Push Pop Press and the potential in Higher Education

If I could have a dream job I would design digital textbooks like this: http://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/
Push Pop Press is currently in beta with Al Gore's Our Choice as they debut. Actually I would probably be more of a sales person working with professors and institutions to design their textbooks. I wish I knew about UI, engineering, etc. because then I would do it myself.

As a lifetime student and higher education enthusiast I love to learn and specifically I am a hands on learner. (You know the one that got an A in physics but a C in biology.) When looking at characteristics of Millenials (students and employees) we are often characterized as being visually stimulated, as having short attention spans and wanting things instantly. Push Pop Press has catered to this in every way imaginable.

Rewinding to the hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks I purchased during my undergraduate and graduate work and how much I did NOT read and instead looked up YouTube videos of how to create pivot tables in Excel. Fast forward to the number of staff manuals I have written and subsequent PowerPoint presentations of policy and how-to instruction. The ability to have an interactive educational environment is limitless from the integration of Prezi, Twitter backchannels/ HootCourse and the digital book Push Pop Press has created could revive the textbook industry.

I have used several textbook publishers websites for part of the requirements for a course. Not a single publisher's site is slick or has interactive components for reviewing materials or purchasing online textbooks. In fact most are still built in frames that resemble my Angelfire website from 6th grade. Imagine being able to view a 3D model of the cosmos inside of your textbook instead of reading the footnotes. Watching a dissection of a cat, pig or frog for organs. My favorite example from the Our Choice digital book is the ability to move the wind mill with your own BREATH to see how it powers the electricity in the home and the storage of the energy created.

Cool features:
Photos, audio captions, interactive maps and infographics, and videos. Touch screen and ability to "pull out" the features.

Potential Cool Textbook features (my own brainstorming):
In book quizzes, problem solving with solutions, 3D models, highlighting/bookmarking, note taking, printing abilities, supplemental information/readings, historical site and museum re-creations tours and Google Map/Earth integration.

Potential negatives:
Accessibility for the deaf and blind. Increasing a socio-economical divide.

See what I'm talking about in action:


Push Pop Press TED Talk from Push Pop Press on Vimeo.

I hope Push Pop Press chooses to pursue creating interactive textbooks for high education. The possibilities and potential for higher learning are endless. And if they don't someone else will and I hope I'm involved.