On Nouns & Verbs in a BYOT World - A Math Teacher's Reflection

Math Department Chair, Layton Elliot, is a near-constant fixture in the Teacher Resource Center. When he is not mooching off our coffee (our Keurig manna is strong), he is constantly pushing and challenging the IT department to be more open and more flexible. He has grown from the "guy who stuck his laptop into the freezer" (it was overheating) to a power user who is always looking for the next thing to improve math education...or intra-team communication...or faculty collaboration. When I received this reflection, it seemed the perfect time to hand the reigns over for a guest blog.  In keeping with my format, he approaches TL;DR as he addresses "Verbs, Not Nouns", the BYOT culture wars, and the need for critical analysis at CHOICE OF TECH level. I resisted the urge to comment, but you are free to do so below

Technology is so infused in what I do each day, from creating math worksheets to consuming Olympics live streams. And yet, I find myself wanting more. Lots more. Much as our director of faculty development states that we are “never fully developed” as professionals, a theme of the 2012 JSEA Symposium, our technology is just never quite good enough. On one end, we want (or are told we want by Apple press events) higher resolutions, faster bandwidths, and more storage. But on another end, we want a satisfactory marriage of the various computing services out there. I am quite now convinced through personal experiences and dozens of conversations with our CIO that I cannot subscribe wholly to a single ecosystem. I use Apple for some aspects (phone, music, tablet), Microsoft for others (primary computer, home theater, Office documents, Exchange, Skydrive), Google (forms, collaborative documents, class webpages, shared calendars), Amazon (books), and Dropbox (collaborative folders). Though I am hopeful that one day I’ll see Microsoft Office on an iPad or a better iTunes on Windows, I have accepted the limitations of the odd interplay between these services.

But there is also another element at work. Maybe it is marketing. Maybe it is brand loyalty. I’m often asked if I’m a PC or a Mac (didn’t know the kids remembered those commercials). My students ask why I use an iPhone and not an Android device, while other students laud me for being part of their cult. And admittedly, when it came time to get a tablet device, I already had so much invested in the Apple ecosystem of media and apps that the iPad was a more compelling choice for software alone. But, I maintain that if I had started with an Android phone, I’d probably have an Android tablet now with very little change in functionality or satisfaction.

A few months ago, I had a former student arguing that Pages on iPad shouldn’t really be used to write school papers. I challenged that notion as an exercise. I had not really used Pages much, and wanted to see what he was getting at.

• He stated first that it did not have the features of Microsoft Word. I was hanging out with a few friends, and we were arguing the merits of both sides. We opened the program using Airplay to display. Passing the iPad around, we were all able to quickly create a new document and begin using features such as inserting pictures or diagrams. The experience was even superior to MS Word in the manipulation of aspects of the document, such as margins and picture sizing/placement. True, it did not have near the scope of features of its more mature brethren, but it did have most of what a typical student writing a paper would want. We decided that it was missing an equation editor (not used by most students in most situations) and a reference manager (only introduced in Word 2007 and on).
• His second point was that it was not easy to print. One of my friends, an Apple fanboy, pointed out that his printer was Airplay compatible. Another challenged if we even needed a paper intermediary, since all his college teachers graded digitally. And sure enough, Pages can export to a Word doc for E-mailing. At this point, we all agreed that it could not be used for collaborative document-writing, but we were comparing with Word 2010 (not the web app), so that wasn’t fair.
• Third, “who wants to type a paper on a tablet screen?” That’s a limitation of the device, not the software. The same argument can be made of Word 2013 on Windows RT without a keyboard.
• What about MLA? I found that one interesting. I argued against the utility of MLA/APA. They made sense when formatting and text were intrinsically linked. But these days, formatting is a function of the venue on which information is viewed. MLA was a standard for a heading, a title, margins, spacing, and references. It was important when documents were printed (although I am amazed at how long it took those standards to catch up to variable-width fonts). It doesn’t make sense for a purely digital document. Citations can be hyperlinks with much greater reference ability.

