markets (hard core players, opinion makers) but the casual markets are the much bigger ring. The combination is success not one or the other. They try to build games that are deep and replayable while still accessable.

Another way to put this is that game should be easy to learn, difficult to master. As an example he cited Guitar Hero. Anyone can get into it quickly.

2. Build and Protect the Brand

They want to be seen as high quality - with fun and polish One way to test this goal is to have a player see an unknown game from Blizzard and they buy it because they trust the brand so much.

They strive to only make “brand deposits” only - not “brand withdrawels.” This drives promo plans, fees (value equation).

3. Resist the pressure to ship early

You only have one chance to make a first impression.

Think long term - don’t mortgage the future to meet the quarter. In 1996 when they were working on Diablo - they were shooting for xMas. Instead they released it on Dec 31st. It sold well through the whole following year. No one looks back and says “of only they had released it 3 weeks earlier”. Players love it but if it had gone out early they would only think about it as a buggy game.

4. Resist the pressure to do everything at once

Don’t let the distractors pull you away from what is important. Build on your successes, gain expertise, then get more ambitious. If you try to do everything at once you risk actually goes up.

5. Estimating Demand is always a challenge.

WoW was their first on-line subscription based game. Their launch night was off the charts and they realized they needed more hardware immediately. Several times in the first year they had to stop retail distribution because they didn’t have capacity to support new users.

When they launched the latest release to WoW they overestimated but the system held up to 2.1 million units moving in the first blush of the release.

6. HR is Really Important

They went from 250 employees (estimate from the chart) to 3,000 between 2003 and 2007. As business exploded they had to scale across the entire business - every function. They could not have done it without putting a solid HR team in place. He didn't mention it, but this is the kind of advantage you can get from being part of a major corporation - this type of expertise and the systems needed to support it can be quickly grafted on.

7. Running a MMORPG is not just game development.

You need 24/7 IT, community management, and global services. Everything that impacts a players experience are as important as the game play itself. They became a service company.

8. Communicate - or people will make stuff up.

They found they needed formal processes to keep the community and international divisions informed - particularly during fire drills. This involved things like formalized email lists to push information and a layer of people who were around the development team to keep internal info flowing. Another example is a process for dealing with problems when they didn’t know when it can be fixed (e.g. check back in an hour).

9. Avoid financial incentives

If there is a financial reward - a lot of people will go out and do it. Gold farming, account stealing, credit card fraud. This has bad implications for the wider group of players who just want to play the game. They do whatever they can to minimize the financial rewards but it is a constant battle. The believe it is important that they fight this behavior to protect their players.

10 Testing - never trust version 1.0

Everyone at the company tests, then they do a public beta. In the public beta you find out from more about load balancing. More importantly you uncover exploits or what they call "cheese" - a most efficient path that gets you game rewards faster even if isn’t fun. People will do it if it is there - which will rub off on the game negatively. They strive to loop back to number one - gameplay matters.

He also spent a fair amount of time talking about how they have evolved as a global corporation. They now get more than half their subscribers from Asia and when they released the Burning Crusade they did it in a series of midnight releases rolling around the globe. In the old days (the 90's) they would release it in the US and then some time later do translations and release it overseas.

As education goes more and more global this has interesting implications for our business. It will clearly move much more closely than it will in the gaming world. But you just have to listen to Marjorie Scardino of Pearson talk about China to get a sense of how it is coming at us and quickly.

Textbook publishers have a checkered history with developing technology products - which I’ve already commented on here and here.

Yesterday Richard Carey sent me a link to Rockets, Cars, and Gardens, which does a very elegant job of explaining different software development paradigms.

One of the concepts that jumped out at me is the idea of developing products in a portfolio model. To quote:

“...the portfolio model is like firing a swarm of rockets and hoping one hits. The company greenlights a large number of projects, funds them fully and hopes that one of them will blossom into a success. In return for spending more money, you rarely have to wait until version 3.0 to observe success.”

