The Education Business Blog

ISTE's NECC 2008 was a success by any measure. The sibilant susurration of schmoozing and selling suffused the show space. Attendance was high (12,250), sessions were well attended (over 924), and the show floor was constantly busy. Even the San Antonio weather cooperated by being a bit cooler than usual.

If you landed on the planet on Sunday and came straight to NECC you would have no sense of the pressure on education budgets that the economic downturn is creating.

Some of this is attributable to Texas, which as an oil producing state is having a milder downturn that many parts of the country. Typically 50% of attendees at national trade shows are from within in 200 miles (double that for Texas). But that doesn't explain all of it since according to the official numbers Texas attendees only made up 25% of the total.

Since budgets for instructional materials remain relatively static what is going on? Don't be fooled by the calm surface waters, there is turbulence down below in the niches that make up the total. Companies that are producing standards based education technology resources and tools are booming. Textbook publishers continue to commoditize and consolidate.

The evidence is piling up that education technology does work - even if it is just at the level of engaging today's digital natives more effectively than print. Given the costs of textbooks ($35-$75 a copy) it is getting easier to justify digital resources ($2-$10 a year). Good teachers know what works even without Scientifically Based Research (SBR) and they are voting with their interest for digital resources.

But some of the same old complaints were heard. No School Board asks the Instructional Materials folks to prove that textbooks are being used in the classroom, but they demand this all the time for education technology. It isn't an unreasonable request - but the standard should be applied equally. If teachers are only using 50% of a textbook that is a lot of useless atoms being shipped and schlepped around. As for SBR and skepticism about technology consider this - if the textbooks were working as claimed we wouldn't have failing schools....

NECC remains the premiere education technology event of the year, the launch pad for the following school year, and the best place to do business with your customers and your partners.

Having said that I am increasingly skeptical that the amount of money spent on these shows is justified. Thee were at least a two companies that spent over $500,000 on this event. It showed in their presence on the floor and around town. But what could they have done with that amount of effort and cash on more plebeian but long lasting efforts like sales force training, new product innovation, or web 2.0 based marketing (which delivers new customers 365 days a year)? For half of what they spent they probably could have achieved the same result and been ahead in other parts of their business.

I'm advising my clients to dial back their investments in trade shows. To be clear - I'm not advocating abandoning trade shows - but I think they need to be relegated to a more junior position in the marketing budget given how much more effective other programs can be.

NECC 2009's Washington DC location drew a mixed review from the vendor community. It will be useful to be in the capital in what is shaping up to be a transitional year for educational policy. On the other hand DC is one of the most expensive places to do business in the country with hotel rooms even at third tier chains going for $250/night. It will also be the height of tourist season - plan for busy and expensive flights as well.

A Few Corrections

Yesterday in my impressions of NECC piece I made a couple of errors.

There were computer vendors on the floor including Dell, Gateway, and RM. While Apple was not exhibiting they were engaged behind the scenes in sponsoring events and providing equipment for registration and other activities (although it was amusing to see IBM monitors hooked to Macs in the reg area). But the overall computer vendor presence was subdued. Even Microsoft had a relatively small space.

I underestimated the number of people Promethean sent - it was over 100. Times are good in whiteboard land. With Nettrekker and Atomic Learning they threw a hell of a party for their customers last night (thanks!).

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.

How are education publishers reacting to the economic downturn? Guest blogger and PR maven Charlene Blohm shares some concrete examples of steps companies are taking to trim expenses.

Part 1 - Education Spending & The Economy - Survey Results
Part 2 - Education Funding Market Dynamics - By Doug Stein

By Charlene Blohm, President C Blohm & Associates

District budgets are tight - many schools have already lost the music teacher, the art teacher, the band teacher, the librarian. Left with few other places to cut, two elementary schools near us will be sharing a principal next year. Districts seem to be delaying major purchases and upgrades, especially with administrative or support systems (those that aren't directly tied to student instruction).

How are companies reacting? More than one company has adjusted its sales forecasts down based on decreased spending. The major sales they were hoping to close yet this school year are being delayed, with the forecasted income moving to the next school year.

As a result here are some of the cost saving actions we are seeing across the market.

• Booth sizes at trade shows are a tad smaller - I've seen some movement where last year's 80x80 became a 60x60 this year, or 40x40 became 20x20, etc.
• Also, fewer staff are working trade show booths. Travel is down no matter how you look at it - flights are dang expensive, and often hard to find depending on where you need to go. And that applies to vendors as well as educators.
• There has been an up-tick in direct mail - people weren't getting the results they wanted from what I bet they thought were going to be "free" email campaigns. Even with the postal rate increases, people are blending the two more now than they were a year ago.
• People are stretching advertising dollars with more online purchasing. In fact, some folks are now online-only advertisers.
• There seems to be less money being pumped into product development, and the time for a product to prove itself in the marketplace is getting shorter and shorter. That's been happening for awhile now, so this is not necessarily related to the current recession.
• We're getting more phone calls from overseas prospects. I'm not sure if that's a function of our reputation (we've been doing that for years) or the economy - but I think it's safe to say that foreign companies aren't afraid to spend money on product development and marketing.
• In recent weeks, it seems that people are finally starting to think Web 2.0. I've had more conversations about keywords in the past two months than in previous two years. That signals to me that people are keen to make sure their name is up in bright lights - meaning they need the leads and visibility in a way they didn't before; I don't think there's just a sudden interest in Web 2.0 on its own merits.

