[This is a guest post by David Parry, assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the University of Texas, Dallas. What you'll find below is different than the things we usually publish. After all, each of our authors tends to focus on strategies or tools with which they've acquired some experience in order to address the relative strengths and weaknesses. By contrast, the iPad hasn't even gone on sale yet! However, Dave has a well-deserved reputation as a provocative and thoughtful writer when it comes to technology and higher education, and because this post engages the broader issues of higher ed economics, publishing, and what we do (or don't) want in our digital tools, we believe it will be of interest to ProfHacker readers. --GHW]
I own a MacBook Pro, before that a MacBook, and before that a PowerBook. Perhaps the technology item I could least live without is my iPhone, I have had one since the Edge network non-GPS days. I have been accused of being an Apple FanBoy.
I will not be buying an iPad.
What is more, I am going to make the case that you shouldn’t either, or at least if you are in education you shouldn’t be lying awake at night trying to think of a way to convince your Dean that these need to be purchased for you or your students.
Much has already been made of the possible impact of the iPad. Indeed, even before anyone in higher education even saw the official specs, much less held one in their hands the iPad was being heralded as the next great revolution in technology and education. Before Steve Jobs was even finished speaking during the event announcing the iPad, some were suggesting that this new device would make the backpack obsolete. Or even before the iPad was announced Apple speculators and rumor peddlers were insisting that the iPad would change education, and thus the iPad would be one of Jobs’s most significant contributions. Sadly, I don’t think this is true, and what’s worse is that the iPad might be bad for education. Allow me to make the case (or, don’t allow me, and just close this tab and instead get your iCredit Card and surf on over to Apple.com and pre-order . . . )
The limits of the iPad have already been much discussed and debated by far more tech savvy minds than myself, arguments which furthermore I don’t really have time to rehash here. But if you want to know how I feel about the iPad in general, read Alex Payne’s claim that the iPad is a deeply cynical device, this pretty much sums up my general take. And it is along the lines of Payne’s analysis that I want to highlight the problems of the iPad in an educational context.
If you look at many science fiction representations of education we see children in vaguely educational looking buildings all with their own tablet like devices with multi-touch screens. The iPad seems to fullfill the desire for these imagined future educational devices. The iPad as portable, interactive, beautiful screen that allows us to shed all of our old educational devices and merge them into this one gorgeous piece of multi-media hardware, designed to consume any media the students need.
The “iPad will change education” argument’s principle point seems to be that Apple will do for the textbook what it did for music. That is, that music is to the iPod as textbooks are to the iPad. As the Wall Street Journal outlines textbook manufacturers are already gearing up for this change. Indeed as the, only midly, techno-utopian comment by Rik Krannenburg from McGraw Hill in this article claims, the iPad finally signals the change in technology and education we have been waiting for, the iPad as the future device we have always wanted.
But herein lies the first major problem for education: the iPad is designed with textbook makers in mind. (What they should have instead imagined was what kind of computer students without textbooks need.) During development of the iPad Apple was in contact with/negotiations with major publishers, most notably McGraw-Hill (which was the first company to publicly, albeit accidently, confirm the existence of the iPad). Here is the thing, the iPod was not the real revolution in music. There are lots of mp3 players out there, many different models, and say what you will about how good the iPod is, ultimately as a piece of technology it is not fundamentally different than its competitors. Where the real revolution took place was at the level of the iTunes store. Suddenly the consumptition and distribution of music changed as songs were purchased individually, playlists became easy to construct not because of the hardware, or even software, but rather because of the opportunity to purchase individual songs. Likewise, if the textbook market is to change, and change in a way that will transform education, this transformation will come at the level of the economics of distribution, not the means of presentation.
But, you could object, the iPad bookstore will open up access to educational markets in the way that iTunes did. . . .