One-by-one the arguments crumbled. But these aren’t new. The same thing has happened for Google Docs. But what was at work was this notion of seeing a college paper as a pure Microsoft Word experience. Where does that come from? Sure, I was taught that the only way you could turn in a paper was if it was Times New Roman, 1-inch margins, double-spaced. But even I had the stubborn WordPerfect friends. In grad school, some of my peer were scared when Microsoft Word introduced Calibri as the default font. It ended up being OK. Openoffice.org and Google Docs challenged if a computer even needed an expensive “office suite” of apps.

Is brand loyalty with software keeping us from seeing the strengths of interoperability and choice? What other artificial limitations do we place on ourselves? (Is it preferable to own music/movies or have access to them?)

This past year, I’ve had similar challenges with technology in math education, some of which have challenged my own preconceived notions.

1. The de facto standard of math equations is Design Science’s MathType. Now, I am admittedly not crazy about plugins, especially ones that will require lifetime subscriptions to retain full functionality with future versions of Office. Since Office 2007, the built-in equation editor has been significantly enhanced with smoother fonts, in-line editing, and implementation across the suite of apps. And yet, people still want MathType.
2. The graphing calculator is still seen as a “which buttons do you press to make this happen” device by many who teach with the older models. The TI-Nspire CX that we are using now in freshman and sophomore classes is built with a context-based menu-system. Graphing calculator apps on Chrome, Android, and iOS have limited menus and more intuitive interfaces. Students all have BYOT devices that show graphs at much higher resolution with greater manipulative capacity than even their calculators. And yet making that connection to the learning potential is an uphill battle.
3. Student STILL see math as coming only from their teacher or their book. I received an E-mail from a student today saying she was struggling with Interest and Investment word problems. I asked if she had looked up examples online. Her response: “you’re allowed to do that?”

We tend to want to limit ourselves to comfort zone. “I don’t know how” becomes an excuse for “I don’t want to spend the time to learn.” I see it in students, educators, and myself. But whenever I have forced myself to use something or try something, I have been amazed and pleased with the results. And I want more.

Maybe we’ll always want more from our tech, and that’s how it should be. For every feature that becomes a way of tech-life (saving attachments to cloud storage on a mobile device to, viewing class inking via web apps on any device), my imagination sees even more possibilities with what is on the horizon. What will this year bring? iOS 6, Windows 8, Surface, another dessert from Google, smaller, faster… Those are predictable. But what is going to be the small feature that will change everything? That’s the exciting unknown that keeps me tuned…

BYOT DayByDay 4&5: Vignettes over Two Days

The BYOT Day by Day Series will capture the first few weeks of implementation of the full BYOT program at Brebeuf Jesuit. Brebeuf Jesuit is 1:1 BYOT w/ financial aid support for over 25% of its student population in the form of technology grants. It will try to capture some of the tips, tricks, and pitfalls. It will highlight the successes and a few of the frustrations.

Form Follows Function: Node chairs allow student to quickly move from class
to partner-work for listening, writing, or BYOT activities.

Day 4, Student with an iPad

"Can you help me? I don't really know what I am doing with this thing"

There were connection issues and the student had forgotten her password. More revealing was the conversation. Her parents had gotten her the device for communications with them while she was travelling and for consumption of TV and Movies. She loved it for that. She REALLY did not like it for school.

"Have you talked to your parents about your concerns?"

"Well we are not rich."

"You could sell the iPad. Get a laptop"

"I couldn't get a new Mac though"

True. It is impressive that even through branding obsession and some rose-colored teenage goggles, there was serious consideration about the limitations on finances and identifying needs vs. wants. We continued the conversation about options and possibilities with her concluding that she wanted to talk to her parents.

We have begun to see a little buyer's remorse, almost always with iPads (The most popular of tablets). Most of the frustration is with the form-factor althought the file upload issue has been mentioned once.

