There is a rumour that an imminent Apple event is going to concentrate on two large educational projects, a subject area that was close to the heart for Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs.

Insiders and those ‘in the know’ are reporting a strong possibility that one of these projects is based around the iTunes and iBook stores storing and providing digital textbooks, eBooks, or eTextbooks.

“MacRumors reported that Apple has filmed promotional interviews with executives from the textbook publishing industry, possibly affirming that this upcoming event will focus on digital textbooks. They noted that while these interviews have indeed been worked on, there is no confirmation that they relate to this upcoming event.”

The other big project is rumoured, by Goodreader, to put Apple in direct competition with Amazon (again) by making it easier for self-published work to be made available through the iBook store. It is recognised that content that Amazon and B&N provide with the Kindle and Nook devices make these devices enough of a threat to Apple to mean this attempt from Apple could be a way to redress the balance? Expect a handsome percentage from any book sale to go to Apple before you, the author, gets a look in though.

So, here’s your chance to say what you’d pay, or expect to pay, for a digital edition of the paper-copy. Bearing in mind the costs involved in getting a paper-copy to of a (e.g.) $30.00 textbook to the shop (based on the figures in the Guardian: ‘The true price of publishing‘) are in the region of 10% ($3.00) to print and distribute the book, how much of the remaining 90% is for the author, editor, reviewer, etc?

The poll will run until February 1st, 2012.

Image source: Elio Rojano

Update: January 11th – Several websites (including Mashable) are reporting the official news that the event will be held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on January 19th … only 1 week away. I’m sure Twitter and the tech websites will all be following it (they follow anything Apple avidly!), and so will I.

Related posts:

1. Reading “The iPad for Academics”
2. Poll – “Where do you host your academic / training videos?”
3. iPad – more resources on whether it is any good in the classroom

Well, iOS5 is here and there are stories galore doing the rounds on the Internet at the moment about the various successes and failures of the upgrade.

I waited for about a week to upgrade simply as I figured everyone else would try the first day or two after it was made available, for all the various phone and iPad devices it works on.

So, first big hurdle is having to update iTunes (again) to the recent version (10.5), which required a PC re-start – the first of how many tonight I wonder … ?

• 15 minutes so far!

 Exciting weekend entertainment … iOS5 update! #sadlife

Connecting the iPhone is always a scary proposition (an update in the past went spectacularly wrong a year or so back), especially with such a big upgrade about to happen (or not). The usual ‘accept the new T&Cs or doom yourself to always being behind the upgrade cycle’ form pops up after the re-start, then ‘it’ begins. Oh wait, I need to update some apps first, so I have to wait before I can connect the phone to start the process we’re here for …

• going on for 30+ minutes so far …

And then the message to make you quake in your boots …

iOS5 here we go (after restart) … #stillsad

iOS5 progress … #ComeOn #HurryUp

• 62 minutes after starting I’ve at least finished downloading the 774mb upgrade file(s) from Apple, now the long wait while the phone is backed up and new software installed.
• 85 minutes in and the restore begins …

So, what is the iOS5 going to give me, what are these 200+ new features (obviously not Siri, that’s the 4S phone only):

• iOS 5 for iPhone and iPad walkthrough

#restore … please!

Finally, after about 100+ minutes the phone is listed in iTunes again, and then the re-install of all the apps, photos, music, videos, etc begins … I feel a sense of achievement in getting this far without any trouble.

However, all was not well during the restore phase – the phone was not recognised after the update and I had to disconnect and reconnect it several times before it was recognised and the restore of photos, music, etc went ahead. Yes, I did a little dance when it started working again (2 hours now … and counting)!

But wait, what’s this …

Now I have no idea if the upgrade is syncing with PC or the cloud ... to stop or continue, that is the question? #stillgoing

October 22, 2011 9:10 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@hopkinsdavid

David Hopkins

OK, I adjusted the settings on the phone to sync to the PC and it finished about 3 minutes later.

So, all in all, it took 2 hours 15 minutes from start to finish .. and I’ve got to re-order my apps as there are some new ones that have forced my carefully planned apps/pages all over the place … and I’ve some new features to learn too.

