Warning: Long article is long.

Ever since the announcement of iBooks 2.0 I was livid on how people thinks that apple is causing the paradigm shift in education.  Maybe what was getting to me more, is how people know so little about the process of learning, and how to teach.  Since they are a luddite when it comes to technology, they (people, parents, educators) see that any technology brought into the classroom is beneficial (believe me, it isn’t).

Let’s start off with the idea of “what is teaching?”  Let’s follow that up with “what does it mean to teach kindergarten vs elementary school vs high school vs college?”  When you really think about it, the definition changes, based on age, but the purpose stays the same.  You are some expert in a field where you have to impart knowledge to the people who pay money (albeit tax dollars) to hear what you have to say.  The way you do it makes you valuable.  If you can socialize it, then you take the greatness out, and reduce it to an algorithm.  Reducing it to certain characteristics or methods, isn’t inherently bad (just like socialism), but who becomes that writer of the “best education has to offer?”

Remember the teacher teachers, nothing else.  A good teacher can teach without a book (I’ve done that enough times).  A book, a computer, calculators, projectors, ipads, etc… are just teaching tools.  If they were better than the teacher, than teachers would have been replaced with a book.  The fact is, if students could just read a book, then schools would be obsolete.  I teach computer programming.  A course that is inherently a holding tank requiring you to practice.  Do you think I can do a better job than any O’Reilly book.  The reason I have a job is because you need someone to explain and force you to produce.  I teach comprehension and adaptability more than anything else.  A teenager won’t bother to read the drivers test manual, then complain that they failed it.  The most important test in a teenager’s life (to them) and they can’t pass it.  All they have to do is read the manual.

The reason we have textbooks is because there hasn’t been anything better yet to replace it.  How do you go about replacing a textbook?   The natural progression is putting it online, but nobody can figure out to do it.  When you figure it out, I’ll buy the idea off you.

The first obstacle is convenience.  The kindle is succeeding only because reading a novel is easy to do.  You just read.  You very rarely go back 50 pages, to understand a difficult plot line.  If you do, you can bookmark it, but it usually happens (maybe) once.  A calculus text is a foundational work, where you constantly have to go back and relearn material.  Hard math problems and simulations are hard, and to have to remember which bookmark and which gesture is which, makes life much more difficult.  Adding a layer of obscurity in flipping virtually back and forth doesn’t help.  When I was solving calculus problems, I would have three bookmarks: 1) The problem, 2) The example or algorithm, and 3) The solution.  Sometimes the example was a composite of three of four other problems of various other disciplines, and those had separate bookmarks.  How am I supposed to do that (easily) with a virtual book?

Reading a novel or in a linear fashion is one thing.  Reading parts of a whole is completely different.

Enough on the background, why am I angry?

Non educators think that iBooks solved the above problem.  By digitizing the book, adding some interactive simulations, making a digital flash card app, and packaging nicely,  made life slightly easier, but doesn’t do anything other than appease the people who can’t see beyond the problem.  Teaching correctly is the problem, and technology isn’t the solution.

PRICE:

The first problem is that even at $14.99 the book is still expensive. Publishers took the average cost and divided by the average length of ownership.  What they do not understand is school budget margins are so razor thin, school districts like to purchase once, rather than have a new constant line item that they have to have approved.  If a book upgrade doesn’t get approved, schools just use last year’s book one more year.  In this model, you MUST buy the book every single year.  While the publishers save a ton on costs, schools end up paying the same amount.  There needs to be an incentive to help the publishers eliminate costs.

LOCK IN:

Apple is in the business of making money.  They stumbled across the idea of an app store, but now they see a way to continually generate revenue.  Every time you buy a book, you are giving 30% to apple.  Not only that, Apple if forcing you to use their hardware.  You must create a book on an apple computer, and you must use it on an Apple device.  Apple has literally found a way to advertise in the last place advertisement is still banned.  From the age of 6 (Kindergarden) they will give iPads to students, and it will follow them through graduation.  Somewhere in there a student will end up with an iPhone because it just makes sense.  When they graduate, they will want a Mac (albeit a harder justification), but why not continue the lock in.

Even if there is a worthy competitor you have to buy the whole system.  Tablets / computers / hardwares are expensive.  So even if you change the hardware, the software is still necessary.  You just don’t change them (unlike books) whenever you need it to work.  By keeping the prices high and (slightly discounting) when necessary, you force people to stay with you.

DRM:

The book manufacturers just found a way to prevent copying.  I am guilty of borrowing content from my one copy, and giving it to my students.  For most cases I fall under the fair use in education clauses, but sometimes I don’t.  All teachers have copied a whole textbook because they were short a copy or two.  This prevents copies.  You will need to spend the money on more hardware and books.  By preventing printing, there will be no way to store things “for later” other than to bookmark them.   If one book has a section on a topic that is better than the current book, there is no way to use it as an aide unless everyone buys that book.  So the excuse the book is way cheaper just showed us another unintended consequences.

