How Apple is sabotaging an open standard for digital books

A more technical analysis of what is wrong with iBooks Author and iBooks 2

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-apple-is-sabotaging-an-open-standard-for-digital-books/4378

Do we want textbooks to live in Apple’s walled garden?

There has been a lot of hype around Apple's new ebook publishing app and the new iBooks2 but as this article show, there are good reasons to be cautious.

http://gigaom.com/2012/01/19/do-we-want-textbooks-to-live-in-apples-walled-garden/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+OmMalik+(GigaOM:+Tech)

Motivation, Engagement and Competence in the Digital Information Environment

David White and his colleagues at Oxford University are doing some interesting research that parallels what we have been doing in our Digital Learners in Higher Education project. Like us, they are finding there is much more to how learners are engaging with digital technologies and digital information than age and technology. This interview provides an overview of their findings to date and explains the digital visitors and residents framework that is guiding their research.

Skylight microscope attachment has immediate classroom benefits

Skylight is a neat microscope attachment device that enables smartphones to display what is normally seen through the lens of the microscope. It is an adjustable plastic gadget that sits over the microscope's objective lens and displays the image using the smartphone's camera.

The device has some interesting disruptive potential in the medical sector because many of the visualization devices used by researchers and physicians can cost thousands or tens-of-thousands of dollars. Skylight will sell for about $60.

Besides being able to see the image more readily, one unanticipated benefit noticed in classrooms has been the ability for several students to view the image all at the same time. The image can be sent to a project for all to see and if there is a need for additional analysis, smartphones also have the ability to take photos and record video. This, coupled with the ability to send these files via email or text message, appears to have tremendous potential.

Skylight co-designer, Andrew Miller says, [it] makes microscopes a bit more exciting. "Younger people, who are used to always being with their phones, can interact with old technology in a new way...".

The following video is a bit of a marketing piece, but it demonstrates the simplicity of the device well.

Read more about Skylight's potential impact at Mashable.com.

The Myth of Learning Styles

Here's an excellent critique of "learning styles". Steve Wheeler writes;
"One of the biggest myths known to teacherdom is learning styles. Time and time again, the belief that students can be placed into specific categories such as activist or theorist, or that they are predominantly inclined toward one modal category of learning (e.g. visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) is inserted into professional conversations as if the theories are fact. And time and again, such beliefs are the justification for placing students into a specific style of learning so that a class can be 'managed' more effectively. Such categorisation of students is an absolute nonsense and the practice of doing so should be challenged strongly. It is lazy pedagogy, and the only reason I see that such beliefs persist, is that it is a convenient untruth which allows some teachers to stay within their comfort zones."
Read the full article.

E-learning is More than Technology

All too often when we start to use learning technologies we simply add them on to our current teaching approaches. This is costly and often ineffective.  One of the keys to the effective use of learning technologies is to integrate them into our teaching. This means rethinking  teaching approaches and re-designing courses so that technologies and modes and delivery are used appropriately to complement each other. This is called e-learning.

Here's an example of how one instructor did this by using technology to eliminate the lecture from his classroom. Mike Garver, a marketing professor at Central Michigan University, uses lecture-capture technology to record his lectures. He then edits them into 5-29 minute chunks and asks students to watch them before class. He uses the class time for interactive and collaborative activities:

At the beginning of each class, Garver uses classroom clickers to quiz students on the concepts covered in the previous night’s lectures. For the rest of the class period, Garver typically divides the students into teams and asks them to apply those concepts to specific use cases. “What we can focus on is the upper end of Bloom’s Taxonomy,” he says — that is, hands-on learning."

But this going far enough though? The technology is being used essentially to replicate the lecture, although by editing the lectures the content is made more accessible. But is lecturing, regardless of whether it is live or recorded, the most effective way of delivering content? Also, by requiring students to listen or watch the lectures before class, and then using the class time for other activities, isn't the workload for both the instructor and students increased? Still, this is better than simply recording the lectures live and making them available for later use by students.