It’s kind of a misleading headline because I think this IHE article, “Minor Bumps for iPad,” is largely positive about the newest Apple tablet computer big iTouch device/e-reader/toy. Here’s an interesting quote about iPads on college campuses:
The new data come as some colleges are seeding their campuses with iPads. North Carolina State University is loaning iPads to students through its library, the University of Maryland at College Park is planning to give iPads to students in its Digital Cultures and Creativity program, George Fox University has announced it will offer iPads to first-year students in the fall as an alternative to its laptop giveaway, and Seton Hill University says it will give all its students free iPads.
Meanwhile, others are discouraging students from using the devices on campus. Three high-profile institutions have already reported compatibility problems between the new gadget and their campuses’ wireless networks: Cornell University is worried that it does not have the bandwidth to support too many iPads; George Washington University says its network will not let in iPads because its security system cannot authenticate the devices; and Princeton University has warned its students that attempting to use campus wireless with iPads could create network problems, which would prompt I.T. officials to block the offending machines.
Personally, I am cautiously optimistic about the future of tablet eReader devices like the iPad and the competitors that are certainly going to be on the market soon. Students won’t and shouldn’t buy an iPad instead of laptop, and I personally would still like to see a “laptop requirement” of some sort at EMU. But if these devices catch on as textbook readers and if the textbook business builds its products so they are cross-platform, then students might stop buying 100 pounds of textbooks every year.
These are two big “if”s though. The textbook biz is going to have to change its business model in ways that they might not be comfortable about, and the cross-platform thing could be an issue. If the textbook for a student’s math class is only available on the iPad and the textbook for that same student’s English class is only available on the forthcoming Google tablet reader, then that student (and just about every other one) will rebel and/or not buy one textbook or the other. But if these eBooks and their functionality are cross-platform, then that could have big change on how students read, how teachers teach, and how stores sell (or don’t) books.
The computer game industry faced a similar multi-platform problem. Infocom managed to solve the problem by designing all its games for a virtual machine, and then re-building that virtual machine for every computer. Of course, it had to go for the lowest common denominator in graphics, but that was OK because Infocom specialized in text adventure games. I don’t mean to say we will play text adventure games instead of read texbooks, but perhaps students would be able to read the text on any gadget, but the interactive parts could be a separate app or a password-protected website, integrated with the text. My point is that there are creative ways to solve the multi-gaget issues. Of course, Apple’s recent announcement that no apps will be approved unless they were developed with Apple’s own tools will make that kind of universal programming harder to achieve.
By the way, EMUTalk regulars: Dennis teaches at Seton Hill, the university I posted about a while ago that is rolling out an iPad program next fall.
Steven Johnson suggested at least one more minor? temporary? “bump” for the iPad in his Hearst New Media lecture “The Glass Box And The Commonplace Book.” Obviously the device is in its infancy, but Johnson explains that a few important applications don’t (as of yet) support copy/paste sampling:
At face value, this “uncopyable, unlinkable” quality enforces a troublesome separation between the reading experience and the web as a textual network. On the other hand, assuming the “beautiful ice sculpture” of text is a flaw or oversight rather than a designed feature, it should be an easy fix–one worth watching for at the very least.