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Here’s the latest disrupter in the education field. TED (@TEDNews & @tedtalks) curator Chris Anderson (@TEDchris) announced yesterday that “after more than a year of planning and dreaming, we're finally launching our new TED-Ed website (@TED_ED), whose goal is to offer teachers a thrilling new way to use video.”

...the goal is to allow any teacher to take a video of their choice (yes, any video on YouTube, not just ours) and make it the heart of a “lesson” that can easily be assigned in class or as homework, complete with context, follow-up questions, and further resources.

This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student.

In recent years at TED, we've become enamored of a strategy we call “radical openness”: Don't try to do big things yourself. Instead empower others to do them with you.

This has served us well. Sharing TEDTalks free online has built a global community of idea seekers and spreaders. Opening up our transcripts has allowed 7500 volunteers to translate the talks into 80+ languages. And giving away the TEDx brand in the form of free licenses, has spawned more than 4000 TEDx events around the world.

So it's natural that we would look to this approach as we embark on our education initiative.

Read this in full.

Also see The Atlantic’s (@TheAtlantic) article by Megan Garber (@megangarber), “The Digital Education Revolution, Cont’d: Meet TED-Ed’s New Online Learning Platform.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you take advantage of new technology to publish and market your brand’s message.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Author, speaker, and futurist Leonard Sweet (@lensweet) scouted this article in the World Future Society’s (@WorldFutureSoc) magazine, The Futurist (@Theyear2030) (March-April 2012): A Future of Fewer Words?: 5 Trends Shaping the Future of Language by Lawrence Baines (in an earlier article, Baines offered 6 manifestations of the retreat of the written word:

     1. The power of image-based media to influence thought and behavior;

     2. The tendency of newer technologies to obliterate aspects of older technologies;

     3. The current emphasis on school reform;

     4. The influences of advertising and marketing;

     5. The current state of books as repositories of the language; and

     6. The reconceptualization of the library.)

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Sweet says,

I tried to say the same thing in chapter 9 of my upcoming book Viral ("Turning a Tin Ear to Poetry"), but Baines is more comprehensive and scientifically compelling. “As the world recedes from the written word and becomes inundated with multisensory stimuli (images, sound, touch, taste, and smell), the part of the human brain associated with language will regress. While visually astute and more aurally discriminating, the areas of the brain associated with language are also associated with critical thinking and analysis. So, as the corpus of language shrinks, the human capacity for complex thinking may shrink with it.”

“Losing polysyllabic words will mean a corresponding loss of eloquence and precision. Today, many of the most widely read texts emanate from blogs and social networking sites. Authors of these sites may be non-readers who have little knowledge of effective writing and may have never developed an ear for language.”

Read The Futurist article in full (membership required).

Read Baines’ earlier article (pdf).

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you navigate the changing communication scene to most effectively reach your consumers.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Futurist News tab.

The American demographic landscape has changed significantly, as reflected in the 2010 US Census compiled by the US Census Bureau (@uscensusbureau). The shifts related to race, age, gender, ethnicity, geography, income, and other key marketing drivers profoundly impact the USA and how brands communicate their messages to target audiences. Adweek (@Adweek) has partnered with Draftfcb (@Draftfcb), to present The New America (@The_New_America), a website “dedicated to providing timely and topical news and insights on what the metrics mean for marketers, ad agencies, publishers, and technology companies.”

A few articles of interest:

·         Higher Numbers for Higher Education: More than 30% of adults now have bachelor’s degrees

·         Multigenerational Households: Number of children living with a grandparent increases

·         Coming of Age in the Down Economy: Pew finds young Americans are underemployed but optimistic

·         Man Down: The future isn’t rosy for American males

·         An Unmarried Boomer: The growing number of middle-ages singles has significant implications

·         5 Discoveries from the 2010 Decennial Census That Advertisers Should Know:

     1.    The US population is an older one.

     2.    We are an ethnic soup spread throughout the country.

     3.    The growth of the Latino population is substantial.

     4.    Multiracial identification is growing.

     5.    Internal migration from the North and East to the South and West continues.

See The New America.

