http://edudemic.com/2012/01/ibooks2/
I visited here and realised that the edudemic has begun. Popular educational publishers are now getting the marketing edge by providing books in iBook format for the iPad savvy juniors in schools in Victoria. Now we will definitely need to be ready for a change in the way elearners will expect their reference content when they reach tertiary.
Actually I really like the idea of a one device fits all approach to resources. We’ve tried the USB – files on a stick; we’ve tried cloud – sharing now lets just put everything at their fingertips.
Wondering how the ibooks on demand publishing approach will enable cost savings for learners. Schools in Victoria are already rising to that challenge – some providing mandatory iPads for year 7 & 8 students with iBooks preloaded.
The often used strategy of submitting assessments may change to publishing work using a whole range of tools, apps available for publishing. This would enable the much needed skill development of content curation in a structured but self-directed way for our adult learners undertaking higher studies and creating artefacts and evidence of learning for their eportfolios.
The need for teachers to provide content in written format would change. eg ibook Writer enables the creation and publshing of teacher generated content. Not just a ‘book’ module in Moodle (non-transferrable) but a published iBook accessible anywhere, anytime by many. (I will now explore the iBook Writer).
…. A new direction and a welcome change for instructional designers – an iBook edudemic ….
I like the idea but am confused by the over-emphasis on i-everything. Are we saying that education is to be restricted to the i-pad/i-tunes brigade? Should not such materials be hardware-neutral? Apart from my several Windows PCs and laptops I also use Android tablets and mobiles. Are we entering a two-class society of the haves/have nots? Am I excluded?
I would use the word ‘epidemic’ instead as in my opinion this as a horrible disease spreading. We are not only (as the previous comment already outlines) widening the gap between the haves/have nots. More alarmingly we are forcing our kids having to create an identity with a foreign owned company to allow them to learn. No AppleID (ie. iTunes) – No Education ? Remember the uproar when discussing a National Student ID ? This is a far worse scenario as children’s identities are owned by a for-profit company (that has shown little or no regard for privacy in the past). And they are conditioned from an early age to accept this as the ‘norm’.
I am not (as you can probably guess) against online books or education, but we have well accepted standards. I think educational institutions as well as public bodies should look at the adoption of accepted standards rather than throwing the few dollars set aside for Education at flashy toys.
Some interesting reading: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-apple-is-sabotaging-an-open-standard-for-digital-books/4378