Ahead of next week’s unveiling of Apple’s iPad version 2 we’ve received a video review of this magical cutting edge product. Apple seems to have another home-run on their hands… Can hardly wait to get mine!

Next surprise I encountered during my maiden voyage to iPad-land was that when I pulled up my blog on the iPad all of the videos worked. Cool. Then when I went to my course blog none of the videos worked. Not cool. So YouTube works but Viddler doesn’t? A few weeks ago I checked out the HTML5 beta on YouTube but I don’t think that changed anything. I’m guessing that YouTube has the horsepower to detect that you are browsing on an iPad and transcode the feed so that it streams video that’s playable on the iPad (and iPhone). Viddler on the iPad I didn’t even get the broken media lego block. Fail. I might have to move my course videos back to YouTube. Ack. I was checking out Blip.tv because their pro-account offers an encoding option that’s iPhone-friendly. More research on this is is going to be needed. Archive.org?

Next item I checked out was Google Docs. Apple and iPad-hater, Molly Wood, complained that Google docs doesn’t work on the iPad . Anticipating needing to have access to my data on multiple macs and the future iPad I’d moved whatever I could to Google Docs months ago and anywhere I had Internet I could access student work on their blogs and record their grade on my google docs spreadsheet. I never had to wonder which device had the most current version of my spreadsheet, for example. So, when I pulled up Google Docs on the iPad, I noticed that there was a mobile/desktop option at the bottom, so I selected desktop and pulled up a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was editable, but it treated each cell like a “saveable” zone, so that you needed to save each cell edit individually (and there wasn’t any “File menu > save and close” option that is in the normal computer version). So that worked, albeit, in a clunky fashion. Text documents, however, didn’t appear to be editable. Damn. This is a problem. I’m not sure if that’s a safari thing or an Apple thing or a Google thing. Damn. Why would they disable text editing? BTW, it’s the same using Google Docs on the iPhone. Ack. May have to switch to using something like Evernote (assuming that note editing is permitted there). Plan B time.

On a recent MacBreak Weekly, John Gruber nailed it, saying that Apple needs to give more thought to workflow when it comes to working with documents that you want to work on without having to move the document/data from device to device. I have MobileMe’s iDisk, a Pogoplug connected to the 1.5TB drive and Google Docs and I always use Google Docs as much as possible. I use Google Docs because I’m not downloading or uploading anything, but working on the data directly from the cloud as if it were local, and it’s accessible from any Internet connected device. Many moons ago I tried using iDisk but just copying files back and forth was buggy and slow to the point where I’ve never copied/backed up my work folders to the iDisk. I also tried to use data stored on a Pogoplug like it was a local device, but then the performance of my brand new 27″ iMac slowed down to a crawl because any system call meant to browse the connected drives would include the pogoplug drive and I started getting the spinning-beach-ball-of-death, so that didn’t seem like much of a solution. I wouldn’t really mind copying the data off Internet-connected storage if there was an intelligent way to make sure that i was working with the most recent version, but I haven’t found a mac utility that really does document synchronization, comparing two directories and making sure that both directories have the most recent version of all files in the directory (that seemed to a very basic function when I was working in Windows/DOS). Anyway, having usable storage in the cloud would work. According to Gruber, the iPad versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers use iTunes to copy documents back and forth from the home computer to the iPad, giving us a 2010 version of sneaker-net where copies are being made all over the place instead of having one copy in the cloud that all devices and editors can access and edit (a la Google Docs). I guess that must point out the difference of coming at this problem from the approach of a network-focused engineer versus someone just focused on having some access to their pretty document. Ugh. Much more study required on this item.

Speaking of Fan Boys, here’s iPad Saturday iJustine-style (I like it when her male friend says after much random dancing in line, “you can stop now”):

“Let me know how you like the ipad. It looks like a jumbo iphone to me ,”

So on April 1st many of the A-List reviewers released their reviews of the iPad. WSJ’s Walt Mosberg mused, Apple iPad Review: Laptop Killer? Pretty Close. NY Times columnist David Pogue doubled downed his review for the geeks and the non-geeks. One of the best video reviews I’ve seen was by Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Andy Ihnatko (see below).