MOVEMENT and CONTENT OWNERSHIP

How does a school get each student an ipad?  If a student moves away, what happens to the book?  Who controls the ipad sync?  Who owns the content when the tax payers pay for the school budget?  All these questions need to be worked out a head of time.  Usually these questions are not answered by people who can logic through the answers.  Most board members are elected lay townspeople.   While not important to the topic at hand, it is important if you market to public education, you must provide help in solving the above problems.  In a 12 year stretch of a student’s tenure, how many ipads are they going to need.  The average lifespan of a computer in a school is 6 – 10 years (I have only anecdotal evidence for that statistic), but will 2 ipads get them through school?  If a student switches levels that involves a change in textbook, who absorbs that cost?  If a student moves out of district, or comes into district, who is responsible?

The article deals with the assumption that ipads are staples in education.  Also, you can’t fault apple for providing the ability.

SIZE:

The last complaint is size.  Each book is between 1 and 2 GigaBytes.  A 16 GB ipad will hold 8 books with nothing else.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

While I do think iBooks 2 is a step in the right direction, it will be marred by the complete money grab that the textbook manufacturers and apple are going to compete for.  While there isn’t a solution, there are steps that can be taken.  How about offering cost competitive online editions.  Don’t bundle it up with some useless portal that is difficult to navigate.  Remember schools can’t pirate your book.  DRM is only as good as buying a scanner and scanning every page individually.  And while I can’t provide a great solution, they do exist.

**As a point of reference, podcast is a trademarked/copywritten term by apple, so I should use netcast, or prerecorded audio/video show, but I’m using the colloquially accepted version of podcast**

Podcasts was one of the greatest advances in content in the last few years.  It gave people more than the very few syndicated options on the radio.  Couple that with iTunes, RSS, and podcast catchers, you have yet another way to curate content exactly to what you want to listen to.    It also gave people who couldn’t break into the the radio/tv industry an outlet to ‘do it their way.’  While podcasts really don’t have the market penetration one would like, the marketing and viable business opportunities are there.  The production costs are so low, that it takes much less audience to turn a significant product.  This all sounds so good, so why am I mad, (because I need a reason to complain).

My gripe is the length of most podcasts.

 They are just way too long.  Since podcasts have no time limit people think they can talk until they are done.  Just like your voicemail, people have a blank slate to talk, and talk, and talk some more, until it sounds like they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for point/counterpoints.  I’ve seen a number of 20 minute, weekly podcasts, have now transformed into almost 2 hours.  The mission statement has changed from the one topic, to the ancillary, but relevant side topics.

The time limitation can be seen as a form of censorship, but what is the problem really.  Radio was popularized by commuters to work.  While in the car, people need something to listen to.  The hour after dinner people wanted to relax, so they turned on their radio.  There is an established time limit for people (an individualized preference).  When shows go over that time period, people start getting frustrated.  Even more frustrating is not knowing the time of a show ahead of time.  I know that visually it says in the player’s window, but is the show 1 hour today, 90 minutes tomorrow, 2 hours the following day?  The worst thing is to be out of content when still driving, and not knowing whether to start something else.  Podcasts should set a time limit and stick to it. Go back to the very first episodes of your favorite podcasts and notice the time limit increase as they progressed.  I would bet that most podcasts doubled in length.

My opinion is that there are three acceptable time limits.  10 – 15 minutes for a daily show.  A daily news rundown shouldn’t take longer than reading the headline, the description, and some short opinion.  Throw in an ad, some intro/outro music, and you have your time limit.  Once you go over that limit, you should start limiting to what you are talking about.

Next time limit is 30-45.  Most people commutes are about this long.  A short weekly podcast like, my very own @inThirty, is 30 minutes.  Thirty to forty-five minutes allows some banter, but it gets the show in, and finished.  It forces people to acknowledge only one topic.

inThirty, the show I host, is a great example of a weekly tech news show that can be done in 30 minutes.  Based on feedback, people really like how fast paced and to the point it is. It is evidence that amateurs (who like to talk) can get behind the show’s main requirement (time).   Listen to it, and see how refreshing to know what a consistant 30 minute show can be like.

The final acceptable time limit is around 1 hour.  For longer or round trip commutes and radio shows, this is the perfect length.  An hour long show is perfect for longer discussions or for interviews.  It allows multiple topics to go more in dept.   Anything over an hour turns into a rambling session.  A hard stop should be enforced.  ”We spoken for an hour, so we are going to stop, and not waste any more of your time.”

