Is that a math textbook?

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a company that publishes a wide variety of textbooks developed a Algebra 1 "book" to be used on the iPad. This year, Empirical Education is conducting a pilot program involving 100 students to re-imagine what textbooks can be.

Some details of their work are found on the blog, Mindshift. Take a second and check it out here.

While we won't know the final results until the end of the school year, teachers and students are offering positive reviews thus far. It has:

• created more options for teachers.
• been able to better assist students.
• shown an increase in student motivation. 

Perhaps the biggest growth seen in this program is the dramatic increase of "time on task," or how long students are willing to work through difficult math problems. Research indicates that devoting specific time to a task has improved student achievement. If your interested in some research about time on task, you can find it here.

As a side note, it was nice to see so many people here last night for our technology event! In case you missed my presentation, here is a link to my slide show.

Lastly, you can follow me on twitter!