Charlene Blohm is the President of C Blohm & Associates a full service Public Relations firm focused on the education market.

Today a look at education funding in the current economic crisis from guest blogger Doug Stein. Doug details how the market will react over the next two years and then lays out an interesting theory about how districts will bifurcate into factory and craftsman models on the rebound. Doug is one of the smartest thinkers in the business. His consulting company is Memespark.

Link to Part 1 - Education Spending and the Economy

By Doug Stein

Education budgets will go through three phases in this business cycle.

Phase 1 - In response to a rapid decline in local property taxes, K12 spending will pull back significantly. Everything outside of basic literacy (and possibly Math) will drop pretty hard for about 2 years. It's possible that "oil/energy" states will invest more, but those investments will depend on visionary leadership at the state level.

Phase 2 - The next administration will make significant changes (possibly even "scuttling/gutting") the NCLB regime. This will lead to a bifurcation of the market into two big pieces:

a) Districts dependent on Title I (mostly urban) which will revert-to-form and do what they had always done (use comprehensive basal textbooks to compensate for uneven teacher quality). Teachers will generally teach to the text/test. As always, there will be pockets of innovation, but for the most part, the faculty will hunker down and wait for retirement.

b) Districts that don't need Title I will be able to redirect their efforts away from Average Yearly Progress (AYP - which was a bit of a distraction for them). Many will leverage their investments in data-driven decisions and move to a "growth model" - trying to measure value-add for each student (because the parents and local taxpayers will demand proof that the investment is being well-spent).

In states where local taxing authority is restricted based on "equity" arguments, there will be major battles to keep K-12 funding from sagging. As the funding slips, so will the central state control of curriculum. (No pay, no play.)

Phase 3 - As funding returns (2010+), the schools and districts which have had some success will be empowered to try new curricula and new technologies. In particular, some companies are going to figure out how to apply social networking tools to enable the formation of "practice improvement networks". Some of these will be accredited professional development - usually a blended model. Some of these will be content creation focused - similar to a blog with an authorial voice and community participation.

Maybe someone will learn from what Flat World Knowledge is attempting in higher-ed (whether FWK succeeds or fails) and figure out how to build a profitable business where "tentpole authors" attract a community that develops and increases the value of new educational content - and where the community is truly a "community of best practice."

In short, I suspect that after a big dip in funding, we'll see market bifurcate into "factory" and "craftsman" models. Factory districts will look to big publishers and demand complete solutions (SIS + LMS + content); craftsman districts will look towards more "Web 2.0" horizontal collaboration with "just enough" data management to generate metrics that substantiate value-add. Content will come from the more innovative supplemental publishers (if they can adapt to a world of "users not units"); we'll also see a growth in user-generated content (with a revenue share model).

Why do I believe this?

I''ve seen clients serving the "must have" content areas growing quickly when they deliver a complete solution (content + data management + PD). Clients delivering "nice to have" or "innovative/unconventional" solutions are already seeing flattening sales.

In both cases, the sales cycles are growing longer and customers are having to cobble together money from more diverse sources. On the educator side, there have always been excellent craftsmen, but they are scattered across the US and have had a hard time receiving support from their peers (whom they couldn't find). They are starting to find each other.

Relevant Links:

COSL
Global Scholar
Wright Group

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" »

Yesterday I moderated a panel at the Association of Education Publishers meeting in Washington DC on innovative business models for education companies. The panel was made up of:

• Martin Knott, President Moodlerooms.com
• Joe McDonough hotchalk.com
• Mark Tullis, Learning.com
• I represented two of my clients - WeAreTeachers.com and Whyville.net.

We talked about subscription based models, an iTunes like model for instructional content, open source SaaS, embedded assessment, and Micro-distributorships. All of these are new to the education market. The panelists shared lessons learned from pioneering these approaches.

The slides from the presentation are in the attached file (3.7mb download)

AEP08-Pricing Models.ppt

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."

I recently conducted an informal poll of 30 Education Industry executives on this topic. They expect that the impact will be far more immediate than past downturns but generally they expect it be moderate.

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.

Don't miss Gary Stager's scathing take down of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) over at the Huffington Post.

He cites a recent review by the Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences that stated:

“The program did not increase the percentages of students in grades one, two or three whose reading comprehension scores were at or above grade level.”

From there he goes on to compare it to the Iraq War and Katrina. Ouch!

"The failure of Reading First represents more than a course correction for a well-intentioned attempt to benefit the nation's children. Reading First was rife with politics, contempt for professional educators and conflicts of interest from the outset. It is particularly ironic that an administration insistent that every classroom practice must adhere to "scientifically-based research," to the exclusion of research it did not like, continues to insist that Reading First should be the law of the land, despite its own evidence to the contrary."

The Huffington Post is a left leaning blog, so it isn't a surprise to see this there. But this isn't just a "I beg to differ" post, the tone is absolutely acid towards those who continue to push the program out of ideology despite data that clearly shows it isn't working.

Expect to see more of this as the Bush term winds down and we head into reauthorization of the act.

What this may mean - if people are emboldened to take NCLB on like this it may be a bigger battle than many have been anticipating.

Link to the DOE report is here.

NY Times Article on the DOE Report is here.

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.

New information is like opium? Wikipedia as an act of love? Will Richardson, as ever, is interesting.

The Happy Worker Kit - coming to an office near you soon. Funny.

Here is some food for thought from Seth Godin on how social networking can help us organize. His main point - the side in an argument that is bette