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Harold Elder is not your typical Apple 1)fanboy. Yet the 58-year-old University of Alabama economics professor pre-ordered an iPad to make sure he had one of the first ones. The device is “something that I’ve been waiting for for years,” he says. And not, to be clear, merely for reasons of gadget lust. “It really has the possibility of making the learning experience much richer,” says Elder, who is considering testing a new iPad-ready digital textbook in his introductory microeconomics course in the fall.
“Richer” is certainly the right word to use. 2)App developers aren’t the only ones who greeted the iPad’s release with gratitude and optimism. The textbook industry, too, sees it as a way to 3)woo customers away from the used-book market, boost profits, and help students learn better. It’s a 4)pivotal moment for a segment of the publishing industry that has stubbornly resisted change. Thanks in large part to the iPad and an expected rush of competitor 5)slates, that resistance is 6)crumbling.
Of course, it won’t happen overnight. Textbooks today are still bought and sold in much the same way they’ve always been: as ink-and-paper objects assigned by professors and purchased by students in campus bookstores. “It’s a slow-moving 7)pharmaceutical market,” says Matt MacInnis, the CEO of Inkling, a 8)startup working on digital textbooks. “The professor writes a prescription, and the student goes to fill it.”
But just ask any journalist or musician: technology 9)has a way of 10)laying siege to com-fortable industries. And the iPad may be the first of many 11)barbarians at the gate. Apple sold 3 million of the devices in its first three months, and now competitors, reportedly including Google and Amazon, are preparing rivals. Educators and students are enthusiastic about them; at least three colleges, including the Illinois Institute of Technology, will offer free iPads to incoming students.
There are already digital textbooks available, and their numbers are expected to grow: according to Simba Information, which provides data and research on the media industry, they represent less than 2 percent of textbook sales today, but will reach 10 percent by 2012. But in 2010 the offerings were pretty 12)meager. CourseSmart, a 13)San Mateo, Calif., company collectively owned by five of the biggest textbook publishers, has 6,000 educational 14)titles for sale in digital format. But its electronic books are little more than scanned versions of printed works. A CourseSmart e-book includes some 15)neat functions, like search capability and digital note-taking, but for the most part, it has few advantages over a traditional textbook other than weight and price. (CourseSmart books usually cost less than half the price of a new printed book.)
That’s where a company like Inkling 16)comes in. Inkling, a 20-person San Francisco startup, and its competitors—including New York City’s ScrollMotion—are working with the textbook publishers to bring their books onto the iPad, iPhone, and other future devices. The aim, says Inkling’s MacInnis, is to 17)harness all the advantages of a multitouch, Web-enabled slate. That means chemistry students won’t just see an illustration of a 18)benzene molecule; they’ll spin and rotate a 19)three-dimensional model of one. Biology students won’t just read about the 20)cardiovascular system; they’ll see video of a beating heart, 21)narrated by a world-class heart surgeon.
Interactivity, though, is only part of the story. Bringing texts onto a digital platform provides an opportunity to make the book as social as the classroom. With Inkling’s technology, for instance, a student can choose to follow another’s “note 22)stream,” or view a heat map of the class’s most-highlighted passages. Professors get 23)real-time information on how much of the reading assignment the class actually did, or whether a particular review problem is 24)tripping up large numbers of students. All that comes on top of the cost savings: even these advanced digital textbooks will cost less than their print equivalents (with most of them in the $99 range) and some will even come “25)unbundled,” allowing students to buy the individual chapters they need most for a small fraction of the cost of a full textbook.
Textbook publishers stand to lose some revenue if individual chapter purchases catch on, but they hope to more than offset the loss by attracting new customers. Big publishers like
26)McGraw-Hill and 27)Pearson are locked in a longstanding battle against the used-textbook market, which now totals about $2.2 billion, according to Simba, and from which they earn no revenue. Online textbook-rental companies like Chegg.com offer lower prices than the publishers, and reach a wide customer base. But traditional publishers think technology will be their 28)salvation. There’s no such thing as a “used” e-book, and digital textbooks are the center of a whole 29)ecosystem of services—such as homework-management systems and video-capture technology for recording lectures—that publishers hope will be profitable. “We’re becoming a software service company instead of a textbook company,” says Peter Davis, president of McGraw-Hill Education.
