They didn't do it for safety reasons! And of course the technology of batteries has changed far more than the technology of combustion engines in that century.
They've bought the device as described. With all the features listed on the box/marketing materials. If someone can hack it to do something else, then good luck to them. But the manufacturer of the device doesn't owe any purchasers assistance with that.
I know grumpy old people like to think everything was better in their day. But everything I see says education is better today. Heck, here in Britain in the 1970s they used to run TV programs on Sunday to teach adults to read because so many of them had left school not being able to.
Well, yes... except in this case the animation and interactivity parts would all be lies, because nobody has ever seen a dinosaur move, much less interacted with one.
That doesn't mean that scientists don't have a very good idea of how they moved. There's been loads of research in that area. And it's quite legitimate to show what they do know and point out what they don't.
And even cartoon dinosaurs have their place for young kids. They don't need an accurate representation of a dinosaur or anything else to learn reading and number.
You make it sound like avoiding boring kids is a bad thing! How silly. Interested, stimulated kids learn a lot more than bored kids.
Why exactly do we need iPads in the classroom? What the hell does an iPad do that cheaper full fledged computers haven't been able to do for ages?
When "fully fledged computers" were new, people were asking why we needed THEM in the classroom. Same with calculators. No doubt back in the day there were people arguing for chalk and slate rather than the expense of paper exercise books.
Why are we spending $500+support etc costs per student to get them iPads?
Support costs is an interesting topic. No doubt they are far lower for iPads than PCs. There's so much less that can go wrong with them.
The reason we use notebooks and books in the classroom isn't some luddite obsession, it's because if I had an iPad to play with in class in school, I don't think much learning would have happened.
Of course it's luddite. 1) Play and learning are not mutually exclusive. Give kids apps to play with that they are learning from. 2) iPads can have restrictions set so that kids can't install their own apps, and restrict what they can do with the built in apps.
The iPad is an awful device for reading.
You don't sound like you're very familiar with them.
you want textbooks, make a better Kindle DX and give that to the kids. No touchscreen.
And no interactivity. Seems like you want school to be as dull as when you went there.
Probably those that are bought from iTunes Store will be wrapped in DRM. But since YOU are distributing this stuff, there's doesn't appear to be a problem with you using iBooks Author to create an ePub, and giving your students that. AFAIK epub is supported by all the ebook readers, and there are epub viewers for all the desktop OSs too.
With primary and high school students, it's important to catch their interest. They are going to be far more interested in a model of the solar system where they can zoom in on each body or orbit, rather than static diagrams. Or models of body parts in biology. If they can see an internal combustion engine in motion... etc. In History, if they can play with a 3D model of the Collesium, rather than look at a picture.
The free iBooks Author creates raw.epub files, except they have the extension.ibooks. You could publish the epub files created with this free app anywhere you like.
I wouldn't be surprised if they add DRM when they are sold through iTunes Store though.
That was just an example. I chose it because of the high quality of detail. And obviously art with high quality of detail takes time in whatever medium. But the point is that it would be impossible to do that it iPad didn't allow precision.
There's plenty of examples of rapid art on YouTube as well.
Even footage of David Hockney using an iPad to create artworks.
There's no technical problem with the iPad and using a stylus. Nothing that a tablet PC does better.
"Publishers decide on their own price point. But it sounds like Apple have set a maximum price point of $14.99 for high school text books." Really? Wow....I've never heard of High School students having to buy their own text books...?!?!?!
Nothing in what I said implied that High School Students had to buy their own textbooks.
No so fast. I've downloaded iBooks Author, and none of the various save, export or publish commands seems to give an ePub file. I don't know enough about ebook formats to investigate further, so I'll leave it to others to do that.
iBooks were epub format I think, and do iBooks 2 will certainly still support that. But it MIGHT BE a proprietary format for text books.
Personally, I would prefer DRM-free PDFs or interactive and cross platform HTML 5 "books" that didn't mandate a platform.
PDFs are a terrible medium for ebooks as the format is fixed at publication time. The text can't reflow to fit different sized devices (or windows). If you like text bigger than the average person, and zoom in to get it, then you end up having to scroll back and forth to read lines.
HTML is OK for reflowing text on a page, but pages are set at publishing time, so you end up scrolling up and down a page.
Slashdot Mirror
They didn't do it for safety reasons! And of course the technology of batteries has changed far more than the technology of combustion engines in that century.
Electricity to run an electric car much cheaper than gas to run a gas car.
They've bought the device as described. With all the features listed on the box/marketing materials. If someone can hack it to do something else, then good luck to them. But the manufacturer of the device doesn't owe any purchasers assistance with that.
Your story isn't clear, but it seems you argued against a bunch of PHDs and you lost. They did indeed know more than you do.
So how does that justify you now arguing against the consensus of scientists on climate science?
I said "I know grumpy old people like to think everything was better in their day."
Your message is a textbook example of a rant by grumpy old man.
Nonsense.
Ah, fair enough. I guess that they are giving the software away. They're not a charity.
