The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content
Summary: I know...it's the Apple rumor mill hard at work. The blogosphere is and has been abuzz with news of an upcoming uber-Touch from Apple and a new storm of news hit the Net today with the Financial Times announcement of some degree of rumor confirmation and a tablet, for sure (really) this fall.
I know...it's the Apple rumor mill hard at work. The blogosphere is and has been abuzz with news of an upcoming uber-Touch from Apple and a new storm of news hit the Net today with the Financial Times announcement of some degree of rumor confirmation and a tablet, for sure (really) this fall.
I can see why people get excited about an Apple tablet. The iPod Touch is cool, no matter what you say about Apple. Make it bigger and price it below an entry-level MacBook? That has to be good, right? And it probably will be. Wherever we stand on the MacBook fanboy spectrum, it's hard not to admit that Apple makes cool products and a multitouch tablet at an almost-reasonable price would be among the coolest.
I have two words for you: Electronic Textbooks. Here's a few more: brilliant, high-resolution color, multitouch interactivity, annotation and storage, EVDO Internet connectivity. You get the point, of course. This has the potential to be a real game-changer in the classroom, whether K-12 or post-secondary. No more laptop walls, but rather interactive versions of texts, supplemental materials, notes, and web access in a portable, durable package; this is the promise of an Apple tablet in education.
This is also what is known as an empty promise. While Apple talks "Cocktails" to convince people that they really should buy entire albums from their iTunes store, complete with large liner notes that will surely have some very cool multitouch navigation and will look amazing when people are sitting in bean bag chairs listening to "albums" together, I can barely get a PDF of many textbooks.
No matter how cool this new tablet ends up being, without smart educational content, it's the last thing I want to see in a classroom. I can view those PDFs (if they exist) on a $200 netbook. I want Apple to announce that it has major textbook publishers on board posting fully interactive versions of their textbooks to the iTunes store, not that media companies are making bigger and better liner notes that will look pretty on a 10" screen. When Houghton-Mifflin and Harcourt and Pearson start developing for multitouch, then we can talk. Until then, the new tablet about which the Financial Times (and everyone else's brother) is talking can stay in a bedroom with a lava lamp and said bean bag chair.
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Talkback
EVDO Internet connectivity??
With that only it's a pretty restricted market...there are not many
countries were it will work...
Better GSM+EDGE+HSPA&HSPA+ /WCDMA (2G -> 2.5G -> 3G -> 3.5G
etc. support).
CDMA has no longer term future on this planet...
Silly rabbit ....
If Apples says AT&T was good, Verizon will be better!
GSM is dead. CDMA will be the only standard.
Sorry, but you are just flat out mistaken. GSM is based on the old,
crappy, boat anchor TDMA technology. GSM will be tranistioning to
their 3.5G/4G technology based on UMTS. Verizon will be
transitioning to 4g, as well, using LTE. And guess what? technology-
wise, LTE=UMTS=WCDMA=CDMA.
Qualcomm, the inventor of CDMA, is the major patent holder in
WCDMA technologies. Far from being dead, everyone is moving to
CDMA, no matter what they want to call it.
The names are just window dressing. It will all be CDMA underneath.
In the classroom
CDMA was the better route but Europe killed it because they did not want to pay such high royalties to Qualcomm. They ended up paying more for an inferior WCDMA standard, but the foolish world followed them, and we are stuck with it.
RE: The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content
is to make sure Stanza and similar run on the device, and
then sell mainstream ebooks through the app store with no
DRM. O'Reilly and others in publishing who see DRM as a
mistake would be in there in a flash and Amazon would
have serious competition. Education publishers would have
little choice but to follow.
RE: The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content
by the Texas and California markets, which effectively
dictate content for the remainder of the 48 states,
anything which liberates the "industry" from this
dominance is welcome. With eBooks, there might actually
be localized versions of the same textbook, readily modified
(easily) to eliminate Creationism, homophobia, racism,
selective history, etc., approved by local school boards, not a unified
state selection committee.
Since the Apps industry works pretty well for the iPhone
and Touch, I suspect that similar subscription
entrepreneurism will be fostered in educational publishing.
Besides, which comes first: the Technology, or the
Content/Software? Imagine Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs
saying, "Gosh, why should we build a personal computer
since there aren't any programs to run on it?"