But what about the students? Are 30)manipulable molecules just digital 31)eye candy or real improvements to the learning process? “Technology is never the 32)silver bullet, but it can sometimes be the bullet,” says Diana Rhoten, an education researcher and cofounder of Startl, which invests in innovative education companies. She notes that different students have different learning styles. Some are just fine reading text, while others prefer audiovisual aids, and 33)kinesthetic learners need to interact with something. “In a digital book, I have all of those 34)modalities available to me,” she says. “That is huge. 35)Customization is going to have a great impact on learning.” And if it means getting an A in organic chemistry, paying $500 for an iPad seems like a smart choice.
哈罗德·埃尔德不是你们想象的那种典型苹果“粉丝”，然而这位58岁的阿拉巴马大学经济学教授为了保证能够拥有首轮上市的iPad而提前预订了一部。他说，这个玩意是他“等待了多年的东西”。而且，更确切地说，这不仅仅是基于对电脑产品的狂热追捧。“它的确有可能让学习体验变得更加丰富多彩，”埃尔德说，他正考虑在今年秋天的微观经济学入门课程中尝试用新式的iPad电子教科书。
“更加丰富多彩”的确是用来形容电子教科书的恰当词语。不仅仅是应用程序开发商对iPad的发行持感激及乐观态度，教科书产业也将其看作是将顾客从二手书市场抢回来，提高利润以及帮助学生更好地学习的一种方式。这对一向顽固地拒绝改变的出版业来说是一个关键时刻。很大程度上，由于iPad以及可预见的同类竞争产品所带来的冲击，这种抵抗性正在逐渐瓦解。
当然，这不可能在一夜之间实现。如今，教科书的买卖基本还是过去的老样子：作为教授们指定的油墨纸张印刷品在大学书店里被学生们选购。“这是一个发展缓慢的‘药品’市场，”开发电子教科书的初创公司Inkling的执行总裁马特·麦克英尼斯说，“教授开个‘处方’，然后学生按照处方去买‘药’。”
然而去问问任何一个记者或者音乐家：科技有“围攻”传统安逸行业的习惯。而iPad可能只是出版业门前围攻的首批野蛮人。苹果在最初三个月便售出300万台iPad，如今，其竞争对手（据闻包括谷歌和亚马逊）也正准备推出与之相抗衡的产品。教育人士和学生都非常热衷于这些产品；包括伊利诺伊理工大学在内的至少三所大学将为刚入学的新生免费提供iPad。
如今，已有电子教科书在市面上流通，且数量预计会增长：据提供媒体产业数据及调研的辛巴信息公司称，如今电子教科书仅占据了教科书不到2%的销售总额，但是到2012年，这一份额将达到10%。然而，2010年，市场上所提供的电子教科书相当少。CourseSmart公司，一家位于加州圣马特奥市、由五大教科书出版商共同拥有的公司，出售6000本教科书的电子书。但是，它销售的所谓电子书籍比纸质印刷的扫描版本好不了多少。CourseSmart公司的电子书有一些简便的功能，例如搜寻功能以及数字笔记，但很大程度上，除了重量及价格以外，相对于传统教科书，它没有什么优势。（CourseSmart公司出售的电子书通常比一本新印刷书籍的价格便宜一半以上。）
因此，像Inkling这样的公司便应运而生。位于美国旧金山市，拥有20名员工的新兴网络公司——Inkling公司，以及其竞争对手（包括纽约市的ScrollMotion公司）正与教科书出版商共同合作，将他们的书放到iPad、iPhone以及未来的其他电脑产品上。据Inkling公司的麦克英尼斯说，其目标是为了整合平板电脑多重触控以及上网功能等所有优点。这意味着化学系学生看到的不仅仅是苯分子的插图，他们还可以旋转一个苯分子的3D模型。生物系学生不仅仅只是读到有关心血管系统的说明，他们还可以一边听世界一流心脏外科医生的旁述，一边看心脏跳动的视频。
尽管如此，互动性只是其中的一个优势。将教科书带至一个数字平台还提供机会，让书本变得像课堂一样具有社会性。例如，依靠Inkling的技术，学生可以选择去跟随另一个学生的“笔记动态”，或者去浏览班上最受学生关注的篇章段落的“图示说明”。而教授们则可以获得实时信息，了解班上有多少学生完成了阅读任务，或者有没有哪个复习题难倒了大部分学生。除了这些优点，还有成本的节约：这些如此高级的电子教科书比它们的印刷版本还要便宜（大部分都在99美元左右），并且有些还是“分类计价的”，即允许学生只支付一小部分费用去购买一整本教科书中最需要的个别章节。
如果购买个别章节的这种做法流行起来，教科书出版商会失去一些收入，但他们更希望能够通过吸引新顾客去弥补损失。像麦格劳—希尔公司及培生集团这样的大型出版集团正陷于与二手教科书市场的长期竞争中。根据辛巴信息公司的调查，二手教科书市场利润达22亿美元，而那些大型出版集团从中却一无所得。像Chegg.com那样的在线教科书租赁公司提供的价格比出版商低，广泛的顾客群已经形成。然而，传统出版商认为科技将是他们的救命稻草。没有所谓的“二手”电子书，出版商希望建立以电子教科书为核心的服务体系来实现盈利——比如功课管理体系以及为记录演讲所设的视频捕捉技术。“我们快要变成一家软件服务公司而不是一家教科书公司了，” 麦格劳—希尔教育出版集团的董事长彼得·戴维斯说。