Right … now for the iPod Touch and then the iPad … maybe not tonight!

 Just to keep me entertained during the upgrade, I read these posts/stories about the horrors that others had encountered when upgrading … silly me!

• iOS 5-ageddon! Warning: Do Not Upgrade Your Phone
• How to Fix the iOS 5 Update Error 3200 (Updated)
• Apple’s iOS 5 upgrade causes user problems

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I wasn’t aware of all the different labels that have been assigned in the past, but here is a brief overview (for those who are equally in the dark):

• The Lost Generation: Those who fought in World War I (born pre-1900)
• The Greatest Generation: Veterans of World War II (born 1901-1924)
• The Silent Generation: Also known as ‘War Babies’ (born 1925-1945)
• The Baby-Boomers: Those born in post-war boom and are generally attributed with(born 1946-1964)
• Generation X: (born 1960′s to early 1980′s)
• Generation Y: Also known as ‘Millennials’ or the ‘Net Generation’. This label is more about their attitude  (born between late 1970′s to early 2000′s)
• Generation Z: Also known as the ‘Internet Generation’ (born early-mid 2000′s)

From what I can see the movement from one categorisation of generation to another has been about the enlightenment of the individuals to their surrounding based on different elements of cultural and economic influences. However, I think this only applies to the earlier classifications. Once we see the eruption of technical capabilities, and our reliance on it in our every-day lives, we can see the classifications above become entwined with technical advancement. This is why I opt to use the term ‘Generation T’ for children born post 2008/9 … the ‘Tablet Generation’. As with the classifications above I would also advocate the use of  the ‘App Generation’ in reference to the way in which we are now using and talking about technology – everything is about the App, whether it is smart phones, tablet PCs, or cloud computing (Chromebook).

Here’s a good example:

YouTube: Baby Works iPad Perfectly. Amazing Must Watch!

In this video a father gives his child a tablet for the first time, just look at how quickly she learns to use the home button to exit the app and find another …

You Tube: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

There are loads of examples if you look for them, but the fact is that tablet computers are so intuitive that children of all ages can use them. Robert Thompson explains that a tablet, “with its touch interface … can help children extend their creativity using intuitive applications that allow them to color, trace letters and do simple counting exercise — the possibilities are endless.”

Please note that I am trying to stay away from identifying one tablet over any other (or even operating system) as it is the technology and how we utilise it that interests me, not brand or price (although we cannot ignore the importance that is placed on form over function and preference on iPad or Blackberry PlayBook or HP TouchPad, etc).

While the jury is out on whether tablets will replace traditional computers that use a keyboard and mouse, the children/student of the future “will still need laptops, because they’re great for doing school work and just try passing a degree without one, the same goes for many jobs” (Tablets: A backseat for creativity). This is, of course, based on the assumption that the education system will not change and we will still instruct and assess in the way we do now, which we have been doing for many decades before. But this too is changing, just look at the way in which recent Web 2.0 systems (blog, wiki, podcast, etc) have been introduced to the learning environment, and the way the students have engaged with it. If this continues then the historical framework of teach/assess will also change.

Are we ready to embrace the changes? I think we are; there are already schools around the world providing tablets for each child, game consoles are used for game-based learning, etc. While these could be viewed in isolation, don’t forget that 25/30 years ago there were only a very few schools that had a room full of computers for students to use, this is now viewed as the norm, in fact it is essential equipment.

So, how long will Generation T last? I don’t know, but I’m sure the developers at the big tech firms have already started planning for the next big ‘thing’ – but will it be a game-changer like the advert of smartphones and tablets? I welcome your input and ask you to leave a comment or thought below.

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I’ve always tried to stay away from blog posts that are platform specific but this is one that has really transformed part of my blogging time. I used to have AWStats installed on the server for Don’t Waste Your Time, but I recently had issues where a rouge process caused my hosting company to restrict access to scripts … thus turning off the blog. So, I bit the bullet and installed Google Analytics code to monitor the blog.