My take? I’m tired of the jumbo iPod/iTouch jokes. I’m tired of the netbook comparisons. This is what I know, everyone complained about netbooks after they came out because they had very slow processors. My own experience with the OLPC was that it was unusable because it was too difficult to do anything more than view one non-flash webpage at a time. And we all remember how many people loved the tiny little unusable keyboards. Yes, the netbooks are cheap, but if it’s unusable than cheap don’t matter. Yes, things have improved, so if that’s what you want, go get one and stop hating on those who aren’t interested in your crippled Windows 7 wannbe. From what I’ve seen, Apple recognizes that slow won’t go and they’ve made sure that the interface is snappy and extremely responsive to user interaction (translation: they put a fast processor in there to get the job done).

Here’s the second thing that I’ve noticed: it’s not about the hardware. As much as the hardware is going to rock, if that’s all you’re focus on, than you are completely missing the boat. Have we not learned the lesson of the Palm Pre? That device was the brain-child of more than a few former Apple-geniuses who put into the Pre all of the elements the Jobs nixed in the iPhone like multi-tasking, slide-out keyboard, etc. So where’s the CES darling of 2009? MIA and quickly heading to DOA, I believe.

Anyway, what the designers of the Pre failed to recognize (and all of the iPhone- and iPad-cloners) is that it’s not enough to do the same thing only a little better. The game-changing factor of the iPad is going to be it’s utter transparency in bringing to the user whatever media experience the user might want whether it’s books, music, TV shows, games, podcasts, or movies. No configurations, no setting up, not even the mere five inches of space between the user and the screen that a keyboard might occupy. And if you want to jot some notes down, or browse the web, or send an email, it’s just a single Home button push away. This is also where the iPad may be most vulnerable: if they don’t get the books, games, movies or TV shows that people want to watch than it’ll be game over. The iPad isn’t about the device. It’s about what the device will invisibly connect you to.

The clones can have memory slots and completely configurable desktops, and every geejaw under the sun, but if the user has to hunt down where to get ones TV shows or install anything to make the videos run, forget it. There will be dozens of devices running some form of the Android OS, or Windows and most definitely Linux and the propeller-heads will make them work (after hours of cruising through user groups and forums looking for drivers, and tips), but that’s not the market or experience that Apple is going for. Pick it up, swipe the screen to turn it on, pick what you want to watch, listen to or create and go about doing that thing. It’s not a big iPod/iTouch any more than a Harley is just a big bicycle. Yes, the bicycle may be better for you and way cheaper but you’re a moron if all you see is a difference in size.

For me I’m really looking forward to writing these blog posts and grading my students’ work on my iPad. It can’t come soon enough (I ordered the 3g model, so I have several more weeks to wait. Damn).

Sources:

Doritos iPad Parody. http://www.fastcompany.com/1580533/doritos-mega-chip-parody-comes-in-apple-flavor?partner=homepage_newsletter retrieved on 4/1/2010

Neofonie announces WePad 11.6-inch Android slate By Joseph L. Flatley. http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/20/neofonie-announces-wepad-11-6-inch-android-slate/ retrieved on 4/1/2010

Youtube video: MacBreak Weekly 188: iPad Revealed! by TWiT. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty6Hjs0NpDs retrieved on 4/1/2010.

Then we have this dream sequence/history of Apple’s computer designs. Beautifully done, but I don’t see how they could have left out the evolution of the iMac or iPod, except maybe they couldn’t get the curves of their virtual rendition to look right…

Finally we have the latest iPad ad, that debuted during Sunday’s Oscar broadcast…

Then there’s this excellent example of the tech news analysis by Tom Merritt and Rafe Needleman in CNET’s “Real Deal” podcast. The two put the iPad announcement into the historical context, looking at many of the previous, mostly failed, attempts to popularize the tablet/handheld class of computer. Make sure to visit the podcast website, these guys have excellent show notes and links to all of the gadgets mentioned in the video/podcast.