Except you would be wrong. In the first instance the iPad bookstore could change individual consumption of books, how the latest James Patterson is sold, or your ability to distribute your book outside the machinations of the publishing industry. However, when it comes to the textbook market, one which is bound to political interests, where textbooks are purchased in bulk for large population segments, the marketing and distribution is unlikely to change. Indeed the profit to be made here probably increases. Thus the likelihood that we will see the market continuously dominated by the big textbook publishers remains large. Without changing the system of copyright, licensing, or even the idea that the textbook is central to educational experience, I would suggest that little will be changed. In fact quite the opposite, the big textbook manufactures will gain more purchase in this realm. What is worse, is that all indications from Apple seem to be that this will strengthen DRM and copyright.
Yes it is true that the iPad could lead to a reorganization of the textbook market. By allowing school districts or Universities to pick and choose chapters, mixing and matching textbooks to get the ones which they want, or even at the most hopeful iTextbook could lead to a robust textbook rental market, changing the way textbooks are purchased, but the $5.5 billion textbook industry isn’t going to go away just because we have the iPad. There is a lot of money to be made there and Apple, like Amazon, is looking to carve out part of this market. But let’s be clear: they aren’t looking to make this market free. Schools might save money here on textbook rental, or cheaper books, but I am skeptical that this will be the large savings institutions want and need, or that students deserve. Peer-to-peer music file sharing decreased on university campuses largely, I would argue, because students felt that $.99 was a fair price to pay for a song. And in many cases legally purchasing music tracks was easier than learning to use Bit-Torrent clients successfully. But given the choice between a $50.00 textbook and torrenting a copy, what is the student going to chose? How low will the price have to go for the trade-off to be worth it for the student? The truly transformative educational move would be, something that would kill the textbook market, end it in the way the internet ended newspapers, perhaps something like Connexions.
Here is my advice, instead of convincing the powers that be to buy iPads for your school, spend the money on investing in and writing an open source textbook, now that would be good for education.
Furthermore I think the economics of this thing are not going to shake out in ways that we would want or desire. Rich school districts are more apt to be able to purchase iPads and push to have the regional districts purchase or make available the digital versions of the textbooks, while those districts which are less than flush with funds are going to be left negotiating only for books which have digital versions they will never use, or worse yet stuck using outdated books as new content is produced and purchased in the form of iTextbooks.
And yes, it is true that an iTextbook could contain rich media, allowing students to not only read about the fall of the Berlin Wall, but watch the video of the event as well (hint: you can already do this). And yes, it is true that at least in terms of means of presentation the students will be allowed a wider array of media types. But the structure will still be fundamentally that of the textbook, a centralized information source, which is produced by a team of experts.
For me, this is the real crux of the matter with the iPad: it is designed as a beautiful, wonderful, easy to use media consumption device. But I don’t want my students to be only media consumers. To be successful engaged citizens with control over their own life path, they need to be critical consumers and creators of media, not passive consumers. This device is designed for passive consumption. No camera? No microphone? (Correction: There is, in fact, a microphone. Thanks, Justin M.) And the thing can’t multitask!
But, you object, surely someone will write cool, neat, inventive, shiny applications for the iPad that will help me teach calculus. Maybe, but is this really different from Math Blaster? It is just a smaller interface with a nice touch screen. But let’s be clear: these are locked devices… educational appliances, not educational computers. They are designed to teach you how to consume media. As Dan Gillmor tweeted (I think it was him), the iPad treats the read-write web as a read-only web. And this is what really scares me, that educational institutions will be lulled into buying iPads because they are “revolutionary” educational devices, only to realize that what makes them revolutionary is that they are in fact a step backwards from the way that the web has operated.
An iPad is a glorified web kiosk. A student who interacts with the web and the network on these things experiences a markedly different web than one who uses a computer that isn’t an appliance. I don’t want my students to passively consume an article on the Berlin Wall and then watch a video. I want them to Google it, look at it on Wikipedia, find online museums that have archived the event, look for personal testimonies and archives that aren’t part of the “institutional or textbook record” and ultimately participate in the knowledge formation rather than just consume it.
