A Case for Textbooks Through the LMS

From the perspective of college faculty, the digital rights management (DRM) controls that are inherent in commercial electronic textbooks simply serve to prevent students from acquiring or fully utilizing their course materials. In the end, that means students aren’t as prepared for class as they should be.

In an article for Educause Review Online, Gerd Kortemeyer, associate professor of physics education at Michigan State University, makes an argument for replacing e-textbooks with a “truly interactive, adaptive, and individualizing online coursepack—instead of a PDF file with static book content—delivered via a free course management application to any web-capable client platform.”

Kortemeyer, who is also director of the Learning Online Network with Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach (LON-CAPA) project, sees a number of advantages to distributing course materials through the school’s learning management system. Among them: It would be easier for faculty to assemble a collection of the exact readings they want for their classes and to display materials during lectures. Students could access their coursepacks from anywhere with one login (including studies abroad), right from the first day of class—no more waffling about whether to buy materials or not.

Students would still have to pay for their class coursepacks, he noted. The system would add up the cost for each student and charge a single fee.

“The question we face in education today is: Will textbook publishers stick with the dead-end strategy or opt for a model that actually supports the education process?” he wrote.

Are Tech Tools Too Cool for School?

Teachers know there are plenty of education apps and websites available. The question is whether those tools actually help students or merely look cool.

“Putting technology ahead of pedagogy” is a common pitfall, according to Steps to Mobile Learning, a guide published by the Consortium of School Networking. That can be avoided if teachers understand what they are teaching and how they plan to teach it, pick a set of technology skills students need to learn and stick with it, and find the right tools to use, according to Eric Patnoudes, an instructional technologist.

“Whether you’re new to integrating technology into the classroom or you’re looking to use your time more effectively, keep teaching and learning at the forefront of your planning,” Patnoudes wrote in an article for EdTech. “I’ve found that this approach relieves teachers from feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of cool tools available. Consider it just-in-time learning for teachers.”

Free is New Higher Ed Price-Point

One way colleges and universities can address the rising costs of higher education is to give it away for free. That’s exactly what the program Tulsa Achieve has meant for about 10,000 high-school graduates in Tulsa, OK.

Tulsa Achieve, the brainchild of Tulsa Community College President Tom McKeon, provides a free two-year degree to students living in Tulsa County who compile at least a C average in high school and commit to at least two years of community service. McKeon convinced local businesses and political leaders to find ways to fund the program.

“We established Tulsa Achieves seven years ago because we no longer believed that a high-school diploma was sufficient in terms of the jobs of the future,” McKeon told National Public Radio.

The cost is $3,400 per student each year, with the lion’s share coming from local property taxes. The program also provides each student plenty of support along the way. McKeon reports that eight of 10 students who enter the program finish it.

The Kalamazoo Promise is a similar program that has helped 3,200 students of the Kalamazoo, MI, public schools since 2005. Funded by anonymous donors, the program covers 100% of the tuition bills for students who’ve attended school in the district since kindergarten and 65%-95% for others based on how long they attended schools in Kalamazoo.

Promise scholarships were limited to the 15 public universities and 23 community colleges in Michigan until this month, when 15 private colleges in the state joined the program.

“Evidence indicates that for some students, they are more likely to graduate college if they attend a small, liberal arts school,” Brad Hershbein, an economist at The W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, told Michigan Live. “This could help them.”

Do Consumers Care About Amazon's Tactics?

Recent news coverage seems to portray Amazon as a bully for trying to keep readers from J.K. Rowling’s latest novel and The Lego Movie as it negotiates better deals with its publishing and movie distribution partners.

The question is, do consumers really care?

“People selling things seem more aware of Amazon’s action that those buying things,” Joshua Brustein wrote in Bloomberg Business. “Anyone who has shopped online is familiar with inconsistent availability of items at any given time. Even if someone ends up leaving Amazon to buy a book or a movie from a rival website, it won’t necessarily generate hostility toward Amazon.”

Prominent authors have been complaining, but there hasn’t been much of a public outcry. In fact, a survey from YouGov showed there’s been virtually no change in the public perception of Amazon, which remains No. 1 in the American Customers Satisfaction Index.

“Some think that the way for publishers to change this is to beat Amazon at its own game, pulling all their titles and making it clear why they’re doing it,” Brustein wrote. “That would be very likely to grab attention. The outcome of the ensuing standoff would probably come down to which side needs the other more. That seems a risky bet for the publishing industry.”

At the same time, the price of Amazon stock is climbing.