Then there’s this speculative editorial that wants to pass itself off as news reporting. Molly Wood is a smart, funny journalist, but she’s definitely from the media personality school of thought where snarky strong opinions are pushed to the front, generating huge positive or negative responses. I can’t watch this video without getting pissed-off. Ack. Moving on.

Discounting the noise being made by those who flat out hate all things Apple, iPhone or Steve Jobs, I’ve noted at least two trends between the fanboys and the haters. The first trend seems to be that pretty much none of the haters have actually touched the device and are making their vitriolic pronouncements based on the videos and the device spec sheet. This leads to the second observation: all of the haters are freaking out about all of the things the device doesn’t have. Oh my god, it doesn’t have a walk-in closet! Perhaps you missed that opening slide in the keynote where Jobs placed the device between a smart phone and a laptop. The idea is that the device will have things missing in the smart phone and won’t have things found on the laptop, like a three-car garage (crap, now I’m sounding like Molly Wood). Moving on.

In the Real Deal podcast, Needleman said that the Newton failed because it tried to do too much given the technology limitations of the time, whereas the Palm succeeded because it focused on a few things that needed to get done: contact list, calendar, notes and successfully syncing the three with one’s PC. Years later the iPhone successfully followed that path by focusing on being a great phone, being a great media player and being a great internet device. AND they had the wisdom to NOT try to boot-strap the Windows/OSX mouse/keyboard based user-interface to the thing. They broke with the past and focused on what needed to get done (a la Palm). Conversely, Microsoft had already been churning away in the smartphone space for years when the iPhone was introduced, but all they kept doing was trying to cram the Windows desktop (that was meant for big desktop LCD screens) onto tiny 2-inch screens and it did not take hold because Window-Mobile required seven-menu choices to do anything. Anyone remember this video from a few years ago on what it might have been like if Microsoft had produced the first iPod box?

Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Time Columnist, said it best in his initial reflection on the device, writing that the device is not something that can easily be assessed by a feature list or an illustration. I think the reason that the iPad is more than a dumbed-down tablet or giant-iTouch is that it’s not meant to be a stand-alone do-everything desktop computer replacement. In fact, it’s greatest feature might be something that has nothing to do with it’s beautiful design or the list of things it doesn’t have. The revolution that the iPhone started, of having useful Internet connectivity in the palm of your hand… maybe the iPad represents the next step as far as having an even better experience playing ones media, a more immersive experience interacting with “print” journalism in a way that books, newspapers and magazine could never deliver, and in a form-factor that’s much more natural than a keyboard and mouse. It’s not the thing, it’s what the thing connects you to. The word Portal comes to mind.

OLPC-meet-Taco-Beach by Joe Bustillos

Who needs it? asks all of the haters and most of the pundits. It’s not for the PC hardware tweakers or the hardcore gamers. Leo Laporte says it’s not for content creators, but I think that depends on what kind of content one is creating. I have begun blog entries and other correspondence on my iPhone. The idea that I can have the same access anywhere at any time and have more screen space to work with (and I can choose to use a real keyboard!), I’m in. I wrote a few weeks ago about the difference it would make having a smaller footprint than my 15′ laptop while enjoying those long afternoons cheering on my teams in my local pubs while grading papers and/or writing my blog. In fact, not long after I got my OLPC-XO netbook-sized $100 I took it to my local pub to enjoy the evening. I loved the size but the machine was just too underpowered and UI was too weird to be useful. That’s one of the things that’s kept me from buying one of the cheap netbooks, the prospect that it’d be too underpowered to do the things that I want to do. I watched the videos from CES of IdeaPad U1 hybrid, and when they used the touch and swipe gestures, the device lagged behind the finger. Two Processors and still underpowered. Boo! the The other thing that stopped me was that I wanted always-connected G3 service without having to dish out another $60 a month. I want to be able to grab my small device and write or play with my blogs while out and about. When I need to break-out the Final Cut Pro or need to spread my Dreamweaver layouts across three large monitors I have my macbook pro or my 27″ iMac to get the job down. But lately I’ve been choosing to compose and edit work while on my treadmill or on the couch. So, I guess I must be one of those “no ones” that Molly Wood was talking about (did she actually predict that there’s a market of only 2800 people for this thing? Maybe she confused this for the Palm Pre or her beloved Droid…[snark]).