Day 4, A Math Problem

Hardware tech: Three students in a row cannot see the math worksheet. One Mac, two iPads.

This is becoming the standard for us. Identify problem. Figure out the parameters. Research.

The problem: Equations made in MS Word w/ the equation editor (so much improved!) are not viewable in Pages (Mac or iPad). The obvious work-around is the use of PDFs. With that in mind, we contact the math teachers.

They have really embraced cloud computing, with some of the worksheets in Dropbox and some of them hosted in Microsoft's Skydrive (we support lots of things, even though we are a Google school). The students have, for the most part, adapted well despite the variety thanks to instructions in the syllabus and clear expectations and demonstrations from the teachers.

As I sit down with the teacher, he explains that, while they use PDFs for some of the documents, they want the flexibility to quickly change on the fly (even mobile) if there are problems identified (these are all new worksheets as they begin to move to teacher-generated problems and away from textbook reliance).

He also has workarounds for all of the devices that cannot view the equations:
Mac -- Open up the documents (Dropbox or Skydrive) in Office 365 (Microsoft's cloud-based apps answer to Google Docs). Since all of the students already have skydrive/live/office.com (whew) accounts, this is an easy solve.

iPad is a little more complicated, but only a little. Dropbox: use Cloud-On (free app for now) to open a full version of Office and view the answers. Skydrive: Use the chrome browser (released for iPad this summer) and select the "Request desktop version" to show the full version of the Office Web-app instead of the mobile version.

Think about that: a Google browser on an Apple device to make a web-based Microsoft application fully functional. Can you imagine what could happen if these guys liked each other? 

The teacher agreed to show these walkthroughs in class and add the step-by-steps to his class webpage. We shared the solution with the techs. Problem solved.

This is becoming part of the ongoing conversation. No device has all of the solutions for all situations. Laptops lack the back camera, but generally have faster processors. Tablets have multi-touch, which can be really handy when dealing with graphs and equations Try it: type in a graphing equation in google. The graph that appears can be multi-touch manipulated. Oh by the way -- If you type a graphing equation in Google, it solves the graph for you!! -- FYI

Day 4, Office-al Discernment

A story from the Teacher Resource Room and @40ishoracle. The girl with the Mac/Math issue from earlier is discussing with JenL the 4 reasons why she wants to get Microsoft Office for the Mac. She is leading off with compatibility, but also makes references to being able to take notes and edit the way with which she is familiar, using review features, and not having to worry about converting files for teachers.

Students are identifying their learning style and identifying the tools they need to accomplish their goals.

Day 5 , #Flipclass collaboration

Look! I type, you see!

As students begin their first research activity in #digcit, they were introduced to the sharing and collaboration features of Google Docs, many of them for the first time. It is always fun to watch their eyes light as they realize how cool simultaneous typing is. The sophomore in the class is non-plussed, "that is how we sent notes in English class all last year" - Ah, the power of BYOT.

Day 5, A Meeting of the Moms

My second parent meeting in a week. Talking about BYOT and how it works. Parents ask about ebooks and how things are going. They are impressed with how well the "Bring Your Own" policy meshes with the school's philosophy of individualizing student learning...so are we.

Day 5, In the Tech Office

Change wireless channels? Whatever, just give me a card

• The network administrator and I have a discussion to discuss the policy about helping students beyond connecting to the network. A student brought in her Dell with the complaint that "Word keeps freezing". He was able to talk to her through software vs. hardware diagnosing and even showed her how to look up warranty information on her unit. Balancing between helpfulness and personal device tech support is a little murky.
• Our hardware tech took a phone call from a parent in a Costco debating the merits of the i5 vs the i7 processor for her son's computer.
• Dell came out and replaced the Atheros wireless card on that student computer for Day 2 (or 3?). They replaced with a Broadcom card that had no issues. Note to all: Avoid Atheros. Check.

Day 5, End of the Listening Lab?