“While it’s hard sometimes to say why Wall Street behaves the way it does, it could be that investors see Amazon’s struggle in terms of its effort to increase its raze-thin profit margin, or similarly, as was posited by David Streitfeld of The New York Times, who initially broke the Amazon-Hachette story, to help finance its many investments in its future business,” wrote Jeremy Greenfield in Forbes. “Or, perhaps investors are ignoring Amazon’s moves in book publishing and focusing on its other businesses.”

edX Data Shed Light on MOOCs

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released data last month on the first 16 massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by their edX partnership. It turns out that while millions may register, far fewer actually complete the class and most people taking MOOCs already have a college degree.

While that comes as no surprise, the report may provide developers with valuable information for the future.

“There was a lot we didn’t know, especially about who took different types of MOOCs and how much of the course content they viewed,” wrote Jonah Newman and Soo Oh in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “This information may be valuable to those looking to design and lead successful MOOCs.”

For instance, while 57% of students on campus are female, 76% of students taking MOOCs are male. The median age of the participants is 24, with a third coming from North America. More than 20% of the students come from South Asia and students from that part of the world. They are most likely taking engineering and computer science courses, while Africans enroll in social science courses at nearly twice the rate of any other offering.

Students with a doctorate viewed the most course materials and students who took more than one MOOC were the most engaged in the course material, unless they took more than five classes, which is when engagement fell off.

Perhaps the most troubling trend is that nearly half of all registered students never look at any content associated with the class.

Workforce Needs Better Preparation

There is an employee skill gap and higher education isn’t doing enough to bridge it, according to the third Innovation Imperative Poll conducted by Northeastern University. The survey found that 73% of the business leaders who responded believe employees in the United States don’t have all the skills they require, while 87% think most college graduates lack the important skills needed to succeed.

Nationally, 54% of the business leaders said they think the U.S. higher education system lags behind both developed and emerging nations in preparing students for the workforce. Over the next 10-15 years, 27% of the leaders said they believe college graduates will be better prepared to join the workforce, 32% predicted they will be less prepared, and 39% said they will be equally prepared.

Nearly all of the leaders (97%) said colleges and universities in the U.S. must expand opportunities for experiential learning and teach about entrepreneurship (89%).

“These findings underscore a critical call to action for all of us in higher education to innovate,” said Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern. “Business leaders, who are key partners for colleges and universities, want higher education to be more experiential and want us to instill entrepreneurial qualities in our graduates.”

Universities Create Tech Consortium

While universities offer different programs to attract students, the technology infrastructure necessary to deliver them is often the same. That led Colorado State University, Indiana University, the University of Florida, and the University of Michigan to join forces.

The schools created a consortium called Unizin to negotiate contracts with technology vendors for products and services they purchase individually. Schools are currently paying millions to build and buy systems for storing and managing digital content, but Unizin is designed to allow its members to purchase a set of services in an effort to create a common infrastructure.

“Right now, that stuff is going into digital shoeboxes, one campus at a time,” Bradley C. Wheeler, vice president for information technology at Indiana, told The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The goal of Unizin is to allow member institutions to share data and learning materials through the common infrastructure without losing control of student data or intellectual property. The effort follows a 2013 position paper from the Committee on Institutional Cooperation that suggested institutions needed a better way to make smart technology decisions.

“It’s not about owning everything,” Wheeler said. “It’s about owning the rights to make choices that are in the interest of universities.”

K-12 Mobile Learning Gains Acceptance

A new study found that mobile learning is on the rise in K-12 classrooms. The Speak Up 2013 survey from Project Tomorrow reported that 41% of principals surveyed said they were comfortable letting students “bring your own devices” (BYOD) to school, up from 22% in the 2010 study.

The report also found that 10% of the principals said they already made policy changes to allow BYOD learning in their schools. In addition, nearly 60% of the more than 32,000 parents of school-aged children who participated said they would like their children to be in classes where BYOD was allowed.

School administrators report that mobile learning helps build the skills needed for college and in the workforce. However, changing policy is not always easy because of issues concerning access and equity.

“As appealing as all the benefits of using personal mobile devices are, district leaders are still facing some serious challenges that must be addressed, like student safety and district liability in case students misuse their own devices,” said Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow. “Even districts who have adopted a BYOD policy are struggling with providing devices for students who may not be able to afford them and with training teachers on best practices for teaching in a classroom where conceptually every student has a different device with various levels of functionality and content.”

Conde Nast Working on Higher Ed Offering

Conde Nast publishes some of the most iconic magazines in the industry, such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. Those magazines and others may soon be part of a master’s program, according to a report in Inside Higher Education.