You know who else this device might be for? My mom. She does email and loves getting photos of her grandchildren. I gave her a mac mini a few years ago but the combination of me living too far away to help her when the Internet breaks and the fact that she uses the computer just infrequently enough to never be very good at it makes me wonder if something like the iPad might work for her. Besides being a simplified device that’s always connected (saving her probably $30 a month to drop her DSL service!), she can use the thing anywhere she wants to, making the “computer” something that she doesn’t have to go to a special room (their spare bedroom) to do and maybe she’ll do it frequently enough to enjoy it more. Only downside (besides the price) is that I’d worry that if it fell off the couch she or dad would step on it and break it. Damn. Having a camera for video-chat would be great too (the OLPC-XO had that!). My siblings and I just bought mom a new 19″ LCD because the old CRT was … old. I think she need to break out of that room and grab the Internet with both hands, but I’m probably the only one who thinks that.

The device might not be meant for content creators, except for us text-jockeys and bloggers who like to roam when we write. But content creators, especially the vanishing “print” media, better be paying attention because this might open up a real platform to re-imagine what they could be producing and marketing. It could completely blur the lines between what used to be called Print and Audio and Video. Add social networking and citizen journalism and you have something completely different. I already have a plug-in that make my blog more iPhone-friendly, I’d love to see a WordPress plug-in that would retain more of my magazine-style blog layout. Then there’s the problem that I like posting flash videos in my posts and Adobe and Apple aren’t getting along. Damn. If they don’t fix it, then someone will because we want our videos and we’re not going to wait for h.264 Quicktime downloads. Well, Time, Inc. understands the potential. Question is whether they’ll join up or try to lash-up their own walled garden. I wonder if this might help Mad Magazine go back to being a monthly instead of a quarterly. I’d subscribe to Mad Magazine on my iPad. Too bad only 2800 posers will be buying this thing ’cause it doesn’t include a fire-alarm or any self-sealing stem bolts. Damn.

Sources:

YouTube video: Jobs Unveils “iPad” by CBSNewsOnline. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poaUbmdUcCY retrieved on 2/15/2010

Real Deal Podcast 195: Tablet computers. http://www.cnet.com/8301-17920_1-10443889-84.html retrieved on 2/15/2010

YouTube video: CNET Buzz Report: Special iPad Edition by CNETTV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggww65cg2FM retrieved on 2/15/2010

YouTube video: Microsoft iPod by romph. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0 retrieved on 2/15/2010

Apple gives every other reader reason to be nervous with iPad by By ANDY IHNATKO, Sun-Times Columnist. http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2015552,ihnatko-ipad-apple-launch-jobs-012710.article retrieved on 2/15/2010

image: OLPC Goes to Taco Beach by Joe Bustillos. http://joebustillos.com/2008/03/29/olpc-goes-to-taco-beach/ retrieved on 2/15/2010

IdeaPad U1 Hybrid Hands-On: Meet Voltron. He Could Be Amazing by Brian Barrett. http://gizmodo.com/5440922/ideapad-u1-hybrid-hands+on-meet-voltron-he-could-be-amazing retrieved on 2/15/2010

YouTube video: Sports Illustrated – Tablet Demo 1.5 by thewonderfactoryny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntyXvLnxyXk retrieved on 2/15/2010

info: self-sealing stem bolts. http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Self-sealing_stem_bolt retrieved on STARDATE -313125.89 (2/15/2010)

Boxee Beta from boxee on Vimeo.