This is the approach textbook publishers take with most supplemental products. Since it is hard to predict exactly what the market wants they throw a lot out of books there and make money off the winners.

This works swell in a market where your costs and design questions are known and well developed, like printing textbooks (or music in the article). You know what it costs to print a book of a certain length on a given paper stock. Its a given that it will have a table of contents, a teacher’s edition, and other standard elements.

With software almost none of those questions is known in advance. It is much harder to know exactly what is going to be needed - which would make an even stronger case for the kind of portfolio model the publishers are already using for print products.

The opposite usually happens. Software is seen as higher risk than print because of all the unknowns, so publishers only greenlight one or two projects at a time. When they do this they then go on to make additional problems for themselves by under funding or over funding the projects.

1. They fund it like a book - which isn’t nearly enough when you have so many unknowns to resolve. To the print folks it looks like the techies are just flailing around and doing a lot of analysis, but that is only because in the print world so many questions have rock solid answers in advance. The techies are actually working to best practices but have a hard time convincing the print folks of this.

2. They fund it like a war - it becomes the “mother of” all software projects. This drags development out, ratchets up costs, and ultimately means you are very distant from your customer’s needs. Eventually someone sane comes along and kills the whole thing leaving a bad taste in everyones mouth about technology.

What would be interesting to see is if a publisher had the stomach to take the funding they were doing on one mega project and spread it around on 20 small projects with the idea that they are going to kill at least 15 of them before they launch.

What is odd is that they already know and love this approach - its just that the costs and unknowns associated with software spook them into forgetting it.

I'm assuming this is just a rhetorical device but Wesley Fryer over at Infinite Thinking Machine is calling for a textbook moratorium so we can get laptops and digital curriculum in everywhere.

I don't disagree with his urge to shake things up and increase the rate of change in the market towards digital resources but the suggestion flys in the face of our experience with every other new technology that has come along.

YouTube hasn't killed Cable,
which didn't kill broadcast TV,
which didn't kill radio,
which didn't kill newspapers,
which didn't kill books,
which didn't kill handwriting
which didn't kill gossip
and well you get the general idea.

Everything is additive, people always manage to find the best use of a medium in their current information diet. The balance will certainly change over time but I can confidently predict based on several hundred years of technological change that textbooks will NEVER go away.

Their role in instruction will change, and they will evolve to reflect those changes, but calling for a moratorium actually misses the point. The conversation we need to be having revolves around how to best use the current suite of tools so that each is making the optimum contribution to teaching and learning. It isn't so much a fight between tech and print as it is between the 19th century and the 21st century. The tools are neutral in this.

Hat tip to elearnspace to posting about this earlier.

See also my earlier post Where is the Wii for Education?

Virtual Worlds and Video Games for Education are getting a lot of press these days. With all the hoopla it helps to bring a little perspective to where we are in the development of this new market. It is feeling a lot like the web in 1997 and perhaps we can take some lessons from that era to help us make sense of today’s emerging opportunities.

Nick Wilson over at Metaversed did an excellent piece titled 7 Reasons Why Virtual Worlds are Like the Web Circa 1997. In this post is I delve a little deeper into his list as it relates specifically to education and the companies that serve this market.

Here is Silver’s premise:

The reality is that the 3D web is in its infancy...those people trying to make the best of the kludgy communications systems, poor system stability and all the other oddities that arise from using a system that's in constant development are at the forefront of something that will eventually change the way we all live and work on the internet.

That doesn't stop it feeling like some kind of insane time warp though. With that in mind, here's a fun, but true list of reasons why what we're doing in virtual worlds today is like what we did 10yrs ago.

He talks about the seven points for the broad general market, here are my expansions on his ideas for Education.

1. Return of the Walled Garden - No one wants to return to the browser wars, but in education there are valid reasons for creating walled gardens, children’s on-line safety being the leading one. There are also valid pedagogical reasons why a District or Classroom might want to restrict membership in a virtual world to their students. While this may be a negative in the consumer space it frequently is an advantage in educational spaces.