The publisher has partnered with colleges and universities to create an accredited certificate program in media studies, and eventually wants to develop a master’s degree program. The plan calls for Conde Nast writers and publishers to contribute expertise and content as part of an interactive online and in-person component to a program to be launched by fall 2015.

“For a media company, if you look at the economics of that, increasingly you want to be able to diversify your revenue streams,” Michael Moe, an analyst for GSV Capital, told National Public Radio. “I think it’s a natural extension of the brand and the intellectual capital within that brand.”

Conde Nast already offers the Vogue Fashion Certificate for students of the Conde Nast College of Fashion and Design in London. Higher ed partners for this new initiative have yet to be identified, but Jill Bright, chief administrative officer, considers allowing editors and writers to share content expertise for credit the “natural next step” for the company.

“We think our brands have a far-reaching influence and would like to use that in a positive way to educate people,” she said.

DRM Keeps Amazon in Driver's Seat

The contract tussle between Hachette and Amazon has been all over the news of late, but the problem is more than Amazon’s tactics. It’s the deal with the devil publishers signed up for years ago when they decided proprietary digital rights management (DRM) was the way to go, according to Ben Thompson in a Bloomberg News article.

Thompson, founder of Stratechery.com, a blog about the business and strategy of technology, wrote that since publishers were so worried about allowing free access to their content, they ended up putting Amazon in the negotiating driver’s seat.

“The problem with DRM, as Nook owners now know all too well, is that it ties your books to a single company,” Thompson wrote. “If you start buying Kindle books, you will always buy Kindle books, because your books will only ever work on a Kindle app.”

Thompson said he thinks publishers could change the balance of power by eliminating proprietary DRM.

“To be sure, this digital future would require a new business model,” Thompson wrote. “Publishers would need to rework their businesses from speculative investment to publishing-as-a-service, with upside directly tied to a book’s success.”

Such change might be difficult. In fact, George Packer wrote in an article for The New Yorker that Amazon executives believe publishers are so woefully behind the times that they probably will never catch up.

“I’ve worked with publishers, and here’s the thing: Amazon is largely right,” Thompson said. “Publishers, as currently constructed, simply aren’t prepared to compete in a world based on Internet economics.”

Stanford Analyzes Its Online Learning Effort

A study from Stanford University reported that 1.9 million people around the world have registered for at least one of its massive open online courses (MOOCs) and that four million hours of instruction have been delivered since 2012.

Stanford Online: 2013 in Review also found that 73% of the students for its OpenEdX courses were male and that most students came from the United States. In addition, 40% of the students spent between one and 20 minutes each week with the MOOC materials, while 32% spent more than an hour in study.

The Stanford Office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning (VPOL) has issued 66 grants to encourage experimentation and innovation by faculty. Among the initiatives is a project to create scalable virtual labs and a nine-week course on statistics in medicine that showed a much higher rate of active users when compared to other MOOCs, according to data from the course.

“Stanford’s vision is much broader than MOOCs,” John Mitchel, the Stanford vice provost who directs VPOL, told Campus Technology. “We’re thinking about how we will be educating students for generations to come.”

Students Now Have a Crowdlearning Site

Crowdsourcing brings together a large group of individuals to find solutions for needed services, ideas, or content. Now, a Polish ed-tech firm has created a “crowdlearning” website, an online community where students can share their insights on one subject in exchange for help with another.

Brainly, originally launched in 2009 under the name Zadane.pl, targets middle- and high-school students with a Q&A platform that provides peer-to-peer help. In an effort to balance the number of answers with the questions, students earn points for answers and can then use those points to ask questions.

“Our advantage is fast answers,” Michal Borkowski, Brainly co-founder and CEO, told The Next Web. ”Generally, if the question received an answer, it’s there in 80% of examples in 10 minutes. Competitors at the U.S. market are way slower.”

Since changing its name to Brainly in 2012, the company has developed sites for students in 13 countries. It has more than 20 million users worldwide and nearly 60,000 in the United States since its launch here earlier this year.

“It’s interesting that math tops almost every country’s most popular subject, but then the more you think about it, the more it makes sense,” Borkowski told Forbes. “There is often more than one way to arrive at the correct answer to a math problem, and this is where peer-to-peer learning can really deliver value.”

Another Look at College's ROI

As graduation season winds down, questions surrounding whether a college degree is worth the cost heat up. The U.S. Labor Department suggests that a degree does pay off, finding that Americans with a four-year college degree earned an average of 98% more per hour in 2013 than people without a degree, according to a report in The New York Times.

To play devil’s advocate, National PublicRadio came up with three instances when college may not be worth it.

For starters, statistics show that 59% of students actually complete a degree. The rest, about 34 million Americans, are in the workforce with some college but no degree. According to Bureau of Labor statistics, those workers have less earning power and are more likely to be unemployed.