How will these changes influence your publishing agenda in the coming months and years? Write your comments below.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you analyze demographics to maximize your brand’s marketing communication strategy.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily our SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.

L2 Think Tank (@L2_ThinkTank) reports that, according to Union Square Ventures Partner Andy Weissman (@aweissman), we’re moving into “the ambient computer age,” where our connected devices are becoming smaller and more powerful. The implications of this changes our media habits, the way we socialize, and much more. In an attempt to quantify this impact, Weissman outlines the 8 places in our lives where mobile will have the biggest near-future impact on investment:

Reading – A new breed of mobile-primary reading formats are emerging that allow us to consumer and share media in new and different ways.

Social – Our always-on devices give us instant access to sharing at all times.

Payments – In Japan people are already paying for subway rides with their mobile devices. Before long we’ll be using what was formerly a voice device for transactions, and this trend is already well underway in the United States.

Learning – We can now absorb information from our mobile phones and use the classroom as a venue for discussion and collaboration.

Location-Based Innovation – One in 3 searches on mobile devices have local intent.

Media – Facebook holds the biggest archive of photos in the world. Media in the mobile world is fundamentally conversational.

Blurring – The smartphones we keep with us on our hip at all times create a blurring effect in the world of connectedness. We’re no longer just connected on our laptops, but wired-in everywhere.

Medicine – Today patients share data and information with doctors in real-time.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you take advantage of mobile trends to advance your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (Oxford University Press), Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College (@WheatonCollege), is sanguine about the future of reading and the book, and positively seductive when he urges us to read “for the plain old delight and interest of it, not because we can justify its place on the mental spreadsheet or accounting ledger.” Christianity Today’s (@CTmagazine) Books & Culture editor John Wilson talked with Jacobs about the distractions that beckon us, the virtues of the Kindle (and, by extension, similar devices), and the rewards of reading with concentrated attention. Here’s a portion of the interview:

There's a technology that we call the book, and many of us tend to assume that, well, everybody knows how to use books. Books are easy. It's the modern technologies that students need to be trained to use effectively. And I think, No, not really. A book is actually not that easy to know how to use well, especially for young people who haven't formed the habit of attending carefully to how they work.

So I tell my students, "Look, I want you to have the book in your hand. Take notes if you want to. I would prefer you to take notes in the book. Or if you don't want to write in books, get sticky notes, or do something. But I want you to be engaged with this technology." I want to be able to say, "Okay, put your finger there on page 36 and now let's go over to page 130." And I want to be able to go back and forth between the two. For many of them this is very unfamiliar. They're used to dealing with books in different ways. One of the really interesting things about getting them to work with a book is that it's a lot harder for them to get distracted, because I'm actually pushing them to make fuller use of this technology….

Read this in full.

If you’re a book lover like we are, be sure to bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) free online dashboard SomersaultNOW.

Education Week (@educationweek) reports that US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled the new Digital Textbook Playbook, a resource designed by the Digital Textbook Collaborative to help guide educators in their transition to electronic resources, as the pair headlined a national online town hall meeting for the inaugural Digital Learning Day (@DLDay2012) Feb. 1. Specifically noting that South Korea plans to use only digital textbooks by 2013, Chairman Genachowski declared,

If we want American students to be the best prepared to compete in the 21st century global economy, we can’t allow a majority of our students to miss out on the opportunities of digital textbooks. Today, I want to challenge everyone in the space – companies, government officials, schools and teachers – to do their part to make sure that every student in America has a digital textbook in the next 5 years.

He and Secretary Duncan plan to meet with CEO’s of relevant companies to spur movement toward this objective.

Read his remarks in full.

Read the Education Week article in full.

What do you think? Is a digital textbook for every US student in 5 years a realistic and helpful objective? What will it mean for your textbook publishing agenda? Write your comments below.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you in your textbook publishing and marketing needs.

Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, created especially for marketing and publishing executives.