2. Clueless Corporations - In the late '90s there were a slew of education internet sites that were total disasters because people rushed in who didn’t understand either the web or the classroom. You could tell who they were because they oozed arrogance all over the table.

There are some enduring sites that emerged from this era and the common thread seems to be a basic economic model that doesn't rely on advertising and a focus on supporting teachers. Those sites that were going to spam the classroom with ads or who were going to rely on the students who “got it” to do their marketing failed. Often miserably and publicly.

3. Spinning Logos - Lots of people are building out education spaces in Second Life with no plan to actually build a community. A flashy building and cool amphitheater can’t overcome a lack of depth (or scalability). One of the most successful education sites around - Whyville - which has attracted 2.5 million kids since 1999 has a very simple interface based on older technologies. They succeed because they consciously put a great deal of effort into community building.

4. First Fever - Unlike the larger market where companies are piling into Second Life in education market investors burned last time are hesitant to make a bet today. They now believe the education market is the equivalent of lighting cigars with $100 bills.

But there is a real first mover advantage in education which can lower the investment risk profile. Education markets take longer to build, but once they do they are a far stabler annuity stream than the fickle consumer space. When teachers embed activities in their lesson plans and get good results the switching costs go up considerably, hence the first mover advantage.

5. Rock Star Designers - Many education companies know that they lack the expertise and processes to move aggressively in these spaces. As a result they are looking to outsiders to help them move quickly. The mistake they make is assuming that the new products somehow require a new approach to product launches and diffusion. Hire the rock stars to build the environments, but make sure they are guided by education expertise from internal staff and consultants. For education the overriding theme should be how these efforts fit in to existing practice, otherwise it becomes too much work for the average teacher.

6. If You Spam It, They Will Come - Silvers focuses on search noting that “its very easy to find stuff, but not very easy to find good stuff.” For education the key links have to be to the education standards. No one outside of a university setting has done a good job of tightly integrating standards and making it easy for teachers to see this and report on it. Right now the attitude seems to be “just throw some stuff up there” and we’ll see what happens. An intentional approach will win the day here.

7. Selling Picks and Shovels - The big winners last time were those who sold the tools. For educational virtual worlds the toolsets are changing quickly and reducing the cost of entry. There are several that can be used for educational tools and Richard Carey has done a nice job of explaining the differences. For those who want to play in this space the cost of getting your prototype done and in the hands of educators has come down considerably in just the past few months.

However the tool companies were not the biggest winners - the “content” providers (Amazon, eBay, Facebook, etc.) are where the serious money got made. For education this means finding a way to expand and amplify the core content areas. The virtual worlds that can do that in engaging and sustainable ways will be home runs.

This is a very exciting time to be involved in this arena - there is a great positive energy and a sense that we are on the cusp of building some powerful additions to the pool of tools that teachers use in the classroom. If we can learn a few things from the last time we went through this we can help that day arrive sooner and create products with real staying power.

Collective writing is a critical 21st Century Skill. Wikis are the primary tool for teaching this skill today. What resources exist to help teachers use wikis in the classroom? Recently this issue has been bubbling up on several places.

The Wall Street Journal had an article on the discussions behind the Wikis. For educational purposes there is more meat in the discussion threads for classroom conversation and interesting opportunities for students to engage actively with content than there often is in the articles themselves. Money quote:

"But discussion pages are also where Wikipedians discuss and debate what an article should or shouldn't say.

This is where the fun begins. You'd be astonished at the sorts of things editors argue about, and the prolix vehemence they bring to stating their cases."

Will Richardson over at Weblogg-Ed followed up on this with a post that talked specifically about what this means for classroom use. His take:

"I keep thinking what a necessary part of the writing process this type of negotiation is going to be as we collaborate more and more on wikis and documents and videos and whatever else. When I ask teachers whether their students are writing employing truly collaborative practices (not simply “cooperative”) and whether they are writing either alone or together in hypertext environments (which I also believe is a part of writing literacy these days), blank stares usually ensue.