Then there’s the study from the Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment which found that students attending for-profit colleges are less likely to find a job and more likely to have lower earning potential after enrolling when compared to students going to traditional colleges and universities. It also noted that students at for-profit institutions generally carry heavier debt and are more likely to default on student loans.

Picking the wrong degree can also be a problem. A Chronicle of Higher Education report in 2011 showed an earning gap that ranged from $120,000 for petroleum engineers to $29,000 for psychology counselor. With the average student debt burden at $29,400, an argument can be made that some degrees simply are not cost effective.

“Now, we’re not arguing that a college degree is a bad idea. It’s not,” wrote NPR reporter Anya Kamenetz. “Our point is, when it comes to bold, blanket statements about the value of a college degree and whether it will pay off … words like ‘always’ and ‘never’ aren’t helpful. Or true.”

Study Estimates Cost to Connect All Students

While there’s been plenty of discussion about providing high-speed Internet access to all students, there’s not been as much talk about how much that might cost. Research from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the EducationSuperHighway puts the figure at about $3.2 billion.

The total includes the cost of purchasing, installing, and maintaining equipment to meet classroom needs for local area network (LAN), wide-area network (WAN), and WiFi. CoSN and EducationSuperHighway surveyed 50 district chief technology officers, equipment vendors, and networking experts to come up with per-classroom, per-school, and per-district cost estimates.

“This is the first time that we have come out with an actual number,” Evan Marwell, CEO of EducationSuperHighway, told EdSurge. “It’s based on an actual analysis rather than simply saying, ‘Let’s double the pool of funds needed for more broadband.’”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently reported it had already committed $450 million for broadband for schools and libraries. It is also working on updating the E-rate policies that subsidize school and library purchases of telecommunications services.

“We’re hearing that the FCC will do something at the July meeting,” Marwell said. “Some issues have a lot of consensus, such as focusing the [E-rate] money on broadband and phasing out ‘legacy services.’”

'National Knowledge Network' Launched

The government of Trinidad and Tobago has launched knowledge.tt, the first online educational initiative designed for an entire country. The nation partnered with Khan Academy and Coursera to provide massive open online courses (MOOCs) as a resource for hybrid and lifelong learning.

The initiative is part of the Coursera Learning Hub program, which the MOOC provider started in 2013 to give the global community access to free online courses and engage in blended learning. Coursera is providing online courses, materials, and video programming in Trinidad, which is setting up learning centers on the local University of Trinidad campuses where students can get help from instructors.

“We wanted to work with groups that will move the ball forward most quickly,” Lila Ibrahim, Coursera president, told the BBC.

The focus of the initiative is using MOOCs to provide skills for workers. The government is offering a certificate of participation for individuals who complete one of the MOOCs and students are eligible for an internship program that has more than 400 employers taking part, according to a report by National Public Radio.

“You can learn as you earn and you can earn more learning,” Fazal Karim, minister of tertiary education, told the BBC. 

Asessing Gaming Skills

Game-based education has become a popular trend because it helps students develop skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Now, research is being done to help teachers understand what a student knows and how they apply it when playing.

Kristen DiCerbo, principal research scientist at Pearson, was part of the team that developed SimCityEDU and Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy for the Institute of Play’s GlassLab. The work led the group to research student interactions while playing the games and ways to use the information.

“One of the things that games and simulation games do is provide those problems that are in context and ask learners to apply those to situations they might encounter,” DiCerbo told eSchool News. “We want them to be able to transfer the skills and use them in a different way.”

Tracking information such as students’ in-game actions could lead to models of student understanding that might then be fed back to the students through the game. DiCerbo and her team are also working on ways to measure skills developed through gaming.

“These underrepresented skills are a big place where we can potentially have an impact,” she said. “If we think about the idea behind, say, persistence and how much you continue in the face of trying to solve a difficult problem where you’re experiencing failure—do we assess that just by asking kids? In a game, we can see that and see how many times a student tries.”

Could Ads Be Next for Wearable Tech?

Wearable technology has gone from fitness wristbands to Google Glass to brain-sensing headbands that can help people clear their minds of distractions. The Muse headband provides wearers with an image of what their mind is doing by measuring brainwave activity.

The Muse uses neurofeedback, biofeedback made up of real-time displays of electroencephalography (EEG), to show brain activity and stress levels. A smartphone app lets wearers see what their mind is doing and provides calming exercises to practice.

