E-textbooks and other digital assets have become extremely important in the world of textbooks. The texts are evolving quickly, in both the way that they are delivered and in the kinds of instructional activities, materials, and collaborations that are included.Welcome to an interview with Jill Ambrose, Chief Marketing Officer at CourseSmart. 1. What is your name and your relation to e-learning?

With all the recent efforts by the U.S. federal government to respond to the ongoing economic challenges, the demand for understanding the role of the Federal Reserve Bank has grown dramatically. In response, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSB) has developed an informative and innovative way to help learners of all levels gain an understanding of the banking crisis of 2008, in

OLC Emerging Technologies for Online Learning International SymposiumApril 22-24, 2015, Dallas, TX  Follow @OLCToday for updates!#ET4Online Sloan-C has been newly rebranded as the Online Learning Consorutium and this April, the Emerging Technologies for Online Learning International Symposium will convene in Dallas, TX for its 8th annual event.  This year's symposium, which is a joint event with MERLOT, is shaping up to be dynamic!Keynote & PlenariesMimi Ito is confirmed as the keynote speaker.  Ito (@Mizuko) has contributed ground breaking research about the impact of digital media on today's youth. Gardner Campbell (@GardnerCampbell) and Bonnie Stewart (@BonStewart) will be presenting the plenary talks at the symposium. Together, these presentations will engage in a mindful exploration of how emerging technologies are reshaping formal and informal learning, as well as impacting the nature of identity for us all.More Hands-on Experiences!Also included in this year's program you'll find the Technology Test Kitchen, where brief hands-on sessions will be conducted to introduce you to an array of new technologies that hold potential for reshaping and improving the way we teach and our students learn online. The Technology Test Kitchen was introduced at #Blend14 and will also be part of the OLC's International Conference in Orlando at the end of October. I'm really looking forward to this new program feature!EdTech Startups Return with a Revamped Launch PadThe Launch Pad will also be back again this year with a new feature -- the Teacher Tank, which will provide our Launch Pad participants with an opportunity to pitch their product to a panel of online educators. Anchored in the context of formative feedback and learning, this event will be fast-paced and high energy! Join us!Submit Your Great Ideas: CFP Opens 10/1!If that whets your appetite, mark your calendar for the Call for Proposals which will be open from October 1-December 1 (no extensions will be provided).   YOUR participation will make this symposium more diverse and representative of how emerging technologies are reshaping online teaching and learning. I hope to see you in Dallas!Michelle Pacansky-Brock, @brocansky#ET4Online Conference Chair, 2015

1. What is your name and your relation to e-learning?My name is Pavel Tchourliaev, and I’m the COO of Kiwi Commons Inc. At Kiwi Commons, we feel that e-learning is essential in educating kids and raising them in a digital world. While we are very aware of the risks that surround the online world, we also feel that emerging technologies, if used responsibly, can be a great learning tool to engage

 Online Learning Consortium (formerly Sloan-C)8th Annual Emerging Technologies for Online Learning International Symposium Call for Proposals is OPEN through Dec. 1, 2014. This year's tracks include: Organizational Leadership & Challenges for Innovation -- New!Learning Environments & FrameworksOpen & Collaborative EducationEvidence-Based Learning & AssessmentEffective Teaching & Learning PedagogyTechnology Test Kitchen -- New!Take a moment to identify what you want to share and submit your proposal today! Academic Affairs and IT leaders from organizations are encouraged to attend with faculty and instructional designers to increase dialogue about the the use/impact/implementation of emerging technologies in online learning.Hands-on workshops are included within the conference program (as opposed to an extra fee as pre-conference events).  This year's program features provocative presentations by Mimi Ito, Gardner Campbell, and Bonnie Stewart; the 3rd annual Launch Pad (featuring promising ed tech starts selective through a competitive application process); and the new Teacher Tank, a dynamic session that will engage Launch Pad ed tech start up participants in a pitch and feedback dialogue with higher education leaders.It's going to be GREAT! Hope to see you there.

E-Learning design mistakes are insidious and often hard to identify until they’ve basically infected the entire course or program. By that time, it’s extremely difficult (and expensive) to correct. So, the time to make sure that you’re following good design principles is in the initial design of the certificate or degree program (associates, bachelors, or masters). Another good time can be when

VoiceThread has released a new interface that has some nice changes. If you use VoiceThread in an individual account (or free account), you have the option to use the new VT now.  If you are part of an organization that uses VoiceThread, the organizational administrator may make the switch any time between now and this August. In August 2015, the new interface will be implemented for all users.The 4-minute video above demonstrates:The new "Home" page, which takes the place of "My Voice."The uploading interface and editing canvas.The new commenting interface.How to disable the video countdown.How to make a voice recording using the new keyboard shortcut (just press R).When you leave more than one comment on a slide using the same Identity, your profile pic/avatar will appear again. This is going to be very helpful for teaching!How to move comments simply by clicking and dragging the corresponding avatar. This is a big improvement over needing to press and hold "Shift" while relocating the small gray segments at the bottom of a screen.New HD PlayerOne thing I failed to realize while recording the video is that the new VoiceThread uses HD dimensions. As you watch the video, you'll notice the black bars on the sides of my slides, which are the result of my slides being set to "standard" size (4:3) in Keynote.New VoiceThread showing media with a 4:3 ratio.I resized my slides to HD (16:9) (which requires some redesign too) and uploaded them again into VoiceThread.  The image below displays the HD slide. It's much more lovely when the image fills the entire viewer.New VoiceThread showing media with a 16:9 ratio.So, what do you think?Have questions about the new VoiceThread? Search the new support site here.