Teaching Wikipedia gives us the opportunity to do both, especially if we tune into those back channel conversations."

Lest you think this only applies to existing classroom content there are some folks working to integrate Wikis with Virtual Worlds so that you can have a parallel discussion/construction while experiencing the world. John Rice over at the Educational Games Blog notes:

"a wiki, can be combined with commercial gaming content. The possibilities seem very interesting. A professor can assign students tasks in a MMO, and the students can team up on producing a document in a wiki at the same time they are engaged in the MMO."

But it isn't all roses. Wikis can be gamed by those with an ideological or political angle. It was recently discovered that the CIA and voting maching manufacturer Diebold were editing entries. Even Fox News was unbalancing things by editing articles to make themselves look better and opponents look worse.

But of course that goes back to the Journal's point - the discussion threads where the knowledge is constructed are some of the most interesting and informative parts of the site. There are also where you would learn about who is editing a piece and what changes have been made over time.

Hmm - I wonder if there is a word for that constructive kind of learning....

An idea for reforming the textbook market in higher education was floated on the editorial page of the New York Times this past Sunday. Fellow Austinite Michael Granof proposed converting the textbook market to a site license approach used in the software world. His ideas, while thought provoking, fail the reality test.

With a 16 year old son headed off to university in a couple of years I’m sensitive to the rapidly rising costs of higher education and the portion that textbooks represent. But I also think it is disingenuous to point at books as a major cause of this inflation. Students spend about 5% of their budgets on books, and the total is declining 1.8% this year. Compare this with the market for electronics where students spend twice as much and it is increasing at 25% per year. Was this topic worthy of a NYT Op-Ed?

But putting relevance aside lets look at his arguments. First - the numbers seem high. The article cites costs ranging from $120-$180 for a complete textbook. The Association of College Bookstores puts the average cost of a new textbook at $52. Even assuming his numbers are correct Granof overstates the problem by implying that this is a cost born by every student every semester. Oddly, his own statements contradict this central argument.

“Today the used-book market is exceedingly well organized and efficient.”

So which is it - an extortionate group of publishers or an efficient market? Even in the antediluvian ‘70’s and ‘80’s when I was making a run through Higher Education I never bought all new books. Your average student, unless they are an idiot or a millionaire, is never going to pay full freight for books. The majority of their purchases should be used-books with an occasional new title where absolutely necessary.

The average cost per title will be far below the numbers Granof cites. Lets use Granof’s own numbers to make this point. Averaging the prices he cites a book would cost $150. At the stated budget of $900/semester that means students are only buying 6 books a semester. That is a pretty light load. Students have to be buying lots of used-books to live within that budget.

Beyond this he also misses the mark by assuming that most students will be happy consuming books on-line. This of course adds the cost of a computer and ubiquitous network access to the equation (ignored in the article). This is a both a huge cost to the University and the student and for equity purposes can’t just be assumed away. In fact - as already noted - students spend twice as much in electronics as they spend on books.

More importantly this assumption flies in the face of in-market experience. Despite millions invested in re-creating the book experience on-line it hasn’t met with widespread acceptance in the market.

I’m willing to admit that this might be because publishers just haven’t figured it out yet. Most publishers have a pretty horrid track record with digital products due to the clashing paradigms of print and software.

But I also think there is a fair amount of common sense to the concept that re-creating the book experience on-line is a dumb idea and most students agree. This is a sign that their education is working for them. Books do what they do best and they have been refined for their purpose over several hundred years. Technology should be harnessed for what it does best (simulations, large scale number crunching, productivity tools, communication) not doing the functional equivalent of putting plays on early television.

There are some other points that are glossed over in the piece. For example I’m surprised that an accounting professor would assume that any company would be willing to accept “a small profit” unless there are serious market forces that make that a requirement. He also states that this radical restructuring of the market would be a “small modification” and “a slight change.”