“For me, neurofeedback and meditation generally feels like a gentle hit of coffee,” wrote Gregory Ferenstein, who tested the device for an article for VentureBeat. “My inner voice silences, an incessant need to rush melts away, and I just do things. Neurofeedback is one of the best things I do for my productivity, and the Muse makes it fairly easy to do regularly.”

While many see the benefits of increasing focus and decreasing stress, the next trend in wearables could lead to location-based advertising. The idea is to combine the technology to monitor emotion and health data with real-time activity to deliver instant advertising.

“Your Google Glass knows where you are, what you’ve been searching for, and, of course, the kind of pictures you’ve been taking,” wrote Chris Matyszczyk in CNET. “Add brain-scanning technology to that and the whole caboodle can become simply a part of you.”

For the record, Google currently forbids advertising on Google Glass.

MOOCs Not As Disruptive, But Not Going Away

While it’s not particularly earthshattering news, separate reports from the Teachers College at Columbia University and Bellwether Education have concluded that massive open online courses (MOOCs) are not going to be as disruptive as first predicted. They’re not going to disappear either.

Both studies concluded MOOCs will ultimately be incorporated into online education efforts by colleges and universities.

“It seems clear that MOOCs are neither the cataclysmic disrupter that advocates predicted nor the flash in the pan their critics were hoping for,” wrote Andrew P. Kelly, director for the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the Bellwether report.

The 211-page Columbia study also found no indication that colleges will see a return on investment in the free online courses. However, the report predicted MOOCs will eventually become more like current online courses, available to students willing to pay for them.

“MOOCs have inspired a lot of thought, but people are not necessarily deciding what their goals are in advance, then using MOOCs to address those goals,” Fiona Hollands, co-author of the Columbia report, told Bloomberg. “They’re spending an awful lot of money and not necessarily knowing whether it’s effective.”

Net Neutrality Debate and Higher Ed

The recent ruling by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on net neutrality created more questions than answers for education, according to Jeff Livingston, senior vice president of education policy for McGraw-Hill Education. His biggest concern is how the bandwidth needed to accommodate a more interactive and digital way of learning will be provided and at what cost.

“What we are most interested in with net neutrality and this conversation is in making certain those educational uses that are essential to a really important public purpose are not de-prioritized in favor of bigger and better entertainment solutions,” Livingston told eCampus News.

The FCC ruling does not specifically mention the needs of education. That is an issue for Livingston, who is concerned it could eventually pit the bandwidth needs of digital content with the public’s desire to access their games and movies faster.

“Now, if the final rulings do come out and there is not an explicit prioritization of education, I believe you will definitely hear a lot more from educational institutions than we’ve heard this far,” he said. “Frankly, they fully expect it to be OK—but I just want to make sure.”

Social Networking Tops Phablet Usage

A recent International Data Corp. survey found that phablet sales are on the rise and becoming a threat to tablet sales. Opera Mediaworks followed with a study that showed 54% of phablet owners use the device for social networking, which is much higher than the global average for all mobile gadgets.

The phablet is a hybrid device combining smartphone features with a larger screen, ranging from 5 in. to 7 in. The Opera research studied traffic running through its mobile ad platform in March and April to see what sites and apps were being used.

Social networking on smartphones ran a distant second in the study, at less than 30%, with tablet usage coming in around 10%. On the other hand, tablets continue to be the device of choice when it comes to playing games or watching videos.

“What we discovered is people now want to use their [phablets] for both purposes: to run around town, use the map, check email, text a friend that you’re running late,” Scott Swanson, president of Opera Mediaworks said in an article for Re/code. “Then they were also using it at home, sometimes instead of a tablet, for checking social media.”

What's That?

This will probably make anyone over the age of 30 feel kind of old. Have a safe and happy Memorial Day.

A College Degree Is Worth It

There’s no question a college education will take a bite out of your wallet. As costs have gone up, many students and their parents have wondered if a college diploma is really worth it. The 2014 Pew Research Center survey suggests that it is.

The study found that young adults ages 25-32 with college degrees earn about $45,500 a year, approximately $17,500 more than workers who only have a high school diploma. In addition, a 2012 study from the Georgetown University Center on Education found adults with a bachelor’s degree earned more as they got older, on average 25% more than their less educated counterparts who had been on the job for 20 years or more.

College grads can expect to earn about $2.3 million during their lifetimes, a figure that is 74% more than workers with just a high school diploma. Along with higher earning potential, the March 2014 unemployment rate for college graduates age 25 and older was 3.4%, while the rate for workers with only a high school education was 6.3%.

“Majors in engineering, math, and science typically have an easier time finding jobs and are offered higher starting salaries than college grads with degrees in arts and humanities,” the Northwestern MutualVoice Team wrote in an article for Forbes. “However, regardless of major, 91% of college grads overall and 88% of millennials say that college has been, or will be, worth the investment.”