Mind you, saying what I just did about writing platform-specific posts … the WordPress 30 Plugins series is going well, so I haven’t done too well in staying away, have I?

I’ve used Google Analytics on other websites I maintain and host, but as I started with AWStats I wanted to continue because I had all that historical data to compare against. However, with a couple of days since I started using Analytics I am not looking back, only forwards, and, in order to monitor and investigate the usage of this blog, I looked at the different Apps that were available in the App Store.

A few of the ones available are free, but after reading the comments I decided that I’d try the £3.99 version of Analytics Pro.

So far so good – I’ve logged in and can see the different profiles and websites I’m monitoring, and can access the real-time (as real-time as Analytics gets) for each domain. Here are a few screen-shots from the stats on my blog over the past 2 days;

[View as Slideshow]

I can access all sorts of information, analyse browser specific data, platform specific data, open or restrict the date to be analysed, investigate browsing history based on location or language options, as well as any ‘goals’  or ‘e-commerce’ specified in the main Google Analytics website. I can see what traffic source my blog gets (search engine, google, Facebook, etc), top landing and exit pages … everything you expect from an app version of the website.

Just bizarre that Google haven’t done this … (or did I miss something)?

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Note: In this series I’ll delve into some of the better plugins available for WordPress that I am already using, or about to start using. I’m aiming to highlight 30 of the better plugins.

We are truly at the edge of human endeavour, as Stephen Fry puts it, and the rise of the Smart Phone like iPhone or HTC Desire is testament to this. And so is our increasing need to access email, Twitter, Facebook, etc on the move (or certainly away from our cumbersome and heavy desktop or laptops).

This is where the ‘WPTouch iPhone Theme‘ plugin is really really handy. It can transform your WordPress blog, irrespective of the template you use, into a quick and easy format for the majority of smart phone users. Don’t let the name fool you, it does work “when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini, Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm mobile devices” too, although I’ve not got these devices so obviously haven’t tested them.

I have posted on this plugin previously, but I’ll recap it here since it has been updated with features for WordPress version 3 blogs.

The admin panel allows you to customize different aspects of your blog’s appearance to deliver a version of your blog to mobile browser visitors without modifying your regular  theme. The plugin also includes the ability for your visitors to easily switch between the WPtouch view and your blog’s regular theme. The finished product … as viewed on an iPhone;

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This article, by Inside Higher Ed called ‘The iPad for Academics” is a good read, and followers neatly on from my previous posts.

I want to draw attention to the following statements, but I’m no going to say why; just that they struck a chord with me (either positively or negatively);

“The iPad represents the genuine retailization of academic content.”

“… publishers might object that piracy would be a concern, but honestly: If you’re selling content to universities that license it to tens of thousands of students living in highly-networked dorm rooms, is an app store really going to make the problem worse?”

“A key feature of the retailization of scholarly content is that it be reasonably free of digital rights management — and here academic publishing should learn from the music industry’s failed attempts to sell copy-protected music. The more open and reusable academic content is, the more reasons people will have to buy it. The great thing about PDFs is that, like MP3s, they are not copy-protected.”

“Overall by splitting the difference between dedicated devices and genuine computers, the iPad doesn’t show a lot of promise as a mobile platform for research and teaching. Of course if everyone is always carrying around an iPad already then they might start replacing voice recorders. It’s hard to tell.”

“While I can imagine some innovative pedagogic uses of the device, what academics do is still narrowly defined — and tied to institutional, political, and economic imperatives. Some imagined the Internet would cause us to rethink what it meant for a text to be coherent — and it has, to a certain extent. The academy might be too obdurate to be easily transformable.”

“Ultimately, academics need a world full of devices they can pour information in and out of. The more open and interoperable our new ecology of applications, devices, and content providers are, the more our learning will enrich human life — whether the people selling us our readers, software, and content are Apple, Amazon, or someone else entirely.”

I have also read through the current responses to the article, and there are some choice examples of people on both sides of the iPad and Apple love/hate divide. I recommend taking five minutes or so and scanning through them as there are some valid points.

