Quick Thoughts on Apple and Education
Today Apple made some announcments regarding new applications for education; textbooks, a textbook builder/creator, and a reimagining of iTunes U. While I believe this will all be excellent products, I don’t believe they will penetrate the market the way many would hope.
The new textbooks and textbook builder could be great tools. I remember in college many time receiving binder ring bound “books” of articles that my professor chose instead of a hardback textbook. Often times these provided a better in class experience then a standard textbook. However they were often more expensive and you could not sell them back at the end of the semester. The new iTextbooks (as I assume many will call them) could eliminate the printing cost and really allow a professor to create something very unique for there class. The problem is what about all the student who don’t own iPads they are still going to need a printed version.
The re-imagining of iTunesU is very interesting, in that it provides a complete course management system, that looks beautiful from the photos I have seen. Currently most universities use a software called Blackboard for this very task. The website is ok but many students and professors find the program to be confusing and unintuitive. Apple’s app on the other hand will likely be the complete opposite and be very user friendly. However, their was no mention of a web interface similar to the iCloud interface and this will inherently pose a problem.
While the iPad has undoubtedly penetrated the market and millions have been sold, there are still hundreds of thousands of students who do not own one, nor can they afford to. While I believe that these new apps can seriously improve education they will only do so if it can impact the broad spectrum of students. I believe Apple can do this by doing two things when the iPad3 is released. In order to have the right impact on education Apple should, introduce an iPad at a $299 price point and give students $100 discount. As well iTunesU needs its very own web interface that easily works in any web browser. This will open up the platform to almost anybody making Apples new iEducation initiatives an experience for the masses.
Update 1:50 PM: Cult of Mac echoes my sentiments on the sub-$299 iPad.
Amazon Kindle can now check out e-books from 11,000 libraries - CSMonitor.com
Kindle users can now check out e-books from 11,000 community libraries across the country, Amazon announced today. The process is a simple one: Navigate to the website of your local library, enter your library card number, select a title, click “Send to Kindle,” and plug in your Amazon.com information. Your book can then be transmitted wirelessly or via USB – any gadget with Amazon software will do, including an iPhone or Android handset.
The availability of the e-books will vary from library to library, but most titles should be available on your Kindle for about two weeks. After that, they’ll disappear. In a press release, Amazon exec Jay Marine called libraries a “critical part of our communities,” and framed the initiative as the natural next step for library lending.
“We’re even doing a little extra here – normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no,” Marine said. “But we’re fixing this by extending our Whispersync technology to library books, so your notes, highlights and bookmarks are always backed up and available the next time you check out the book or if you decide to buy the book.”
Yahoo!
Source: csmonitor.com
