Bob Gardner
Hello! Last month, Tech@NYU collaborated with Pearson for our final HackNight of the academic year. For the unfamiliar, Tech@NYU is the largest student-run technology organization in NYC. We are hackers (in the original, positive sense of the word), builders, and creators with a passion for education and ideas.
What's a HackNight? Twice a month, college students from all over NYC get together to work on personal and academic projects at cool companies / start ups / coffee shops / libraries around the city.
This HackNight took place at Pearson's SoHo office, on a dark and stormy Wednesday night. Here, Pearson's VP Global Product Strategy and former middle school science teacher, Dan Ginsberg, gave a lively talk on Pearson's transformation from a textbook-oriented company to more technology-oriented. He talked about challenges the publishing industry face such as accurate demand forecasting and the lack of feedback mechanisms.
Students commonly complain that textbooks are too expensive or that their examples are too outdated. For Pearson and its education partners, they have been able to escape the trap of large print runs by introducing more digital offerings and made-to-order books.
Dan challenged us to think about how we can use technology to improve our education. What questions would you ask if you had information on textbook usability? Do people spend a lot of time on a particular page because the language is unclear or because the concept does not have an easy or straight forward explanation? As technologists, we take for granted the easy access to information that other industries do not always have.
It was great seeing many familiar faces and some new ones too. We had a huge turnout from the executive board and held our last meeting of the year after Dan's talk. After emotional parting words from the graduating seniors (shoutout to Steven and Brittany!), we wrapped up for the semester.
Thank you Pearson for hosting us and for everyone that made this semester a great success. I look forward to seeing everyone again in the fall.