MOOCs for 'Generation Distracted'

Like all college classes, massive open online courses (MOOCs) require a commitment to complete. That was an issue for Coursmos, the educational platform designed for “Generation Distracted”, according to its website.

The company reasoned that the time it took students to sit through online lectures that went on for weeks could be why completion rates for MOOCs were so low. Its solution was to develop more than 900 free micro-courses that allow students to learn concepts in short bursts through videos that run no longer than 10 minutes.

“[With Coursmos,] students get specific answers to specific questions,” Maria Davalos, Coursmos customer development manager, told eCampus News. “The courses are made by successful professionals who are practicing this knowledge on a daily basis.”

The company started in October 2013, when it made micro-courses available through iPhone and Android apps. The website was launched in March and includes subjects ranging from cooking to lifestyles, although its main focus is business-related courses.

Students sign up through their Facebook or email accounts and all courses are available to view without registration. Users that do register are offered personalized course recommendations with their accounts.

“We try to make the user interface simple,” Davalos said. “Anybody can get the app and try to create a course with the app.”

Investors May Not 'Understand' Chegg

Not long ago, Chegg’s business model of renting textbooks was disrupting the way students acquired course materials and how college stores did business. But times change and the company’s attempts to change with the times has left some investors scratching their heads.

In an effort to keep pace with the market, Chegg acquired the student platform Cramster, an online food-ordering service Campus Special, and Zinch, an online service that tries to match a student with a college. The purchase of Campus Special cost $17 million alone, and Chegg paid $2 million in expenses during the first quarter with no revenue and a sales cycle that doesn’t begin until July.

Since going public last fall, Chegg has watched its stock price tumble from the initial offering of $12.50 per share to less than $6. The company reported a net loss of $25.8 million in the first quarter of 2014, despite a 66% increase in digital revenue to $17.8 million.

"Everything we do is designed to solve the pain points students have,” said Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig in an interview with BuzzFeed. But he did admit that investors “may not understand our business right now.”

Apple Buying Beats Does Make Sense

Critics claim Apple has failed to come up with any game-changing devices since introducing the iPad in 2010, settling instead for upgrades and improvements on its existing products. Now, word has filtered out that Apple is thinking about paying $3.2 billion to purchase Beats Audio, bringing a new round of financial and tech critics out of the woodwork.

Since Apple has people who could develop great headphones and Beats Audio’s streaming music service hasn’t made that big of a dent in similar services, such as Pandora or Spotify, many critics wonder just what the heck is Apple thinking. Tech journalist Sean Hollister may have an answer in The Verge, an online tech and media publication.

“Apple’s modus operandi has always been to acquire firms that help it build things,” Hollister wrote. “Do you remember SoundJam MP? P.A. Semi? How about C3 Technologies? Probably not, because Apple ground their bones to make its bread. Apple baked their technology and talent into iTunes, the Apple iPhone processor, and Apple Maps, respectively.”

Wearable technology is an area Apple has been eyeing for some time, if you believe all the rumors of an impending iWatch. At the same time, nothing has resonated with consumers quite like Beats. The headphone brand has become a status symbol, worn by star athletes and celebrities and desired by teens and college students. In fact, the spring 2014 PiperJaffray survey found 46% of teens identified Beats as the headphone brand they’d like to purchase.

Apple’s particular genius has been the ability to take a product and turn it into something much better. Beats provides Apple with a product it can improve on that already has “celebrity cachet,” according to Hollister.

“My hunch is that if Apple is buying Beats, it’s because Apple is ready to announce the iWatch,” he wrote. “It just needs [Beats co-founders] Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine to wear one. Then, Apple would be doing something totally in character, something not surprising at all: buying the last key piece it needs for a technology that could change the world.”

Institutions Picked for CBE Program

Fourteen colleges and universities have been chosen to participate in the Competency Based Education (CBE) Jumpstart program, an initiative that will allow students to earn degrees based on skills and competencies they have learned through experience, rather than just through the completion of credit-hour courses.

“Competency-based education is particularly relevant for adults and nontraditional learners who bring learning from work and life experiences into higher education,” said Philip Coyle, provost at LeTourneau University, Longview, TX, one of the schools named to the program. “With the rising costs of education, students expect education that is flexible enough to meet their needs and provides them skills that are immediately transferable into the workplace.”

The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) is providing on-site training for faculty and staff at each participating institution. CAEL also offers follow-up support through webinars on selected topics and in-depth technical assistance for schools experiencing issues with getting the program going.

