Last Thursday morning outside Apple’s press conference at the Guggenheim Museum, news-team sound trucks stretched an entire block, possibly setting a record for the amount of coverage for an announcement about textbooks.

But the introduction of interactive, instructional e-books for the iPad was also a signal of larger changes taking place in the classroom. In the midst of its Internet moment, education is going through a digital disruption similar to the ones that have shaken up the music industry, newspapers and trade-book publishing.

Apple’s event was also symbolic of New York’s role in that transformation. Executives from the Cupertino, Calif.-based company came all the way to Fifth Avenue because, by and large, this is where the academic publishers are.

Partly spurred by its concentration of intellectual talent, New York is also becoming a hotbed of innovation in educational technology. Venture capital investment in education-related startups in the metro area totaled $95 million in 2011—an 84% spike over the prior year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association. The number of startups receiving investment money rose to 14, up from eight in 2010.

In the long run, newfangled interactive textbooks like the ones Apple and its publishing partners previewed last Thursday are likely to be a minor aspect of education’s digital revolution. But Apple’s entry is certainly helping the revolution along.

“It gets people to pay attention to the work we and other folks have done over the last three years to shift the industrial production model of education to more of a GPS-driven, personalized learning [model],” said Vineet Madan, senior vice president of strategic services at McGraw-Hill Education. The publisher has five titles available on the new iBook platform, including high-school texts Algebra 2012 and Biology 2012. “It gets them to think other things are possible in teaching and learning.”

Online learning updated

Those other things include the online learning system developed by 2tor Inc., a company launched in New York four years ago by John Katzman, the founder of test-prep company The Princeton Review. With the help of broadband connections and mobile technology, the startup has revamped the old distance-learning model, which has long been considered a second-class form of education prized mainly for its convenience.

The 2tor iteration creates a kind of intimate global classroom that allows for real-time interaction between students and their professor, and has been picked up by four elite institutions, including the nursing school at Georgetown and the M.B.A. program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Company executives say their classes are just as good as those offered on campus and that, more and more, online learning will be a way that universities expand—and survive.

“The high end of the academic world is a very large market, and one that is going to see significant disruption over the next 10 years,” said 2tor Chief Marketing Officer Jeremy Johnson. “Many schools will go out of business, and you will see far larger programs online.”

Investors also see a growing market in digital education companies. In 2011, deals in the ed-tech sphere totaled $10 billion, which was flat compared with the prior year, but up from $5.4 billion in 2009, according to figures just released by investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.

The rush to a digital future has plenty of critics, however. They see direct student-teacher contact as indispensable, fear a push toward technology for its own sake and worry that digital tools will be used primarily as cheaper alternatives to teachers.

But educational experts say that digital tools are needed to reach students who have grown up in a digital world. And educational innovators insist that technology can provide new paths to learning.

“Until now, we haven’t had the ability to capture, process, synthesize and use these enormous amounts of information and data,” said David Liu, chief operating officer of Knewton, a New York-based adaptive-learning company that uses algorithms to figure out how different students absorb information. The firm recently began a partnership with academic publishing giant Pearson. “This is a one-time-in-history moment for education.”

Funding slows down

Despite what may be a historic moment, it’s not clear that New York startups will continue to get financing at the rate they have been, as venture capital firms grow wary of where the economy is headed. In the fourth quarter, VC financing in the New York area plunged 40%, compared with the prior quarter, to $545.1 million.

But experts say the tech-education industry is just getting started. The U.S. business for e-learning products and services in the pre-K to 12-and-higher education markets will grow to $11 billion in 2015, from $7.6 billion in 2011, according to research firm Ambient Insight.

“We are just in the beginning stages of disrupting everything, from textbooks to learning applications,” said Jalak Jobanputra, an investor who has been looking at tech-education firms in New York since the late 1990s. “The market should be able to support multiple players in each segment, and those players have not yet been established.”

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It’s a new year and a new jobs market. U.S. employers are expecting to increase their hiring slightly in the first quarter, according to the December Manpower Employment Outlook Survey (released by the ManpowerGroup). The expected increase of 9 percent is the most promising hiring Outlook survey since 2008.