但对于学生们来说又如何呢？可操纵自如的分子模型仅仅是花哨噱头，还是学习过程的真正改进？“科技从来都不是万灵药，但是有时候可以充当子弹发挥影响力，”教育研究者及Startl公司的创办人之一戴安
娜·洛登说。该公司致力于投资创意教育公司。她说，不同的学生有不同的学习方式。一些学生只读课本就足够了，其他一些偏爱视听辅助教材，而好动的学习者则需要与某些东西进行互动。“一本电子教科书就有所有的这些学习形态供我选择，”她说，“那是很强大的。定制化将对学习产生重大影响。”如果这意味着在有机化学上取得A的成绩，那么花500美元买台iPad也算是一个明智之举。
“Richer” is certainly the right word to use. 2)App developers aren’t the only ones who greeted the iPad’s release with gratitude and optimism. The textbook industry, too, sees it as a way to 3)woo customers away from the used-book market, boost profits, and help students learn better. It’s a 4)pivotal moment for a segment of the publishing industry that has stubbornly resisted change. Thanks in large part to the iPad and an expected rush of competitor 5)slates, that resistance is 6)crumbling.
Of course, it won’t happen overnight. Textbooks today are still bought and sold in much the same way they’ve always been: as ink-and-paper objects assigned by professors and purchased by students in campus bookstores. “It’s a slow-moving 7)pharmaceutical market,” says Matt MacInnis, the CEO of Inkling, a 8)startup working on digital textbooks. “The professor writes a prescription, and the student goes to fill it.”
But just ask any journalist or musician: technology 9)has a way of 10)laying siege to com-fortable industries. And the iPad may be the first of many 11)barbarians at the gate. Apple sold 3 million of the devices in its first three months, and now competitors, reportedly including Google and Amazon, are preparing rivals. Educators and students are enthusiastic about them; at least three colleges, including the Illinois Institute of Technology, will offer free iPads to incoming students.
There are already digital textbooks available, and their numbers are expected to grow: according to Simba Information, which provides data and research on the media industry, they represent less than 2 percent of textbook sales today, but will reach 10 percent by 2012. But in 2010 the offerings were pretty 12)meager. CourseSmart, a 13)San Mateo, Calif., company collectively owned by five of the biggest textbook publishers, has 6,000 educational 14)titles for sale in digital format. But its electronic books are little more than scanned versions of printed works. A CourseSmart e-book includes some 15)neat functions, like search capability and digital note-taking, but for the most part, it has few advantages over a traditional textbook other than weight and price. (CourseSmart books usually cost less than half the price of a new printed book.)