A World Language teacher, Michelle Martin, stopped by to tell us that she was able to completely bypass the traditional language lab (listening to native speakers is a key part of language lab activities) by having students use their own devices to access the sites and listen. She was impressed by students who were multitasking but focused on her class, either accessing homework, doing the listening assignments, read the e-book, etc.

This dovetails with students in the digital music class that are uploading and downloading recorded audio files and other teachers who are going to try to use soundcloud, garageband, audacity and others (student determines the tool that best fits their needs) to share singing, language practice, conversations, and more. Cool potential to empower students instead of large scale lab manufacturers. -- Will have to keep and eye on this one.

Reflection

As we approach the close of the first full week. Password resets are fewer. Teachers are beginning to raise the game on expectations (you must convert the file to a format I can read -- that is your job). Students are finding that IT can be very helpful but that some of the responsibility for the device is their own. Students are finding solutions to problems by working with each other (can I borrow your laptop? I need to upload this file to EdLine).  There has been more growth toward an understanding of what it means to operate in a technology-laden society in the last five days than I have seen in some classes for an entire year.

And this is what is going on between passing periods and during student time.
Next week, we will try to share some more of what is happening in the classrooms....

BYOT DayByDay 3: Getting Lost in the Details and an iOS rant

he BYOT Day by Day Series will capture the first few weeks of implementation of the full BYOT program at Brebeuf Jesuit. Brebeuf Jesuit is 1:1 BYOT w/ financial aid support for over 25% of its student population in the form of technology grants. It will try to capture some of the tips, tricks, and pitfalls. It will highlight the successes and a few of the frustrations.

The good news: we may have peaked on password resets. Fewer resets today than on Friday. The end of the reset train might be in sight. This barrage has been interesting as we have been listening to students' comments. Some blame the complexity rules (which I sort of agree with, although in terms of life preparation, they will be dealing with far worse than ours). Others honestly did not think they would use it, so didn't bother to memorize (odd, but pragmatic). My most annoying are those who blame the network. "Your network won't let me on, because I can't remember my password." -- Yes, my network is glitchy that way. *sigh*

With all of this newfound time, the IT Crew had a tough choice: sit back and read comic books or try to tackle some of the nagging issues. We flipped a coin and went with the latter (plus, GenCon starts on Thursday, so we are planning a work stoppage of some form).

Putting the iPad Under the Spotlight: Document Uploading to the Web (or just about anything)

I spend a lot of my time biting my tongue about iOS. I am not a huge fan of the operating system, the company behind it, or its outlook on technology or consumers. But I truly believe in choice and the power behind empowerment, so chalk my opinions up as those and try to stay out of the fan-boy wars.

Email request in the morning: "how do students working on iPads get their reflections uploaded to edline?"

the @40ishoracle and I had worked on this before, but decided it was time to go after it again. After all, there had to be an app for that. For those of you coming to this blog from the teaching side of the world, a little background: 

The operating system behind the iPad, iOS, does not have a way for the consumer to access the files (a file manager or other file handling systems). Files are accessed through the apps themselves. As such, the user can only export those files with the options given from within the app, most commonly and universally "email" (for those of you in the android world, the options are MUCH more limited).

So when you see that oh-so-common "Browse" Button on a webpage to upload a file, there is no file to choose (although recent updates to iOS have given the option to upload a photo, so there is that). There is no way to drill-down into the folders and files. (OK, that should be enough flame-baiting so i won't get into the message board that explained this as a feature and the need to contact websites to have them accommodate this new benefit from our Cupertino soothsayers).

We started the research and reached out to our PLNs, particularly those in iPad only schools. My favorite line came from James Schurrer at St. Xavier (not an iPad only school) - "The easy way. Don't do it". Our friend and all-school-iPad implementer @eecastro, from St. Ignatius, San Franciso: "Does not exist". 


