Disruptive as wikipedia, napster, web 2.0, amazon…
So, after a week or two of playing with iBook Author and WoW.
A couple years ago, Apple came out with the iPod Touch. I knew when I saw the potential of that device to change how I think about education and gaming. We turned the iPod Touch into a podcasting consumption device. Figured out (not easy back then) how to do screen capture videos, distribute to the Touches. Kids used the videos mostly for remediation.
Fast forward to today.
iBook Author came out a short bit ago. This, this has the power to turn education on its head, disrupt systems like iTunes did to the music industry and put development power into those closest to the students – the teacher. As I’m seeing our near future, the teacher as publisher is going to disrupt a publishing industry that currently creates for Texas and California. Remember the encyclopedia’s we used to have? Textbooks are going to be collectively created by those who teach from them. My kids are going to look at textbooks the same way.
Tomorrow. We grab a little textbook content from CK12.org, add/change/improve to fit our standards – or instructional strategies. Look around the desk, and come across those screen capture videos. Combine some formative assessment questions with images, video and we have a powerful textbook that matches what I do in my classroom. I change it up every year, add where there were holes and where the kids struggled last year.
I did all this anyways, only the time the kids got to see most of it was in class, during “lecture”. My district paid big money for the textbook that I grabbed my problems sets from (about 15% of a high school math book was used). Now they are going to pay me to write the book that makes the most sense for the kids in my classes. We’ll share the book, because that’s what is going to make it better.
iBook Author & the iPad is going to turn all of THAT on its head.
Tomorrow we’ll gather up this content, plug it into iTunes U, publish the videos so the teacher who teaches 4 preps can use mine. The kids will download our book, videos, formative assessments, review tools, extra problem sets and come to class having watched my lecture. Ready to work in small groups on extending the learning to real life problems, video chatting with people in the industry who are working on bigger versions of the same problem types. BAM. Extending and remediation becomes really easy.
Teaching is going to be even more fun than it is today. We’ll also attract smarter people. Guess what, I want smart teachers in the classrooms of my children, so that makes me smile. Rant over.
