Apple's vision for connected learning
Attended a workshop hosted by Apple Australia last friday titled “NSW TAFE Digital eLearning Workshop” @ the Apple Executive Briefing here in Sydney.
This was organised by the TAFE Online II, “Access to New Technologies” project to further our knowledge about what Apple has to offer in terms of networked learning and technology assisted education in general. As part of the ANT project many TAFE institutes have purchased ipods to trial podcasting & vblogging so this was of particular interest to attendees.
While this session was always going to be a marketing opportunity for Apple to promote their products & services to the education sector it was a good opportunity for us to see their vision for networked education and play with Tiger (their latest OS), Garage Band (their podcasting software) & iTunes (their podcasting aggregator).
image by sridgway
First up was Steve Doyle, National Professional Development Manager who delivered a most interesting and passionate presentation titled “Innovation in Education”. Steve outlined some of the challenges faced by educators in reaching and engaging a connected generation of learners and their unique learning styles. He showcased some great examples of how Apple technologies have been enabling students to form dynamic networked learning communities including a Year 4/5 student podcast Podkids Australia from the Orange Grove Primary School in Western Australia.
Listening to Steve one got the distinct impression that Apple understands the implications of the contemporary shift towards networked collaboration, knowledge sharing & user driven content underlying web2.0 and has sought to position itself strategically in the market to appeal to users who want a user friendly, integrated suite of networked tools to build networked learning communities.
image by sridgway
Next up was Stuart Harris, Software Product Marketing Manager who gave us a very quick tour of “Tiger” Apples latest iteration of their OSX operating system. He then showed us iLife which basically integrates and networks Apples line of software for everyday life online. iPhoto managing and sharing ones photo’s, iWeb for creating an online presence, blogs, wiki etc., iMove for managing and sharing digital video & offcourse Garage band for audio and podcasting.
Apple is definitely tapping in to the Zeitgeist with these tools especially with the social networking dimension and it all looks very good on screen. My only concern is that they are creating closed communities within the iLife network which is essentially a subscription based service aimed @ facilitating networking and content sharing amongst other iLife subscribers. While the support for rss means outside users can subscribe to member feeds it seems to me it is not a truly open & public network when it is so tied to proprietary software and hardware.
This leads me to the other concern; the tendency towards locking users into a total solution which is so tied to a platform and associated technologies. A case in point is the ipod, the speakers were keen to promote the use of “enhanced” podcasting with the AAC file format, Garage Band, iTunes & ipods. Many of these enhanced AAC features such as file markers which trigger web links or image changes are not features of AAC standard itself, but of the Apple proprietary file-format that wraps the AAC bitstream.
This is yet another example of a large company extending on open standard but tying it to their platform and products in this case iTunes and ipods. Microsoft tried thus with java and internet explorer, the resulting in the browser wars of the late 90’s. Ultimately this back fired with the developer community favouring open standard css and some would argue the decline of IE itself.
As impressive as the presentations and the technologies on display were I could not help thinking that Apple has jumped on the web2.0 phenomenon to market it’s products and image as a hip connected company. A case in point was that I asked if the presentations could be recorded and podcast, this was a day for “knowledge sharing and collaboration” after all, the public relations manager flatly refused on the grounds of “commercial in confidence”. The Apple notebooks we were all using to train on the “connected software” were not connected to the network for “security reasons”. This sounds like a company paranoid about free and open networks rather than embracing the connected communities. Still in all fairness to the speakers, they work for a large organisation whose management is grappling with how to position themselves for the future in a networked world.
Those of us who work in DET share their situation!!
Links
flickr stream from the day
Podkids Australia podcast
Apple iLife
TAFE Online 2 - Access to New Technologies
Technorati Tags: vte tlnw nswlearnscope nswlearnscope06 clcommunity tol2
This was organised by the TAFE Online II, “Access to New Technologies” project to further our knowledge about what Apple has to offer in terms of networked learning and technology assisted education in general. As part of the ANT project many TAFE institutes have purchased ipods to trial podcasting & vblogging so this was of particular interest to attendees.
While this session was always going to be a marketing opportunity for Apple to promote their products & services to the education sector it was a good opportunity for us to see their vision for networked education and play with Tiger (their latest OS), Garage Band (their podcasting software) & iTunes (their podcasting aggregator).
image by sridgway
First up was Steve Doyle, National Professional Development Manager who delivered a most interesting and passionate presentation titled “Innovation in Education”. Steve outlined some of the challenges faced by educators in reaching and engaging a connected generation of learners and their unique learning styles. He showcased some great examples of how Apple technologies have been enabling students to form dynamic networked learning communities including a Year 4/5 student podcast Podkids Australia from the Orange Grove Primary School in Western Australia.
Listening to Steve one got the distinct impression that Apple understands the implications of the contemporary shift towards networked collaboration, knowledge sharing & user driven content underlying web2.0 and has sought to position itself strategically in the market to appeal to users who want a user friendly, integrated suite of networked tools to build networked learning communities.
image by sridgway
Next up was Stuart Harris, Software Product Marketing Manager who gave us a very quick tour of “Tiger” Apples latest iteration of their OSX operating system. He then showed us iLife which basically integrates and networks Apples line of software for everyday life online. iPhoto managing and sharing ones photo’s, iWeb for creating an online presence, blogs, wiki etc., iMove for managing and sharing digital video & offcourse Garage band for audio and podcasting.
Apple is definitely tapping in to the Zeitgeist with these tools especially with the social networking dimension and it all looks very good on screen. My only concern is that they are creating closed communities within the iLife network which is essentially a subscription based service aimed @ facilitating networking and content sharing amongst other iLife subscribers. While the support for rss means outside users can subscribe to member feeds it seems to me it is not a truly open & public network when it is so tied to proprietary software and hardware.
This leads me to the other concern; the tendency towards locking users into a total solution which is so tied to a platform and associated technologies. A case in point is the ipod, the speakers were keen to promote the use of “enhanced” podcasting with the AAC file format, Garage Band, iTunes & ipods. Many of these enhanced AAC features such as file markers which trigger web links or image changes are not features of AAC standard itself, but of the Apple proprietary file-format that wraps the AAC bitstream.
This is yet another example of a large company extending on open standard but tying it to their platform and products in this case iTunes and ipods. Microsoft tried thus with java and internet explorer, the resulting in the browser wars of the late 90’s. Ultimately this back fired with the developer community favouring open standard css and some would argue the decline of IE itself.
As impressive as the presentations and the technologies on display were I could not help thinking that Apple has jumped on the web2.0 phenomenon to market it’s products and image as a hip connected company. A case in point was that I asked if the presentations could be recorded and podcast, this was a day for “knowledge sharing and collaboration” after all, the public relations manager flatly refused on the grounds of “commercial in confidence”. The Apple notebooks we were all using to train on the “connected software” were not connected to the network for “security reasons”. This sounds like a company paranoid about free and open networks rather than embracing the connected communities. Still in all fairness to the speakers, they work for a large organisation whose management is grappling with how to position themselves for the future in a networked world.
Those of us who work in DET share their situation!!
Links
flickr stream from the day
Podkids Australia podcast
Apple iLife
TAFE Online 2 - Access to New Technologies
Technorati Tags: vte tlnw nswlearnscope nswlearnscope06 clcommunity tol2
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