If you have a iPad (yes, I’m ever so slightly jealous) and have been using it as part of your academic work, then please let me know how you find it, what apps your using, etc.

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The list of colleges and Universities signing up to iTunesU continues to grow. Since I last wrote about it – “Another Success Story (UCL)” – the likes of the OU (for those reading outside of the UK, this is The Open University) have a reported World Record as the first to reach 20 million downloads (source: Bee-It) since starting to use iTunesU in the Summer of 2008!

As reported in the Bee-It post, the OU says that;

“mobile phones are increasingly being used to download their tracks. Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University, says that the growth of the iTunesU concept reflects the changing ways that people are learning.”

Martin Bean continues by saying;

“The way people want to learn is changing. Many now actively seek out content they are interested in and which they can watch, read or listen to when it suits them. New channels are helping people to fit learning in with their lifestyles, and the OU has always kept pace with the changing world of technology.”

ReadWriteWeb report that iTunesU is “better than going to class“, but Jim Groom doesn’t think it’s going to make any difference. Jim has some good points (especially the one about “everyone is doing it”) but surely a bigger picture is that it raises the profile of the Institution and (hopefully) the quality and perception of the materials provided to enrolled students?

Personally, I would love to be involved in generating and managing an iTunesU account for the Business School; we have lectures recorded using Echo360, which are automatically created with associated MP3 and M4B iTunes Audiobook format, as well as other material recorded straight to camera tape or memory.

This is the kind of material that reflects the quality of the teaching staff in the Business School. Regarding the question of whether students like it or not, how about student work being (with appropriate permission sought and obtained) loaded that reflects the quality of student in the Business School? I haven’t seen any of that in iTunesU yet (or did I miss it?).

So do students like it? It’s difficult for me to tell as we at Bournemouth are not using it. From reading around the Internet it seems that, on the whole, yes they are, just look at the numbers above. I would like to hear about whether your students (or you, if you’re a student) like or dislike iTunesU, but please say why?

So, it’s worked for the OU … have you had any similar interest or success with your use of iTunesU, or has your Institution opted to not invest the time and effort? Please leave your comments below, or anyone of the ‘related posts’ links also shown below.

Image Source

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After hearing some pretty awful stories of the upgrade taking 2 or even 4 hours, with no end of errors and issues coming up at each stage of the upgrade I reluctantly (although with some excitement) started the upgrade procedure.

First up … check you have the latest iTunes 9.2 installed. No, then go get it (the usual way is just start up iTunes and it’ll say there’s an update ready for you).

Next up is connect your iPhone to iTunes and, on the phone screen in iTunes click the ‘check for updates’ icon (it’s best to wait until iTunes has done any back-ups or sync’ing first).

Now the fun starts. The updates will start downloading and you’re on the path to redemption (sorry, got carried away). These are the images I loaded to Twitpic during the upgrade process.

iOS4 update … updating iPhone software

iOS4 update … updating iPhone firmware

iOS4 update … restarting iPhone

iOS4 update … carrier settings update

And that was it. No problem, no issues, all my photos and notes were still available after the update, all my apps (so far) still work. It took just under 20 minutes from starting to download the upgradeed OS to the sync processing completing.

So, what does it look like?

So, how do you use these new wonderful features? I won’t bore you with the details, so I’ll let the below YouTube video do the talking for me – It’s just under 10 minutes long, but worth watching if you have iPhone;

I’ve not figured out anything on the new OS yet other than how to group icons together (touch and hold on the app you want to move, then drag it on top of another one – this forms the Group/Folder) and access open apps (double-click the ‘home’ button – mine used to access the favourite phone numbers in the phonebook).

Good luck.

Updated: I found this on Twitter after I posted the above blog entry: iOS 4 privacy policy updated - Apple can anonymously collect location data, you can take away iAds’ cookies.

“The company [Apple] can anonymously track the “real-time geographic location” of devices and is free to share that data with “partners and licensees” as well.”

You can also opt out of the iAds system, but when I tried it – you need to visit http://oo.apple.com – it didn’t work. Go figure!

