If you have noticed that I have not posted around lately, that would be because I am finishing up the second edition of my Complete Guide to Online High Schools. Should be done in about a week and I will let you all know when that momentous occasion happens.

Some interesting changes in the book this time around, mostly due to the larger number of online high schools. I truly look forward to it being done. One distinct advantage this time around is that I have done it the right way. Each and every school is now in a Microsoft Access database. This will make keeping track of all of them that much easier.

Soon.

I have decided to spend the next month finding and posting the best of TED. Well, the best of TED that relates to me and what I do. The first is Mike Matas discussing the first feature-length interactive book.

Yesterday, at my online high schools site, I had less traffic in one day than I have had since 2007 when I launched the site. I am not sure at all why that might be. Traffic was seriously down. When I saw it inside the cPanel, I actually went to the website to make sure that it was still up. The only time that I have seen anything like that occur was when there was a problem with the website. Today is slow as well.

Very odd.

I regularly have several projects going on at the same time. One very cool and very secret project came to initial fruition today. My district, Fresno Unified School District, was selected to be one of four districts within California to be part of a pilot of iPads. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) and Apple are providing support for the pilot and converted an Algebra 1 textbook into a digital version.

This is a year-long pilot and in our district it includes four schools on two campuses. The pilot includes a research study paid for by HMH. It seems to present a unique opportunity to compare like with like.

You can read about it in the Fresno Bee here.

In preparation for the visit to Fresno Pacific University by Bernie Trilling, I am reading 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times. I expect that I will be sharing some of the key passages with you all as I go through the book.

Here’s the first one:

One of the Chinese delegates, Mr. Zheng, appeared increasingly excited the more he saw and heard [at Napa's New Technology High School]. By the time we gathered to recap the day’s experiences, he just couldn’t wait to speak any longer.

He held up the school’s curriculum guide and asked, in English, “Where in here do you teach creativity and innovation? I want to know how you teach this! We need our students to learn how to do this!”

The school’s curriculum director, Paul, took a deep breath, collected his thoughts, smiled, and answered slowly, “I have some not-so-good news…and some good news.

“The not-so-good news is…it isn’t in the curriculum guide.

“It’s more in the air we breathe — or maybe the water we drink; the history of our country — Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin; it’s in our business culture, our entrepreneurs, our willingness to try new ideas; the tinkering and inventing in our garages, the challenge of tackling tough problems and the excitement of creating something new; in being rewarded for our new ideas, taking risks, failing, and trying again.”

Out here in California our governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has started a Free Digital Textbook Initiative. The theory is that too much of our California budget is spent on the print version and this is certainly true. The results, thus far, are mixed.

Yes, an initial group of textbooks have been released. Some of the textbooks do a great job of meeting our state’s content standards and some are not particularly close. This is the issue. You can’t do free if free handicaps the students.

Clearly, I am  looking at this because it has come up in my day job. It is certainly intriguing, but a little problematic as well. Out here we have the Williams Settlement which requires us to make sure all students have a textbook checked out specifically to them (because we didn’t always do a good job of that and now we need to deal with the fall-out). If you use digital textbooks, there are similar rules. You can either:

• provide the student with the electronic equipment necessary to view the digital version; or
• provide the student with a print-out of the digital version.

Anyone out there work for a school or a district that used digital textbooks, free or commercial, in a meaningful way? It would be helpful to see where others have gone.

Are we headed toward a time when all textbooks will be digital? Absolutely. Will this happen soon? Define “soon.”

Several universities have been test-driving the Amazon Kindle this year to see how well it works for their students. Some thoughts from a USAToday.com article:

Now, as several major universities finish analyzing data from pilot programs involving the latest version of the Amazon Kindle, officials are learning more about what students want out of their e-reader tablets. Generally, the colleges found that students missed some of the old-fashioned note-taking tools they enjoyed before. But they also noted that the shift had some key environmental benefits. Further, a minority of students embraced the Kindle fairly quickly as highly desirable for curricular use.

Some would argue that the leap in technology is too great. I don’t think so. I think that the tool isn’t quite ready to do the required job.

For students who were given the Kindle DX and tried to use it for coursework, the inability to easily highlight text was the biggest lowlight of the experience.

If you can’t easily highlight text and, importantly, can’t highlight PDF files at all, that is a design flaw.

Indeed, highlighting and note-taking went hand in hand with another feature students on multiple campuses considered important: navigation. Students did not like being unable to have multiple texts open at the same time.

If an e-book reader is going to be at a sufficient level to attract users to use them as a research tool, they must be able to open multiple texts. Researchers and students know they must be able to compare documents.

Based on these comments, it appears that the Kindle DX is not quite ready for prime-time. While I have no doubt that an e-book reader will emerge that will work, it is unclear whether that will be a Kindle. While that may be a good option at the college level, without a significant price drop, it will not work at the K-12 level. The cost is just too staggering for schools and school districts.

Will online schools end up adapting to the use of  e-book readers? Yes, because part of the benefit of online courses is being able to take it with you. While a number of online schools already use digital texts, many fewer have that text easily available for electronic books. Look for that to change.

I have been thinking lately what I have planned for 2010 in terms of writing and writing-related activities. Since I have a new day job that takes up a significant amount of time, I find that I need to pick and choose more carefully than I have in the past.

That being said, what can you expect from me in 2010?

• An update to the Best Online High Schools website. It’s time. That being said, that won’t happen until a couple of the things below happen first.

• A second edition of Complete Guide to Online High Schools. It is long-overdue and I can tell from my email that folks (both readers and schools) would appreciate an updated edition.

• A book to be named later. Yes, I already know exactly what it is and it is already in the works. That being said, there are people who read what I write who would like to copy those efforts.

• A big website(s) project. This I will be announcing in January. I think you may be a little surprised what I have gone and done. Trust me; you’re not alone.

Numbers 2 and 4 above are definite and the other two are hopeful. Add to that, my commitment to writing here on a regular basis and that seems enough.

Here’s hoping that 2010 is good for you. And, if you like, why not comment below on what you would like to do in the new year?