Apple’s textbook disruption a bit of a dud? Where’s the pedagogy?

Apple promised a major announcement yesterday having to do with textbooks. Turns out that what they were so excited about was their new version of the iBooks application for the iPad and a new Mac application for creating “interactive textbooks”. No surprise there; this was what the rumor mills had figured out long ago. The intention of all this is to make the iPad a viable, and even preferred, platform for a whole new type of textbook – the textbook that is a tool and engages the student in a range of activities etc. etc. And it all sounds so very exciting! I’ve had a chance now to play around with Apple’s new iBooks app and the iBook Author application and am sadly underwhelmed. I’m not the only one. The education blogs, op-eds, etc., are ablaze today with reactions to Apple’s “bold” move. Most of the complaints that I’ve seen focus on the iPad requirement and general economic implications; i.e. the kids who really need iPads can’t afford them, ties with big textbook publishing firms, etc. – all hurdles that are easily overcome where there’s a real will to do something. I’ll leave that discussion to others. The bigger problem that I see here is that what Apple has served up (I’m mostly talking about the iBook Author app) is didactically and pedagogically uninteresting and ill-suited to learners’ educational needs in contemporary and future society.

The exciting thing about using highly mobile information and communication (ICT) devices, like smartphones, tablets, etc., for education is that it obviates the concept of the “classroom”. Mobile devices suggest an experiential approach to learning because there’s nothing to stop learners from taking their resources (i.e. their device) and situating themselves in contexts that relate to what they are learning. A truly interactive textbook that relies on a mobile device would seize on that opportunity, right? So, does the iPad, as a platform for interactive textbooks, achieve that? To tell the truth, it could (creative minds can always make technology do what they want it to do); but, as is, it doesn’t nearly as well as it could or should.

One of the immediate things that I noticed when exploring the iBook Author app is that the interactive features that it allows are very limited. You can put links in the text, use various sorts of media, and questions that users respond to. But, here are some serious limitations:

• You can’t put a link into a question that users are intended to respond to. One of my first thoughts was that I could, for example, put a link to Google Maps coordinates and ask users to go to that spot and answer the question based on what they find there. Cool! But, no; can’t do that.
• As far as I can tell, questions are multiple choice only! How about enabling some reflective response? Nope; can’t do that.
• Wouldn’t it be cool to embed some social interaction in my interactive textbook? Nope; can’t do that.

All I see in Apple’s new offering is, basically, the ability to create textbooks with buttons to push. So I’ll say again, I am seriously underwhelmed. What I would’ve liked to see is the ability to generate experiential activities that integrate with the textbook, the ability to embed and center social interaction in and around the textbook, the ability for learners to create a personalized resource that documents and maps their learning through interaction with the textbook. These are critical aspects of contemporary informal learning environments that formal education can benefit from greatly. I don’t think that it would’ve been overly problematic to enable such features in the iBook Author application. With those kinds of features the announcement could’ve heralded a seriously disruptive technology. Perhaps we’ll see them in future versions but will it be too late for Apple by then?