That’s where a company like Inkling 16)comes in. Inkling, a 20-person San Francisco startup, and its competitors—including New York City’s ScrollMotion—are working with the textbook publishers to bring their books onto the iPad, iPhone, and other future devices. The aim, says Inkling’s MacInnis, is to 17)harness all the advantages of a multitouch, Web-enabled slate. That means chemistry students won’t just see an illustration of a 18)benzene molecule; they’ll spin and rotate a 19)three-dimensional model of one. Biology students won’t just read about the 20)cardiovascular system; they’ll see video of a beating heart, 21)narrated by a world-class heart surgeon.
Interactivity, though, is only part of the story. Bringing texts onto a digital platform provides an opportunity to make the book as social as the classroom. With Inkling’s technology, for instance, a student can choose to follow another’s “note 22)stream,” or view a heat map of the class’s most-highlighted passages. Professors get 23)real-time information on how much of the reading assignment the class actually did, or whether a particular review problem is 24)tripping up large numbers of students. All that comes on top of the cost savings: even these advanced digital textbooks will cost less than their print equivalents (with most of them in the $99 range) and some will even come “25)unbundled,” allowing students to buy the individual chapters they need most for a small fraction of the cost of a full textbook.
Textbook publishers stand to lose some revenue if individual chapter purchases catch on, but they hope to more than offset the loss by attracting new customers. Big publishers like
26)McGraw-Hill and 27)Pearson are locked in a longstanding battle against the used-textbook market, which now totals about $2.2 billion, according to Simba, and from which they earn no revenue. Online textbook-rental companies like Chegg.com offer lower prices than the publishers, and reach a wide customer base. But traditional publishers think technology will be their 28)salvation. There’s no such thing as a “used” e-book, and digital textbooks are the center of a whole 29)ecosystem of services—such as homework-management systems and video-capture technology for recording lectures—that publishers hope will be profitable. “We’re becoming a software service company instead of a textbook company,” says Peter Davis, president of McGraw-Hill Education.