Here are 12 tips from career coaches, recruiters and other experts to help you make the most of your job search in 2012.

1. Know yourself. Be clear about what you want in your career, what work environments are best for you, what brings you aliveness and happiness at work. Knowing this will help you decide if a job is right for you.

– Martha Carnahan, certified business and life coach, BrilliantVisions LLC

2. Take inventory of your skills and abilities, so that you know what you bring to the table. Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Use the job search to focus on self-improvement, acquire new skills and improve your candidacy.

– Elena Bajic, founder and CEO of Ivy Exec, career resource and job/recruiting site

3. Professionalize your presence online. Google yourself and look at your online profiles through the eyes of your next employer. You want to impress and show your personality, but avoid the “too much information” factor.

– Martha Carnahan

4. Make a plan. Set realistic and achievable goals and review them daily. Make checklists to make sure your job search time is productive. Treat the job search like a job.

– Elena Bajic

5. It’s critical to build a viable network. Use LinkedIn to connect with other business professionals who went to your school, worked at the same company you did or who share hobbies, faith or interests. Connect with people you don’t already know over coffee or lunch.

– Randy Hain, managing partner, Bell Oaks Executive Search

6. Learn to NetWeave. In traditional networking, you ask for help, which may feel uncomfortable. A less self-serving and more powerful method is Bob Littell’s NetWeaving. Become a connector of people and resource for helping others find solutions, knowing that you’re growing your network and help will come back to you. See http://netweaving.com to learn how.

– Patrick Lynch, president, the Frontier Group, career management firm

7. Try “organic networking.” Build relationships naturally by doing what you enjoy and being who you are. Talk about your career plans with family, friends, your yoga instructor or your child’s soccer coach. You’ll create a flourishing network and net more business contacts and referrals down the road.

– Laura Biering, life and leadership coach, True Voices Inc.

– Debby Stone, certified coach and founder, InterVision Group LLC

8. Research to find non-posted opportunities. There are three types of job openings: public openings, hidden jobs and future jobs. Competition is fierce for the first. You find the second and third type by leveraging your network to find yourself in the right place at the right time. Do research online and with industry professionals to develop a robust target list of companies. Use LinkedIn to ask for “warm” referrals, which could open up hidden or future jobs.

– Tom Darrow, founder and principal of Talent Connections LLC and Career Spa LLC

9. Be flexible. Be willing to explore consulting or contract roles in addition to full-time jobs. It’s important to get your foot in the door and give employers a chance to “try before they buy.”

– Randy Hain

10. Set yourself apart with social media. Create a compelling LinkedIn profile that includes a PowerPoint presentation highlighting your capabilities and accomplishments. Create a Facebook fan page for business. Include compelling content and video to show that you know industry trends and are a leader in your field.

– Barbara Giamanco, CEO, Talent Builders Inc.

11. Be passionate. Now that employers have downsized, they want team members who are working from their core abilities. Show the kind of passion and enthusiasm that will demonstrate you can handle and embrace the requirements of working in a lean, focused team.

– Sharon Birkman, CEO, Birkman International, a leading personality assessment firm

12. Ask for what you want. Don’t fall into the trap of demonstrating your worth and value without achieving what you set out to do. Do you want a promotion, raise or a flexible schedule? Don’t forget your end goal or be afraid to ask for what will make you happy.

– Michele Gorman, director of career management-MBA at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina

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Professionals with a master’s of business administration degree will be desirable to companies in 2012, according to a recent report by the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which administers the Graduate Management Admissions Test. Among the 216 companies surveyed worldwide, nearly 75 percent plan to hire M.B.A. graduates in 2012, up from 58 percent in 2011.

With an economy that’s showing signs of improvement, many people may consider getting advanced degrees in preparation for potential job opportunities. For some, that may mean sacrificing two years of professional experience to attend a full-time graduate business program. For others, though, an online M.B.A. program may be the best fit.