As online college courses have become increasingly prevalent, the general public and college presidents offer different assessments of their educational value, according to a new Pew Research Center (@pewinternet) report. Just 3-in-10 American adults (29%) say a course taken online provides an equal educational value to one taken in a classroom. By contrast, half of college presidents (51%) say online courses provide the same value.

• 77% of colleges now offer online courses
• 15% of college presidents say most of their current undergraduate students have taken a class online; 50% predict that 10 years from now most of their students will take classes online.
• 15% of college presidents say most of their current undergraduate students have taken a class online, and 50% predict that 10 years from now most of their students will take classes online.
• Nearly two-thirds of college presidents (62%) anticipate that 10 years from now, more than half of the textbooks used by their undergraduate students will be entirely digital.
• Most college presidents (55%) say that plagiarism in students’ papers has increased over the past 10 years. Among those who have seen an increase in plagiarism, 89% say computers and the internet have played a major role.
• The leaders of the nation’s colleges and universities are a tech-savvy group. Nearly nine-in-ten (87%) use a smartphone daily, 83% use a desktop computer and 65% use a laptop.
• College presidents are ahead of the curve on some of the newer digital technologies: half (49%) use a tablet computer such as an iPad at least occasionally, and 42% use an e-reader such as a Kindle or Nook.

Read or download the full report.

Making ebooks just became easier (at least ebooks only for the iPad). That’s the outcome from today’s announcement at the Apple event in New York City (see the QuickTime video of it). Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says

Apple's event was first rumored to be a self-publishing venture then called an "education" venture. It turned out to be both. Apple is launching iBooks 2, a new multimedia textbook platform and iBooks Author, a shockingly easy authoring tool to create them – indeed to create any kind of book – and publish them instantly to the iBookstore. Both the new iBooks 2 app and iBooks Author app are free and available today.

On top of all that, iBooks 2 textbooks will be priced at $14.99 or less. The new iBooks 2 app will provide the usual access to the iBookstore but will also feature a new category: textbooks….They feature beautiful layouts, endless multimedia (audio, video, animation, animated 3D models, interactive quizzes, the list goes on). And iBooks Author makes it really easy--any author can follow the template or make up a new one and drag-and-drop prepared materials like text and video right into the new book. Once complete, a push of the button places it in the iBookstore in a digital marketplace holding hundreds of millions of credit card numbers....

In addition, Apple is relaunching iTunes University with a new free app. Originally focused on offering videos of university lectures, the new iTunes U app will make it possible for professors to offer full online courses, complete with assignments, notes and communications with the students, all situated on iTunes U and all for free. Several universities, including Duke and Yale, have already started posting courses.

Read it in full.

The Washington Post covered the event live, quoting Apple’s iWork vice president, Roger Rosner, “In like 5 minutes flat, we created an ebook and deployed it to the iPad. I hope you find that as inspiring and empowering as I do.”

Read it in full.

Lindsey Turrentine (@lturrentine), editor-in-chief of CNET Reviews, offers her commentary in “Apple iBooks in schools: Devil is in the hardware.” She says the high cost of outfitting classrooms with an iPad for each child and the blunt-force trauma students would inflict on the tablets, coupled with rapid advancements in technology leaving the school’s investment soon outdated, make her skeptical that today’s announcement is actually practical.

Read it in full.

Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid), editorial director, Digital Book World (@digibookworld), says of today’s event:

In a stunning display of ebook creation acrobatics, Apple executives dragged images and video into an e-book page and text wrapped seamlessly around it. 

The company also demonstrated completed textbooks, showing off interactive features, including: Images that come alive with explanations when tapped; fluid layouts that shift smoothly from portrait to landscape view; and index and glossary functions that are integrated directly into each page.

Read this in full.

As for the ease of creating ebooks, CNET’s (@CNET & @CNETNews) technology columnist Don Reisinger (@donreisinger) explains it in “Apple’s new iBooks Author targets ebook creators.” Also see "Apple revamps iTunes U, makes it class portal."

