It’s all about the UI. The product is the UI. All these mantras boil it down to one thing. The book is still better than the screen because it has a better UI. Until today. The UI of the iPad gets us over that tipping point. The UI of the iPad will allow a student to be in collaborating with a peer in Grockit one second, in their full color, full page text book, the next second, and on the internet surfing for a information to go with the textbook info they are about to share with their classmate in Grockit. All on the iPad because it will be easy and fruitful to spend your time and interaction-actions with that sort of UI.
1. Price – It’s $599 retail which means Apple can probably already sell it into schools for $299-$399 and in a couple years there should be a $199 version. This is significant. We are talking about 65M K-12 students at $199 so about $12B. They don’t need the 60GB version and they don’t need 3G. Sound crazy to spend $12B outfitting each kid in the country with a device with a UI like the iPad? Not at all. It would single handedly advance education as much as the chalkboard.
2. Touchscreen- Compare the touchscreen of the iPad to a mouse on a regular screen. If you’re learning spatial concepts in Math or any subject, being able to manipulate the object with your hands should make it more intuitive and easier to grasp than manipulating it with a mouse. Imagine highlighting. One of the distinct UI advantages about books is that you can annotate them. Annotating with writing or even highlighting with a mouse is cumbersome. Annotating with an iPad seems like it should be pretty easy and intuitive as well as giving you the additional and awesome bonus of things like searching for just areas you’ve highlighted.
3. Screen Size – There is an old saying that ‘quantity affects quality’. Well that couldn’t be more true here. The iPad is a really big iPhone and that actually fundamentally changes the equation. The interaction I described above about annotating a text book is not possible on an iPhone. Well, technically you CAN highlight with your finger in your iPhone Kindle App but that is specifically not like annotating in your textbook because the Kindle on your iPhone looks nothing like your textbook and the iPad totally does look like your textbook. Screen size also lets you work easily in an app like Grockit which, like a textbook, is fundamentally different with more real estate. And finally, we all know that we loved books with pictures the most when we were in School even the images in textbooks. Making those images come alive and serve as a real learning medium is all about screen size and resolution.
4. Apps – Because the App Store already has hundreds, if not thousands, of apps that are either directly about learning or a useful reference when learning or studying, the iPad is essentially a product that is launching, from day one, with hundreds if not thousands of useful apps for learning. Again, the ones that have text, images or video become even that much more useful because of the screen-size.
5. iBook – Books are still a primary mode of learning in many many learning environments and being able to interact with them in similar and even some better ways than you can with a real book is either here with the iPad or so close that I’m finally convinced it’s happening.
Anyways, I’m pretty pumped to get one and we’re pretty pumped to build Grockit as an app in the iPad to do our part to help with the revolutionizing of education part.
It’s all about the User Interface (UI). The product is the UI. These mantras boil it down to one thing. The book is still better than the screen because it has a better UI…until today. The UI of the iPad gets us over that tipping point. The UI of the iPad will allow a student to be collaborating in Grockit in one second, in a full color page textbook the next second, and then on the internet surfing for info they are about to share with their classmate in Grockit. All this on the iPad because it will be easy and fruitful to spend your time with that sort of UI. Here are five reasons why the iPad will revolutionize education:
1. Price – It’s $499 retail which means Apple can probably already sell it into schools for $299-$399 and in a couple years there should be a $199 version. This is significant. We are talking about 65M K-12 students at $199 so about $12B. They don’t need the 60GB version and they don’t need 3G. Sound crazy to spend $12B outfitting each kid in the country with a device with a UI like the iPad? Not at all. It would single handedly advance education as much as the chalkboard.
2. Touchscreen- Compare the touchscreen of the iPad to a mouse on a regular screen. If you’re learning spatial concepts in Math or any subject, being able to manipulate the object with your hands should make it more intuitive and easier to grasp than manipulating it with a mouse. Imagine highlighting. One of the distinct UI advantages about books is that you can annotate them. Annotating with writing or even highlighting with a mouse is cumbersome. Annotating with an iPad seems like it should be pretty easy and intuitive as well as giving you the additional and awesome bonus of things like searching for just areas you’ve highlighted.
3. Screen Size – There is an old saying that ‘quantity affects quality’. Well that couldn’t be more true here. The iPad is a really big iPhone and that actually fundamentally changes the equation. The interaction I described above about annotating a text book is not possible on an iPhone. Well, technically you CAN highlight with your finger in your iPhone Kindle App but that is specifically not like annotating in your textbook because the Kindle on your iPhone looks nothing like your textbook and the iPad totally does look like your textbook. Screen size also lets you work easily in an app like Grockit which, like a textbook, is fundamentally different with more real estate. And finally, we all know that we loved books with pictures the most when we were in school, even the images in textbooks. Making those images come alive and serve as a real learning medium is all about screen size and resolution.
4. Apps – Because the App Store already has hundreds, if not thousands, of apps that are either directly about learning or a useful reference when learning or studying, the iPad is essentially a product that is launching, from day one, with hundreds if not thousands of useful apps for learning. Again, the ones that have text, images or video become even that much more useful because of the screen-size.
5. iBook – Books are still a primary mode of learning in many learning environments and being able to interact with them in similar and even some better ways than you can with a real book is either here with the iPad or so close that I’m finally convinced it’s happening.
Anyway, I’m pretty pumped to get one and we’re very pumped to build Grockit as an app in the iPad to do our part to help with the revolutionizing of education.
Retail’s $499 (start) actually.
[...] 5 Reasons to wait for iPad 2.0 vs. 5 Reasons the iPad will revolutionize education [...]
I don’t see this device revolutionizing anything, anytime soon, unless it gets Flash support, an OS capable of multitasking, and a camera. Version 2.0 of this device may well change the game in education. The one announced yesterday is just a beta.
Interesting thoughts and I agree with the premise. But in my opinion, not sure if the hundreds of thousands of apps is an advantage. I am a designer and someone who is very interested in the field of education, specifically in designing in the developing world and I do believe that the iPad might succeed where the OLPC failed. Funnily enough, one was made specifically for the developing and under-developed countries while the more consumerist product might succeed there!
In my opinion, I believe what is required is a more constrained approach. For example, the proliferation of apps is just pure junk and noise and will spoil the experience, if the purpose is education. Distractions, stumbling around and making discoveries are definitely part of learning but the entire ecosystem must be designed that way. For example, grockit, Knewton, Inkling etc coupled with MIT lectures, Feynman lectures, podcasts etc will be an invaluable resource. But suppose you had thousands of podcasts on similar topics by different people, you might be confusing students as to which one to study. A loose map is required to ensure consistent learning and progress. I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts and if/why mine are flawed
I think, as a college student, that this is not as big a draw for me as you make it seem. You said:
“The UI of the iPad will allow a student to be collaborating in Grockit in one second, in a full color page textbook the next second, and then on the internet surfing for info they are about to share with their classmate”
But this will really be quite difficult when the iPad doesn’t support multiple apps running at the same time. It will be a pain to be unable to, say, keep a web page open and loaded while reading a book or using your service.
I don’t believe that the iPad will change education at all.