Paradoxically, I love using my #ipad2 in BPP Law School library, Holborn.
I use my #ipad2 during my LPC, and I latterly used to use it in my MBA. The future of knowledge changing and sharing is changing. Edmund Hewson recently discussed the presentation of media for students like me on the BPP blog:
I chair our university’s publishing company. I worry as much as any manufacturer about the cost of print (a ‘non-strategic cost’), which includes holding stock, returns policies, stock write-offs, the ecological impact of paper, carbon footprints (or whatever we print people photocopy when they sit on the copier), recycling, forest stewardship, fire, glue, chiropractic or osteopathic bills (as students carry weighty tomes around on their backs) and ‘just-in-time’ production.
In fact, our company has digitised its workflow to create a seamless link between print and the type of interactive content we have been providing for some time. All our books can be bought as eBooks. With eBooks, students can create links to other digital content. They can access their entire library from anywhere near a wireless network connection. A shared eBook library can encourage collaborative learning: students can share their mark-ups and create, together, a modern palimpsest. (see Wikipedia’s definition of palimpsest, in case you don’t know what this means.)Amazon announced volume sales of ebooks exceeded paperbacks and hardbacks combined…though I suspect this referred to fiction not academic titles.
Moreover, I work for a university that is committed to:
- blended learning, with a full use of digital media
- supplying ebooks
- fully using for learning what technology has to offer.
William Rankin, Director of Educational Innovation and Associate Professor of English, Abilene Christian University presents at the LWF Festival of Learning & Technology discussing the campus wide deployment of iPads and mobile devices within the university. London, January 10th 2011. What are we to do with the modern book? Is this a technology which has outlived his shelf life? What will ‘disruptive technologies’ like ebook do for modern education.
Rankin argues that ‘digitising a text is not the same as producing a digital book’. Anyone who has ever used the Morris app for the #ipad2will definitely know that. Today, apparently, Apple is to announce a platform that might ‘destroy’ book publishing. It’s very interesting to see some preliminary thoughts on this:
Technology-in-education expert Dr. William Rankin also believes digital books will expand with tools that will enable social interactions among textbook users. Rankin, who serves as Director of Educational Innovation of Abilene Christian University and has extensively researched the use of mobile devices in the classroom, was one of three authors of a white paper on the effects of digital convergence on learning titled “Code/X,” published in 2009.
“What we really believe is important is the role of social networking in a converged learning environment,” Rankin told Ars. “We’re already seeing that in Inkling’s platform, and Kno‘s journaling feature. Future digital texts should allow students to layer all kind of other data, such as pictures, and notes, and then share that with the class or, ideally, anyone.”
Exactly how what Apple announces on Thursday will impact digital publishing isn’t certain, however.
“Think about how meaningful simply authoring and publishing to an iPad will be for K-12,” MacInnis said. “However, it might not be great for molecular biology.”
MacInnis sees Apple as possibly up-ending the traditional print publishing model for the low-end, where basic information has for many years remained locked behind high textbook prices. Apple can “kick up dust with the education market,” which could then create visibility for platforms like Inkling. This could then serve as a sort of professional Logic-type tool for interactive textbook creation complement to Apple’s “GarageBand for e-books.”
I am a huge fan of e-books, but I like the physical feel of books. It’s really exciting going to BPP Law School library where you don’t have to carry huge volumes of books, and you can just go on a pleasurable learning journey on a ‘bppstudents’ broadband connection. I think the future for law students, writing their own professional material in a spirit of collaboration, is also a good way, and very sociable in fact.
