Digital Textbooks

So, what do you do if you teach a unique higher education course and you can’t find the perfect book to fit your needs? You create your own custom college textbook.

That is what education professors at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa did.  They teach a Human Relations course, which seems basic enough, except they took it one step further for their education students.  They teach their Human Relations course specifically for educators.  Since educators face different human relations situations than persons in other careers, they wrote their book to prepare pre-service teachers for those situations. Congratulations  to Scott Arnett, Susan Burns, and Susie Lubbers on their publication Human Relations for the Educator.

With the opportunities available in custom publishing, you can create a traditional printed textbook, lab manual, digital course pack, college ebook or a combination of any of them.

Discover your Create... Customize ... Adopt solutions at www.kendallhunt.com/highered.

As the days get longer and the weather warms up, I can’t help but think about cold treats. There’s an ice cream store in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa that is called Cold Stone Creamery.  I’m sure you are probably familiar with this business concept.  The customer walks in, looks at a large sample of ice cream flavors (ranging from vanilla to cookie batter, to banana) and numerous mix-ins (such as Oreo, Snickers, brownie, or Cookie Dough). 

Now the customer can do one of three things when they enter: they can order an existing creation directly from the menu; use the menu as a template and add their own mix-ins; or create their own treat from scratch.

This concept dovetails perfectly to my work at Kendall Hunt Publishing.  As a leading higher education textbook publisher, we allow professors to create, adopt, or customize a variety of our college textbooks and ebooks.

Like my father-in-law orders his ice cream treats directly from the menu, so to can a professor adopt a textbook directly from our online college textbooks catalog.  This serves him well.  He gets a tested and proven ice cream treat – similar to a professor getting a classroom tested textbook.

Or you could be like my wife and use the menu at Cold Stone as a guide.  She looks up a certain ice cream flavor and consults a list of recommendations to meet her palate.   Her favorite is the cake batter ice cream with the cookie dough mix-in.  This is very similar to Kendall Hunt’s customization process.  Professors can meet with one of our educational consultants, discuss their higher education course, and discuss their options.  They can adopt an existing book and add their own content to create a digital course pack; they could consult our digital learning center to see some of our existing material to add, or they could create a new digital coursepack and deliver via our content delivery system.  The possibilities are truly endless!

Finally, the customer can walk into this ice cream store and invent their own ice cream creation.  This is how I like to roll.  Throw a little bit of this, little bit of that, and bam, a new creation!  As always, Kendall Hunt Publishing offers the educator to create their own course content to meet the needs of them and their students.  Professors can create their own college ebooks, college textbooks, or digital coursepacks. This is the principle that Kendall Hunt was based on and has followed for over sixty years…

All this talk about ice cream is making me hungry…..Thank heavens that Kendall Hunt Publishing offers online content delivery so I can work on the run….I’m off to the ice cream store!

We spend a great deal of time here on the KH blog talking about our outstanding PreK-12 curricula. But there’s a whole other side to our business that I’d like to share with you:  our custom publishing for higher education. No, not vanity press, but true custom publishing. We’ve been doing this longer and better than anyone else. Ever have a professor in one of your higher education courses who gave you the book list, but then supplemented with all kinds of material and research of his own? Those are the professors who have discovered the value of custom publishing with KH.

We got started in the business back in 1944, when our founder, William C. Brown, bought the rights to 26 workbooks and lab manuals written and used by Midwestern professors. These titles, therefore, had guaranteed sales in those authors’ schools.  Kendall Hunt’s story is unique in today’s publishing industry full of mergers and acquisitions. You can read the rest of our story here.

Today, our Higher Education division offers you the opportunity to custom publish a title for your class with all your own, original material. Or, you can use some of your material, and some of the vast library of material Kendall Hunt has available to custom publish one of our existing titles for your specific school and course. You can use digital content delivery exclusively, or you can combine a traditional textbook with online course materials to create a hybrid product that will work for the digital generation as well as returning students. Check out our custom publishing options and solutions today!

