educational

"Gorilla Glass" could one day become a household phrase, but Corning has even larger ideas.

"A Day Made of Glass 2" is a montage of "how highly engineered glass, with companion technologies, will help shape our world," according to Corning. It is mind-blowing to imagine everyday objects suddenly having rich, interactive displays and multiple functionalities.

After watching the video, I began to think about how intelligent glass, installed on a broad scale, could change the world. There are two key integrations: in the education and medical fields.

In the video, kids sit in rows … Read more

What is a "book" on an iPad? It's a question that bears some consideration, because the very nature of a tablet redefines the book experience.

According to Apple, iBooks 2 is the answer. However, plenty of booklike apps on the iPad also redefine the territory; the newly released Bats!: Furry Fliers of the Night doesn't live in iBooks, but this app feels as next-gen as Apple's iBooks offerings, or more so.… Read more

Google has won over three school districts with its Chromebook vision, bringing more than 27,000 of the browser-based laptops to Iowa, Illinois, and South Carolina.

Rajen Sheth, Google's leader of Chromebook work for business and education, announced the deals in a speech today to the Florida Educational Technology Conference.

Including those three districts, Sheth said in a Webcast speech, "we now have hundreds of schools across 41 states that have outfitted at least one classroom with Chromebooks."

The support is a nice feather in the Chromebook cap, especially since today's impressionable, fast-learning students are tomorrow'… Read more

With the spotlight turned on education after Apple's latest media event, iTunes U has gotten a facelift as well as some important resource pages on Apple's Web site.

iTunes U is a source for hundreds of thousands of lectures, videos, books, and other resources originating from many of the world's leading educational institutions. There are thousands of subjects to choose from for those wishing to supplement their education using an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC.

To get better acquainted with iTunes U, Apple has put up a help guide for new users on its Web site. It … Read more

Megaupload users (the legal kind) are upset with the FBI's decision to shut the site down yesterday before anyone had a chance to back up their files.

In response to the lawsuit, Anonymous hit back with several denial-of-service (DOS) attacks that brought down several government-run Web sites including those for the Department of Justice and the FBI, as well as Universal Music and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Today we're chatting about yesterday's Apple iBookstore announcement and what it'll mean for schools and the future of education. We'll also spend some time looking at the Megaupload arrests, and run through the top 10 questions kids ask that puzzle parents, like "Why is the sky blue?" and "How do airplanes stay in the air?"… Read more

The official iTunes U app announced at today's Apple educational event is a coming out of the closet for iTunes U, in a more profound way than Apple's Newsstand was for magazines and newspapers. Launch iTunes U, and you're even greeted with a similar wooden bookshelf, albeit in a darker shade. That's where the similarities end.… Read more

In an Apple event this morning in New York, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, took the stage to introduce iBooks 2, an update to the popular e-reader for iOS devices that adds textbooks.

As Apple's flagship e-reader, iBooks is already a crisp-looking app and storefront that runs on iOS devices. But today, iBooks 2 moves into the world of education by adding interactive textbooks with the aim of keeping students' attention (and certainly adding yet another revenue stream for Apple). … Read more

Textbooks aren't a terribly sexy topic, but give it to Apple for trying to make it sexy.

Yes, today Apple officially rolled out an upgraded 2.0 version of its iBooks app that now supports interactive textbooks while also releasing a free Mac application, iBook Author, that lets people create electronic textbooks on their computers.

Seems clear enough, right? Apple jumps headlong into an entrenched, inefficient industry, threatening it with "digital destruction," or, to put it another way, textbook go boom.

But the truth is, the announcements stirred up more questions than they answered. So with that … Read more

The format of today's episode is a little different, as we discuss all the products to come out of Apple's Education Event at the Guggenheim Museum here in New York, along with Bridget Carey who reports from the field on iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and the revamped iTunes U platform.

Even after the press conference is over, we're still left with questions about hardware deployment and format compatibility, so CNET's David Carnoy joins us as well to give his take on the e-publishing industry and the challenges Apple will face alongside district budget cuts and existing … Read more