Learning Innovation

Instructure has responded to the unplanned downtime of its cloud based Canvas LMS on 8/20/12 with a client/public facing communications plan.

Have I told you how much I love audiobooks? Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the instant purchasing, lower prices, and multi-platform flexibility of Kindle e-books? Have we talked about our concerns about the ever widening gap between the curriculum and consumer content experience? Well, things have just gotten better. And things have just gotten worse.

I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a way to discuss these three books with you. The deal is that we meet in this space to discuss the intersection of education and technology. Where does fiction fit in?

I get it. I really do. Amazon is not interested in adding education to the verticals that it wants to reinvent.

Phil Hill, commenting on Desire2Learn's $80 million first-time venture round over at e-Literate, asks: "What does it take to get the attention of the higher education press? Given the significant size of this funding for educational technology, I was surprised to find zero coverage from Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle yesterday."

Apple is now the most valuable company on the planet. It has a market capitalization of $632 billion dollars. A share of Apple stock, bought today, will cost you $675. What follows are some risks are I see for Apple. I think that these risks for Apple have been under-reported, and I offer them not as an argument to sell your Apple stock but perhaps as a counterweight to all the Apple hype.

Basing your tech investment decisions on media coverage is a sure recipe for losing money. By the time the forces that determine whether a tech company thrives or dives make it into the press the smart money has already arrived or left.

According to the Twenty Million Mind Foundation, an organization devoted to the "creation, sharing, and proliferation of more effective and affordable educational content by leveraging disruptive technologies, open educational resources, and new models for collaboration," the increasing cost of textbooks is an important factor in both rising student debt and high dropout rates.