Do you use interactive whiteboards in your classroom? I just read an article on the Digital Education blog at Education Week that says the incorporation of interactive whiteboards and accompanying software improves student achievement on tests by an average of 16 percent. That’s pretty impressive.

I know our primary school is beginning to implement them in some classrooms. They haven’t adopted an online elementary curriculum yet, but they are looking at a few. Right now they’re using a combination of elementary school textbooks and online activities. 

I can tell you that all of the programs Kendall Hunt’s new online learning platform, Flourish, are whiteboard ready. Our middle school math program, Math Innovations, which is available on Flourish, is LOADED with whiteboard activities. So if you’re looking for an online math curriculum and improved student achievement, maybe you should look at Math Innovations and Flourish!!
 

Want to know what’s new at Kendall Hunt Publishing? Want to read more about Flourish, our new digital learning network that Charley Cook spoke about in his guest blogger post the other day?

Well, then you have to check out our interactive catalog for 2010-2011. You can see the catalog here, or by clicking on the cover image at right. Once you’re there you can zoom, bring up embedded video and pdfs, download the whole thing as a pdf, send an email to a friend, or just about anything else you can think of. It’s pretty cool and does a great job of highlighting all the advantages our PreK-12 products offer.

You’ll see plenty of screenshots from Flourish. And you’ll get glimpses into products still in development, including our online science curriculum, BSCS Biology: A Human Approach, as well as our online math curriculum for middle school, Math Innovations. Even though I use the word “textbook” a lot in this blog, we’re about much more than just books.

Today I’m welcoming back Charley Cook, Vice President of Kendall Hunt Publishing’s PreK-12 Division, as our guest blogger. Charley would like to tell you a little about our new digital initiatives. Take it away, Charley.

 

Kendall Hunt Publishing has a strong history of being responsive to the needs of the educational marketplace. Over the years, we’ve worked closely with educators to develop products and services that not only align to national and state standards, but can also address and meet specific district requirements in terms of content, accessibility, and academic achievement. Some of these products include our curriculum for high ability learners, high school science textbooks and programs developed with our partner, BSCS, and our grade school mathematics program, Math Trailblazers, which integrates math, science, and language arts.

Like you, Kendall Hunt Publishing is dedicated to improving education and preparing students to successfully navigate a rapidly changing, technologically advanced world. So it should come as no surprise that Kendall Hunt has taken a proactive role in pioneering the development of groundbreaking digital learning solutions designed to more effectively engage students, support teachers, and involve parents in the educational process.

We’re extremely excited to announce the launch of Flourish, Kendall Hunt’s new digital learning network for students, teachers, and parents. Flourish integrates technology into all aspects of teaching and learning, and helps equip students with the skills they need to become productive citizens in the 21st century. Flourish is comprehensive, interactive, and economical, and features rich, research-based educational content along with a variety of tools that enhance learning, facilitate teaching, and increase communication both in the classroom and in the home. We hope you’ll take the time to explore its many features and benefits, because we know you will believe, as we do, that it can truly change the face of classroom learning.

Flourish is the first of many new, technology-driven products you can expect to see from Kendall Hunt in the near future.

So, it’s September 1, is everyone back to school? Funny how school starting dates vary so much depending on where you are. Here our kids go back in about the third week of August, while some states have passed laws that school cannot start until September 1. Anyway, I imagine most everyone is back of very close to it.

Here at Kendall Hunt, September 1 and the beginning of school mark the beginning of a new year for us too. This year we’re pretty excited about some things. We’re going to be offering a host of new digital learning opportunities in the PreK-12 area. As all school textbook publishers work to keep pace with technology, Kendall Hunt Publishing is no different. Most schools are moving toward using an online science curriculum or an online math curriculum, and we’ll be right there with the tool you need.

So, watch this space as we move through the school year, we’ll be rolling out all kinds of new and exciting learning tool!

