… no really it has. It’s come up with this fantastic product, the electronic book. It’s so much more than ‘book v1′, it’s interactive. ‘Books v2′ is so much better for the current generation of students. Apple thinks our current generation of students are too stupid to understand words and need pictures and too stupid to understand diagrams, so they need videos. Seriously Apple, is this meant to ‘change education’?

The announcement happened while I was at Lotusphere and I saw some tweets from some people I respect in the academic world about Apple ‘reinventing education’. With IBM failing to provide a working wireless network at Lotusphere I’ve only now had a chance to download the iBook Author and view the Apple announcement. Don’t get me wrong, Apple do a lot of good things with education and well designed ibooks will help provide a more engaging experience for many pupils, but there are so many things that are wrong with the way Apple made this announcement. Students who perform poorly in the Western world, do so because of factors such as:

• Poor discipline – lack of respect from both students are parents
• Poor teaching – poor wages and low requirements for teaching means that (sometimes) the best talent isn’t attracted to teaching
• Large class sizes so students are allowed to fall behind
• The over reliance on standardised testing often produces students who lack critical thinking abilities
• Poor resources and old school infrastructure.
• and simply a difficulty with engaging students with ‘difficult’ subjects such as maths and science in a society that makes them believe everything has a short cut (reality TV such as XFactor)

Many of the problems of Western education are due to society. The countries that perform best are often the countries with better discipline in society as a whole. Countries such as Finland who score highly, are countries were politeness and respect are still prevalent. There’s also a smaller degree of social depravation in Finland. In countries such as the UK and the US, we have generations of society who successively drop-out of school due to lack of encouragement from parents and the social pressures place on them.

The solution(s) to our educational problems are more complex than simply throwing electronic content at students. They require an education system that can engage with pupils who have little interest or encouragement from home. This is not a simple job and requires a completely radical overhaul of the education system, to one that is centred around a students interests and somehow engages not only with them but with them, but also their parents, who have ‘given up’ on the education system. (i.e. something ‘home schooling’ does very well)

So if we remove the ‘hype’ and look at the announcement. What have Apple announced?

1. Electronic books that can be viewed on an iPad.
2. A very simple tool to create electronic books.
3. A simple mechanism to publish electronic books.

As somebody who’s been working in Learning Technology for nearly two decades, here’s my view:

1. Electronic content for education has to be platform neutral. Content tied to an OS is not ‘opening up education’ but closing it off. I regularly count the ratio of student laptops when I leave work. The Macs to PC ratio has been as high as 25 PCs for every Mac. The lowest I’ve seen 2 PCs to every Mac (but there was a Art & Design hand-in that day). In general the ratio is about 10 PCs for every Mac. (Our log files show that 9% of accesses are from OSX, so I think this number is accurate). Increasingly we’re seeing accesses from Android tablets. Should I put our content into something that cannot be accessed by students who choose to use an Android tablet? I thought this was meant to be improving education not creating ‘haves and have nots’
2. The new tool looks incredibly simple to use. But simple authoring tools have been available for two decades. Apple’s own Hypercard was a very simple tool to produce ‘interactive books’. There were tools such as Authorware, and Director, (even VB) that could be used to produce more interactive systems such as simulations, that actually could teach students. But the problem has always been to produce quality content is extremely time-consuming. As soon as it goes ‘multimedia’ it’s requires even more time to produce that a text book. It’s not something that can be knocked together from a few Powerpoints. But if you do manage to produce an interactive iBook, it’s nothing new. The majority of multimedia content produced since the 90s has tended to be nothing more than an electronic book, and these CD-ROMs and websites haven’t radicalised teaching. Books complement learning, but they rarely teach. That’s why we have teachers.
3. Most worryingly for me. Who’s going to provide ‘quality assurance’ for the content? Apple? Do we want to see US religious freaks writing ‘science books’ that are based on a text written by 3000 years ago, yet presenting them as fact? For all their faults, good academic publishers have an editorial process that counteracts these religious zealots and try to ensure the content we present to our children is accurate, or at least follows the scientific method. (God help the US if it continues to allow these idiots to dictate it’s science teaching).
4. There’s also the expense. Yes, you can load a lot of electronic books onto an iPad, but an iPad is a £400 outlay. For this to be successful in the UK, you need an iPad per student pre-loaded with all the courseware for a year, that means maths, physics, chemistry, biology, history, English, modern foreign languages, geography, design, art, music, PE, ICT, and citizenship. That won’t be cheap. As school with 2000 students would have to outlay at least half a million pounds to provide just the iPad and it’s not like Pearson’s are using this as an opportunity to vastly reduce costs with a new ‘software-like’ licensing model where a school can subscribe to a book on a ‘concurrent use’ basis. Every student would have to own a copy. How much would it cost say to provide the core English core texts on the iPad? It seems the profit margin on e-books are even larger than with a print-run. This is of course, unless of course Apple are proposing to give every pupil an iPad for free?

