becoming more like mobile phones. Many people will like that, given that
there is nostalgia for landline phones because of their simplicity and
durability. (The black rotary in my parents home has been working about as
long as I've been alive.)
If we move into a realm where more of our users (faculty and students) use
their own computer hardware for school work, then the more reliable it is
the better. Even the lack of multitasking could be a benefit, since it
prevents users from overloading system resources with a pile of background
widgets.
Maybe the biggest lost is a definite shift from laptops being creative tools
to iPads being information access tools. I've already seen that with
iPhones-- why carry a laptop when you can do email, calendars, contacts with
the phone. It's not that iPads can't create content, but...
I think we're going to lose a lot of related to computing becomes a sealed
environment, and you toss it if it stops working (like a mobile phone). At
the same time, it will make computers boring in a technical way, which
Shirky believes is the key for them becoming socially interesting (and
transformative).
So it goes.
Jim Heynderickx
Director of Technology
American School in London
On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 8:29 PM, Backon, Joel <jbackon@choate.edu> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> I have to admit I found the blog provided by Fred to be a breath of fresh
> air. Imagine that I was once a techno-geek, who read equipment specs before
> product applications. As I read your blog, I tried to imagine that post
> being a conversation with Steve Jobs, and how he would respond. First of
> all, he would say this is Version 1 of the iPad, and thus it is only a first
> step at addressing a new platform for the "consumer" marketplace. Second, he
> would point out you repeatedly use the word "computer" to describe this new
> device. I think Steve would say it is not a computer; it is an iPad. He has
> already gone on record saying that Netbooks are "crap" so we know what he
> thinks about that segment of the market. As we read in the MacWorld post,
> there is a certain elegance to a device that can do one thing at a time very
> well. Since none of us has an iPad yet, it is premature to conclude that it
> does anything very well, but I suspect that the display of images and video
> will be outstanding. I do have some criticisms of the iPad, the greatest one
> being a technical issue, but driven by an educational issue. The iPad
> browser does not support Flash, the source of much of our rich web content.
> As I have been intrigued by the Concord Consortium's Deeply Digital Text
> project, I had thought the iPad would be the ideal tool for an eTextbook
> reader that supported embedded rich media within the text. Alas, that will
> not be a possibility unless some changes are made in future versions of the
> iPad. Bottom line: I think the iPad does what it was designed to do, and I
> think consumers will be waiting on long lines at Apple Stores when this
> thing appears in March. I'm just disappointed that it is not better suited
> for the educational applications of the future, at least in its first
> incarnation.
>
> Joel
>
>
> --
> Joel Backon
> Director of Academic Technology / History
> Choate Rosemary Hall
> 333 Christian St.
> Wallingford, CT 06492
> 203-697-2514
>
> On Jan 30, 2010, at 2:30 PM, Bigenho, Chris wrote:
>
> > I have documented my thoughts about the new iPad at
> http://bigenhoc.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/ipad-brilliant-marketing%E2%80%A6huge-miss/
> >
> > What are yout thoughts?
> >
> > Chris Bigenho
> >
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> [ For info on ISED-L see https://www.gds.org/podium/default.aspx?t=128874]
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