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Apple and McGraw-Hill Reportedly Collaborating on e-Textbook Tablet Offerings

cmaier said:
That's not "math," at least not the kind of math that matters to engineers. Try searching for a particular calculus proof - how do you enter mathematical symbols into the search box? How do you take math notes when some dopey handwriting recognition keeps trying to turn your integral symbol into an "s." Or, if it lets you just write free ink, try doing a complicated math derivation with your finger on a 10" screen. I'll take a pencil and the margins of a real textbook any time.

The fact that an ebook version of an engineering textbook can double as a fancy calculator is of no interest to me if it can't also function as a proper textbook. I had my matlab and my HP-48 for calculations. That's not what a textbook is for. (Indeed, of what use is learning to perform calculations by using my textbook to "drag things into holding areas to manipulate them?" When I get a job I'm going to have to use a computer or calculator or pencil and paper to do my work - learning a textbook-specific user interface to perform a particular task is of no use to anyone.
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You appear to be taking two contrarian stances:
  • I can't do math on a computer.
  • Doing math on a computer serves no purpose.
Neither is true. Since 1990 or so, this app has been available on the Mac and was ported to Windows a few years later. MathCAD has a somewhat different take on mathematical worksheets, but is much more flexible about the placement of expressions on the worksheet. I would love to see both LiveMathMaker and MathCAD ported to the Apple tablet. Back in the day whe MathCAD 6.0 for Mac was still a commercial product, the developer also sold digital workbooks from the CRC Handbook of Physics and Chemistry. Each workbook was a godsend!

There is something fundamental about all of this that you don't get. Our expectations of mathematics changes. If you had studied electricity in Maxwell's day, then you would not have had the benefit of vector notation. All of your derivations and computations would have been done component by component. Vector notation was invented later and substantially eased algebra and calculus in multiple dimensions.

If you had been in primary school in 1900, then the arithmetic that you did then was substantially different at least in degree than the arithmetic that you and I did in elementary school. Those children back then had to add 25 five-digit numbers using pencil and paper. Many of them learned to do it in their heads. With the advent of the calculator and adding machine, however, that skill became worthless.

Just like the component-by-component vector mathematics and the addition of pages of numbers, many of our skills will also become irrelevant as technology advances. New technology will also allow us to create new skills that were not possible before.

Relax. It will be OK.
 
How long before we'll be hearing students complain of backaches from carrying around their second-generation 17" Mac Tablet with its carrying case and other peripherals?
 
grayskies said:
-nail, hit on head

To add, this is why book contracts are often two years. The publisher won't make as much money with a lot of used books around.

" Hey it's time for our new and improved 700th edition "
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Yup, completely agree.

As a third-year college student, buying from my bookstore has cost me at LEAST $600/semester. I, of course, aim to buy used on either Amazon, B&N, or rent on Chegg.... but at the very least, I'm gonna spend about $400 on books a semester. And unfortunately, I rarely get more than about 1/6th of that money back, because the publishers are creating new editions making mine obsolete, and they're in cahoots with the teachers, so professors require a different book each year. It's BS.

And there's no way in hell I'm going to spend $80+ on a digital, timed, DRM'd, no-resellable, book.

If Apple can somehow, through their magic powers, get iTunes textbooks down to like $25/book, I'd be all over it. But I REALLY doubt that's gonna happen.
 
MisterMe said:
You appear to be taking two contrarian stances:
  • I can't do math on a computer.
  • Doing math on a computer serves no purpose.
Neither is true. Since 1990 or so, this app has been available on the Mac and was ported to Windows a few years later. MathCAD has a somewhat different take on mathematical worksheets, but is much more flexible about the placement of expressions on the worksheet. I would love to see both LiveMathMaker and MathCAD ported to the Apple tablet. Back in the day whe MathCAD 6.0 for Mac was still a commercial product, the developer also made sold workbooks from the CRC Handbook of Physics and Chemistry. It was a godsend!

There is something fundamental about all of this that you don't get. Our expectations of mathematics changes. If you had studied electricity in Maxwell's day, then you would not have had the benefit of vector notation. All of your derivations and computations would have been done component by component. Vector notation was invented later and substantially eased algebra and calculus in multiple dimensions.

If you had been in primary school in 1900, then the arithmetic that you did then was substantially different at least in degree than the arithmetic that you and I did in elementary school. Those children back then had to add 25 five-digit numbers using pencil and paper. Many of them learned to do it in their heads. With the advent of the calculator and adding machine, however, that skill became worthless.