So sorry Apple, if you want to change education, start talking to some people who really understand the problems in the education system and society. Throw some of your vast cash reserves at initiatives to support new ways of engaging disadvantaged students. Something I know the Bill Gates foundation has done. But do not present your new profitable income stream as an ‘education revolution’ as if you’re ‘doing education a favour’.

One of the things I liked about SXSW were the Accelerator sessions where web startups pitched their ideas to a room full of investors, press and the paying public. The winner of News Accelerator was Storify, a website that allows users to curate tweets, photos, videos and web by dragging them into a single stream of information to tell a story. It’s a bit like gathering news headlines in a scrap book. It’s been used during some of the big events of 2011, such as the ‘Arab Spring’ and Worldwide ‘Occupy’ movements as an alternative to the mainstream media.

Since SXSW I’ve been using it to curate my own tweets, photos and videos for various topics. Storify ‘stories’ can be embedded on websites, and I’ve included my ‘Gigs of 2011′ story. It’s recently been revised which has improved the reliability of external services. But it still needs quite a bit of development, for example, it could benefit from closer Facebook integration, and I’ve found that I really need an iPhone app. It also really needs much stronger shared authoring. But having played with it for several months, it’s definitely is a useful tool for creating a story without much effort. With better sharing and with my Learning Technologist hat on, it could be a great tool for education. For example as a quick way to capture the main topics in a lecture or capturing information during a field trip.

There’s going to be a lot of comment on the iPad and it’s capabilities. I thought I’d take a look at it from a ‘Higher Education’ perspective.

The ‘tablet’ form factor is ideally suited to education. Ever since Microsoft released the first Tablet PC it’s been clear to many in education that this interface was the answer to many of our needs. Unfortunately, Windows and the applications it runs, has never fulfilled the promise. Maybe Apple can provide us with the answer.

The Student Perspective

Laptop usage in Universities has been growing exponentially. Most Universities provide students with access to a wide range of internet based systems and resources, such as email, learning environments, e-books, journals, videos, podcasts etc, along with the wireless infrastructure to enable students to use their own laptop throughout campus. So laptop usage at my University has increased significantly over the last few years.

My first reaction to the iPad was the device when combined with the iBook store and iTunesU, would make the product attractive to Education. But now I’ve had time to think about it, I’m not sure if Apple has developed a product that will (just now) make massive inroads into (UK) Higher Education.

From a design perspective, it looks like Apple have nailed the design. It looks fantastic and it’s core functionality looks great. I can imagine our students finding the portability and user interface perfect for daily use. Whether it’s taking notes in class, using it in group work or even as a data recorder in  a lab, the form factor and the instant access to research materials and our core systems through Safari is perfect in so many ways.

Photo by PoweredByLarios

But for me, there’s some killer issues that might stop wide-spread adoption.

Often students in the UK do not need to buy many books. Work for example, provides dozens of copies of ‘core texts’ and provides access to over 50,000 e-books. When students are required to buy texts, they shop around or buy second hand copies from students who studied last year. Apple appear to be positioning the device as the front-end to purchasable content. The iBook store will undoubtably be a massive success, but it’s design appears to be centred around content you intend to keep. Let’s face it, few students will find the ’4th Edition of Introduction to Thermodynamics’ such an exciting page turner that they will want to keep it. Many in education we’re hoping that Apple’s iBook store would adopt ‘micro payments’ allowing students to purchase just the chapters they need, or even ‘rent’ the book for short periods of time.

In terms of iTunesU, we’re not sure our students use it. There’s some fantastic content on iTunesU, but our academics are still quite traditional. Many still believe that they have to stand in front of a class imparting knowledge through a set of Powerpoint slides. Few as yet, would consider requiring students to consume iTunesU content outside of class so that they can concentrate on exploring ‘understanding’ during face to face time. We know that our lecturers are not unique. UK Higher Education has wasted millions on unused ‘reusable’ content. So I don’t think the ease of access to iTunesU will help sell the product.

iStore photo by Gizmodo

There’s also the issue that the iPad is not a ‘computer’. Many courses require specialist software, such as Photoshop, or CAD packages. Also since Microsoft has traditionally supported Universities with relatively cheap campus licenses, and students with cheap Office licenses, Office has been a core desktop application for over a decade. The iPad doesn’t support Office and I can’t see Microsoft developing an iPad version. There’s also the issue that students wouldn’t be able to access all the content we provide in ‘non Apple’ formats, such as Windows media, Real Video and Flash. So it’s likely a student would still require a laptop.