One of the things that I’ve learned so far is that even though I’m using fast wireless “N” and or a fast “power” Ethernet connection between the first and second floors, ripped DVDs stored on hard drives in their original Mpeg2 format won’t play across the network without lots of buffering or dropped frames. Unacceptable. I was anticipating using my PS3 as the movie/media player downstairs (still working on that), so I had previous converted some movies to mp4 and those videos seemed to play nicely across the network. So, even though I’m a firm believer in having access to all of the “extra features” that I look for with my DVDs (and how convenient they are to access using the DVD menu system), I’ll need to rip and convert my media to a more network friendly format, like mp4 (which makes each extra feature into it’s own separate video file). Grrr.

image by Joe Bustillos

I have a huge DVD and music collection and get most of my more daily news and entertainment via video and audio podcasts, so I need some kind of box attached to my TVs so that I can get my Internet/network media. I was hoping to use my PS3 as the player in my living room, but it has a crappy web-browser and doesn’t do RSS, so it can’t natively do podcasts. More work needed here. At the moment my mac mini is doing living room media duties. I love the Front Row interface, but it seems a bit confused that my episodes of StarTrek (classic and Next Gen) are not movies and won’t let me organize things. So maybe the updated Boxee interface will do the job.

I’ve played with Boxee previously, but couldn’t break away from my iTunes addiction. With the software upgrade and set-top box, I’m thinking that this might be the solution to my Internet TV/podcast thing, either the software or the set-top box. Depending on my success using the PS3 as a media player, I still might need another set-top box for the bedroom TV. I’m also thinking that I need to plug into the NetFlix thing (streaming and disc) so that I don’t find myself buying every movie I want to see. So whatever box I get needs to do Netflix, access my music and DVDs across the network and either grab podcasts off the net or the ones stored on my other computers. Having invested in the PS3, I’m aware of the problems of getting a box that isn’t as expandable to handle all of the twists and turns that tends to happen in the media market.

Sources:
* Boxee Demo. http://www.boxee.tv/box retrieved on 1/23/2010
* FrontRow image by Joe Bustillos
* Tekzilla » Episode 124: “Should I buy a Boxee Box or a Roku or Stick With My xbox?” http://revision3.com/tekzilla/veronicapc/should-i-buy-a-boxee-box-or-a-roku-or-stick-with-my-xbox-360- retrieved on 1/23/2010
* Tekzilla » Episode 121: Boxee Box. http://revision3.com/tekzilla/2010newyear/boxee-box retrieved on 1/23/2010

How much more efficient would it have been if I had some device, roughly 8×11, where I could have marked up the documents (in their native electronic form), that could run all day on a single charge and had access to the Internet even when there’s no nearby wifi. Hmm. No, I guess I could make the notes on the text with my finger, but a stylus works too. I doubt it’ll have a stylus, but I have to wonder if Apple’s upcoming announcement next Wednesday will include the announcement of a device that fulfills this content creation need. The announcement better not be just a rev of the iLife suite. Ack.

Sources:
image by Joe Bustillos

screen grab by joe bustillos (cc) 2009, image by gnomedex 2009

Community is so important and I haven’t been to happy with my level of “commitment.” The last few times I went to my more local CUE conferences (Computer Using Educators) in California I was not too happy that I wasn’t more involved in presenting or contributing to the process, but I always seemed to be more than busy enough with my days filled with teaching and my ill-fated graduate studies. So, it’s not like I’m sitting around wondering how I might get more involved. but it seems hardly efficient to just go to these conferences hoping for a new tech/geek high. It’s just too expensive (especially traveling from the East Coast). Damn. What a media educator to do? I wonder when SxSW is going to be?

Of course I need to get the paperwork through the over-loaded CA teacher-pension system before spending said moneys. Ack. Fingers tapping.