Just like the component-by-component vector mathematics and the addition of pages of numbers, many of our skills will also become irrelevant as technology advances. New technology will also allow us to create new skills that were not possible before.

Relax. It will be OK.
Click to expand...

I am taking a single, non-contrarian position. You can DO math on a computer. There are many specialized programs to do so. Many of these are used both in schools and in industry, and hence it is a good idea to learn to do them.

An e-textbook, however, cannot easily do the things with math that you need a textbook to do. I listed these things. There are OTHER things that an e-textbook can do with math (the poster to whom I responded listed these). However these things are better accomplished with the software I mentioned above, because even if the textbooks have, for example, their own equivalent of matlab or mathematica or SPICE built in, these will not be the same tools that you will need to use in your job, so you might as well use the same stand-alone software everyone else uses.

Your entire assumption above is that I am opposed to progress. I am not. I am all for teaching math and engineering using COMPUTERS. However textbooks are not the right vehicle for that, both because:

1) they can't serve the TEXTBOOK functions as well as real textbooks (rapid random access, notetaking, etc.) -and-
2) even assuming (and I don't believe this) they perform the math-/engineering- specific computerized interactive functions as well as stand-alone, non-textbook tools, students are better served learning to use the tools that they will have to use when they get out of school and get jobs.

The class 1 year behind me in engineering school learned math using textbooks and matlab. I was stuck with pen and paper. They got a superior education, both because they got new tools which allowed them to focus on the big picture and develop an intuition for things, but also because many of those students became proficient at using matlab, and many of them ended up using matlab in their day to day jobs.

I got to use SPICE, in conjunction with a real textbook, in my circuit design class. Again, this was advantageous because I got to focus on the big picture and develop intuition for circuits. Would I have been better off learning some sort of circuit analysis software integrated into my etextbook? Hell no. I would have presumably achieved intuition, but at the cost of not learning to use real software that is ubiquitous in industry.
 
I looked up all the books I needed to buy this semester and the e-book version is about half the price if not more of the real book. Seeing how you would either get nothing or very little money back for selling the book back to the school, the savings would be greater in buying the e-book.

Example in my case is "Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, 6th Edition".

-New in my book store is $200
-used $150
-digital version off coursesmart.com $75
 
My 2 cents...

Wow..lots of good points made. I have a few observations, having been in school forever, and now serving as an educator:

1. Reading texts online is largely generational. Many folks over 35 or 40 are not wired/adaptable to switch from texts (that can be highlighted, annotated, and "held") to a screen. I think that it can be learned, but takes some motivation.

2. I think that we all agree that the future is online. No more newspapers, books, etc. It may take 10-20 yrs, but it's coming. We will be connected on all devices (or maybe just one), and all of our professional and social interactions will be initiated or at least promulgated electronically. It saddens me to think about that, but I see it happening with younger folks.

3. Many of these "brick and mortar" purveyors of media will need to change or perish. We see newspapers dropping like flies. Perhaps Apple will repeat history and save publishing, as it has for the record industry, with their new offering. OK..my gratuitous fanboy comment...
 
I would do this, if and only if, the textbooks became much cheaper due to it.

I know a few sites in which you can "rent" online textbooks or purchase them in .pdf format and stuff.

BUT they only end up saving you $20.

I'm sorry, but the fact that you cannot sell back ebooks, and for now it's not practical, I would much rather have a hard copy.

Now if the book is, say, $20 - $40USD in ebook form, then sure, I'd love it. I could get an old used, beat-up textbook to leave in my car just in case, and then use the ebook on campus to help make my life easier.

But I SERIOUSLY doubt this will be the case, thus I will probably not pay close attention to it. They'll want $100 for a book that would cost $130 in physical form. You don't have to worry about glitches and potential malfunctioning with paper and ink.
 
budselectjr said:
I looked up all the books I needed to buy this semester and the e-book version is about half the price if not more of the real book. Seeing how you would either get nothing or very little money back for selling the book back to the school, the savings would be greater in buying the e-book.

Example in my case is "Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, 6th Edition".

-New in my book store is $200
-used $150
-digital version off coursesmart.com $75
Click to expand...

Sure. Until schools start mandating the ebook version or enough people start buying them that there isn't any supply of used books anymore, at which point they can jack up the ebook prices.
 
cmaier said:
Sure. Until schools start mandating the ebook version or enough people start buying them that there isn't any supply of used books anymore, at which point they can jack up the ebook prices.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Its unfortunate its like this. Its not like kids are gonna stop going to school and make them lower the prices. Kinda just have to bend over and take it.
 
theydonotmove said:
Textbooks don't run out of battery either.
Click to expand...