But what about the students? Are 30)manipulable molecules just digital 31)eye candy or real improvements to the learning process? “Technology is never the 32)silver bullet, but it can sometimes be the bullet,” says Diana Rhoten, an education researcher and cofounder of Startl, which invests in innovative education companies. She notes that different students have different learning styles. Some are just fine reading text, while others prefer audiovisual aids, and 33)kinesthetic learners need to interact with something. “In a digital book, I have all of those 34)modalities available to me,” she says. “That is huge. 35)Customization is going to have a great impact on learning.” And if it means getting an A in organic chemistry, paying $500 for an iPad seems like a smart choice.
哈罗德·埃尔德不是你们想象的那种典型苹果“粉丝”，然而这位58岁的阿拉巴马大学经济学教授为了保证能够拥有首轮上市的iPad而提前预订了一部。他说，这个玩意是他“等待了多年的东西”。而且，更确切地说，这不仅仅是基于对电脑产品的狂热追捧。“它的确有可能让学习体验变得更加丰富多彩，”埃尔德说，他正考虑在今年秋天的微观经济学入门课程中尝试用新式的iPad电子教科书。
“更加丰富多彩”的确是用来形容电子教科书的恰当词语。不仅仅是应用程序开发商对iPad的发行持感激及乐观态度，教科书产业也将其看作是将顾客从二手书市场抢回来，提高利润以及帮助学生更好地学习的一种方式。这对一向顽固地拒绝改变的出版业来说是一个关键时刻。很大程度上，由于iPad以及可预见的同类竞争产品所带来的冲击，这种抵抗性正在逐渐瓦解。
当然，这不可能在一夜之间实现。如今，教科书的买卖基本还是过去的老样子：作为教授们指定的油墨纸张印刷品在大学书店里被学生们选购。“这是一个发展缓慢的‘药品’市场，”开发电子教科书的初创公司Inkling的执行总裁马特·麦克英尼斯说，“教授开个‘处方’，然后学生按照处方去买‘药’。”
然而去问问任何一个记者或者音乐家：科技有“围攻”传统安逸行业的习惯。而iPad可能只是出版业门前围攻的首批野蛮人。苹果在最初三个月便售出300万台iPad，如今，其竞争对手（据闻包括谷歌和亚马逊）也正准备推出与之相抗衡的产品。教育人士和学生都非常热衷于这些产品；包括伊利诺伊理工大学在内的至少三所大学将为刚入学的新生免费提供iPad。
如今，已有电子教科书在市面上流通，且数量预计会增长：据提供媒体产业数据及调研的辛巴信息公司称，如今电子教科书仅占据了教科书不到2%的销售总额，但是到2012年，这一份额将达到10%。然而，2010年，市场上所提供的电子教科书相当少。CourseSmart公司，一家位于加州圣马特奥市、由五大教科书出版商共同拥有的公司，出售6000本教科书的电子书。但是，它销售的所谓电子书籍比纸质印刷的扫描版本好不了多少。CourseSmart公司的电子书有一些简便的功能，例如搜寻功能以及数字笔记，但很大程度上，除了重量及价格以外，相对于传统教科书，它没有什么优势。（CourseSmart公司出售的电子书通常比一本新印刷书籍的价格便宜一半以上。）
因此，像Inkling这样的公司便应运而生。位于美国旧金山市，拥有20名员工的新兴网络公司——Inkling公司，以及其竞争对手（包括纽约市的ScrollMotion公司）正与教科书出版商共同合作，将他们的书放到iPad、iPhone以及未来的其他电脑产品上。据Inkling公司的麦克英尼斯说，其目标是为了整合平板电脑多重触控以及上网功能等所有优点。这意味着化学系学生看到的不仅仅是苯分子的插图，他们还可以旋转一个苯分子的3D模型。生物系学生不仅仅只是读到有关心血管系统的说明，他们还可以一边听世界一流心脏外科医生的旁述，一边看心脏跳动的视频。
尽管如此，互动性只是其中的一个优势。将教科书带至一个数字平台还提供机会，让书本变得像课堂一样具有社会性。例如，依靠Inkling的技术，学生可以选择去跟随另一个学生的“笔记动态”，或者去浏览班上最受学生关注的篇章段落的“图示说明”。而教授们则可以获得实时信息，了解班上有多少学生完成了阅读任务，或者有没有哪个复习题难倒了大部分学生。除了这些优点，还有成本的节约：这些如此高级的电子教科书比它们的印刷版本还要便宜（大部分都在99美元左右），并且有些还是“分类计价的”，即允许学生只支付一小部分费用去购买一整本教科书中最需要的个别章节。
如果购买个别章节的这种做法流行起来，教科书出版商会失去一些收入，但他们更希望能够通过吸引新顾客去弥补损失。像麦格劳—希尔公司及培生集团这样的大型出版集团正陷于与二手教科书市场的长期竞争中。根据辛巴信息公司的调查，二手教科书市场利润达22亿美元，而那些大型出版集团从中却一无所得。像Chegg.com那样的在线教科书租赁公司提供的价格比出版商低，广泛的顾客群已经形成。然而，传统出版商认为科技将是他们的救命稻草。没有所谓的“二手”电子书，出版商希望建立以电子教科书为核心的服务体系来实现盈利——比如功课管理体系以及为记录演讲所设的视频捕捉技术。“我们快要变成一家软件服务公司而不是一家教科书公司了，” 麦格劳—希尔教育出版集团的董事长彼得·戴维斯说。
但对于学生们来说又如何呢？可操纵自如的分子模型仅仅是花哨噱头，还是学习过程的真正改进？“科技从来都不是万灵药，但是有时候可以充当子弹发挥影响力，”教育研究者及Startl公司的创办人之一戴安
娜·洛登说。该公司致力于投资创意教育公司。她说，不同的学生有不同的学习方式。一些学生只读课本就足够了，其他一些偏爱视听辅助教材，而好动的学习者则需要与某些东西进行互动。“一本电子教科书就有所有的这些学习形态供我选择，”她说，“那是很强大的。定制化将对学习产生重大影响。”如果这意味着在有机化学上取得A的成绩，那么花500美元买台iPad也算是一个明智之举。