Very funny video, but did you notice he said that his district dropped a macbook on him so that he could support a school-site that runs macs only and he didn’t know what to do with the thing. It’s all meant to be fun and games, but his “tech answer looking for problems” set-up brought up a whole host of memories from my thirteen-years as a public school teacher who at times was the site tech coordinator and sat on endless tech committees. I mean, who drops a foreign OS on a support technician and then says, okay you’re in charge of supporting this school site (plus all of the other sites he’s already supporting)? It’s been my observation that unless you begin with adequate tech support (as in training the tech support to handle the machines and potential volume of support requests), then you’re wasting your money in the initial technology investment. Not too many businesses could get away with that for very long.

The old t-cxr switch room

Hell, in a prior life as a Communications Technician for the long gone Pacific Bell phone company, the first step to rolling out new equipment was to send us techs to “school” to learn the ins and outs of the new equipment (“red light ‘broke,’ green light ‘not broke”). Actually, if there was a fault with the old phone company it was that they hired too many of us techs (in 1979) because they were used to having to have an army of technicians to keep the Machine going, whereas in the newer electronic era the fewer hands in the Machine was the better method of tech support. Of course by the time I left in 1995 they’d over-learned the lesson and when I left I was only night-shift t-carrier technician covering all of Orange County (CA) from the 91 freeway in the North to San Clemente in the South, troubleshooting everything from ATM alarms to fiber-optic alarms. Like I said not too many businesses can survive if they fail to take into account support costs (beginning with training the technicians) when they roll out new systems.

TCO (total cost of operation) is a black art, but a frightful percentage of tech roll-outs from my public school teaching days factored in little to no funding for end-user training and somewhere around 5% for tech support. The expectation for teacher or technicians to train themselves is a guaranteed failure and no business expecting success would begin there. You roll it out, you support it and that includes training. Funny video, but not a funny situation. jbb

Sources:
YouTube video: “Creative Ways to Use The MacBook” by WilsonTech1, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXFoyOOxmr8 retrieved on 06/07/2009

Image: pacbell01.jpg by Joe Bustillos

Here’s a video blast from the past that kind’a sums it all up:

“Griffin Evolve Wireless Sound System for iPod” (Griffin Technology)

Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh Test Drive from Andy Ihnatko on Vimeo.

It’s getting difficult to hold out. For those of you who don’t want to, here’s a link to Dell:

“Dell Inspiron mini 9 – Black , Intel® Atom Processor® N270

Concept art for an Apple touch-screen Netbook. (Credit: Gizmodo)

Gizmodo published a mock-up of the proposed Apple Macintosh NetBook (the story was picked up by CNET and engadget). I was really close to purchasing a Kindle2 over the past weekend, but in view of rumors of an end of March Apple event I’m keeping my credit card in my wallet. An Apple source said that the story and photo are just a rumor but wouldn’t confirm or deny that something was in the works and has been hinting for some time that Apple has something big… er, small coming but is waiting for the market to be ready. I’m not sure what “ready” means, but I know of several podcasters who are switching to pampers in anticipation of not being able to control themselves when the rumored Apple NetBook drops. Lord help us.

Following the initial announcement the crew at CNET’s Buzz-Out-Loud podcast noted that it was very Apple-like in it’s form, verbiage and “message” control. The promo video/commercial (above) that I saw on Engadget certainly reminded me of an Apple ad. Question is whether Amazon is going to make the same Apple made 25 years ago when they assumed that everyone would pay extra for a revolutionary device (in Apple’s case the original Macintosh). That mistake almost spelled the end of Apple and we would have missed out on all of the revolutionary things Apple has done since then. As an educator and technologist I see a potential with the Kindle that we cannot afford to miss. And it goes way past the Kindle being a shiny new technology thing.