Why didn’t Apple put a fully functioning OS on the iPad? We could come up with many reasons (performance, integration with existing stores, mimicking the iPhone experience), but ultimately I think it boils down to the fact that Apple did market research and figured out people want this type of locked down, non multi-tasking, “safe” computer experience. And what is more, my guess is that “educational professionals” said they want this type of device as well. It is so much easier to lock down students’ web experience on a device like this, easy to ban Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube, or anything else they determine to be distracting or detrimental.
What education really needs is tech savvy teachers, engaged with helping students develop 21st century literacies, not disciplined and controlled digital experiences. But, when you can’t even find someone to teach digital literacy, is the problem really that you don’t have a portable touch screen interface?
That’s a rhetorical question.
Comments
1. Sherman Dorn - February 08, 2010 at 10:52 am
I agree that the iPad is not a candidate for techie panacea, but then again nothing is. Nor will I suggest that we buy iPads for a cohort of students or make them buy iPads.
But I will be buying one, because it will let me read PDFs in a way that I cannot with my netbook, cannot comfortably do on my laptop, and can't feasibly with my current ebook reader. If it does nothing other than let me download and read PDFs comfortably, and if the current annotation apps for the iPhone are upgraded (or some new ones are written) for the iPad, I'll have a tool that helps me significantly in my work.
2. George H. Williams - February 08, 2010 at 11:09 am
I really like this sentence, Sherman: "I agree that the iPad is not a candidate for techie panacea, but then again nothing is."
It seems to me that underneath Dave's commentary regarding the iPad is a current of dismay that we focus too much on the tools at the expense of the tasks that we and our students should be learning and experimenting with. Much of what the iPad is said to be able to do can be done with other devices, too. (And, yes, I know it's perhaps a little ridiculous to discuss the merits of a device that none of us have tested out, yet.) I don't think I want a classroom where every student has the exact same portable electronic device any more than I want a classroom where every student has the exact same brand of paper notebook, the exact same pen, the exact same calendar (electronic or paper), the exact same backpack, or the exact same version of anything (besides the edition of the course text, and even then I don't care what format it's in as long as the student can refer to it in class discussion and when writing an essay).
I disagree with Dave (and others) who argue that the iPad is (um, I mean... will be... might be... seems to be... ) a device designed for passive consumption only, but I agree with the argument that we need to be very careful about locking our students (and ourselves) into economic distribution networks that benefit a limited number of commercial entities who may or may not have been our first choice if we were free to choose any course content at all.
3. Justin M. - February 08, 2010 at 11:35 am
There is a factual error in this article. The iPad -does- have a microphone. The page at http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ clearly states this.
Not sure what not having a camera has to do with not actively consuming media, either. The iPad has the potential to get media and technology into the hands of people who hate computers and who aren't tech-savvy. I think that's something educators would get behind, in any case, because if you can't have success teaching digital literacy, maybe the problem is that your current tool set isn't dead simple for everyone to use. Being locked in to a certain system is another matter, but that's not the point of my comment.
4. G. Curt Fiedler - February 08, 2010 at 11:47 am
Well written, Dave. I think that you've hit on many good points, particularly for DRM. I have a few thoughts about some of the things you touched on.
The success of the iPod was not really due to the iTunes store - it's the iTunes app itself, which allowed one to organize, choose, display, and partition audio content better than anything else out there. It also allowed you to move your current music content to the app (and the iPod) from CDs and other music formats. The first iPod was atrocious, but by the 3rd generation device, the hardware began to accentuate iTunes vs only the other way around. And although the convenience of finding and downloading certain content is pretty good via the iTunes store, I'm find it difficult to believe that the majority of people are now buying their audio iPod content via iTunes store.
Also, video content on the iTunes store was not immediately successful until devices that could actually show that content well were on the market (i.e., iPod touch / iPhone and perhaps to a lesser degree later iPod classic models). Unfortunately, the iTunes store and iTunes app metaphor isn't nearly as robust for media content - the iTunes app still looks a kludge with the variety of media content and sources jumbled together.
