Everyone missed it.
At 6.53 in this typically brilliant Apple video introducing Apple’s bid to revolutionise education I saw the future.
Look closely – blink and you’ll miss it.
Yep, this high school student with major red finger nails is touch typing…
On an iPad.
On a FREAKNG iPad.
She’s not looking, she’s watching the teacher and touch typing faster than I can type this.
BOOM.
I didn’t think this was possible. You need those little ridgey things on the f and j key right?
WRONG.
By the powers of Mavis Beacon – I would’ve considered touch typing on an iPad impossible. Just like playing a violin is impossible because it doesn’t have frets….
How many of us miss our Blackberry keyboards (Recent Co-CEO’s of Blackberry put your hands down.)?
I can type way faster on an iPhone trusting “the Steve” to deliver the word I need. Why shouldn’t we type as fast on a tablet? There is no micro second depression of the key to contend with. It is shabby, slow thinking, by those of us bought up with a keyboard on our desks.
The same shabby thinking greeted iBooks Author with the histrionics and indignation over it’s EULA (“terms of use” for those of us who have a stroke at legal documents) and it’s lack of adherence to “Open Standards” made many miss the really big picture (actually a duplex of big pictures)….
First, Let’s spike this EULA stuff on the head.
Let’s jump back to 2008, to write an App on the app store, you had to (and still do) use a Mac to submit and upload the files for your app to be sold. As of last Tuesday, I can think of $4 Billion reasons why this was not a big deal.
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Apple is in the business of selling hardware.
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“It’s not open, it’s not free”, I hear you say.
Well, the alternative is all sorts of free and it makes money by knowing every single little thing about you and selling the information to the highest bidder.
I know which I prefer, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
With Apple it’s crystal clear – it makes money selling hardware, not, your kids personal data and browsing habits…
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Have you ever had the pleasure of being offered a publishing contract?
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Anyone protesting Apples terms of service obviously haven’t.
They are heinous, tying up your rights and content, not only to your first tome but often the ones that come after.
They are horrific – Exhibit A This excellent post on dimsumthinking
So Please, Apple does not own your content, if you use their free tool and want to sell your book you need to sell it through the iBook store.
For me, as someone selling “How-To” guides, this is the store with the one click purchasing. Apple handles all the merchant crap and just sends me a cheque. I get to keep 70% of the revenues instead of the traditional 10% or less I would normally get from a publisher… I’ll take that deal every day and twice on Sunday, but hey it’s a free Internet, feel free not to.
Feel free to go and use the totally open and free, completely accessible Kindle format…Oh…hang on, that’s proprietary as well…
Hmmmm
The cost of the iBook Author is the crippling price of free, regardless of how many I distribute, free or otherwise.
Oh, and thanks Apple I’d love you to host and distribute my 1.2gb how-to guide files for absolutely nothing saving me about 3,000 dollars per month…
For me, being able to distribute, free, interactive large files through Apples infrastructure is a boon.
But lets get to the REAL story…
I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, when I expressed this desire to Mr Plant the career teacher, he said.
”Are you mad? You won’t make any money!!”
Well, through luck and work, I figured out a way to make a decent amount of money teaching. My hearts always been in education, for the two classes I attended at College, I was nominally enrolled to become a physics teacher.
Teaching, and the practice of teaching is what I do.
But here are two fun facts, you may not have known about me.
In 1997, I headed a team (which included the now CEO of Market Samurai, Eugene Ware) and built the largest online education website in the world and at the time the largest implementation of Microsoft ASP in the world (Yes, this was still during my wandering in the non-mac wilderness years). It was an incredible achievement, if we’d built it in Silicon Valley (and I knew what I knew now) , it would have been a huge deal.
For four years, I lived and breathed Online Education and it’s delivery.
Fast forward to December 19 last year, I ended a seven year term as the president of my kids kindergarten. When I started, the place was in major financial crisis and wrought with political issues. I (and the incredible team of parents who volunteered their time) had to learn the economics of running a kindergarten. I’ll save you the trouble, they are terrifying, they barely survive (let alone thrive).
I remember having to pay a staff member cash out of my own pocket at a darkened gas station because the Kinder simply did not have the money. This is not unusual, this is how all publicly funded education institutions work – they are BARELY funded.