I know grumpy old people like to think everything was better in their day. But everything I see says education is better today. Heck, here in Britain in the 1970s they used to run TV programs on Sunday to teach adults to read because so many of them had left school not being able to.
iPhone has iBooks. The format used is ePub. ePub is designed to work on multiple screen sizes.
I don't see any reason why it won't work on iPhone. Although I expect the books will be designed so they work best on iPad.
Book updates are free on the Apple book store. Just like App updates are.
Now my child comes home from elementary school and says she has to look stuff up on the internet.
Welcome to the 21st century.
But she doesn't have a clue how to do actual research. I have to show her most of it, and monitor what she is looking at while doing it.
A parent helping a kid with homework. Whatever next?
Well, yes... except in this case the animation and interactivity parts would all be lies, because nobody has ever seen a dinosaur move, much less interacted with one.
That doesn't mean that scientists don't have a very good idea of how they moved. There's been loads of research in that area. And it's quite legitimate to show what they do know and point out what they don't.
And even cartoon dinosaurs have their place for young kids. They don't need an accurate representation of a dinosaur or anything else to learn reading and number.
You make it sound like avoiding boring kids is a bad thing! How silly. Interested, stimulated kids learn a lot more than bored kids.
Why exactly do we need iPads in the classroom? What the hell does an iPad do that cheaper full fledged computers haven't been able to do for ages?
When "fully fledged computers" were new, people were asking why we needed THEM in the classroom. Same with calculators. No doubt back in the day there were people arguing for chalk and slate rather than the expense of paper exercise books.
Why are we spending $500+support etc costs per student to get them iPads?
Support costs is an interesting topic. No doubt they are far lower for iPads than PCs. There's so much less that can go wrong with them.
The reason we use notebooks and books in the classroom isn't some luddite obsession, it's because if I had an iPad to play with in class in school, I don't think much learning would have happened.
Of course it's luddite.
1) Play and learning are not mutually exclusive. Give kids apps to play with that they are learning from.
2) iPads can have restrictions set so that kids can't install their own apps, and restrict what they can do with the built in apps.
The iPad is an awful device for reading.
You don't sound like you're very familiar with them.
you want textbooks, make a better Kindle DX and give that to the kids. No touchscreen.
And no interactivity. Seems like you want school to be as dull as when you went there.
iBooks uses ePub, which is an open format.
Probably those that are bought from iTunes Store will be wrapped in DRM. But since YOU are distributing this stuff, there's doesn't appear to be a problem with you using iBooks Author to create an ePub, and giving your students that. AFAIK epub is supported by all the ebook readers, and there are epub viewers for all the desktop OSs too.
With primary and high school students, it's important to catch their interest. They are going to be far more interested in a model of the solar system where they can zoom in on each body or orbit, rather than static diagrams. Or models of body parts in biology. If they can see an internal combustion engine in motion... etc. In History, if they can play with a 3D model of the Collesium, rather than look at a picture.
ebooks are certainly a step forward in education.
The free iBooks Author creates raw .epub files, except they have the extension .ibooks. You could publish the epub files created with this free app anywhere you like.
I wouldn't be surprised if they add DRM when they are sold through iTunes Store though.
The reason you can't export to epub is that the default format is epub. Although Apple uses .iBooks as an extension rather than .epub.
That was just an example. I chose it because of the high quality of detail. And obviously art with high quality of detail takes time in whatever medium. But the point is that it would be impossible to do that it iPad didn't allow precision.
There's plenty of examples of rapid art on YouTube as well.
Even footage of David Hockney using an iPad to create artworks.
There's no technical problem with the iPad and using a stylus. Nothing that a tablet PC does better.
"Publishers decide on their own price point. But it sounds like Apple have set a maximum price point of $14.99 for high school text books."
Really?
Wow....I've never heard of High School students having to buy their own text books...?!?!?!
Nothing in what I said implied that High School Students had to buy their own textbooks.
Yes you're right. I was seeing a binary file, and I'd forgotten that epub is zipped up. I unzipped it, and the contents are epub contents.
Text book updates are free, much as iOS App updates are.
And they are working WITH the publishers, not excluding them. Much as they worked with the record labels rather than trying to exclude them.
Publishers decide on their own price point. But it sounds like Apple have set a maximum price point of $14.99 for high school text books.
No so fast. I've downloaded iBooks Author, and none of the various save, export or publish commands seems to give an ePub file. I don't know enough about ebook formats to investigate further, so I'll leave it to others to do that.
iBooks were epub format I think, and do iBooks 2 will certainly still support that. But it MIGHT BE a proprietary format for text books.
Personally, I would prefer DRM-free PDFs or interactive and cross platform HTML 5 "books" that didn't mandate a platform.
PDFs are a terrible medium for ebooks as the format is fixed at publication time. The text can't reflow to fit different sized devices (or windows). If you like text bigger than the average person, and zoom in to get it, then you end up having to scroll back and forth to read lines.
HTML is OK for reflowing text on a page, but pages are set at publishing time, so you end up scrolling up and down a page.
Neither is a good format for ebooks.
iOS Apps are a closed format. Doesn't seem to have held them back.