Google, Grover, and a Gallery of Experts Discuss Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age

The Google-hosted, Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age Forum in Mountain View, CA, focused on the potential of digital media in education. Paula Maylahn, an education industry consultant, attended the day-and-a-half conference virtually and highlighted for AEP the key takeaways.

Yes, another conference on the need for U.S. education reform. So, if you missed this one, you might feel you didn’t miss much. And in some aspects, you’d be right. Familiar ground was covered:

• Technology has the power to transform learning
• Learning happens 24/7
• The current system is resistant to change
• Many innovative programs show great promise
• U.S. students are falling behind globally
• Teacher quality is the problem
• Teacher quality is not the problem
• Etc.

However, there were 2 markedly different aspects about this conference:

How to create a new revenue stream by developing content for interactive whiteboards

SMART Technologies, the inventor of the SMART Board and industry leader with over 64 percent market share in North America, has posted an on-demand webinar to show publishers different ways to create new revenue streams using interactive whiteboards. Here are some highlights from the presentation.

Publishers are facing many challenges in the current education climate, including a decline in print product demand as educators’ needs shift from paper-based to electronic content. Other challenges include:

1. Free content proliferation
2. Changing distribution channels
3. Shorter product cycle times
4. Need for new revenue streams

FCC Works on National Broadband Plan for Education as More Schools Move Toward Open Digital Texts

On August 20 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held a National Broadband Plan Workshop on education to receive ideas for the plan, which is due 181 days from the date of the hearing. National broadband development focuses on ways that technology and telecommunications infrastructure can further the national priorities of education, job training, energy, environment, health, the economy and public safety. The FCC seeks collaboration on developing the plan, and hopes to obtain exemplars, best theories, data, research and evidence.

Learning Platforms for the 21st Century and Beyond

The 2009 AEP Summit session “Learning Platforms for the 21st Century and Beyond,” presented three different cutting-edge technologies that could be used to deliver content to students. Jeff Keltner from Google, Laura Porco from Amazon.com, and Michael Riordan from the Open Publishing Lab at Rochester Institute of Technology discussed why classroom technology is 10 years behind the consumer world and how their products could be used in the education market.

All speakers agreed that the students are the biggest driving force behind advancing the technology in the classroom. Keltner said that for every generation, technology is what is invented after the students were born. Reflecting the advancements of iPhones, laptops, and social media sites, students expect their education to be mobile, use multimedia, and have the ability to involve the community. Riordan concurred that students are asking their teachers to use educational technology that lets them learn together; they want teachers to abandon podium-style lectures for a dialogue.

Hall of Fame Portrait: Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., Part 3

On December 3, 2009, AEP will induct Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., MDR; Michael Ross, Encyclopaedia Britannica; and Pleasant Rowland, Rowland Reading Foundation and American Girl into the Educational Publishing Hall of Fame. Here in his third installment, Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., President, EdNET at MDR, discusses the greatest challenge facing educational publishing in the next five years.

The Heller Reports news and conference activities have provided me with a marvelous platform for observing the evolving impact of technology on educational publishing’s products and services, not to mention its back-office operations. The advent of the Internet and web 2.0 have greatly expanded this digital imperative, but for a host of reasons, including still limited hardware penetration in schools and the cautious response of most school systems to widespread adoption of technology, we’re still looking for critical mass and sustainable business models.