Educators weight e-books costs – They are missing the point

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I read an article today by Jason Tomassini in Education Week titled “Educators weigh E-Textbook Cost Comparisons“.  This is a fact filled article that does a great job looking at some of the actual costs of a full digital experience including devices, content, bandwidth, etc. and comparing those to the modest costs associated with print book.  
The reporter even cited one of the interviewee as saying “Paper is pretty darn cheap, and it lasts for seven years.”  There is no doubt.
I think they are missing the point.  In fact I’m sure of it.
In 1945 there were accounts, stock brokers and financial analyst all over the world using paper to forecast sales, model financial alternative on paper ledgers.  In 1995 they were all doing these things on spreadsheets or other computer based applications.  Wow, was the cost of all that technology worth it?  Paper was so much cheaper…

Digitization of textbooks (content) is not about reducing costs of physical books, it is just a part of moving to a digital framework for learning.
Why?  Digital Learning is;

  • Interactive and engaging – significantly increasing students engagement with core educational content.  This drives flow*..
  • Adaptive – The ability to have the computer deliver to the student the exact material they need.  Think of  this as a brilliant digital personal guide..
  • Analytical – Knowledge of student behavior, outcome, effectiveness with different material styles.  This is the dashboard education has always been missing. Try running a nuclear power plant without any insight…
  • Mobile – Learn anywhere.  The tablet is becoming a virtual classroom, library, laboratory, field trip and more.  Education becomes anywhere, anytime..
  • Social – The power of collaborative learning is well documented.  Even the effect of learning is deepened when students help other students.
  • Scalable – By using technology to drive core knowledge acquisition, educators are freed to play a 1:1 role guiding students specific to their need.  The flipped classroom model..

I could go on, but you get my point and why I think this article is missing the point.  

All that cost for tablets, network bandwidth is going to happen.  Content in the form of textbooks or better is coming along for the ride. 

*Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity

I’m sorry Professor Thomas, “I” isn’t the answer…

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I woke up to an interesting blog post from Dr. Paul Thomas, an assistant Professor at Fruman.  

His basic theme is that he doesn’t need everyone involved in making education better.  He mentions government involvement, foundation involvement with a mention of the Gates Foundation and business involvement mentioning publishers such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill.  

But what struck me most, was his focus on “I”.  What “I don’t need as a teacher”.  Now I have every confidence after having done some research on Dr. Thomas, that he is a dedicated and excellent teacher with clear focus on education as a discipline.  He has taught high school for many years at a high school about 1/2 way between Atlanta and Charlotte.  He now teaches at Furman, a university near that high school.  Neither of these school I need to say represent a cross-section of the US education demographic.

My objective is not pick on Dr. Thomas.  As I said, everything about this man says dedicated and excellent teacher.  But here is my problem…

Point 1
His article was about what he wants.  If every educator and administrator in this country was Dr. Thomas, maybe things would be different. But they aren’t.  If most students were the students that Dr. Thomas has experienced at Woodruff and Furman, then maybe the state of US education would be different. But they aren’t. 

Point 2
The government, foundations and corporations are not the problem alone.  There are participants causing problems in these organizations as well as in the ranks of teachers, teachers unions and school administration.  Similarly there are outstanding models of leadership in all of these groups.  
I’m watching projects occurring outside out of United States (take a look at Turkey) and you’ll see a consolidated effort from the Ministry of Education (government) through business (Turkish Telecom) and the schools (teachers and adminstration).  

“I” is not the right perspective.  “We” and “our kids” are pretty much the focus…  I know that in the end Dr. Thomas’s focus is on our kids but this must be a discussion of “us”, “we” and “our kids”…

Apple to DOJ: Byte me! An insiders perspective

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I’m a fan of their products, but not their methods.  That includes both Apple and Amazon.  I’m also a business partner.   

I’m not thrilled with Apple’s methods on many, many levels.  Being on the receiving end of Apple’s processes and rules isn’t fun.  And frankly any scalable (insert large) business can’t scale with a 30% cost of good sold for a channel that is nothing more than a delivery or maybe advertising platform.  It’s like a trucking company getting 30%.  As much as Apple wants to believe they are bringing tremendous value as a channel, they aren’t.  They are just using their market power aggressively.

But on to the point.  Apple has basically told the DOJ that they firmly disagree with the DOJ’s position that they and 5 partners (publishers) colluded to fix prices. And Apples says they will fight. In this case I agree with Apple…

When these supposed illegal price fixing actions were going down, Amazon not only owned the market for eBooks, but more importantly they were using prices to sell digital crack.  Let me explain

As anyone within the industry knows, Amazon was selling eBooks below cost.  Now some articles said that was all ok, because consumers were benefiting.  But let’s be clear.  This was not act of charity.  Amazon was working aggressively to buy consumers digital bookshelf, and to make eBooks a loss leader to their greater retail business.  Achieving a monopoly on a consumers digital library creates a phenomenally strong lock-in.  Don’t be confused, Amazon was trying to peddle digital crack and working to make it affordable and addicting. 

The publisher’s adoption of the well known agency model is a good thing for the industry.  Nothing in this model stops competition that will naturally happen in any industry.  If consumers don’t like the price, they won’t buy, and other publishers will step in with lower prices and drive industry practice. The agency model also helps focus the industry on great products.  What differentiates digital reading moves to features and capabilities, not just prices.  Again – great for consumers.  And prior to the adoption of Agency, Amazon was selling books at loss and using their market power to strong arm everyone.  So agency pricing isn’t the issue. At issue are unfair practices that have long term negative effects on producers and consumers.  And if anyone was guilty – it would be Amazon.
Pains me a bit to be defending Apple as other of their practices are not very nice, but in this case..   I have to agree with Apple.