A NOVEL APPROACH: There’s never been so much drama around textbooks in U.S. education. Big publishers pushing to preserve their business models and smacking rivals with lawsuits. Tech giants vying to get into students backpacks in blended learning schools. And open-source providers looking to increase presence and market share. Leave it to the Japanese to take the pragmatic approach-- publisher Tokyo Shoseki has begun publishing textbooks that support augmented reality applications: Hold a smart phone over just the right section of a workbook and a code triggers an app--say, a video snippet or program. Could be a clever approach for schools without 1:1 technology capabilities if U.S. publisher follow suit.