What's your point? I took my MBP to school and never had trouble finding power. A tablet would likely improve on battery performance too.

etexts can in theory be had for less than traditional textbooks
they would be consolidated on one compact device
They would be searchable
You could easily add and remove notes on them
They would be backed up on your home computer

Resale is really a moot point. The whole point of reselling a textbook is to recover some of the cost of the text. If an ebook started cheaper, you would essentially recover some of the cost of the paper text immediately without going through the hassle of reselling it. They also switch versions so often that it is hard to get a decent resale value on many textbooks.

I have a bookshelf full of textbooks and boxes full of notes, I can only wish that I had them stored on a tablet and on my mac.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1; en-gb; Nexus One Build/ERD79) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

I never did know how much some of these text books cost, it's quite shocking.

The publishers of these ebooks could end up getting seriously bitten in the arse if any drm got cracked and ebooks started to be pirated easily over the internet.

If the drm did get cracked easily, I'd assume that a drm cracked ebook would spread faster than a book which needed to be scanned from front to back to share?
 
ChazUK said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1; en-gb; Nexus One Build/ERD79) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

I never did know how much some of these text books cost, it's quite shocking.

The publishers of these ebooks could end up getting seriously bitten in the arse if any drm got cracked and ebooks started to be pirated easily over the internet.

If the drm did get cracked easily, I'd assume that a drm cracked ebook would spread faster than a book which needed to be scanned from front to back to share?
Click to expand...

They don't really care - by the time the DRM is cracked the current semester's classes will have already made their purchases. Then the ebook publishers update their books (shiny new words in chapter 3), and the professor for the next semester assigns the NEW edition of the book. Student don't know exactly what changed, so rather than using a stolen DRM-stripped version from last semester, they are forced to buy the new one.
 
budselectjr said:
Yeah. Its unfortunate its like this. Its not like kids are gonna stop going to school and make them lower the prices. Kinda just have to bend over and take it.
Click to expand...

WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

sorry, had to do it.
 
grayskies said:
-nail, hit on head

To add, this is why book contracts are often two years. The publisher won't make as much money with a lot of used books around.

" Hey it's time for our new and improved 700th edition "
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure they will have an option to buy the e-textbook or should. I think we agree for most classes you want to sell it back so renting is not a bad option.

In a perfect world this will help drive down the cost of the book and give us a greener world to live in. But the fact of it is greed will slowly come back into play and everything that was accomplished will be null and void.

But why should the fact that we know everything will back to status quo stop us from progress now?

Also, I forget who mentioned it but battery life is definitely an Issue. Input is definitely and issue. I wait patiently for Wednesday. Actually not patiently.

Did anyone else request the day off? I can't be the only one.
 
This is a good development for education

I am a teacher in North Carolina and I really believe that if we really want to graduate more students who are prepared to participate in our society, pay taxes and can improve our country's production we are going to HAVE to adopt this type of technology.

Like it or not (and a lot of teachers and educators don't) students are not learning by reading physical books anymore. Sure some are, but for the most part, the students who are struggling to be successful in school are the one's who don't read as well and need every advantage they can get to educate themselves.

This will change everything in educuation and as a tax payer you should be supportive of this change. It will save money and increase access to information. Apple will make money off of this, but they are not in business to loose money. Neither are the textbook companies which is why they are interested in this. The textbook companies know that eventually for them to remain profitable, they will have to sell e-textbooks so they might as well move in that direction. They don't want to become like the record companies and become very irrelevent.
 
MisterMe said:
It bears remembering that the Apple slate will not be a Kindle.
Click to expand...

It will, however, most likely only present eBooks riddled with DRM. Who'd want to buy an eTextbook for classes for (e.g.) $50 only to have it revoked for whatever obscure reason, just so you lose all annotations and so forth.
 
foranor said:
... Who'd want to buy an eTextbook for classes for (e.g.) $50 only to have it revoked for whatever obscure reason, just so you lose all annotations and so forth.
Click to expand...
Most people also would not want to encounter a ghost or a murderous alien, but they tend to concentrate on probable threats rather than those that they make up themselves.
 
Printing

FYI: it is possible to print pages for CourseSmart books. It is also possible to both highlight passages and add notes. And it looks like books are about 1/2 the purchase price for a 180 day subscription.
 
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