I've read several articles this week about online and e-books for the K-12 market. The current Texas governor recently stated that he doesn't see any reason for Texas to have printed books in four years. That's a pretty big statement in support of online learning.

What do you think about taking elementary education books, secondary school textbooks and the like and putting them in the digital world? At Kendall Hunt Publishing, we're big fans of digital learning for PreK-12. Let's face it, many printed textbooks are dated the minute they come off the press. School textbook publishers face this issue all the time. But if your "books" are online, especially if they're in a learning portal that can be continually updated, students can learn about the latest discovery in science without waiting for the next printing of their high school science textbook. That's only one of the many benefits to digital learning.

Do your schools use all printed material? Or a combination of print and digital?

With the new school year approaching more quickly that we think, our PreK-12 group is getting ready for an intensive week of product training next week. Wayne, Jeff, Don and Jodi have had their noses literally “in the books” preparing for the training, so if you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from them for a few days, that’s why.

What they’re learning is all about the new inquiry based science programs we’ll be bringing you this year. And it’s not just elementary school science textbooks or high school science textbooks. In fact it’s not even just inquiry based science products. There’s math, health, fitness and physical education, and a dose of new digital learning products for good measure. Watch this space as we detail some of these exciting new programs in the next few weeks! 

In the meantime, if you haven’t had a chance yet, Marla has written an excellent post about inquiry based science. Check it out!

How can we keep up with all the new and ever-changing technologies that have kids mesmerized? Teachers often feel overwhelmed with the challenges and options this digital culture presents to students. We want students to take advantage of all technology has to offer; however, how familiar are teachers with technology?  Teachers often throw up their hands and say, “My students know how to work this stuff and I don’t” or “How can I utilize and implement something that I don’t understand?”

The digital world is growing and changing very fast. Technology companies release products so rapidly that there is little time for anyone to stop and think of the many issues that may arise with their use. Too often when schools and districts purchase new digital technology for their elementary school textbooks they look at all the bells and whistles and don’t think of how will this fit into an inquiry based science classroom or a teacher's daily lesson plan.

Technology offers exciting opportunities in the science textbook publishing arena, but for some teachers this strange new world can be intimidating.  Thankfully, there is help available…

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students, teachers, and administrators. With these standards, ISTE provides structure for utilizing technology in an effective and responsible way.  This site offers a plethora of information, tips, direction, and support.  You can even visit a school that has embraced the digital world: http://www.istevision.org/watch.php?vid=fc10dbd9251623e4379652fd1cb0ac54e5ad04a5

As an educational publisher we are committed to assisting teachers to best educate students.  Inspiring teachers to transform their classrooms away from traditional teaching toward a new vision of student-centered learning is our mission. 

We aim to offer technology that is relevant and to provide implementation support in our teacher edition textbooks.  And if you are still struggling with turning on the laptop or downloading the Nano Legends game that came with your KH high school biology textbook, just ask your students for help...they love to show off their expertise.
 

But for book junkies like me, there’s nothing like a book hot off the press, as it were.  Opening a new book for the first time is a sensory experience.  The first crackles of the adhesive in the spine as I flip open the cover.  The feel of the crisp, new pages as I rifle through them, and the smell.  Oh, that printing press smell.  You’d laugh at us here because we all do it.  We get in a new high school science textbook, for example, and the first thing we do is stick our noses in it to get a whiff of the fresh ink on the new paper.  And I’d hazard a guess that you’d find employees at any other educational textbook publisher doing the same thing.

This has been a lifelong thing for me.  As a child, my mom always wanted me to get books from the library.  Okay, fine, I did, and I love the library, but I wanted to own the book, to keep the book, to watch my books line up on my bookshelves like a literary growth chart, showing me where I’d been and where I might be going.  My son has inherited this from me.  He told me once when I was ranting about the mess in his room, that I could, “get rid of everything but my football, my baseball glove, and my books.”  I almost took him up on it.  It’s no wonder I ended up at a school textbook publisher, my love of books brought me here.  I wonder where his love of books will lead him.