App-wise, there are two convoluted options. 

iUploader (not the photo one) gives you a way to take an attachment from email (remember, app-docs can be sent by email) into a holding bin. When you open the iUploader, it has a mini-browser that can be pointed to the website in question (you do not use Safari). and uploaded from the App. - 8 steps, a separate browser, no guarantee that mini browser is compatible with our LMS. No go. -- This app is primarily for people with a standard document to upload, like a resume.

goaruna gives you a specific "send to" email address that uploads your file to a linked dropbox-like environment. This is useful since some websites, such as moodle, can be programmed to upload by a web-url instead of a file. Does not actually solve the "Browse to file" issue, but sidesteps it if your webpage is agreeable. 7 steps, our LMS is not currently agreeable, and the document in this case is seems somewhat public at least for the time period that the link is live. 

the option that cannot be recommended by the school: jailbreak the device, void the warranty, and install a file manager app (the most common "duh" response when i was complaining on twitter). My favorite tweet in this vein -- "You don't even really have an iPad until its jailbroke"

So we grudgingly sent the test-balloon email to the original person who asked. "They can email it to you. They can email it to themselves, open it on another device (pc, Mac, Android, Chromium) and upload it from there. -- her response "the student handled it on his own. e-mailed it to himself or something. I don't know, but I got it."

...and there you go.

BYOT is about choice. When I choose android, I am choosing to have lots of confusing, competing markets for music, movies, and even apps. It can be a plus and a minus. When someone chooses an iPad, they are choosing a simple sharing mechanism. The key is to understand the benefits and limitations of the technology and choose the device that works best for you.

I think that eventually iOS will support some version of this. They've proven it is not a structural limitation with photo uploads. They could leverage their own PAGES app by allowing it and no other app to do it. and the Browse-File is much more locked into HTML than even Flash is/was. But, people have been saying that since April of 2010. Apple will let it happen when it thinks we are ready for it. (Boom - I'm out).

Printing Continued:

Having abandoned the HP ePrint solution for its unreliability, we played around with iPrint and the HP Home&Biz Printing app (on android). Printers are showing up by name and printing automatically. We have found our mobile print solution! The next task will be figuring out how to get the drivers for the printer to our Mac users who can see the printer on the network but cannot access it for lack of an instruction set.

The One Device and a Hilarious Dell Tech:

We have ONE device that absolutely will not connect to our network. On Friday it would only connect to our two secure (read WPA) SSIDs. On Monday, it wouldn't even do that. Our hardware technician worked with the student, even contacting Dell and having the technician remote into the computer. We all new it was hardware. Students got a kick out of us predicting what the technician would try to do next. But the best part was when the Dell tech explained that he had seen this before and that we just needed to change the channel of our access point.

Non-techie note: Wireless networks use "channels". If more than one AP in an area use the same channel, neither AP necessarily works as well. Our channels are phenomenally well balanced...and we have over 50 of them. Our Network technician actually laughed outloud at this hail-mary attempt to not send out a piece of hardware.

Eventually, the tech acquiesed and a new network card is on its way to the student. Not sure how I feel about this level of tech.support on personal devices in the long run, but I do love that we have the time and ability to help our students this way.

The Unhelpful Textbook Company (redundant?)

A student came in with a CD-Rom of his textbook that would not read on his Mac computer purchased over the summer. After quite a bit of research, we found two paragraphs on the McDougal Littell website that explained that 1) their CDs did not support the last two years worth of MAC upgrades. 2) They even went so far as to say that some CDs released in 2012 could not be assured compatibility and the buyer/schools should beware. Their solution? Downgrade your Mac to a two year old operating system or dual boot the system into Windows. Brilliant - The student was going to use an access code to look at the web-copy but may end up buying the paper book.

Thank you publishers for staying at the cutting edge of technology. We salute you.

But it is working...

Lest you think I have lost all faith.

