4 ms·

The sad thing is that in practice, iPads are mostly used as substitutes for books. That's completely backwards. It reminds me how "multimedia CDs" were suppos

The sad thing is that in practice, iPads are mostly used as substitutes for books. That's completely backwards. It reminds me how "multimedia CDs" were supposed to revolutionize teaching in the 90s. They ended up being picture books on a computer, with silly animations and sound effects on mouse hover added on top. Computers and tablets could be a great pedagogic tool for many things, like exploring maths concepts interactively, spaced-repetition for rote learning foreign language words, and other things where the computer as an interactive, programmable medium shines. Sadly, I don't see these opportunities being exploited at all in the classroom. On the bright side, at least kids have equal access to modern tools, and learn the same basics of searching for stuff online.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
The opportunities aren't being exploited because the cost of professional content creation is so high. Paper textbooks are a comfortable earner for publishers, especially with nominal annual or regular updates. Print development, including author payment, is much less expensive than app development, and requires skills that are far more common. Publishers are reasonably likely to make some money on a book project. (The author probably won't beyond an initial advance, but that's a different problem.) They're much less likely to make money on educational app or ebook development. It doesn't help that the industry never standardised a format for animation and interactivity. There's a big gap between the features you can include in an epub and in a native app. Apple poked at this problem with their book creation software, but never really solved it. The other platforms barely considered it an issue. There's definitely an entrepreneurial opportunity in developing smart learning tools for schools. But between conventional publisher apathy, school board politics, device incompatibilities, marketing access, and a dearth of authors/designers who can produce the content that's needed, it's a very bumpy minefield. Platform selection is not the hardest problem. IMO Apple should have created a "school certified" app creation program, added multi-user and app selection locks to iOS, brought in experienced educators and consultants with evidence-based credentials who could explain effective learning strategies, and acted as a bridge between developers and school management. Instead we got an app store free-for-all with education tacked on as a buying category. That strategy was never going to give schools the tools they needed to go beyond buying iPads to making education the well-managed and effective market it could be.
_pmf_ 10y ago
> They ended up being picture books on a computer, with silly animations and sound effects on mouse hover added on top. They did not just end up that was; they also started that way.
intoverflow2 10y ago
> Computers and tablets could be a great pedagogic tool for many things Just strongly feel these days that trying to shoehorn a device built for content consumption into a creation and learning tool isn't the best idea.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

The opportunities aren't being exploited because the cost of professional content creation is so high. Paper textbooks are a comfortable earner for publishers, especially with nominal annual or regular updates. Print development, including author payment, is much less expensive than app development, and requires skills that are far more common. Publishers are reasonably likely to make some money on a book project. (The author probably won't beyond an initial advance, but that's a different problem.) They're much less likely to make money on educational app or ebook development. It doesn't help that the industry never standardised a format for animation and interactivity. There's a big gap between the features you can include in an epub and in a native app. Apple poked at this problem with their book creation software, but never really solved it. The other platforms barely considered it an issue. There's definitely an entrepreneurial opportunity in developing smart learning tools for schools. But between conventional publisher apathy, school board politics, device incompatibilities, marketing access, and a dearth of authors/designers who can produce the content that's needed, it's a very bumpy minefield. Platform selection is not the hardest problem. IMO Apple should have created a "school certified" app creation program, added multi-user and app selection locks to iOS, brought in experienced educators and consultants with evidence-based credentials who could explain effective learning strategies, and acted as a bridge between developers and school management. Instead we got an app store free-for-all with education tacked on as a buying category. That strategy was never going to give schools the tools they needed to go beyond buying iPads to making education the well-managed and effective market it could be.

_pmf_ 10y ago

> They ended up being picture books on a computer, with silly animations and sound effects on mouse hover added on top. They did not just end up that was; they also started that way.

intoverflow2 10y ago

> Computers and tablets could be a great pedagogic tool for many things Just strongly feel these days that trying to shoehorn a device built for content consumption into a creation and learning tool isn't the best idea.