Posted in Possibilities, Reality Check on January 25th, 2012 by dan – Be the first to comment
How well are the iBook textbooks suited for learning? Theory gives some indications — which are hopefully used. The iBook textbooks could play a great role in improving learning, if they are evaluated and improved continuously.
Apple is out to convince students and teachers that their iBooks are a revolution for learning. They might well be. Apple makes it very easy to create digital textbooks and this will hopefully stop the recycling of paper textbooks as simple PDFs. Some publishers will raise the bar and the others will be forced to follow. But how do the iBooks rate from a learning perspective? Looking at the presentation and a few of the early versions, there are some challenges and opportunities: read more »
Posted in Possibilities on January 25th, 2012 by dan – Be the first to comment
Art inspires science, and a book written by Neal Stephenson in 1995 provides a lot of inspiration for sciences that deal with mobile media and want to support learning.
“The Diamond Age or: A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” is a “Bildungsroman” set in a nanotechnological future that features a unique mobile device: a dynabook. These Dynabooks, called “YOUNG LADY’S ILLUSTRATED PRIMER — a Propædeutic Enchiridion in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c.”, look like real books made of paper but contain very powerful nanotechnology computers.
Its functions include: read more »
Posted in Reality Check on January 23rd, 2012 by dan – 3 Comments
A short review of Apple’s iBooks 2 and the iBooks Author tool. Whereas many functions are available, some important ones are missing: Logging & Author Feedback, Social Interactivity, Teacher Feedback, Outliner, Didactic Guidance & Collaborative Creation of Textbooks, Empirical Research/Evaluation, and Analysis of Other Effects.
So, Apple had its big education event and introduced iBooks 2 and iBooks Author. Frankly, it was about time, but it still only realized a tiny bit of the potential that mobile media (here: the iPad) have.
read more »
