 |
Dear Teachers,
I'm always a little skeptical when a company claims they are going to disrupt and transform education. This past week, Apple made a hype-filled splash with its iBooks 2, iBooks Author and iTunes U announcement to the news media. What makes it especially difficult for Apple to live up to the hype is that their effort revolves around, um, textbooks.
On my new Twitter account (hint, hint... you can follow me @TpTFounder) I tweeted, "Every time teachers try to get away from textbooks, they pull us back in!" playing off the famous Godfather 3 line. I mean, haven't we been moving away from textbook teaching and learning for a long time now? No one wants to be that teacher who sticks to the text, even one with fancy 3D images you can pinch and twist. In the end, it's still just content. It's what a teacher does with content that really counts!
The other problem with Apple's claim of transformation is that they have created a closed ecosystem. I don't mind this when it comes to my music or my apps, but in education, it's different: open is better than closed. (<--VentureBeat article that I was quoted in, the first time a reporter asked me for my opinion!) In Apple's world every student will have an iPad. Yet iPads are really expensive! In Apple's world schools will pay $15 per year/per student for each textbook they download. In fact, that's about the same amount of money schools spend today on textbooks (they buy one school set and then typically use them for 5 years with hundreds of students). So other than having more engaging content that can be updated much more quickly (and there is a lot to be said for both of these benefits, that is, if everyone has an iPad), this will end up being more rather than less expensive. And it still doesn't change very much.
In the end, technology can't transform education, it can only be used as a tool by great teachers to enhance it. Steve Jobs himself once said, "I'm absolutely convinced that [technology] is by no means the most important thing. The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can." And that's the way it will always be with or without digitized textbooks.
Teach and be well,
Paul Edelman
Founder, TeachersPayTeachers
|
|
|
TpT SPOTLIGHT
What are you planning to cover this year for Black History Month? To help you along, Learning Foundations is out with a free product called Black History Month Ideas. Check it out.
For those who keep track of the Technology Blog space, you may have heard that Sarah Lacy, a former star at TechCrunch (the most prominent tech blog) has started her own tech blog this week called Pando Daily, backed by Michael Arrington who founded TechCrunch. One of their first exclusives was about TpT! It's a pretty sweet story; you can check it out here and maybe leave a comment (wink).
Canadians have become a huge part of TpT. We love you guys! Here is a nice product by Canadian seller MiddleSchoolTeacher called Paper Bag Book Report: Use with any novel or short story. It's for, you guessed it, middle schoolers and costs $4.99.
Love (and like) is in the air! Valentine's Day is approaching. To get your planning started, here is a freebie from Erin Wing of Washington State called Valentines: Silly Homophones & Flying Friends. It's for grades 2-4.
 [Repeating this one more time] Thinking about getting started on TpT or need a little primer on how to boost traffic to your content? We commissioned Charity Preston to prepare a mini video course on the subject. There are 10 videos you can watch at your leisure that we know you will find useful. Thanks Charity!
|
|
|
