Classrooms without Textbooks!!

When are the classrooms going to be all digital! That would have been a naive question even a while back, when it would have been in the realm of the science fiction. But not any more. just look at the proliferation of the ereaders! That is able to give you an equivalent experience to book reading. So if the contents that are similar in quality come cheaper then the choice would swing to the readers. text books already cost quite a lot, anywhere from $50 to $100 or more. EBooks on the other hand costs much less. This year for the first time on-line sales of eBooks have exceeded the on=line sale of printed books! So, digital media is certainly coming.

Then there are the tablets with book reading apps on them. These have the potential of a lot of value add compared to a printed book. Just consider one aspect, the illustrations! In the printed books they are static and takes a while to derive complete meaning out of a chart or a graph or interdependence of events indicated on the illustrations. Not so on the tablets, the illustrations are live, in color and could be animated to show any dependencies easily. Then if you consider the dimension video can add to the learning experience, then it is not difficult to guess which way the future textbooks should go.

It is heartening to see MLTI (Maine’s Learning Technology Initiative) being taken up for schools i the state of Maine in the US towards this goal. Let's watch what they are up to!

Sanford schools on verge of new tech revolution - Keep Me Current: News

What is a Text Book is Evolving Right Before Our Eyes!

What is going to be the form of the books, text books in particular! That some form of electronic reading will take over is almost certain. Is the ereader device going to win or the tablet computer ? That is not clear at the moment. The eReader  completely copies the printed book reading experience. That, to my mind, is a faulty approach. With a new approach we need not follow something existing! Multi media experience in imparting knowledge has been hyped about for a longtime. I can easily agree with that. Somebody reading about a Cheetah, can definitely gain from the sound recording of its roar/call and nothing will establish the fact that it is the fastest animal by a video clip.


There is no way a ereader can incorporate the multi-media data into a book. Even illustrations, which often best done as an animated piece can never be included in a eReader. In the present avatar, even color cannot be presented. Tablets can tackle all those issues very easily. besides it can be your link to the Internet and run you productivity applications too. It has to win in the long run. the eReader too will co-exist for those situations where you want to curl up with a book like item!

iPAD Vs. Other eReaders

I have written on this before. There's iPad on one side which not only can read books but let you view video and play games, surf Internet etc. etc. The reader only eReaders as simply trying to duplicate the book reading experience for us. The eInk interface tries to emulate the printed words on a white page kind of feel for the reader. By itself these are nice devices. They not only emulate the book reading experience but also let you carry a slection of books with you and depending on what model it is; it'll let you buy books from a store too.That is an attractive concept by itself except that it has come about at this point in time.

What is happening with the mobile devices, Internet connectivity and laptop/ netbook kind of devices is that there is a push for convergence. People seem to pushing for a device that can give us phone connectivity, Internet connectivity, email and office productivity on the go and so on. It's great if we can have these in one device! These typically would be able to let you read books too. So what if that reading experience is slightly different from reading a paperback! What if the screen glows back at you, what about the convenience of touch screen! What about the convenience of all these functionality compared to just a replacement for current paperbacks!
 I am pretty sure the combine device would win. What exact form it'll take could be debatable but who would want to carry an additional eReader when the device you are carrying can let you read the book you want! You reading habits would need a little change, but that's been changing a lot recently anyway!

Product Boundaries Blurring

In those earlier time products used to be very distinct. A TV was a TV, a PC was a coputer you used for computing and Internet use. A laptop was a laptop you lugged around when you hit the road and a cellphone was a phone you carried with you wherever you go!

Then things started getting complex. Cell phones started eveolving and email, net surfing became fairly common. A FM radio receiver, a digital camera, a music player are all sort of expected in a phone. What adds a new dimension is the capability to uncompress and play HD video on phone( see, TI OMAP 3430 Processor Handles Video For Smartphones). That takes a lot of processor power. It is also a short step to tag on some general computing tasks, run some applications. That's happening. In fact iPhone hyas a store dedicated to applications running on it.

Laptop meanwhile eveolved into netbooks. Smaller displays, less capabale processors, less power consumption and of course less costly applicaes came on the scene. This is the netbook category and being driven by the likes of Intel Atom processor. Can we not have a device then that is like a netbook and gives me the phone capability! Will it be any different than the smartphones! People have started promoting a category called smartbooks that fill this niche. So what is this device going to be like, going to eveolve into finally!

My own thoughts are it will be really nice to have a netbook, a little smaller, thinner format that is like a comuter, net surfer, a mobile phone of course. Otherwise it does not make sense to carry a phone, a netbook and such other multiplicity of devices. Ideally I should be able to carry one device and be able to take care of everything that we need to do on the road!