Podcasting was another metaphor that Apple ran with (but didn't invent) - even providing hosting space on the iTunes store for various professional and non-professional media content. I would argue Apple has done a good job promoting and encouraging educational institutions to put lecture and other educational content online - most of which is free and easy to obtain. Perhaps you could think of educational podcasts as open source eduware made available by Apple. But even with educational podcast content, money is often involved in producing or making that content available.
Now for the iPad - I'm not certain I would purchase one just for the ability to display textbooks alone, though this seems to be to be the justification many individuals are using to recommend its purchase and use. I suspect many people feel the same way, that it's not worth it for just the eText ability. And I think, after using an iPod touch for some time, that many folks will be fine web browsing on the iPad. And I think your multimedia experience will be do-able - though perhaps not the way you would hope.
What Apple has done right with the iPad is produce a color device that will display eTexts - something others were saying was a few years off. For science and technical texts - this is a boon given the importance of illustrations and photos which just don't cut it in grey scale. And the price point is comparable to the Kindle, its main eText competitor.
But you are right that what Apple is likely going to do is DRM all eText content to the point where you'll only be able to get it from them. The reason the text book companies like the iPad is that Steve Jobs promised they could charge more if they sold their content via the iTunes store than they could on Amazon. But you are wrong to think that the best content has to be 'open source'.
As a scientist and science educator, I think it's important to have content written by experts who have a demonstrated understanding of their topic. I want well-written, organized, thorough, authoritative content. I just don't yet see that happening in an open source model - it really hasn't happened with Wikipedia either. I do agree that integrating other forms of media into the process is important - printed or digitized text shouldn't be the only way to share. Virtually all our current science texts have links to free (and sometimes access controlled) multimedia content. But ask yourself, why do professors/educators write textbooks? Are they doing it just to enlighten potential students or to make themselves feel good? I'm sure that's part of it, but I'd wager making some money is also a big part of the equation. I'm not saying that open source content can't be very good - but a labor of love may not deliver what a compensated labor of love can.
In any case, I do share your concerns about eText DRM - but my worries are more about pricing and availability. And like with music, most people aren't going to want to have Apple as their only source of content.
5. G. Curt Fiedler - February 08, 2010 at 11:53 am
Are you certain it will let you read pdf content transparently? That something I'd like, but I'm not confident in yet. Sure, there are iPod touch / iPhone apps that let you read PDF content now, but I don't think those apps can give us a good experience without significan updates. I'm also concerned Apple will find some reason to nix those apps - they nixed the recent version of Stanza, which purportedly uses the same eText format Apple will use. This was supposedly done to remove the eText sharing ability in the app.
6. Sherman Dorn - February 08, 2010 at 12:55 pm
The reading of PDFs should be part of the iPad OS. It's the apps I'm looking to for annotation. The ones I'm aware of currently are Aji Annotate (general annotation) and Zosh (intended for signatures). I suspect that Apple will let those go through for iPad in part because they were approved for iPhone/iPod Touch and also because Adobe might create apps for the iPad and would be inclined to have an Acrobat-lite type app if there is a market.
7. G. Curt Fiedler - February 08, 2010 at 01:05 pm
Should be, but it isn't part of the iPod touch / iPhone OS, except via the Safari browser.
I don't have confidence that Apple will see things our way, though.
8. Jjw - February 08, 2010 at 03:19 pm
I'm very dubious about the claims that the iPad is a consumption-only device. When you consider the introduction of the iPad, much more time was spent on the content-creation apps (Brushes and the iWork apps) than any any of the games. That the iPhone OS and the iPad are a closed system should have no real impact on the media that users can create. Except for programmers, the real juice is in the applications. (Extra credit question: what secret, non-published APIs does Photoshop use? Follow up extra credit question: is Photoshop an open product? Follow up follow up: does Photoshop inhibit creativity?)
Developers have a reason to grouse about the iPad. Computer hobbyists have a reason to grouse, too. I can't see why those who consume or create media have any concerns about the iPad. It's just a computer. Sure, it has a different interface metaphor and doesn't make you twiddle bits to use, but it's still just a computer.