Think of the ever growing Apple Keynotes.  A MacWorld or WWDC used to be 60-80 minutes long, but as it progressed, we have had 30 minutes of metrics, another 30 minutes of game demos, and a 20 minute presentation of actual content.

The initial planning phase should include the “reasonable length” of a show.  People always have an idea of what they want it to be, but once they get going, they don’t want to stop.  Usually a spirited argument drags on way too long, or advertisement copies drag on,  and while that is acceptable, make sure it isn’t a norm.

There are shows that you never want to end, and you get upset when they do.  However those are few and far between, but more importantly it diminishes the value of the show.  If a show goes for hours and hours every week, people will start fast forwarding through the slow parts, or worse yet, the ads.  Keep people wanting to come back.

Written by Michael “Just Another Tech Blog” DeGusta -

 Holiday Gift Wrap Up

I’ve spent a few weeks just listening to problems people have had / are having with technology, and I’m realizing the things that I’m taking for granted are huge obstacles for people.  Obstacles so great, that people shun from technology because it is too complicated.  Instead of learning something for an hour that will save you a good deal of time later, people decide that the status quo is “good enough for me.”

The two phrases: “I don’t need that,” or “It is good enough for me,” are what is stopping technology from advancing.  The idea that there is a time saving feature (or just plain cool) that you just want is un-nerving.  Instead of embracing a new idea, we are regressing.  It goes back to the analogy of “You didn’t want to try ice cream the first time, and now look what happened.”  I want to make a very distinct difference between marketing nonsense and bonafide features that enhance the lives of people.  I don’t agree that 3D will make it.  I don’t care for it, I have tried it, and said this is not for me.  The point is that I have tried it.  I have researched it, looked up prices, and determined that it isn’t worth it.  I didn’t blindly ignore experts and say, I don’t want it.

The fork in the road comes is becoming even more clear when it comes to cell phones.  iOS offers the best functionality to simplicity that I have ever seen.  We all remember the original cell phones where we learned how to make a phone call, and gave up.  The mentality is still there, when it should be “Why doesn’t my phone do the following?”  iOS takes the approach, that this subset of features are going to be highlighted and made extremely simple, but there are some advanced functions that if you read you can do. Android takes the complete other side.  Android hands you all the functions equally, and says go…  This causes problems for those who just want to make phone calls, but offers functionality to those who want it.

Software updates adds more fuel to the fire.  People refused to switch to firefox or chrome because it was different.  The one site that didn’t work became a huge turnoff for people.  Other people tried switching, but hated the constant updates, so they switched back.  To these people: poorly coded websites exist.  The best catalyst to change is to show web developers that they better care, and be vocal about .  Don’t regress because something is hard.  Regarding updates:  Usually updates are security and improve stability.  If you claim that you are ignorant to technology, don’t you think the updates are important to protect you.  Remember IE, just allowed automatic updates to the point that even viruses were automatically updated.  Bad guys are smart.  Please, read what the update does, and decide for yourself.  If you want choice, then make it.

Then comes buying technology, which is problematic.  If people actually sat down with an expert (not the best buy salesperson), and figured out what you needed, you would save money.  You would also learn something.  You would learn that cheap is not the way to go.  Many money blogs say: either buy cheap or quality, but not midrange.  I’ll save that story for another day, but the point is, buy cheap to constantly replace, or buy expensive because you want products to last.  If you are buying cheap, you are saying you are going to replace this item in a year.  Then ask, what is your backup strategy? If a phone, when can you upgrade next.  Remember phone cycles are one year, and you are on a two year contract.  If you are buying a cheap android phone, please read about upgrade cycles for android phones,  from a guy who put a huge amount of time into the research.  It isn’t just another tech blog.  Then read my subsequent response.  Remember that computers double in processing power every 18 months, and items lose 10% of value every month.   If you go expensive, do you know what is important to look for?

The most typical way someone buys something is word of mouth.  Personal recommendations are great, but just because they are your friend doesn’t mean they know what they are talking about.  Your friend buys an iphone and says it is the best thing ever.  Why don’t you ask “Why did you buy an iphone,” followed by, “Why not android, or Windows Phone 7?”  A Windows phone is refreshingly simple to use.  Just as simple as an iphone, and potentially a better product.   If your friend can’t answer why they bought this products over another one, then they are not helping.  Then once you get the device you ask your same friend if it can do this mission critical feature, and your response is usually, “I don’t know.”

It all comes down to research.  If you are happy walking blindly, then go for it.  You have your right to.  If you want to stop and think about something for a few minutes, you will learn so much that you can make informed decisions.  I didn’t become an expert overnight, but I did read.  I didn’t think that I was too busy to learn.  In fact my first step was to learn where to read.  I didn’t read everything, but I learned. I learned how to find important sites.  It isn’t that hard.  Email me, I’ll show you.  I’m a great teacher.