I posted something on Google+ this morning. It was one of those rare moments when I discovered something online that was so cool that I felt the need to pass it out to everyone I know. The problem was, I’d deleted my Facebook account months ago, and G+ was the only option for mass spamming. I have something like 25 “connections” on G+. I clicked on the little “Greg+” button in my browser, just to see what was up. Since I checked a couple of weeks ago, only two things had been posted. Two. From all of my connections, I had two things to investigate. And one of them was a link to their own blog post, which doesn’t really count as sharing. Anyway, the whole episode was a little depressing, like I was speaking into a microphone in a silent auditorium, shielding my eyes against the spot lights, trying to see if anyone was out there. Crickets.
Anyway, I happened to be sharing a post from Open Culture about Yo Yo Ma’s new album “The Goat Rodeo Sessions” – he went to Google’s offices and performed with his band, and it was awesome.
That experience led me to the NY Times (where I go to reassure myself that there is still a lot of interesting and healthy debate happening on the Internet, and to perhaps pick up a tidbit for blogging), to the tech section, to a link in one of their “outside news source” widgets to an article in Slate about how Google+ is dying or dead already, to an article about the milkshake test by Dan and Chip Heath. The milkshake test is a way of gauging the potential of whatever new thing is being hyped in the media – iPods, Segues, Google+, whatever. It essentially asks the question: what specific duty is the product fulfilling? If the answer is vague, like it is in the case of Second Life, then the product is likely going to fail after the hype dies down. If the answer is specific, as in the case of the iPod (easy, convenient access to mobile music), then the product has a chance at long life and success. According to the Heaths:
It’s not a perfect predictor. But by our count, Christensen’s [milkshake] test calls correctly about a half-dozen of the big technology hype cycles of the last 20 years. At a minimum, it provides some protection against over-optimism. Think of it as a tinfoil hat to insulate you from the nuttiest predictions.
This led me to the question: does the iPad in education pass the milkshake test?
The iPad is one of if not THE biggest and most impressively hyped products of my lifetime. It’s resemblance to a piece of paper or a notebook made the hearts of school teachers around the world flutter with anticipation (including my own). Its design and its ease of use made it seem the most obvious 1:1 candidate. Thousands of grade schools and universities are now passing out iPads and integrating them into their curriculum. So the iPad is not short on hype, but again, does it pass the milkshake test?
In other words, is there a specific duty that the iPad performs in the hands of a student or a teacher?
Of all the possible answers, I think mobility and “getting out of the way” are two of the most profound and undervalued.
Mobility
Laptops are mobile, too.
But are they? Laptop batteries are getting better, and in general the tablet and laptop designs are converging (think: Macbook Air 11” and iPad 2). But for the time being, laptop batteries suck. Even my Macbook Pro battery, which is supposed to last for 5+ hours, disappoints me on a regular basis. I’m used to the pure mobility of the iPad, the total lack of concern for battery life, the wanton and unconstrained usage of the thing. [We don’t need no stinking cords.]
In education, mobility is powerful and potentially disruptive. According to the self-appointed lords of pedagogy, lectures are evil and students don’t learn from them. Well, that’s patently false, but there is a kind of passivity to absorbing most lectures that isn’t present in a more mobile environment – when students move, they are active. They are engaged, the promotion of which is the raison d’etre of school. A laptop is a ball whose chain is literally attached to the wall. An iPad allows literal and figurative mobility – the movement of people in a classroom, but also the movement of ideas: I can hand you my iPad in a way that I can’t hand you my laptop. What I’m doing with my iPad is share-able, open, here in my hands. What I’m doing on a laptop is mine, faces me only, and creates a barrier to the flow of ideas. So, the iPad promotes physical and mental mobility.
Getting out of the way
Apple enjoys this maxim seemingly as much as I do: good technology disappears. Apple must be extending its belief that good design disappears, as well. However the idea came about, it feels right. When I recommend that someone adopt a new piece of technology in order to solve their problem or to enable their vision, it’s really about the problem or the vision, not the technology itself. In classrooms, I don’t want students learning Photoshop if it is not in the service of art, I don’t want them learning Word if it is not in the service of better writing, and I certainly don’t want them using iPads if it is not in the service of questions and ideas. That is what is wonderful about iPads, though: the user’s vision, idea or need is primary, the technology is secondary or invisible.
The barrier issue has been brought up again and again, but deserves to be repeating: no matter what else the iPad has going for it, it enables mobile connectivity without building a series of walls between people in physical space. As a teacher, facing a phalanx of laptop screens, all eyes trained downward, pupils dilated: this is a horrifying experience. A room full of laptops will give students a connection to the Internet, but it has the potential to disconnect each of the individuals in the room from one another. (I’ve seen it work the other way in successful laptop classrooms, but they were tablet PCs in tablet mode, so, folded down flat on the desk. Like an iPad.) As a teacher it can be very difficult to re-establish the physical and personal connection.
iPads get out of the way. Laptops don’t.
iPads serve to promote mobility and connections between real people, giving students better access to creative tools that they need to create, explore, research, discuss, and imagine. iPads in schools are a tasty milkshake.
Related posts:
