iBooks textbooks for iPad: A load off kids’ backs and onto IT’s
Posted by: Alex Barrett
Apple, Google, iPad
As a mother, news of Apple’s iBooks textbooks for iPad is a weight off my shoulders — and my kid’s.
My son is in middle school, and while a lot has changed since I was in eighth grade, one thing I can relate to is his backpack. Every morning, the poor kid walks to school with an extra-large L.L. Bean backpack slung over his shoulder, filled to the brim with textbooks, folders, lunch and gym clothes that combined must weigh a good 25 pounds. Textbooks must make up at least half of that. School administrators encourage kids to leave unneeded textbooks in their lockers, but with only five minutes between classes, that never happens. At night, my son lugs all his textbooks home again to do his homework.
Meanwhile, he complains about a sore neck and shoulders, and the nurse sends home a note every year about early signs of scoliosis. Not a good scene.
For years, Apple has tried to corner the education market, flooding schools with glowing iMacs and offering parents steep discounts on desktops and laptops. The hope was that students raised on a diet of Apple products would grow up in to Apple-using adults. I, for one, was never tempted, because the Mac’s ease-of-use argument was never compelling enough to make up for the cost differential with a regular Windows PC.
The iPad value proposition is different. It has ease of use as well as ease of portability. With price points in the hundreds of dollars, not thousands, tablets could emerge as a relatively affordable educational tool that parents can feel good about giving their kids.
What iBooks textbooks for iPad mean for IT
As an enterprise IT journalist, the prospect of teenagers with iPads raises a larger question: that of an emerging workforce that is more familiar with tablets and touchscreens than they are with desktops and mice; better versed in iOS than in Windows; more comfortable texting than sending an email. In a few short years, the target audience for iBooks textbooks for iPad will start entering the workforce, and it makes you wonder: How will those young adults fit into the traditional workplace, dominated by Windows PCs?
I already hear the beginnings of this shift at home. The other day my son looked over at me typing away on a Word document and asked, “Mom, why does your company still use Microsoft Office?” When I asked him what he meant and what we should be using, he suggested Google Docs.
“It’s so much more convenient for sharing,” he said. I reluctantly had to admit that attaching and emailing documents around in Exchange and using the Track Changes feature doesn’t really constitute “convenient.”
Speaking of Exchange, I can’t help but notice that teenagers don’t get email anymore (except from their moms). They text, they Facebook, they chat, but they don’t email. (Come to think of it, with their headphones on, they don’t really talk anymore, either.)
These changes in communication styles will also become an issue when the next generation enters the workforce. And in 2020, when my son graduates from college, it will be up to the IT managers at his first job to answer his “why does the company still use Microsoft?” question.
Comment
RSS Feed
Email a friend