“We are in the very beginning stages of planning,” said Larry Frazier, dean of the school of arts at LeTourneau, which is hoping to start the program in fall 2015. “We are just now starting and we must think of how to reframe and shape the degree plans for CBE.”

Mobile Devices Change Study Habits

Earlier this year, StudyBlue asked 1,000 college students how they used their mobile devices to study. The online study platform found students think their gadgets help them study more and get better grades, according to a report in eCampus News.

In fact, nearly 90% said their grades had improved through the use of study apps available on their mobile devices.

Apps aside, the report found students are studying more because their mobile devices are, well, so mobile. Nearly 20% said they’ve used their phones to study, 22% did homework in bed, 13% studied while eating, and 10% while in the bathroom.

The study reported that 43% still use pen and paper during study time, but 26% use their laptops and 14% use their smartphone. Mobile may also make it easier to put off studying as nearly 60% of the students admitted to cramming for midterms or finals and 88% said they used their devices to study right before a test.

College Expenses Yield Big Dividends

The cost of attending a college or university has been heavily criticized, with extra digs at the retail prices of textbooks and other course materials. In the view of one economist, though, that expense represents an investment that will pay off handsomely in the end.

David Howden, professor of economics at St. Louis University at its Madrid campus, and academic vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada, an economics education organization, sifted through data from the U.S. Federal Reserve related to student-loan debt and adult employment.

Some 70% of college students graduate with loans, to the tune of $29,400 on average, Howden noted in an article for the Mises Institute. Most students also “lose” the job earnings they would have received during the years they were in school. The total cost, he said, is around $300,000.

“But the decision to not pursue a college degree and enter the workforce directly also comes with a cost,” he said. “It seems like a good deal at first, but for most it means fewer opportunities, less promotions down the line, limited access to higher-paying jobs, and, ultimately, lower lifetime earnings.”

How much lower? Howden calculated that today’s college graduates will bring home some $800,000 more by retirement than those who didn’t pursue higher education. That’s an average figure.

To Howden, that’s a pretty good return on investment. “It may seem onerous to pay back student loans, but the alternative is monetarily far worse,” he said.

Tablet Shipments are Slowing

The sales of tablet computers may be leveling off, with shipments dropping 35.7% when the first quarter of 2014 is compared with the 2013 holiday season, according to International Data Corp. (IDC)

Apple has shipped 16.4 million iPads since the first of the year, but that’s a drop of more than three million over the first quarter of 2013, while Samsung increased its first-quarter shipments to 11.2 million.

At the same time, phablet sales are on the rise, which the IDC report suggests is a direct threat to tablet sales. Phablets combine the smartphone and tablet into one device, using a display screen of 6 in. or larger. The three Galaxy Note phablets from Samsung have sold well, with devices from HTC, LG, Nokia, and Sony also becoming big sellers.

IDC also said replacement cycles for tablets have become an issue. Manufacturers usually implement modest upgrades to the devices, making it easier for consumers to hang on to older models for longer periods of time.

“The rise of large-screen phones and consumers who are holding on to their existing tablets for ever-longer periods of time were both contributing factors to a weaker-than-anticipated quarter for tablets,” said Tom Mainelli, program vice president for devices and displays at IDC. “In addition, commercial growth has not been robust enough to offset the slowing of consumer shipments.”

Students Are Leary of Mobile Payments

A new study found that college students are still not sure about mobile payments. The April survey from Balance Innovations showed that 42% of the 2,503 students who responded would “probably not” or would “definitely not” use mobile payments.

Another 42% said that using mobile payments would depend on the retailer or purchase, while just 16% said they use mobile payments all the time.

“Because they are frontrunners of technology and avid smartphone users, we anticipated higher interest in the use of mobile payment among these 18- to 24-year-olds,” said Steve Rempel, president and CEO of Balance Innovations.

The survey also found that 21% of men said they would likely switch to mobile payments when they become widely available, compared to just 12% of the female students who responded. Students with majors such as accounting or business administration were more likely to use mobile payments, while students in the Midwest were less likely to use their phones to pay for purchases than students on either coast.

Printed Textbooks Still Have a Future

There must be a reason why new surveys keeping finding that students prefer physical textbooks to digital formats. It could be that paper is just a better way for human beings to learn, according to technology writer Brandon Keim in an article in Wired.

A 2013 study showed that a group of Norwegian teens comprehended content better from books than from electronic devices. Other studies have suggested that’s because the feel of paper is important to learning, according to Keim.

“Reading experts say that sense of position is important,” he wrote. “It provides a sort of conceptual scaffold on which information and memory is automatically arranged, and the scaffold is strongest when built from both visual and tactile clues.”