This was a grinding and day as we began picking apart some of the fringe frustrations of BYOT implementation. But it is worth it when we hear about classes where students are helping each other solve issues, even cross-platform. Our counseling department continues to hit this new environment out of the park. They are now doing mobile schedules changes: 

I continue to make mobile schedule changes, which helps me if I can't make a schedule change happen before 8:15, but it needs to happen before the next class begins.  I can catch a student, find out what they want to do with the choices I have for them, and then bam! the change is made, the student has their schedule via email (so they can't lose it when the paper walks away) and I have gotten a little walk around the school. - @moneybrady

Awesome! 

We have classes that have written papers, researched, filled out forms, and done so paperlessly. Students have opened templates and color coded them. #flipclass teachers are uploading lessons to YouYube and students are watching the next day's lesson on their phones while relaxing in the student commons. It has a feel of an tech-integrated world. 

Tough work behind the scenes, but the classrooms are beginning to click.

Questions and Cold Chills: A BYOT Advocate's Initial Reaction to iBooks2

I am hesitant to write this blog entry so early with so many unanswered questions, particularly since the topic itself is going to potentially open me up to flamebait, but I figured that I would use what influence I have to start the ball rolling. As I have said before, it is time for educators to start demanding the tools we need to improved education through technology. (thanks to my fellow debate coach, no-twitter kantz, for encouraging me to get this one posted sooner rather than later).

Today Apple announced another foray into education with the release of iBooks2 and its related software iAuthor for OSX (Lion). With this announcement came a lot of promise and potential, but a lot of unanswered questions. Some of these questions need to be answered quickly before we as educators find ourselves with a potentially expensive and educationally unpleasant reality (netbooks, I am looking at you).

The announcement: Any iOS user will be able to download iBooks2 and access textbooks that have massive multimedia potential, replace the weight of gigantic textbooks, and cost...wait for it ...$14.99 or less. On the surface, this seems like a no-brainer boon to the educational world. Add the fact that educators can use the tools to create their own content, and this seems like gold. And yet, the more I think about it, the colder the concept leaves me.

Not the economic boon that it seems:
The first thing the twitter-feed began howling about (after the shiny and the pretty) was the price. While I agree that it would be refeshing to see the publishers forced to lower prices in the face of an ebook juggernaut, that is NOT what is happening here (in fact, the juggernaut that WAS doing that so well was Amazon Pre-iPad. It wasn’t until the “set your own price, we’ll take 30%” iBooks deal with publishers that you saw kindle books go over $9.99).

High School Textbooks (notice that the iBooks2 announcement was NOT college?) are by and large purchased by schools for multiple years. Students pay a rental fee on textbooks (sometimes subsidized by the government). Any guess on how much publishers make per year on a book? somewhere between 15 and 17 dollars. So, depending on the book, the publishers save money on printing, distribution, shipping, warehousing, etc. and just take the 70% of their cut of $14.99. Nice deal for them. Nice deal for Apple. No real loss for families.

But once we realize that this is not a gamechanger brought about by twisting the arms of the publishers to let go of profits, this whole model begins to look different.

In the world of books, Content is King
Did everyone catch the selection that was released today? somewhere between 8 and 12 books depending on how you count the DK publisher books that were announced and the oh-so-pretty-but-oh-so-incomplete LIFE ON EARTH. Forget about the financial savings, you cannot even run a single schedule on those books, let alone a school. How many books will be available by the beginning of the 2012-13 school year?

Will the supporting publishers, of which much was made that they are responsible for 90% of all textbooks, be making their entire catalog available? Not Likely.

Aside: When we began investigating ebooks for Brebeuf Jesuit, we were stone-walled by a publisher (who claimed they were “leading the way” in ebooks) because the textbook which our math teachers preferred would NEVER be digitized. It was just kept in circulation because a lot of teachers felt it was a high-quality book...They would much rather us buy one of two other options that would be digitized.

If schools and corporations go all-in with the iPad solution, imagine the pressure that will be brought to bear on teachers and departments to go with the book that does not create issues of inventory, storage, etc. Quality of the text, appropriateness for curriculum and pedagogy, etc. will take a backseat to “but its not available on the iPad.” This was already beginning and now it seems a lock.

