Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

1.4.10 | The Tipping Point: Texas Textbook Politics Meets the Digital Revolution: “In a historic shift, Texas public schools will soon start tapping the state’s multi-billion-dollar textbook fund for laptops and e-readers,” reports the Texas Tribune, which adds that a book “could become a living reservoir of content, freely edited and updated by educators and beamed to the classrooms, homes and handhelds of students statewide.”

The comprehensive story explains the fundamental policy, funding and curriculum shifts that led to this change. The story comes via Anne Collier of Net Family News, who also points to data from The Economist on the growing popularity of e-readers. There are currently 5 million e-readers in circulation worldwide, and 10 million are expected to be sold in 2010, according to iSuppli, a market-research firm.

Plus: NPR’s Lynn Neary talks with novelists Nicholas Carr, Rick Moody and others about how e-books are changing reading and writing.

Top 10 Ed-Tech Stories of 2009: eSchool News counts ‘em down, starting with the digital textbooks revolution.

The Interactive Entrepreneur: The New York Times this past weekend published its Education Life supplement. Included is a story about the influence of social media on college curriculums—and careers. Brian Stelter writes:

Schools of communication are concluding that single courses are insufficient, and they are developing fuller curriculums. [...] The mission of the University of Southern California’s master’s in online communities, in its fourth year, is to breed leaders of social media. With a $10,000 budget (much of it going for hiring programmers), students form teams to conceptualize, build and manage an interactive site.

One of last year’s graduates was Nonny de la Peña, a documentarian and “immersive journalist” (her virtual Guantánamo Bay detention center on Second Life was financed by the MacArthur Foundation). As a team project, Ms. de la Peña developed her idea for a video-editing and -sharing site (http://www.Stroome.com) that found financing and went online last month.

College Asks Students to Power Down, Contemplate: Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., has revived a dormant tradition of vespers services—quiet reflection in the school chapel—to give students a break from constant digital communication, reports The Associated Press. 

Once a Baptist school, Stephens is now a secular college for women. Its president, Dianne Lynch, is far from a Luddite. She did her doctorate research on teenagers who grew up with “the Internet as a part of their operating assumption in the world.” She also believes quiet moments are necessary for self-reflection.

Stephens isn’t the only college occasionally powering down—Amherst College in Massachusetts last year hosted a “Day of Mindfulness,” featuring yoga and meditation and a lecture on information technology and the contemplative mind.