We've all read the cautionary tale about the pre-teen who is "friended" by someone who also seems to be a similarly angst-y pre-teen or "tweener" - whose middle school pressures are almost as bad as the new-found distrust of and distaste for one's parents. The "friend" turns out to be a much older predator, and the outcome is tragic.Some may have read about or watched the film, Catfish (dir.

Effective design for mobile learning courses requires a major shift in how one thinks of the learner's relationship to the content. Interactivity takes on a whole new dimension, as students create content to share and critique in close to real time. The key is to avoid sending students down a path where they will be more or less duplicating what the others have done. They need to be able to apply

Why am I writing about my experiences as a woman in edtech? Because sharing our personal stories helps to promote awareness and understanding of the complex topic of gender.  In a society where women are constructed to be passive, polite, decorative objects to be desired by heterosexual men, women confront a unique experience when taking the leap to contribute our thoughts, critiques, ideas, and creations in the open web.  I acknowledge that these are my own reflections and I do not suggest that there is a singular "woman's" experience that I represent here. Over the years, I have felt tensions upon jumping into the active, public space of participation, which I am informed in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, is not where I belong. I am aware of the self-talk that surfaces as I begin to type a blog post (especially a post like this one). As critical as I am about gender issues, this self-talk is persistent.  As fortunate as I am to have a family and community that encourages me to pursue my voice and follow my passion, that self-talk continues to try to silence me and situate me into a more passive role. Where does it come from? And why is it so important to shut it down?It comes from the destructive messages about women that I hear every day in popular music.  It comes from the inferior roles that I see women stitched into on television and in the movies.  It comes from seeing the wrinkles increase on my own face when I look in the mirror and, in turn, see nothing but 20 something year-old hot babes delivering the news on television alongside aging, overweight men.Over time, women internalize these messages and, painfully so, actively participate in their construction. I have a vivid memory of seeing a young mother answer her mobile phone in a grocery store after hearing her ring tone, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?," a song performed by pole-dancing, lingerie-wearing women, to which her toddler daughter bounced back and forth to the catchy beat.  Little girls' clothing has become hyper-sexualized, toys for girls (which are all pink and mostly glittery, just to make it clear it's for a girl) drip with the message "it's your looks that matter," and as I scan my children's Instagram feeds, I see the posing that more and more young girls enact in selfies.  I also painfully aware of the 3.6 million videos that are retrieved (mostly of adolescent girls) when I search for the phrase "Am I pretty?" on YouTube.I was born in 1971, the year Ms. Magazine was launched. When I was young, there was no such thing as a MILF and having a baby was not tied to a race to drop the baby weight, as it is today. And when I was seven, my birthday wish was to become Wonder Woman, not a member of the Real Housewives cast.  I did not have a mother or know anyone who did that regularly visited a "med spa" to spend thousands of dollars a year to diminish the natural effects of age on her body.  When I was a kid, cosmetic surgery was something celebrities participated in. Today, there are children's books written to normalize the concept of plastic surgery for moms -- all in the name of "beauty."The social construction of gender informs the way many women feel about themselves and impacts their sense of belonging in professional spaces, as well.  It also informs the choices made about who is important, who should be listened to, and who should be followed.  Over the years, as I have reviewed the keynote presenters showcased at higher education conferences, I have sensed that this is not a realm in which women are valued equally.  As I view the "top" EdTech bloggers, I see men outnumbering women 3:1.For about four years, I taught an online faculty development course for @ONE titled "Building Online Community with Social Media."  I taught the class two to three times per year and it maxed at 20 participants.  Regularly, I had no more than 2-3 men enroll in each class. As I reflect on this experience, I grow concerned about the gap between the gender of higher ed practitioners leveraging emerging technologies to transform pedagogy and those who speak out about how to make it happen. A few years ago when I took the leap to start hosting live Google+ Hangouts on Air, the message was communicated to me, as well.  There I was, facilitating the sharing of ideas and participating in active dialogue. After one of my first Hangouts on Air (which, by the way, stream live to YouTube), I was excited to see that there had been comments made to the YouTube video feed during the live conversation. When I visited the video page, I found comments that were made about my own body. I felt violated. I felt outraged. I felt disgusted. I quickly trained myself to manage the situation - instead of withdrawing from these conversations, I trained myself to disable the comments on the YouTube page as I delivered a Hangout on Air.  I did this for about a year before it dawned upon me that this is precisely one of the obscure barriers that prevent women from participating in edtech conversations.  What I find inspirational are organizations like EdTech Women, dedicated to creating networks for women to connect with other women in a supportive community; conferences like SxSW, which make an explicit effort to value and integrate diversity into their dialogue; contributions that acknowledge gender issues in edtech, like Rafranz Davis's The Missing Voices in EdTech, Rebecca Hogue's post after #ET4Online in 2014 and Maha Bali's post, #NoMomLeftBehind, which opened a dialogue about the topic of including childcare at edtech conferences; and men like Michael Berman who regularly practice inclusivity in their work and John Farquhar for asking how improve things.@amcollier @brocansky @jessysaurusrex I organize a number of tech events and want to be more inviting/supportive. Any specific recomendatns?— John Farquhar (@JohnFarquharWWU) November 6, 2014And while I agree with Jesse Irwin that EdTech Women events should not contribute to the turning women into decorations...There's a buttload of "Women in Tech" events in my inbox - and this is why I will be going to NONE of them http://t.co/9KPk0mLAQp— Jessy Irwin (@jessysaurusrex) November 6, 2014I do believe we all need to support the cultivation of conversations about this topic and to facilitate the development of communities that inspire, support, and encourage the work of women in edtech.