The second selection issue that arises in my mind is the grey area between advanced high school texts and college textbooks. The book distributor that our school uses is working on a cross-platform (with android, iphone, and HTML5) e-reader that will have about 40% of our booklist available by the start of next school year. But these eBooks follow the more common college model of limited access licenses for less cost than a new paper-book. Those are two VERY different pricing models that do not necessarily coexist (remember, the college textbooks have single-user costs closer to the total cost of the high-school book model).

Content Creation vs. Intellectual Property
I am a huge advocate of flushing SOPA, ProtectIP, and the congressional sponsors who refuse to learn about the consequences of their blind actions away like bad refuse. But I also teach my students about the importance of copyright and intellectual property. I teach them to give credit to sources. I proclaim the harbor of educational fair use. I help teachers envision a virtual website (or wiki or blog or eBook) that collects public domain documents in an effort to increase primary source research AND kick the textbook habit. Teachers (not just students) violate the ethics of intellectual property knowingly and unknowingly all the time. iAuthor is powerful, but where is the corresponding responsibility to ensure accuracy, responsibility, and intellectual credit.

Further, I don’t think teachers have the time and space now to effectively curate the information available on the web and elsewhere with any kind of regularity. I cringe at the idea that this will be presented as an additional expectation of teachers, particularly if it exposes them to the kind of scrutiny that our government seems all to willing to pass into law.

Creating a Nurturing Environment for Competition
I don’t think we are getting a straight answer yet (admittedly, its only been like 10 hours) about the exclusivity agreement that Apple is making people sign. It is completely reasonable that if you use the iAuthor tool, that the book goes to iBooks. I am more disturbed by the possibility that presence in the iBooks store means exclusivity from all e-book alternatives. Based on information coming out now, although still with murky wording, the exclusivity agreement is locked to the files that are created by iAuthor (even if that file is distributed, maybe, through a different channel). Thus, a publisher can still choose to create a kindle edition of the book, a KNO version of the book, etc. Whether they will want to take this extra step is going to be up to educators and parents and students. If we roll over and let the publishers and the distribution channel decide format for us, then we have to be satisfied with the result. For my part, I want competition.

I want Kno and Kindle and iBooks to all have the same book competing in this marketplace. I have been  tremendously impressed with the early tests of MBS’s Direct Digital (formerly Explana): this cross-platform (HTML5, iOS, Android) system includes single swipe highlighting, multi color, notetaking, export of notes into Word orPDF format), and offline accessibility. I love the socialization features (collaborative underlining, tweeting out passages) that Kindle introduced last year. I want to see prices drop and cross-compatibility of platforms and other distinguishing selling points. I want each publisher and distributor constantly one-upping on features and not suing each other (I can dream). I want a student who prefers to read on a 7” tablet to have that option (note: my BYOT partner @40ishoracle downloaded the environmental science book -- not even iOS exclusive...it’s iPad only).

The digital textbook market is still in its infancy (heck, ebooks are really just now toddlers). We need systems that nurture competition so that the best and the brightest ideas are allowed to compete. If we allow book-exclusivity to force the choice of technology at the school, district, or individual level, we could end up with what a single company determines is best for us.

Heck, I’m not even sure I want that corporation to be Google, and they “give” stuff away.

There has been and will be a lot written about this development. Here are two that i have found helpful:

• http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/kno-apple-fight/
• http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/19/ibooks-2-lets-authors-set-textbook-prices-in-exchange-for-apple/

A video substitute for the "shiny, pretty" - The Secret of NIMH "Sparkly" Scene

This is excellent to watch:

- when anyone complains about needing an upgraded machine for aesthetic reasons

- when you have the kids on an on-call night (love you @wishbabydoc)

- whenever someone is discussing the design features of the lower-case "i"

- when you need to talk about the bad drugs (watch the eyes)