Why doesn’t he complain that Apple is overcharging students for iPods? After all, if you wanted to control the costs associated with higher education that would have a bigger impact at this point than grinding more efficiency out of an already “well organized and efficient” market.

Visit the AAP sponsored Text Book Facts site for more detail on college spending and the place of books in it. Disclosure - I am not a member of AAP, but I am a recovering textbook publisher.

I also think that a much more interesting question is what will the role of textbooks be in a world where information is exploding exponentially. There is a role, but it is going to change in unpredictable ways.

That is a topic I'd love to sit down over a cup of coffee with Professor Granof and hash out.

There is a follow up to this article with a response from Michael Granof here.

Unpacking the Zeitgeist is an amusing post about World of Warcraft (WoW). In it Sci Fi Author Charlie Stross attempts to explain to someone from 1977 how Gnomes dropped from the sky in the shape of a URL advertisement in WoW. He unpacks 30 years of assumed knowledge (what is the internet, what is a PC, why do people play games dressed up as furry animals?). As Raph Koster noted this represents pre-traumatic stress disorder as we contemplate what this means for 2037.

Think of the ingenuity and focus it took to pull this stunt off. The intellect behind it is creative, transgressive, technical, and funny - all at the same time! Where are we teaching these skills in today's classrooms? Talk about your 21st Century Skills.

As a side note I happened to be wandering through Ironforge that day on my toon (Embir - Level 70 Mage on Stonemaul). I was stumped when I happened upon the neat piles of gnomes in front of the bank. It was only later that I realized what I'd seen.

If none of this makes any sense to you I highly recommend that you engage with games and gamers. Blizzard announced today that over 9 million people worldwide are now active subscribers to World of Warcraft. A whole culture has emerged around these gaming communities. Tapping the elements of that culture that tap into 21st Century Skills - and there are a lot of them - would make a huge difference in schools. (This will be the subject of a later post.)

But it can't be learned by reading about it - GO PLAY!

Statewide Web 2.0 applications for education are a growing force in the market. This has huge implications for how schools will organize and manage information.

Education Enterprise Software has always played a critical role in the adoption of new technologies. For example, when web applications first debuted in schools many of the earliest and longest lasting applications connected parents to student information systems. Yet, with all the noise lately about School 2.0 the focus has been on social networks and classroom applications.

Here is an interesting case study from Holland where they are deploying a Web 2.0 attendance application across multiple districts to help reduce truancy rates. Eventually over 200,000 students will be tracked. All the professionals involved (teachers, counselors, administrators) have custom work-flows that help them make sure the right kids are in the right schools.

In the US, transcript management is one of the more interesting uses of these technologies. National Transcript Center recently won state-wide bids in Texas and West Virginia to help manage student transfers between districts as well as college and employment applications. They and their competitors are leading the way towards a new paradigm of software for schools.

What the Dutch and US examples have in common is that they are:

* Multi-district
* Web based
* Users control and manage their own information needs

In the US this is likely to manifest itself in statewide systems that help reduce the costs of routine administrative tasks. Texas is projected to save over $7 million per year (pdf) with the NTC system.

What will be more interesting is when these types of systems can be used to evaluate educational practices by looking across multiple districts at large data-sets. Most districts in the US simply are not large enough generate solid statistical data and most of the current efficacy research in this arena focuses on a few classrooms at a time. We move forward doing the best we can backed by anecdote and social science. There have been some innovative new approaches to looking at statewide data but they are expensive and difficult to do because of the limitations of todays systems. These new systems promise a new era in educational research.

What implications does this have for the education business ?