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The iPad is here, and there seems to be no escaping the fact (even though it’s not in the UK yet). I wrote previously about links and resources I kept finding in a previous post – iPad, is it any good for the classroom or learning – at the beginning of April.

Here we are at the beginning of May and people are writing about it with more authority as they are actually using and trying it out. Here are a few I’ve found useful and think you might too.

Jodi Harrison; iPad on Campus:

“Within higher education, there are a variety of aspirations, expectations, skills, and abilities. The iPad will be helpful to some, and to others it won’t make the slightest difference. By focusing on what we do with technology, instead of the technology itself, we put our institutions in the best possible position to increase the value of what we provide to our students.”

Scott Weidig; Love your feedback – The iPad for English Language Learners:

“The overriding objective in providing the iPad, as opposed to a different computing platform, is to provide ELL [English Language Learners] students with current technology that will allow them to access thousands of learning applications. This access will positively impact their English language acquisition in ways that would not be afforded to them on conventional computing devices.”

Lauren Barak;  Educators weigh the pros and cons of the Apple device:

“But ordering the devices for every classroom? That’s not on the immediate agenda. Knowing that applications are still being developed—with just 310 educational ones available on a recent check of the iTunes store—[Beth] Knittle says it’s critical to try the devices on a smaller scale before committing to larger integration.”

Miss Signal; iPad in Education:

“For a piece of technology that has created such a buzz through the world and the education sector it has been interesting to read through many articles and see the difference of opinions that are circulating about the iPad. The key to this conversation though is the students – it will be about what students think about iPad in comparison to the technology they already have access to in our classrooms.”

DigMo; The iPad in your classroom:

“As a parent I see the iPad as the perfect solution for my own children. An affordable alternative to buying a laptop and a media player coupled with excellent parental controls it seems to make perfect sense.”

Nick Provenzano; The iTouch and iPad in the classroom:

“As teachers, our job is to make the information as accessible to the students. The information is out there and the students can get it without us if they really want to. We need to teach them how to find the information and the true capabilities of the devices the have. It will always be tough for teachers to learn and manage new technology in the classroom, but this movement toward free flowing, social networking, global education is not going to go away. The iPad and the iTouch could be used to knock down walls and introduce our students to a world they would never see otherwise.”

Nick Provenzano; The iPad in my classroom:

“I feel confident that I could run my classes effectively and have even more students engaged in learning if I had a full set of these in the room. I would no longer be chained to the computer lab sign up sheet. My lessons would be able to flow freely to my students and back to me without all of the walls that separate the free flow of information.”

iPad in the Classroom: First Impressions of iPad in Schools:

“My 5 year old picks the device up, navigates to an app he’s familiar with, and begins to play.  This bodes well for younger students who often spend a great deal of time learning what a mouse is, how to log in, how to open a program, and so on.  More time learning actual content is always a good thing.”

If you have any experience of using it, and even getting students working on an iPad, then please share and share alike.

Related posts:

1. iPad – is it any good for the classroom or learning?
2. Reading “The iPad for Academics”
3. Games in the Classroom … are you sure?

Last year I left my 4gb USB stick in the socket of a PC that was sat on the floor (I know, silly me, but I was in the middle of a presentation). As I walked past I clipped the stick and bent the ‘sticky-out’ bit right back … damn!

The case broke and my heart sank – I use that for work and personal files to transport them between work and home (and friends, etc). I got home and was about to drop it in the bin when I thought I’d plug it in and see if it still worked. It did!

I taped the case back up, bent it straight again, and have been using it regularly since then. Until last week when something broke. And that was that (I’d expected it for a while so I’ve been using my iPod and iPhone for data back-up of the really important stuff).

So, instead of buying another I looked at online storage solutions and came across Dropbox. The free account gives you 2gb of online, secure storage (which you can get an additional 250mb for if you follow the simple steps during install and setup).

So now I have an online storage solution, available on work and home PCs, and on the iPhone (although I really only use this option to review files, other mobile devices are coming soon), and I can easily share and store files or folders with colleagues, friends, etc.

Here is a presentation I’ve put together on how to install and use it.

Dropbox – Save to the Cloud

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