“Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or illustrations.”

Distribution will be online and via traditional bookstores:

“Students will be able to buy the e-books at dynamicbooks.com, in college bookstores and through CourseSmart, a joint venture among five textbook publishers that sells electronic textbooks. The DynamicBooks editions — which can be reached online or downloaded — can be read on laptops and the iPhone from Apple. Clancy Marshall, general manager of DynamicBooks, said the company planned to negotiate agreements with Apple so the electronic books could be read on the iPad.”

See the NYT article “Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally” for more info. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/business/media/22textbook.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

University of Toronto study

“Clive Thompson on the New Literacy” in Wired Magazine

“Texting can b gd 4 ur kids” in NewScientist

among the supporting examples. His summary article is well worth the read.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20100120/2326407852.shtml

“… adult Internet users are now spending an average of 13 hours a week online. Of course, people’s usage varies greatly; one in five (20%) of adult Internet users are online for only two hours or less a week while one in seven (14%) are spending 24 or more hours a week online.”

Other statistics from the report include:

“· The age groups that spend the most time online are those aged 30-39 (18 hours) and those aged 25-29 (17 hours) and 40-49 (17 hours).

· Half (50%) of all those online bought something on the Internet in the last month. This includes 62% of those aged 30-39 and 56% of those aged 40-49.

· The number of adults online, now 184 million (80%), has not changed significantly since 2008 and 2007. This includes those online at work, at home, at school or any other locations.

· However, the number of adults who are online at home has increased to 76% this year, and 75% last year, compared to 70% in 2006, and 66% in 2005. ”

A link to the report can be found here:
http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=1963&ResLibraryID=35164&Category=1777

Richard Wrangham: Cooking is what made us human

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427390.200

More detail on Wrangham’s book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human” can be found here:

http://www.perseuspodcasts.com/main/podcasts/book.php?isbn=9780465013623

“The researchers studied mice as they were trained to reach through a slot to get a seed. They observed rapid growth of structures that form connections (called synapses) between nerve cells in the motor cortex, the brain layer that controls muscle movements.

“‘We found very quick and robust synapse formation almost immediately, within one hour of the start of training,’ said Yi Zuo, assistant professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology at UCSC.”

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091129153359.htm

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/26/why-google-wave-sucks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Robert Scoble put it this way: “This service is way overhyped and as people start to use it they will realize it brings the worst of email and IM together: unproductivity.”

http://scobleizer.com/2009/10/01/google-wave-crashes-on-beach-of-overhype/

“This article is about why educational performance is critical to a society’s wealth, how the modern university is not appreciably improved over the template established in 1088, and proposes some simple changes that should greatly improve the effectiveness of undergraduate education.”

Well worth a read: http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/universities-and-economic-growth

“If you’re an early, unimpressed, or confused, Google Wave user, this will help you out.

Gina Trapani and Adam Pash, of Lifehacker fame, have written a book, “The Complete Guide To Google Wave.” It’s just eight short chapters, and it’s available online”

http://www.businessinsider.com/confused-about-google-wave-now-theres-a-book-to-explain-it-2009-11

“After searching some public ‘waves,’ we came across an educational wave. Entitled ‘Wave in Class,’ this wave was started by Loren Baum (a self-described “collaborative learning enthusiast” and graduate student at Ben Gurion University) and Sam Boland (a Politics student and “Tech Enthusiast” at Occidental College, Los Angeles).

The wave was started to explore concepts like “Collaborative Note Taking” and “Wave as a Debate Host.” Nearly 100 people are included in the wave, ranging from teachers to PhD students to IT professionals to high school students.”

Conclusion

“Overall, it is clear that Google Wave has potential to be very useful in the education system, particularly as a real-time collaborative note-taking tool. Three students experimented with just that in a lecture; the resulting notes were said to be “more complete” than if Wave hadn’t been used.”

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_wave_use_cases_education.php

These advanced tips and tricks will enable you to make your PowerPoint presentation even more powerful.”

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Become_a_PowerPoint_Power_User