Double-edged swords
be localized versions of the same textbook, readily modified
(easily) to eliminate Creationism, homophobia, racism,
selective history, etc., approved by local school boards, not a unified
state selection committee."
The problem is that this can go both ways. Local school boards, like
the idiots in Dover, can just as easily cut and past content from "Of
Pandas and People" into legitimate science texts. Nothing will stop the
Cdesign Proponentsists (not a typo, Google if you need clarification)
from their anti-knowledge agenda. This could also include material
ensconcing homophobia, social Darwinism, etc..
The only avenue to stop that wold be outright censorship, which has
its own systemic problems.
Brave New World, indeed.
RE: The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content
Who indeed
People who don't care about sound quality.
"Yes and who would buy a phone that cost 3 or 4 times as much as
other phones?"
People who buy things like the Palm pre for $400, or one of the
various Androids. Why, which phone did you mean?
"Yes and who would buy laptop computers that cost twice as much as
similar Vista laptops?"
Certainly not people who bought either the macbook or macbook pro,
both of which are very price competitive with similarly equipped
Windows laptops.
"Gee I wonder who?"
So do I.
Original Sources?`
We don't have to wait for the paper-and-glue publishers to get around to giving us content, only to then subject us to their monopolistic business model.
The internet has plenty of content for schools -- we just have to get smarter about how we use it. An Apple tablet could be part of a new paradigm about how to use original-source, internet-based content in schools.
Yes, but then real ideas might creep in
No, original sources are too dangerous. Best to stay with Texas-
approved textbooks that have had all intelligence surgically removed.
Original sources aren't always helpful for students
For example, Ludwig Boltzmann, one of the early founders of statistical thermodynamics, did all of his work in a bizarre form of German, using very advanced language and mathematical concepts. I challenge anyone without a Ph.D. in Physics and German language history to understand his original works.
Further, often times original works aren't particularly enlightening. How do we know what we do about ancient Rome? We put together pieces from documents, scriptures, personal accounts, relics, and paintings. These original sources by themselves don't say much, but after decades of work and study from scholars they form a story and that is what the textbook conveys.
that is what teachers are for
A teacher could create a lesson about the history of ancient Rome, based on documents, scriptures, personal accounts, relics, and paintings that are already available on the internet. Once the teacher has created that lesson, they could freely share it with other teachers around the world.
Teachers are more than capable of creating lesson plans within their area of expertise. That is why they study education. We just need to set them free on the internet and the lessons will follow.
I like you, you make me LAUGH!!!
The christian church caused the fall of Rome!!
The speed of sound is the universal constant!!
The moon is a chunk of the planet that used to orbit between Mars and Jupiter!!
A dog/cat hybrid is what the Tasmanian Devil was!!
The moon landing was shot on a soundstage!!
These are all things teachers have taught my children as "FACTS" over the past 7 years. Just imagine what our children will be taught as "FACTS" when we start depending on teachers to creat custom textbooks and lessons with Wikipedia and Google as their sources.
Whaa Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!
Re: Original Sources?
RE: The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content
would have thought of 1.5 billion app downloads in one
year. So far educationists have not demonstrated an
ability to break out of the "accepted" thinking about
new-media instructional development. Give us an break
away delivery system and the courseware will follow.
Don't throw cold water on something just because it
doesn't fit into your narrowly defined preconceptions.
If this tablet is going to be in similar shape
Of course it remains to be seen which of their OS's will power it. Will it be OSX or iPhone OS? Either way both would be great. My guessing would lean toward iPhone OS but OSX would be equally cool. And hopefully a USB interface for physical keyboard
Edit: or bluetooth compatibility for bluetooth keyboards.
RE: The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content
There are already enough exhibits to fill a quite-sizable wing.
RE: The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content
The paper industry will surely rebel at this one - these three publishers alone account for somewhere close to a million tons of paper on an annualized basis. Their simplest argument so far is that kids are destructive and the technology will have to be remarkably durable to withstand whatever they can throw at it, whereas textbooks last literally for years.
One other thing, Apple will have a harder time with this one due to existing technology infrastructure in schools being predominantly PC oriented.
One compatibility issue...
OSX plays happily on a 'PC' network as TCP/IP has nothing to do with MS, it even uses Windows print & file servers though if you want to save on the CALs you can switch to OSX for those services. The real incompatibility is that of mindset & yes, that'll need to be changed.
McD