Other articles to read are "6 things we don't know about Apple's e-textbooks strategy" by CNET's David Carnoy (@DavidCarnoy) and Scott Stein (@jetscott), and "This is Apple At Its Absolute Worst: It Thinks It Owns Any Book You Make Through iBooks Author" by Business Insider's (@sai) Steve Kovach (@stevekovach). 

What do you expect today’s announcement will mean for your publishing plans? Write your comments below.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you with your textbook and reference publishing. Veterans with more than 100 combined years of experience in the field, we eagerly embrace current technology and the revolutionary changes it’s making in the publishing world.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially see the list of self-publishers in the Publishers tab.

An article by Nick DeSantis (@njdesantis) on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s (@chronicle) technology blog Wired Campus (@wiredcampus) says, “Despite the promise that digital textbooks can lead to huge cost savings for students, a new study at Daytona State College has found that many who tried e-textbooks saved only 1 dollar, compared with their counterparts who purchased traditional printed material.”

The study, conducted over 4 semesters, compared 4 different means of textbook distribution: traditional print purchase, print rental, e-textbook rental, and e-textbook rental with an e-reader device. It found that e-textbooks still face several hurdles as universities mull the switch to a digital textbook distribution model.

Read this in full. Also see “A Study of Four Textbook Distribution Models” reported by Educause Quarterly (@educause).

Another article you’ll want to read is USA TODAY’s (@USATODAY & @USATODAYtech) “Technology, costs, lack of appeal slow e-textbook adoption” by tech reporter Roger Yu (@RogerYu_USAT).

With their promise of ubiquity, convenience, and perhaps affordability, e-textbooks have arrived in fits and starts throughout college campuses. And publishers and book resellers are spending millions wooing students to their online stores and e-reader platforms as mobile technology improves the readability of the material on devices such as tablet computers. Silicon Valley start-ups, such as Inkling (@inkling) and Kno (@GoodtoKNO), are also aggressively reinventing textbooks with interactive graphics, videos and social-media features.

Despite emerging attempts at innovation, the industry has been slowed by clunky technology, the lasting appeal of print books, skeptical students who scour online for cheaper alternatives, and customer confusion stemming from too many me-too e-textbook platforms that have failed to stand out.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you develop your ebook strategy.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard for marketing and publishing professionals.

1.) 50 million -- The big number from the Census everyone was talking about was the number of Hispanics, which crested this milestone for the first time. Later the Census and The New York Times found that even more people in the US (51 million) are at or near the poverty line.

2.) 50% +1 -- Some time in 2011 the children being born in the US tipped to majority-minority, according to Brookings Institute demographer William Frey. It'll take the population as a whole, decades before the white population is not the majority, but the newborns are there now. Diversity marketing is in for a makeover.

3.) Half of kids under 8 (and 40% of 2- to 4-year-olds) have access to a smartphone, iPad, or some other mobile media device.

4.) In October 2011 Facebookers in the US spent 136,000 aggregate years on the site, according to comScore.

5.) The US added just 11.2 million households between 2000 and 2010, the -- slowest household formation rate we've seen in a long time. This impacts industries like construction and any sort of household goods and services and is helping to keep the recovery slow.

6.) When asked all the reasons they subscribe to a local paper, 85% said local news, but nearly 4 in 10 said “habit,” according to the Ad Age/Ipsos Observer American Consumer Survey.

7.) Nuclear families account for just one-fifth of all households but more than one-third (34%) of total consumer spending. Nationwide there are 1.3 million fewer of them in 2010 than there were in 2000.

8.) One in three consumers can't afford your product: The 2011 Discretionary Spend Report from Experian Simmons finds 34.5% of households have less than $7,000 to spend on non-essential goods. Just over half have less than $10,000 to spend on entertainment, education, personal care, clothing, furniture and more.

9.) Don't count out old media. Fifty-seven percent of millennials indicated in a study from OMD that TV was the first way they hear about products and services.

10.) For the first time in American history there are now a million more female than male college graduates, according to the Census.

Read this in full.