While traveling in North America in January, quiet unrelated to the Apple announcement, I saw three examples of underfunded education systems.
In British Columbia, our bus driver was explaining teachers are facing a lock out because the government is trying to enforce a “net-zero” mandate, the teachers want a 15% increase over three years – it’s a mess.
In Encinitas, California. The school of one of my friends kids can not afford an Art Teacher, the parents take turns in volunteering so the kids can get “some” Art from worksheets.
In the heart of Silicon Valley, another friends school asks parents to send in toilet rolls and cleaning products and supplies for each semester. They just can’t afford it.
It’s a tragedy. And it’s happening all over the world.
Public Education Institutions Are Broke, and there is very little we can do about it.
It’s with this backdrop, understanding the terror facing public educators, that I watched Apples event.
Tim Cook said something interesting in Apple breathtaking earnings call on Tuesday.
”ICloud is not a product – it’s a strategy for the next decade”
Exactly
Look at the real story here,
Apple is offering to every public institution on the plane the complete infrastructure to deliver an entire multimedia curriculum.
The cost for any one school (or school system for that matter) to have a complete hosting and delivery system all the students are intimately familiar with (BAMM iTunes!!) would be extraordinary (Trust Me, I’ve had to cost it out!)
Want to deliver a 2gb file to 150,000 students? Go nuts, says Apple. Instead of taking three years to deliver a complete online system, a system whose (admittedly early) results show a 20 point improvement in Students Grades can be done within a year. Every teacher can contribute to the curriculum along with content publishers. It’s a win win.
It will be a lot of work in the first year for a teacher. With iBook Author, taking your course digital is made an order of magnitude easier thanks to the awesome ease of use and iTunes U.It’s still a big task, but look at what happens once you’ve made the effort…
In year two – you’re just editing and updating, you can deliver the updates at the push of a button. Rather than stressing about the logistics of teaching a class, they can focus on, heaven forbid…..
Teaching.
Working with Kids to help them understand because the logistics of teaching (we allow 30% of a kindergarten teachers time in class prep here in Victoria) is going to be revolutionary. This is the real story, Technology for Technologies sake has been the hope (and failure) of education for decades.
The technology is not going to change anything – but freeing up teachers to teach – that’s a revolution.
Then we look at the tracking.
As a committed (as in “should be committed” Apple watcher), there is an immutable law of Apple presentations.
The most important thing is always presented last!
What was last at the education event…
Not Textbooks,
Not iBooks Author,
It was iTunes U
Having started studying the American Revolution at Yale with the wonderful Professor Joanne Freeman (iTunes U must be effective, you can even develop a crush on your teacher online!) – This is the game changer.
I grew up in a Trailer Park in Beechworth, population 3000 and a bit. The chances of me going to Stanford were exactly nil.
Now my eldest daughter can study iOS programming at Stanford.
Unreal.
I’ve never believed the difference between economic poor and rich as THE major issue. The differences between information poor and information rich is the biggest problem. It’s real hard to become a religious nut job of any persuasion if you’ve been exposed to all of the information and opportunity the world has to offer.
Go and download iTunes U now, see if I’m wrong, watch that dark mahogany bookshelf take your breath away with possibility.
The ability for colleges and WAY MORE IMPORTANTLY K-12 schools – to get curriculum up on iTunes U and track the students consumption of the course is immense.
I’ve always said the genius of the iPod was Apple figured out how to teach the average person on the street how to plug something into their computer. Only super nerds synced a device with their computers. The much maligned iTunes taught us how to do it
Which of course begat the iPhone,
Which begat the iPad,
Which begat iTunes U.
Now, well over 200 million people know and understand how to use iTunes. More importantly, the kids know exactly how to use it.
(Remind me to tell you how I became the proud owner of the entire discography of “The Jonas Brothers” as an example of how kids know exactly what the blue download/buy now button means.)
Using ITunes U is as easy as downloading an Album – Genius!
ITunes simplicity has taken over TEN YEARS. I chuckle when people call for the teardown of iTunes – It’s Apples secret weapon – it aint’ going nowhere baby.
Don’t get me wrong, this is all version one (an impressive version one, but still, version one), these files are not small, a lot of the world have strictly enforced download limits. (Note to Aussie Readers – ITunes U plus National Broadband Network = Incredible National Advantage!!!)
But sheesh, what a start.