1. More and more systems will move to statewide deployments. This is the next phase of a transition that began in the mid-90's from site based to district based enterprise systems.
2. New applications will allow the user much more control over the information they use and create. Prototypes have existed for the last 15 years of administrator dashboards but their use has been fairly limited until recently. Students, parents, and teachers will all get this functionality as well. This has major implications for design and architecture of software systems as well as user support.
3. Data standardization using SIF and other interoperability formats will gather steam. It isn't practical to deploy these statewide systems without data standardization.
4. We can expect a push back once these systems reach a certain critical mass. There is still a strong element of local control in the US system and these new statewide systems will have to accommodate that (probably through SIF).
5. This will be a long slow transition - schools are reluctant to trade out the enterprise systems because of all the training and implementation headaches that come with it. The average life of an SIS is 7 years and in larger districts it can stretch to almost 14 years (reference SIS Trends and Opportunities Report).

As the old Chinese curse says - "may you live in interesting times."

The Games Learning & Society Conference (GLS) kicked off this morning in Madison WI with a packed breakfast sessionat 8 AM.

The conference has about 350 attendees and is an interesting mix of academics, teachers, and some business types. The agenda is so rich that it choosing sessions is agonizing.

James Paul Gee gave a great summary of the state of things as we munched on bacon and looked out over Lake Monona. He reminded us of the gaps that exist between kids experiences with games and their experience of school. One of his main points was that literacy is far more than phonics and decoding. The real challenge is helping kids master the complex academic language they need to succeed in Middle an High School. Young kids have no problem navigitating rich complicated technical text as they play today's games. He got a good laugh by reading instructions from the back of a Yu-gi-oh card. These same students are not challenged in the same way at school. The money quote:

"The dirty capitalists trust our children more than the schools to learn complex language."

He also did a great job of reviewing the differences in how learning is viewd in gaming culture and in school culture. Some of the major points here were:

* Performance before competence - kids don't read manuals they just jump in and do it. This gives context when they do go look at the reference materials. This is the opposite of how schools approach it.

* Gamers embrace failure. They know they need to fail early and frequently to learn, and they embrace it rather than holding back.

* Gamers love to transgress. When a player transgresses the rules it proves that they have internalized them. Schools punish this behavior, games reward it.

* Gamers don't look at eye candy. To play a game well you have to look past the eye candy and grok the deep underlying model. This is same way Scientists see the world, they look past the pretty surface to see what system underlies things. Compare this with the role of flashy graphics in today's textbooks.

* Gamers value information as a guide to action not a collection of truths. What Gee calls a Design Mode of information - how can it use it - underlies gaming culture. Schools are far more about Belief Mode - who said it, is it true. The problem today is that information is coming at us so fast that belief mode only isn't practical. We need to filter information based on how it can help us accomplish things.

* Collaboration is non-heirarchical. n3wbs and experts mingle seamlessly in the social networks around games. Tacit knowledge is valued. There are many routes to participation and status where schools have limited routes. Leadership is also highly porous.

It was a great talk and a good way open the next couple of days. More to follow.

Scott Adams captures in a nutshell what is wrong with No Child Left Behind in his post today. By focusing exclusively on the negatives - who is failing and what punishment will be meted out - the program misses the opportunity to recognize what is working and to reward students and teachers for their successes. All stick, no carrot.

Of course he never mentions NCLB - what he talks about is one of the most effective ways of getting people to change their behavior. Don’t believe me - go read it here.

Don’t get me wrong - finding out where schools are not performing and shining a light on it has helped in many ways. That is essential and vital work that needs to be done. But by being fear based NCLB will probably not produce long term systemic change in the ways it’s authors hoped for.

Think back to the teacher that had the biggest impact on your life. I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that they brought out the best in you rather than carping on your faults. They inspired you by helping you discover what you do well.

The real trick would be to combine accountability with recognition. For example - a school couldn’t be labeled Needs Improvement unless the state also found some things that they were doing right and recognized those things. And yes - there are plenty of recognition awards for teachers. But, in a state like Texas maybe 500 out of 290,000 get recognized each year. If your school fails - everyone looses their jobs. It seems disproportionate.

NCLB was meant to attack complacency - and that is a real problem. Punitive sanctions will drive people to change their behavior but it probably won't drive them to change what they believe about themselves.

