Inkling launches digital textbooks 2.0 for iPads
Apple dominates the tablet market — its iOS tablet software accounted for more than 60 percent of the tablet market in the second quarter, while Google’s Android made up about 30 percent, according to Strategy Analytics. So it’s no surprise that more than 40 educational institutions in the United States either require or recommend in-coming freshman or first-years come equipped with an iPad.
For example, that list includes the medical schools at Brown, UC Irvine, Cornell and UCF; undergrads at Boston University, Abilene Christian University and Georgia Perimeter College; business students at Hult Business School, Lamar Business School and Seton Hill. Even prep schools are in on the act including South Kent, Princeton Day School and Madison Academy.
Certainly it’s appealing to slip an iPad into a backpack rather than massive tomes that students need to lug around campus.
One e-book company based in San Francisco is betting that more educational institutions adopt this line of thinking. Launched a year ago and backed by venture capital such as Sequoia Partners and text book publishers like McGraw-Hill and Pearson, the e-text book company Inkling recently released its 2.0 version of textbooks for iPad. Some key features let co-eds make notes, ask questions and add comments anywhere in the book to be shared among classmates or the wider community using the same material across other campuses.
The e-books can save a student as much as 40 percent off the dead tree version and Inkling allows students to purchase the book by the chapter for a few bucks each should they choose to do so.
“I think this fall is a turning point,” said Matt MacInnis, Inkling founder and CEO, about iPad adoption. ”Enough people are going to know someone else using an iPad (for content) that it will reach a tipping point.”
from Chrystia Freeland:
Don Graham: For-profit school plan hurts poor kids
Don Graham, Chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company, visited the Reuters studio this morning to chat with Chrystia about the future of the company's Kaplan subsidiary as well as its flagship newspaper. In addition to its popular test preparation courses, Kaplan operates 75 colleges and graduate schools, both online and through brick-and-mortar campuses, that serve 112,000 students. Earlier this year the Department of Education lashed out at for-profit colleges like Kaplan for misleading prospective students about tuition costs and salaries after graduation. The Department proposed new regulations on these institutions that would tie federal aid to the number of students who are repaying their loans.
Graham said that while the Department's efforts to crack down on bad actors are right-minded, the current proposals will end up having an unintentional yet harmful effect on low-income students:
There is a 99% correlation between the number of Pell Grant students—the number of poor students a campus serves—and the repayment rate under the proposed Department rules… The Department has scored a direct hit on schools that serve poor students. They didn’t want to. They didn’t mean to. But that is what they did. And I hope they’ll reconsider that rule and propose something that in fact cracks down on bad actors but does not punish schools that serve poor students.
Graham offered an alternative proposal, the "Kaplan Commitment," that would preserve the Department's intentions to ensure students are not misled but that would not discriminate against poor students. The Kaplan Commitment will allow any student to enroll in any campus or online course that Kaplan operates for five weeks, free-of-charge. If the student decides the program is not for them, they can withdraw without paying a dime in tuition. Graham did note that enacting this change would have a material adverse impact on the company's earnings, but he said it was worth it to show everyone that at Kaplan students come first.
When asked whether the entire model of for-profit education is a mistake, Graham said that at a time when state universities are seeing their budgets' slashed, only for-profit colleges like Kaplan are poised to meet students' needs:
Mr. Graham distorted the biggest threat to our educational system.
The educational system, where, in its ideal state, should provide future leaders, innovators, our brightests hopes a worry-free environment to develop their talents and potentials, is threatened by institutions like the ones Mr. Graham runs. Instead of choosing the schools that will mold students into the best citizens of our country, students have to settle with Mr. Graham’s institutions that satisfy the minimum requirement of being able to issue a diploma, without providing the higher level of nurturing, developing, and most importantly, opening up of students’ minds to greater and better things than just minimum standards.
Inkling really is leading the way in digital textbook platforms. I can’t wait to see what they come out with next. I don’t have an iPad yet but I do plan to purchase online textbooks this next semester, so I need to get one.