Although the base price seems reasonable, is it cheap enough for students to buy it alongside a laptop? Apple’s UK prices tend to be around $1.25 to a £. If that’s the case, the base product will cost £400. Students can get 15% discount (as can I – probably the biggest advantage of working at a Uni!). So the UK price to students will probably be around £340. Is this cheap enough to purchase as a second computer?

Staff Perspective

From a staff perspective, the iPad seems to be wide of the mark. All our academic staff have laptops so have the freedom to carry their work round with them. It’s unlikely that we would look to replace staff’s laptops with an iPad. But we already have a definite need for a good tablet, maybe in addition to their main laptop, because University staff have to mark assignments. Something as simple as marking paper submissions has proven to be significantly slower, when staff have to mark electronically. Last year we accepted over 80,000 electronic submissions, this year’s it’s likely to be double that amount. Within 5 years, I think all submissions will be electronic. So we’re desperate for a product with an interface that streamlines the marking workflow.

Windows Tablet PCs provide almost everything we require. But because of a number of small problems, they just don’t work. For example, I’ve not found a single member of staff who likes the software keyboard on Windows. So of most our staff use ‘hybrid’ laptop/tablet PCs. These tend to be underpowered, with poor battery life and awful ergonomics. So staff end up being tied to a desk. There’s also the issue that applications are rarely design to work with a touch based interface, so tend to be difficult to use when you are using a Tablet PC.

It’s clear the interface or iPad is excellent. It was designed from the ground up as touch based operating system. The ergonomics of the product look almost perfect. The size and weight should allow staff to use the product almost anywhere. As always with Apple products, the screen looks fantastic. So staff should be able to sit and mark where ever is convenient.

Photo by Gizmodo

It looks like iLife has also been revamped with ‘touch’ as the main interface. But the lack of pen interface is disappointing. I’ve always thought that a pen based interface eases the transition of staff from paper to electronic. But I’m starting to think that this may not actually be needed. The iPad’s software keyboard looks fantastic and most iPhone users quickly adjust to typing on it’s tiny keyboard, so the iPad’s big virtual keyboard shouldn’t be a problem. Most staff use the pen to add comments next to student’s mistakes and  the iPhone’s cut and paste mechanism demonstrates how easy it is to highlight sections with your finger. So adding inline comments should be pretty easy.

Photo from Gizmodo

But there’s one core feature that the first generation iPad is missing – the web camera. Audio visual feedback is becoming a common method for staff to provide richer, personalised feedback to students. Being unable to record video limits how staff could use the iPad and it seem like Apple have intentionally tried to minimise the ‘first gen’ cost. I would expect a camera to appear on the second generation product.

So it’s a bit of a mixed bag really. I’m not sure it will appeal to students and the first gen iPad seems to be missing some core features for use by our staff.

I read a comment earlier that the iPad doesn’t know what it wants to be and although I can see their point, I don’t think it’s true. Yes, it appears like it might be targeted at business and education but I think Apple have a very clear idea of what they want the product to do. They want it to kill off the Kindle and for it to be a consumer device that acts as a front end to their increasing range of stores. To make it easier for consumers to have instant access to digital content, content that Apple control the distribution of. If it finds a place in business or education, then that will be a bonus

A hands-on video from Engadget

Sony have released the beta version of their ‘Home’ service and just as I was about to go to bed, an email’s arrived inviting me to join the beta. If you’re not aware, ‘Home‘ is a virtual online environment where you can meet other Playstation users.

I have to admit, I’m not the biggest fan of open ‘second life’ type environments. Virtual simulations have many applications and I’ve created them myself, but open environments where the real world is recreated in the virtual, I’ve yet to be convinced have any use.

A department at work has built a very big impressive ‘virtual campus’ within ‘Second Life’ and there are a small number of evangelists who believe it’s the ‘future of teaching’. I think at present most academic staff have yet to see any benefits of it (i.e. why do you have to travel in a 3D world to a room to then carry out the same interactions you could do using existing technologies such using products such as Sametime?). But it will be interesting to see how well ‘Home’ works and whether it will help kick start some real consumer development in these technologies and maybe the next generation of students will expect to interact with their tutors in 3D.

University of Hertfordshire’s impressive Second Life Campus