Last week Apple introduced several new things related to education including iBooks textbooks, iBooks Author, and iTunes U (for all entities, not just colleges).
All of these are significant, and the potential for these tools is exciting. The video they presented (7:21) at their event does a good job of illustrating why what they are doing is important to them and for students and teachers. Something one of the educators they interviewed said stuck with me:
There is no reason today to assume that kids have to use the same tools they did in 1950; in fact, to do so is to prepare them for a world that’s already passed.
Six decades is obvious, but I would say tools one decade old are easily too far behind. To not take advantage of the newest tools possible is to leave kids behind, in part because it affords new ways of engaging, interacting, and ultimately learning. If you do any kind of work that deals remotely with using computers, it is imperative that you know how to stay current. What is cutting edge today will be commonplace five years from now (remember, the iPhone was introduced in 2007, and the iPad in 2010).
To me, part of learning is being able to take new things — information, tools, people, ideas — and integrate them into your life or work. To allow students to use technology that is outdated is to set them up for failure down the road. It’s possible that Apple will actually alleviate some of this by continuing to make iDevices ever easier to use, but they will keep changing. Students must be prepared by being used to the pace of change.
Technology plays a more important part in our lives every day and this is a trend that will only continue, even accelerate. A child entering kindergarten today has never known a world without iPhones in it. High school freshmen do not remember the introduction of the iPod. These are not novelties or marvels to them, they are simply a thread in the fabric of modern life. To pretend otherwise is to do them a disservice.