In my teaching I sometimes use commercial texts (Norton anthologies) because they give a degree of standardization and consistency to the class. Plus, they have good notes. I have run a number of classes where all texts have been from other places -- articles from JSTOR, texts from EEBO, books on reserve in the library, articles or chapters I've scanned and made available to download -- and I don't see how the iPad would change either of those situations. I (presumably) can still ask my students to access the resources our library pays for, to read PDFs I provide, to suck information from Wikipedia. They can do so now, they'll be able to do so in a locked-down iPad. So is the real beef that Steve Jobs didn't create a new, better world?
9. Christijan D. - February 08, 2010 at 04:33 pm
Can you not use an iPad to do this very thing?
10. Steve Krause - February 08, 2010 at 07:35 pm
I think it's amazing the amount of certainty about what the iPad will or won't be able to do....
I'm in exactly the same boat as Sherman Dorn: I want something where I can store, search, and take notes on PDFs of the various articles and such I download for teaching and scholarship. Will it be able to do this? Well, I don't know, but I'm cautiously optimistic. I can imagine an app that would do this, either with the PDF itself or something that converts a PDF to an eBook and then that can be marked up.
Also, I'm pretty sure that it will be possible to read books/texts from places that are not bought from Apple, much in the same way that the vast majority of the music I listen to in my iPhone was not bought from iTunes. Like I said, I don't know yet. But assuming that this is true, what is to stop an individual from creating an ebook of their own and making it available on a web site for download, not so different from making an mp3 and putting it up there for download and playing on an iPod (and other players).
Finally, I think the appeal to me for this is its potential as an Apple compatible/plug-n-play netbook, something I've been interested in for a while even though I have a desktop and a laptop already. Sure, it's more expensive than a lot of netbooks, but it does have that Apple advantage for the likes of me: I know that when I plug it into my other Apple computers, it will "just work."
But for the last time, I want to see what it will and won't do in person.
11. G. Curt Fiedler - February 08, 2010 at 08:54 pm
Fair enough - I think many of us have the same hopes about the iPad's utility as you, but we already know a lot about what it will and won't do. And it's not going to do Flash.
And it's not a netbook. It's an oversized iPod touch with less storage than most netbooks. The big advantage is screen size and maybe (maybe!) typing potential.
We'll see what Apple permits with this device, but it's reasonable to express fears given Apple's restrictive and often arbitrary approval process for iPhone application content.
12. Steve Krause - February 09, 2010 at 04:04 pm
- It has a nice interface for email, calendar, contacts, etc.
- It has a decent web browser (though I agree the lack of flash support is both odd and lame).
- You can run Apple's iWork on it (word processing, presenting, spread sheets, etc.)
- It looks to be a pleasant reading and movie watching platform, not to mention good for books and listening to music.
- It's smaller than my laptop, and thus useful in places where a netbook would be better (e.g., an airplane).
- It has a longer battery life than my laptop.
Mind you, I am not thinking of a netbook as an alternative to a laptop computer, which is how I think a lot of people use netbooks. I'd want one in addition to the laptop I already have.13. Nels - February 09, 2010 at 10:19 pm
So far, I see two advantages to my actual netbook because it has a whole lot more memory than the iPad and it's a lot cheaper. If it gets stolen on a trip, I won't feel so bad being out the $248 I paid for it.
14. Steve Krause - February 10, 2010 at 10:36 am
The $ and memory points are true. The memory issue is not a big deal to me because I wouldn't ever use a device like this as anything but something to get stuff from a server or to carry a few select items. I like the functionality of the iPad (I think-- still haven't played with one myself yet, of course) and, as an Apple person with no windoze computers to speak of (I have an iMac at home, a powerbook for work/home, a couple old macs acting as servers in my office, an iPhone, etc., not to mention a wife and child with Macs), it might be worth the extra $300 or so for it to "just work."
Add Your Comment
Commenting is closed.