“If you’re going to stay generally on your same career path, the online M.B.A. programs work pretty well,” says Dan Smith, dean of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University—Bloomington. “Some [people] are oftentimes looking to move ahead with their current company or stay within that industry, as opposed to making a radical career change.”

Here are three reasons why some students choose an online M.B.A. program to meet their career goals.

1. Earn an M.B.A. without relocating: One advantage of an online M.B.A. degree is the ease of being able to access course materials from any location, says Mary Hawkins, president of Bellevue University. “Convenience will start them on that path, but then what they find is that the online environment is very robust,” she notes.

For D’andre Payne, a formulation scientist at a pharmaceutical company in San Antonio, the online M.B.A. program at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill allowed him to switch jobs and relocate without falling behind.

“When I started the program in July [2011], I was living in North Carolina,” Payne says. “If I was in a full-time program, I wouldn’t have been able to move locations as easily as I have with this program.”

In addition to the freedom to switch jobs or relocate without threat of delaying M.B.A. plans, online students may also have the opportunity to attend a top-ranked school regardless of proximity to campus, notes Susan Cates, associate dean and executive director of the online M.B.A. program at UNC.

2. Balance work and education: When Steve Wright, a nurse at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, N.Y., received a promotion to become the hospital’s cardiology program director—giving him the responsibility of overseeing roughly $20 million of annual expenses—he began exploring M.B.A. options.

“This was exactly the type of education that people in my role are looking for,” Wright says. “I’m a nurse, so I understood the clinical side, but I needed to understand the business side to make me a better leader here at the hospital.”

He originally enrolled in a traditional M.B.A. program at the University of Albany—SUNY School of Business. “It was hard to go to work, go to class, and not get home until 10:30 at night, and then get up and do it all over again,” he says.

Looking for more flexibility, Wright left and enrolled in the online M.B.A. program at Excelsior College, which allowed him to continue earning a salary from his full-time job while being a “good student outside of work,” Wright says.

At UNC’s online M.B.A. program, which welcomed its first class in 2011, the average salary of its students is roughly $110,000, Cates notes.

“A benefit to an online program is you don’t have the opportunity costs of giving up your salary for two years [or] the costs of relocating to a new place,” she says.

3. Gain business and managerial experience: A student who is exploring M.B.A. options is “looking to accelerate their career [or] enhance it,” Cates says.

Two years after graduating from Purdue University with a degree in mechanical engineering, Jason Frazier desired a business career that would allow him to utilize his engineering background. Although he explored traditional business school options, Frazier narrowed his search to online programs in order to continue working.

“Certainly there’s the salary component, but there’s also the idea of getting more years of job experience while getting your M.B.A.,” Frazier says. “And I thought that would help me land a better job upon graduation.”

After enrolling in the online M.B.A. program at Indiana University, Frazier leveraged it to land his current job at Emerson Climate Technologies, where he is the operations project leader.

“For me, [the online program] helped me apply what I was learning because I was working while getting the M.B.A.,” he says. “I didn’t feel like I had a two-year disconnect that some of the full-time folks might have.”

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Education technology company 2tor is looking to bring 100 new jobs to Landover by 2013.

The start-up said last week it would shift New York headquarters Prince George’s County. As part of the move, new CEO Chip Paucek said the company is looking to add staff “pretty much across the board.”

Specifically the company is looking for people who will help with account management, said Maggie Ruvoldt, head of human resources for 2tor. 2tor helps create virtual classrooms, and its resume includes work for Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. New account managers would help students troubleshoot any problems they might have with their online classroom, Ruvoldt said.

The company is also looking for people to help with marketing, operations, human resources, analytics and in various administration roles.

Applicants should “not be afraid to get in and play around” with new technologies, Ruvoldt said. She added that experience is not necessary for account manager positions as long as candidates are proficient with technology.

One to five years experience is sought for other positions in marketing or in operations. Starting pay is in the high $30,000 to low $40,000 range with full benefits.

2tor has raised $62.5 million since its founding in 2008. For more information about careers at the company, check out 2tor’s website.

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