RentScouter

Recent interns and graduates working at Google have put together College Tips by Google to help college students utilize Google Services to improve the college experience.  These college tips are broken up into three main categories:

1) Prospective College Students

This category is focused on helping anyone thinking about getting into college.  The tips start with utilizing Google Docs to create a list of prospective tools.  From there utilize Google Mail to generate a “professional” email address for the application process, using Google Maps for directions and street views, maybe use Google Product Search to find items for your eventual dorm room.  Perhaps you can find your roommate on Google+ to learn about each other before that first awkward hand shake after you found your ticket on Google’s Flight Search.  Another useful site for prospective college students is Zinch, which was recently purchased by a leading textbook rental company, Chegg.  Zinch is like LinkedIn for high school students by helping them with the admission process and finding college scholarships while creating a professional profile.

2) Current College Students

Argh, how can you possible manage everything happening at college?  Google Calender to the rescue, which you can easily share with friends, though you may prefer to handle that by creating and managing circles from within Google+.  When working on literary assignments there is Google Scholar to help find creditable sources for citation in your papers, but don’t forget perennial favorite Wikipedia.  Need to work on your group project, but it is too cold to leave your dorm room? Utilize Google+ Hangouts for a video chat similar to what is offered by long time favorite, Skype.  There are many other apps to help you find what is best around, but Google is certainly going to plug their Google Places functionality to help find your local college favorites.

3) College Seniors

Getting ready to join the real-world? Manage everything with Google Tasks and Docs, and even build a promotional website with Google Sites.  You might have been penniless for years during your college life, but don’t go too crazy when you start getting paid by implementing Google Advisor to understand and quickly compare checking accounts, credit cards, or eventually mortgages.  Don’t forget to document your final days at college with Google+ Instant upload and find your way to your new life with Google Maps.  Think you are totally awesome?  Google recommends applying to work with the big G.

Overall, the site is new and only provides basic tips, but for those not familiar with Google Services it can be very helpful.  Heck, if you think you have some useful college tips apply at Google Student Blog to possibly get featured.  Organize your life with Google Services, but don’t forget cheap textbooks or textbook rentals from your friends here at RentScouter helping you save money at college.  We can even help you find free textbooks with our growing free book resource page.

Nebraska Book Company (NBC) reports they are closing at least seven “off-campus” textbook bookstores: Florida Book Store, Gainesville, FL; Chattanooga Books, Chattanooga, TN; Madison Textbooks, Madison, WI; Spirit Shop, Lubbock, TX; Traditions Bookstore, College Station, TX; The College Store, Akron, OH; and GotUsed Bookstore, Pittsburgh, PA.  The named stores are to remain open for the current textbook high season, for college students seeking cheap textbook rentals, closing sometime in February 2012.

This continues our coverage of Nebraska Book Company’s (NBC) bankruptcy reorganization plans as NBC attempts to recover from filing for Chapter 11 protection in February of 2011, first reported by Reuters.  During its bankruptcy filings, NBC said it lost over $100 million in its most recent fiscal year on revenues of over $600 million.  NBC reports that it is also evaluating nearly 30% of their other college textbook stores, or at least 40 of their 138 off-campus stores.  Nebraska purportedly owns or helps operate nearly 280 bookstores on and off campus, though they claim

Our on-campus stores continue to perform well, and it is our plan to expand the company in this direction

per Barry Major, the company’s current president.  Major notes that closing bookstores is not an easy decision, but it must be done in the interest of NBC surviving.  He further states, their online textbook sales are growing especially in the area of textbook rentals, and is excited by the prospect of more and more schools wanting to outsource their bookstore operations.  Major also sited praise for the company’s debt partners that have stood by NBC as they navigate their way to profitability in an every changing college textbook marketplace.

The story on MarketWatch covers many of the forward-looking statements for NBC.

Each semester is rung in with the fact that textbooks must be purchased for upcoming classes.  For those students who are adept in finding used textbooks at a deal in comparison with new versions, save money by finding cheap textbooks.  Thanks to company’s like Kno, a digital textbook retailer, and the 20 Million Minds Foundation, the weight of purchasing textbooks, might soon be lifted.

Students, teachers and administrators alike find themselves excited over certain classroom technologies, and this will give them something more to be excited over for the next semester.  Kno and 20 Million Minds are collaborating to launch the nation’s first web-based 2.0, an open source eTextbook for college students and teachers.

The first of the eTextbooks to be offered will be based on the top twenty-five courses of undergraduates in the country.  Some numbers were run looking at California community colleges alone.  There will be more than 120,000 students taking General Statistics this year, and the median price for a new book of this subject is typically above $150.  Together, students will spend over $10 million on textbooks for General Statistics alone.

If you are one of these students, do not spend your money yet.  This week, Kno has launched a promotion offering students the chance to win a free textbook from its Kno eBookstore for anyone who possesses an EDU email address.  Simply, give them your email.  In addition, they also state that your chances of winning might increase for those who share this information on Facebook with friends.

If you are not familiar with Kno, they debuted their digital textbook program the previous fall, with the intention of lowering costs for students by offering them eTextbooks.  They originally created a “Kno Tablet”, including a dual screen, however, the tablet was too expensive.  For the spring of 2012, in keeping with the concept of lowering textbook costs, they now will provide eTextbooks via an iPad app.  In addition they have launched the browser based textbook app, allowing the student to view the book in the iPad app as well as the browser simultaneously.  With these options, students can purchase the 2nd Edition of Collaborative Statistics for $20.

As with most innovative, cost-saving technology, usually there are other entailed perks.  With the partnership of Kno, and 20 Million Minds, not only are they offering students a way to save money on textbooks, but they are giving students the opportunity to enhance their learning experience.

“This digitally enhanced eTextbook provides a vision of what is now possible for a new generation of open content and authors,” says Dean Florez, the president of the 20 Million Minds Foundation.

It is not new for college students having a challenge with cash flow, and with this technology, the 20 Million Mind Foundation is expecting a “massive adoption by faculty by spring 2012”.  With the partnership of Kno and 20 Million Minds, eTextbooks can now be elevated and enhanced, making education, as it should be, more accessible through cheap textbooks.