An Israeli study showed that learning on screens was less effective than on paper and led to overconfidence in students. However, the same report also found that when students preferred using an electronic device, they learned less when required to read from paper, suggesting there’s room for both formats.

“Maybe it’s time to start thinking of paper and screens another way: not as an old technology and its inevitable replacement, but as different and complementary interfaces, each stimulating particular modes of thinking,” Keim wrote. “Maybe paper is a technology uniquely suited for imbibing novels and essays and complex narratives, just as screens are for browsing and scanning.”

Students Can Learn Together on Facebook

Researchers at Baylor University found that Facebook may provide a key to better learning, particularly in larger classes. They studied 218 students in an introductory sociology course who were given the choice of being in a course-related Facebook group.

The study, Using Facebook to Engage Learners in a Larger Introductory Course, found that the students in the Facebook group did better on quizzes and tests and wrote stronger papers than those who just listened to lectures. The students in the Facebook group also reported a more positive overall experience in the class, according to a report in Campus Technology.

“Although some teachers may worry that social media distracts students from legitimate learning, we found that our Facebook group helped transform students from anonymous spectators into a community of active learners—and this has important consequences for student performance,” said Kevin Dougherty, associate professor of sociology at Baylor. 

Young Americans Worry About College Costs

Paying for college, or the loans taken out to go to college, is the main financial concern for young adults in the United States, according to a new Gallup poll. College expenses were the primary concern for 21% of respondents in the 18-29 age bracket.

It also shared the top spot among the 30-45 age group, with an overall lack of money or low wages at 14%. The poll was based on telephone interviews of 1,026 adults in all 50 states conducted between April 3-6.

Not surprisingly, the research showed that financial concerns are age-specific. While younger Americans are concerned with education costs, seniors are focused on paying for health care and the rising cost of living.

“Knowing these differences could help lawmakers and financial advisers better serve consumers’ financial needs,” wrote Lydia Saad for Gallup Economy. “And if consumers become familiar with what others of a similar age or income level are concerned about, it might help them better understand and cope with their own financial challenges.”

Multiple Devices Use Rising

A study by the consulting firm Deloitte found that 37% of American consumers own a tablet, smartphone, and laptop computer. That’s 42% higher than the previous year, according to Deloitte’s eighth annual Digital Democracy Survey.

“At least for now, the tablet is not being viewed as a replacement for a laptop, but rather for its own distinctive uses,” Gerald Belson, the U.S. media and entertainment sector leader at Deloitte, told Marketing Daily. “The primary uses are around watching video, as well as Internet activity and games.”

Women make up 45% of the group using multiple devices. In addition, the percentage of people streaming content rose from 17% in 2012 to 32% in 2013. Belson added that millennials are spending more time watching content on devices other than television, even if the content was originally created for television.

The survey of 2,000 consumers in the United States also found that just 6% of respondents with a pay-TV service were thinking about stopping that service over the next 12 months. At the same time, 86% admitted to multitasking on other devices while watching television, with just 22% doing something directly related to the program they were watching.

“The second-screen experience hasn’t been compelling enough for a majority of consumers to link the second screen to the primary content,” Belson said. “The good news from an opportunity standpoint is that the second device is in consumers’ hands and it tends to be an interactive device.”

Breakthrough Tech Has Hi-Ed Implications

MIT’s Technology Review has released its annual 10 Breakthrough Technologies list, with at least three having the potential to impact higher education.

One technology, microscale 3-D printing, has already received a great deal of attention in the news media. It might ultimately be used in a variety of design courses, but may show up first in campus retail stores to create custom products.

The concept of mobile collaboration, another technology cited on the list, isn’t really new. However, the Technology Review noted the rise of new apps that enable people to work more effectively on group projects through their smartphones and tablets. More college and university courses require students to work together, yet students are more comfortable with text-messaging than word-processing.

“By incorporating streams of messages about the work being created, these apps reflect the fact that many communications are now brief, informal, and rapid,” the article said.

The third technology, Oculus Rift, sounds like a character from a science-fiction tale. It’s actually a new type of virtual-reality headset for ultra-immersive video games. According to the Technology Review, the Rift not only provides a much more realistic experience, the Oculus company plans to price it within the means of the average consumer.

“While video games are where this improved virtual-reality technology is likely to take off first, it could also have applications in telepresence, architecture, computer-aided design, emergency response training, and phobia therapy,” according to the article. Older versions of this technology are already used in simulations for medical surgery and industrial design.

The seven other breakthroughs on the list are agricultural drones, ultraprivate smartphones, brain mapping, neuromorphic chips, genome editing, agile robots, and smart wind and solar power.