But of course you knew that because the kind of people who read this blog care about education and about serving kids. People who have that passion are desperately needed in this world and you are making a difference by doing what you do. Thanks.

Blackboard's booth at NECC in Atlanta was one of the best examples I've seen recently of Socratic Marketing. They asked teachers to write a brief paragraph on how they intended to use a free trial of the product in their classrooms. Then they took a polaroid of them and pasted several hundred of them all over the booth. In an inversion of current trends they created a real version of a virtual community. It was fun and interesting to browse the cards and it made a strong visual statement.

Blackboard started a real dialog and also provided the foundation for a series of ongoing conversations. Shana Glenzer, Sr. K-12 Marketing Manager at Blackboard, told me that they were getting ideas for uses of the product that they hadn't thought of, like connecting pregnant teens to classroom resources. They also intend to use the ideas in conversations with senior administrators at districts - "6 of your teachers visited with us and here are some of the ideas they had..."

It was arresting in its simplicity and represented a validation of the products in the words of end users. It also showed that great marketing doesn't have to cost a lot.

Brilliant.

The National Education Computing Conference NECC put on by ISTE in Atlanta this week was the most active education tradeshow I've seen since the dot com bubble burst in 2000. Ironically the 2000 show was in Atlanta, the Big Peach bookended a lull in the ed tech market that looks like it is over. 18,000+ attendees thronged the World Congress Center in Atlanta for SRO sessions and a mobbed show floor.

The International Reading Association Conference which was held just six weeks ago was sleepy backwater compared to NECC. Even with valid reasons for IRA having a slow year the difference in these shows is so dramatic that one has to conclude that educators are voting with their time and money on the best tools for teaching today.

To bring this point home look at the two pictures below. The one on the left is from NECC and the one on the right is from IRA. Both were taken at the height of show floor activity. At IRA one could have set up pins and bowled in the aisles. At NECC one had to move at herd speed to navigate the hall.

One of the surprises of the show given the level of activity was how little revolutionary new technology was on display. Ed Tech enthusiasts have been a sour lot of late - saying that they are are not hearing or seeing anything new at conferences they attend.

But perhaps a maturing set of tools and practices explains why we are seeing this burst of activity. We've reached the far side of the chasm. The tools are not the edgy unsupported pre-beta versions of the early 90's that only a hard core techie could love. The solutions on display are robust, stable, and well supported with professional development and other resources.

We've moved from the visionary early adopters, across the chasm, and are now reaching the pragmatists in the early majority.

Hopefully this groundswell will continue to build over the coming years. If my hypothesis is correct the future of ed-tech will look like the green section of the curve below.

For those who need a quick refresher on Crossing the Chasm here is the Wikipedia link.

The first mutliplayer game tournament for education is being held. The event is being put on by Tabula Digita at ISTE in Atlanta (the show formerly known as NECC). A large crowd has gathered in the atrium above the exhibit floor to watch the final round.

This is a major step in the world of educational gaming. NT Etuk, the President of Tabula Digita, just said that this is really about the students. It is about meeting them where they are - kids living in a gaming world bringing the skills and abilities that go with that to their work as learners. Students have come from as far away as New York, California, and Oregon to compete today.

A new generation of educational games is reaching the market that is multiplayer, on-line, and richly three dimensional. Tabula Digita has the pole position in this emergent market and they are putting on a great show for the educators gathered to watch. The contest will pit teams of students against each other in game of using math skills to navigate and solve problems in an on-line world.

Gaming tournaments have gone mainstream as this 60 Minutes segment showed last year. While the prizes here today are not the megabucks found in commercial game tournaments the contestents will vie in three separate games for title of top educational gamer. The winner takes home an iBook laptop.

Years from now we will look back on this as an inflection point in the use of on-line virtual worlds in learning. I may have to eat my hat on this, but I believe a few short years from now events like this will surpass the Math Olympiad.

Few education companies do marketing well. Many are good at sales and distribution, others are product driven and innovative, but very few are able to drive high growth through world class marketing.

