Wednesday, February 24, 2010

ereaders / 23 - Inside Higher Ed

ereaders / 23 - Inside Higher Ed

Looks like the heat is on. Look for comments on this later.

Friday, February 19, 2010

New iPad - is it Fish or Fowl?

A recent article in the Fox News asked if the direction being taken by many of the newer eReader devices and the iPad in particular, is really a better eReader or a "lite" laptop or netbook. I am interested to see how my students (and the market) respond to this choice. Do we want - or need - a light workstation that's portable or just an eReader for student textbooks. Will the market for eTextbooks be closer to textbooks or will students want a multi-purpose device?   Comments?

Technology Innovation in the Classroom Presented at Recent iConference on Informatics

I presented some of the results of my class at a recent conference. Here is a copy of the press release:

Mitchell Weisberg, a lecturer at the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University was selected as a Session Chair at the 2010 iConference in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. He also presented a peer-refereed paper at the conference on “Innovative Technology in the Classroom: A Live, Real-Time Case Study of eReaders Disruption of the Publishing Industry”.

The research and paper are based on his teaching of Strategic Management 429 with a focus on industry-disruptive technologies. His presentation covered how he taught the class and the class’ conclusions regarding the impact of digital technology on the textbook publishing industry. It provided detail on the innovative component of using digital readers to enrich the students’ experience with the subject. Student teams used the digital textbooks (eTextbooks) including Sony eReaders, Amazon Kindles, and CourseSmart online textbooks in the class. He sought funding from Pearson Education, the publisher the class textbook, to make these devices available to the students. Students analyzed the companies and developed strategies to compete in the transforming publishing market. By using the devices that they are studying the students became engaged in a “real-time case study” in the course. This has the impact of providing a longer term learning effect. As an example of this impact, a student from the previous semester caught professor Weisberg in the hallway for an extended discussion of how the market is continuing to evolve and how the course has engaged him in continuing to examine these businesses.

Background on the iConference:
The 5th Annual iConference, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign brought together scholars, professionals and students to examine impacts of the iSchool movement, and how impact can be defined, identified, measured and communicated to key audiences. The iSchools are interested in the relationship between information, people and technology. This is characterized by a commitment to learning and understanding the role of information in human endeavors. The iConference was held on February 3-6, 2010 at the Conference Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Papers presented at the conference are published in a peer-refereed publication.

For more information:

iConference Program http://www.ischools.org/iConference10/program/
iConference Overview http://www.ischools.org/iConference10/2010index/
iSchools http://www.ischools.org/,