HellerResults RSS Feed
K-12 Textbook Rental: Wild Card Stalking Horse for the Digital Future
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, July 29, 2011
In the last two Heller Report columns, we have been looking at the remarkable traction textbook rental has achieved in higher education and its early migration to the K-12 market, predominantly in private and parochial high schools. The big money, if it is to be had, will be in public K-12 institutions, and there are beginning signs of interest. A few states, Indiana in the forefront, have legislated K-12 textbook rental, but Indiana’s funding model, based on a six-year book life cycle, discourages commerce. Read More »
K-12 Textbook Rental: Post-Secondary Success Drives Into New Territory
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, July 01, 2011
The serious traction obtained by post-secondary market textbook renters, outlined in last month’s Heller Report column, has generated a number of similar initiatives in K-12. The low-hanging fruit is in private and parochial high schools, but the serious money, if it happens, will be in public school districts where it is just starting to get some uptake. Firms with K-12 rental footprints include Follett Virtual Bookstores, BookRenter.com, College Book Renter, FindersCheapers.com, and Budgetext. In both post-secondary and K-12, the biggest market driver is the cost of textbooks. Because cost is one of the issues in used and eBooks, what’s happening in book rental also sheds some light on where the K-12 market’s going for these alternatives to traditional books. Read on to see if you agree that for K-12 what’s happening here is about more than just getting books into students’ hands. Read More »
Textbook Rental: Web-Rejuvenation Rocks Post-Secondary Market
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, June 03, 2011
The Rental Phenomenon...In the past two years, the post-secondary textbook rental market has exploded. Driven by the outcry over book prices, federal legislation, readily available pricing information on the Internet, and sophisticated web-based rental management platforms, old and new competitors are disrupting the $10 billion college textbook business. Book rental isn’t really a new phenomenon—a few college stores have been renting books since the Civil War. The National Association of College Stores (NACS) proclaimed fall 2010 as the “Year of the Rental.” Players include long-timers like Follett and Budgetext and fast-growing start-ups. BookRenter, started in 2008, netted $40 million from investors in a funding round this past February. Chegg, started in 2007, has raised $200+ million in venture capital and attracted senior management from Yahoo and Netflix. The same drivers are growing trade in used books, eBooks, and online instructional content. Rental is also driving new business models for sourcing and distributing educational materials that may carry the industry forward into digital. Having book inventory isn’t necessarily required—at least one high-flying firm, BookRenter, exists mainly as an online marketplace. Read on to see how this change in distribution is impacting the higher education market. Next month we’ll look at what all this means for K-12. Read More »
Navigating the Downturn: Making It Work
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, May 06, 2011
The K-12 market is sending mixed signals about whether we’ve managed to dodge the bullets ravaging school budgets across the land. Less than a year ago, I explored the recession’s impact with Navigating the Downturn: Is Pricing Pressure Driving Supplemental Sales? (April 16, 2010), Countering Pricing Pressure (May 14, 2010), and Does Proof of Efficacy Matter Anymore? (June 11, 2010). Triggered by a recent inquiry from an industry acquaintance, I decided it was time to have another look, and on April 8, 2011, after reaching out to over a dozen industry contacts to get their readings, I wrote Navigating the Downturn: Are We There Yet? I found both optimism and pessimism in exploring why we might be at a significant turning point now and where we go from here. In this article, I share what I heard about whether the changes are temporary or whether we’re entering “a new normal,” what kinds of products are getting a boost from the downturn, and how companies are changing the way they do business. Remember, this isn’t based on a statistically significant sample but does give you a glimpse of what others in the industry are thinking. Read on to gauge what this might mean for you. Read More »
Navigating the Downturn: Are We There Yet?
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, April 08, 2011
After being lulled into thinking our industry had somehow dodged the bullets ravaging school budgets across the land, I got a surprise phone call from a business acquaintance a few weeks ago. Read More »
You on the Tube: The Internet TV “Channel” to the Family Flat Screen
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, March 11, 2011
The convergence of television, the Internet, apps marketplaces, and the cloud are adding up to new opportunities and threats for the education industry. You can check it out today at your local Best Buy, Sony Style store or, if you’re in the San Diego area, in our family room. Read on to learn more about how this might affect you. Read More »
Social Learning Business Models: More About Where This Is Taking Us
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, February 11, 2011
In my last two Heller Report columns, I looked at evidence that technology-empowered social learning systems can boost student curricular achievement and the evolving business models for social learning platforms behind this phenomenon. These articles have benefitted from input from nine executives pioneering in this space. This concluding piece looks at how these firms are selling, who's making the purchasing decisions, and the surprises and challenges they're facing in this new space. Reiterating the observation I made in my last article, what's really registered with me is that issues these firms are grappling with are not just pertinent to this small niche but are in fact precursors to where the bulk of K-12 educational publishing and service companies are going. Read on to see if you agree. Read More »
Social Learning Business Models: A Peek at Where the Market’s Going
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, January 14, 2011
In my last Heller Report column (http://www.ednetinsight.com/news-alerts/the-heller-report/social-learning--new-frontier-for-curricular-achievement.html), I looked at the evidence that technology-empowered social learning systems can boost student curricular achievement. This column looks at the evolving business models for the social learning platforms behind this phenomenon. To get a realistic handle on this, I connected with executives at nine firms pioneering in this space and found them willing to share many useful insights. Read More »
Social Learning: New Frontier for Curricular Achievement
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, December 03, 2010
Project K-Nect, a Qualcomm-funded pilot, which explored boosting student Algebra 1 competency through smartphone-empowered collaboration, has produced compelling results. I’ve become intrigued by the prospect that virtual study groups might help students learn, maybe even more effectively than their face-to-face counterparts. Some 150 Project K-Nect high school students in a high-need demographic in rural North Carolina showed impressive end-of-course gains compared to others in their district. Following the trail of breadcrumbs from Project K-Nect to other areas of K-12 education suggests to me that technology-based student and teacher collaboration are surfacing as important levers for curricular achievement gains. Read More »
Disintermediation 2.0: DIY Authoring, Content Management, and Brokering
Nelson B. Heller, President, EdNET, MDR — Friday, October 29, 2010
Among the most significant near-term market drivers for K-12, highlighted at last month's EdNET Conference, are: (1) the Social Web – what we used to call Web 2.0, (2) cloud computing – the growing array of services accessible via the Net, (3) 1:1 for more users – a device for every student and teacher, (4) always-on broadband wireless access, (5) new K-12 interest by the telcos after years of disinterest, and (6) the Common Core and Innovative Assessment initiatives. Thinking of the market as a vast soup kettle with these ingredients, what can we expect from the resulting stew? At EdNET I explored two likely outcomes. The first, "Disintermediation 2.0," is the result of the remarkable array of do-it-yourself Internet tools proliferating for authoring, management, and brokering digital educational content. Read on to see how this might affect you. Next month we'll tackle a second major development, "Social Learning," exploring how online collaboration tools are emerging from the entertainment-oriented world of social networking to be taken seriously for supporting student curricular achievement gains. Read More »
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