What does great marketing look like?

* Reps have so many leads they triage them.
* Customers recommend you to all their friends.
* Annual growth consistently beats your peers - your market share is growing.

There are two core questions that constitute what I call “Big M Marketing.”

1. What promise are you making to the market?
2. How are you aligning the entire business to fulfill the promise?

The first question drives the strategic vision and the second drives the tactical execution. Yin and yang - you have to embrace both.

It really is this simple - but simplicity is difficult for most companies. You must put the time in up front to get the promise nailed down and then you have to sustain your focus on it long enough for the market to believe you.

So how can you get away from empty sloganeering, sales support masquerading as marketing (you need both), and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey marcom? Here is a brief overview of one way to start doing Big M Marketing.

Continue reading "What is Marketing?" »

Students and Educators might as well live on different planets when it comes to social media, blogs, and other Web 2.0 technologies. The educators are making fear based decisions because the new technologies are unfamiliar to them. The students are too busy figuring out how it all works to bother paying attention to the restrictions the educators are putting in place. Fear and hope in sharp contrast.

This disconnect was starkly drawn at the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) annual summit in DC last week. A meeting ran long and I arrived at the sessions a few minutes late. I intended to lurk in the doorway of a couple of different presentations to see where I wanted to spend the next hour. What I observed sent my head spinning.

In one room a panel of distinguished educators was discussing the challenges of bringing in new technologies. Their discussion centered on what the lawyers would let them do and the endless committee structures they had set up to screen what was permissible with blogs and other social media. Short answer - not much.

Next door the Weekly Reader was presenting their in-depth research on what kids are doing with technology these days. This is wonderful longitudinal research that they make available to anyone who is interested. Bottom line - the kids have completely embraced the new tools.

There are potential dangers with the new tools - but that is the case with any tool new or old. What matters is the character of those who wield the tool. Plagiarism is much easier with the web - but it isn’t a new behavior. Over time tools like turnitin.com have arisen to help address the problem in new and powerful ways. The net result is that it is easier to plagiarize and it is easier to catch someone doing it. The real challenge is the same as it has always been - teaching kids that it is wrong.

The saddest part of this disconnect from my perspective is that schools today are struggling to be relevant. Every time they resist the new tools the more they are teaching the kids to ignore the formal system.

Where are breakthrough products like the Wii in education? Textbooks and education technology are stuck in a rut. Just like Sony and Microsoft got locked in a war over processor speeds and cutting edge graphics most of the competition in the education market seems increasingly focused on tangential issues to the customer’s core needs. For example...

* More foil on the cover!

* On-line lesson plans!

* 4 million item bank questions!

These efforts all mask the underlying problem. With everyone writing to the standards for the same 4-5 states textbooks are becoming a low growth zero sum commodity game. In an attempt to differentiate their basal textbooks the major publishers are increasingly cannibalizing their supplemental book bags for "free with order" goodies. They are also bolting technology on in an attempt to sex up the offerings.

Continue reading "Where is the Wii for Education?" »

In a conversation with Randy Pennington he pointed out that in my post textbooks vs. education technology - clash of paradigms I alluded to the financial paradigms but didn't address them directly.

Theres more...

Continue reading "Clashing Paradigms - Update" »

The worlds of textbook publishers and education technology companies are colliding. The market is driving this convergence – schools have had technology around long enough that they have figured out how it can integrate in with existing practices. Yet the list of successful educational products that blend print and technology is few and far between.

I moved into the publishing world 4 years ago from ed tech. From my perspective on both sides of this fence the problem has more to do with the vendors clashing paradigms than with customer demand.

The paradigms are radically different along several key vectors and reconciling these will be the central challenge as Riverdeep and Houghton merge and as Pearson absorbs Harcourt (announced today).

Follow me to the flip for a more detailed look at this problem.

Continue reading "Textbooks vs. Education Technology – Clash of Paradigms" »