When I first came to Full Sail University I heard about a program director who asked his students if they had a choice would they prefer to get their texts as books or as electronic books on a small e-book device like the Sony e-Reader or the Amazon Kindle. To his surprise the students, pretty much to a person, choose plain old fashion books over the e-books. In my previous job teaching in a traditional environment, I wouldn’t have been too surprised at the choice of paper books over little electronic devices, but at a place as advanced as Full Sail I would have expected a different answer. Then again, as usability experts have been saying for some time (and I’ve been writing about), people don’t read from computer screens, they scan and skim but don’t read long passages. And in the public’s mind, whether it’s a 17-inch LCD or a e-Book’s “electronic paper,” they seem to perceive the experience to be the same. Even more than the initial expense of the device, many have said that they can’t imagine curling up with an Amazon Kindle like they would with their favorite book. I can’t argue with that. But as someone who loves having bookshelves filled with hundreds of books, there is something wasteful about large institutions, such as government agencies, universities and school districts, continuing to deliver content in such inefficient ways.

Let’s take my former employer, Long Beach Unified School District, a Southern California K-12 district with 93 schools and over 90,000 students, I’ve seen one of the giant warehouses used for district publications and textbook storage and transportation. This was a very large operation requiring a lot of space, trucks and manpower. I have to wonder, what would be the cost differential between managing, distributing and maintaining one small device per student versus housing, delivering, managing, and repairing four to seven textbooks per student? I don’t have the budget figures for how much it costs LBUSD for the distribution center property that I saw, many acres of valuable Southern California real estate, or how much it must cost to maintain a fleet of trucks and the manpower to keep everything running, but I’m willing to guess that even at retail prices the $360 Kindle2 would shave a significant chunk off the cost of getting text to students. So why is no one considering this particular option?

Let’s consider who would lose out if school districts like LBUSD were to switch from shuffling around mega-tons of dead trees to providing their students with one small electronic device? Well, most of the warehouse employees and truck drivers would probably be looking for different employment opportunities, but I don’t sense that they have the political clout to keep something like this from happening. No, but if the whole cost structure of creating and providing students with textbooks were to collapse the ones likely to complain the most would probably be the politically powerful textbook publishers. In California alone I imagine that billions of dollars of business is being conducted by textbook publishers who in turn are more than a little happy to support the political agencies assigned to regulate the textbook trade. Now imagine what would happen if the whole physical infrastructure of getting educational content to students was to go away. How would the publishers maintain their profit margins, er, I mean justify their costs? Textbook authors work for nothing and the advisory committees for the publishers and the school districts are generally volunteer. If the fiction market is any indication, where the Kindle version tends to be one-third to one-fourth the hard cover cost, the move to something like the Kindle would be pretty much like how a giant rock falling from the sky wiped out the dinosaurs. It would change everything.

Going beyond the political stranglehold textbook publishers have on curriculum, imagine how much more interactive and timely (and correct!) science texts could be, for example? Course design and implementation would go from a top-down roll out to be a collaborative process with the classroom teacher, curriculum writers, and academic subject experts having meaningful roles. Because the expense of updates and error corrections would be wiped out, the ongoing nature of what it means to study a particular academic discipline would actually be reflected in the text. Instead of an impersonal, “fixed” text, edited (to death) by committee, the passion of the classroom teacher for the subject and the text book writer could be more readily communicated in the text. I know it’s heresy, but classroom teachers would actually be able to pick the texts that would work best with their students and not be restricted by some agreement made by some agency who knows nothing about her students or their learning needs. It would change everything. The dinosaurs aren’t going to like it, but we can’t afford to let ‘em continue to keep us tied down.

Source: About Long Beach Unified School District, retrieved 02-27-2009, http://www.lbschools.net/District/

The Onion News folks did a perfect job echoing the hype and often irrational fandom of all things Apple. Then Hayman spent the next hour making me want to be an iPhone/iTouch programmer. Yikes. I really got sucked up into thinking about how easy it is to program the little things and what I could possibly come up with that would be fun to do, and possibly lucrative for me. Even as I was walking out to the car, talking to Holly about the cool things that could be done, I remembered, “Oh yeah, I just restarted my doctorate program, I’m going to find it hard to find time to sleep…” Damn. I wonder how I could work this into a dissertation research question. Hmmm.