Here are a few pics of Facebook's new data center:
COMMENTARY: Facebook isn't going to clobber Google when it comes to computing power any time soon. In fact, Google stores and processes so much data that it has 36 data centers worldwide. Blue is just not my color. I am also allergic to the smell of electronics. Facebook's new data center would make me very sick, very fast.
Companies are spending more on social and collaboration software, as new tools compete for workers' attention.
Companies are looking to implement more social tools within their internal structure and to engage employees in collaboration and knowledge-sharing. But how does company management do this effectively, beyond just picking the right technology? Analyst and futurist Stowe Boyd led a rousing discussion at GigaOm’s Net:Work conference Thursday, exploring how large companies can make changes internally and motivate team members to be involved in the process of moving toward more enterprise-wide collaborative processes.
When implementing a new system that inherently requires employee participation like an internal “social networking system” such as Socialcast (see disclosure), you have to let your employees choose to be there, “not be forced to be there.” So said Jeff Ross, Technology Business Consultant at health insurance giant Humana. Employees have to see an environment that calls to them and companies should make sure employees’ needs are met.
One of those needs is true, seamless integration of the technical tools they’re asked to use. Social collaboration tools should be at “every step of the workflow, not a separate place,” said Timothy Young, founder and CEO of Socialcast, who adds that companies need to take both a bottom up adoption approach as well as demonstrate top down support to pave the way for widespread adoption new technology such as collaboration systems.
Ross said that company management needs to understand what motivates their employees as well as know what behaviors they want to encourage. Motivations for adopting internal enterprise collaboration tools can be social interaction opportunities or getting answers to business problems or simply to help others.
Humana uses a “social reputation proxy” as Boyd put it as added incentive for employees to participate in their Socialcast collaboration community, nicknamed “Buzz,” including virtual badges, coins and trophies to demonstrate their participation level to fellow team members. Out of 28,000 Humana employees, about 7500 have joined “Buzz” since May without any formal company-wide efforts with about 1000 employees signing up each month.
With employee adoption and engagement of social collaboration tools, companies see improvement in key performance indicators, said Young.
COMMENTARY: Socialcast is the first company I have seen that connects the business systems (accounting, ERP, CRM, etc.) a company uses everyday into a Twitter-like social network with tools for enterprise-wide communications and collaboration.
Socialcast has developed a centralized platform that solves the problem of poor employee engagement and productivity due to information overload and detached operating units. Socialcast's software creates a flexible, simple, data-rich collaborative space where employees can find information from applications, systems, and people across the enterprise--no matter where they are physically located.
Here are the highlights of the Socialcast platform:
According to Socialcast, there platform provides three key benefits:
Increase Efficiency - Data and information move between applications and users, and from users to teams, faster than ever before. Improve information flow by opening the lines of communication, turning your company into an incubator for collaboration.
Improve Productivity - Eliminates "work about work" - the unnecessary meetings, emails and calls that fail to produce results. Help employees perform their best by allowing collaboration and discussions to occur outside of time-draining activities.
One Central Information Hub - Capture the knowledge that's currently living inside your employees' heads, their inboxes, and buried deep within shared documents by creating a real-time enterprise social network that becomes a central hub for information-sharing.
Socialcast basically ties all the loose ends within a business enterprise, and providing one centralized hub where all information no matter where it originates--within or outside the organization--so that information can be shared and acted upon within the framework of social network.
Having worked for several Fortune 500 companies, the sharing of information in a large organization can be quite challenging. Employees deal with other employees at the corporate, division, departmental and branch level. Corporatioins operate through information lock boxes consisting of intranet portals, extranets and websites. Information sharing and collaboration becomes even more vital and complicated for multinational organizations with dispersed locations throughout the world. You encounter time zone issues and language barriers, yet the information has to be acted upon in a timely manner. Do you call, email, fax or text message? Do you need to make a presentation in real-time or face-to-face? The social network may have changed everything.
I am still amazed how the Socialcast platform can offer so much. I don't think I have seen social networking, project management, file and document sharing, network security and real-time communications rolled into one system like this one. It's seamless integration with Microsoft Sharepoint for the enterprise is certainly an advantage, since so many large businesses now use SharePoint to share files and documents.
Socialcast offers three different pricing plans for users:
Basic Package - FREE of charge. Create a free community, pilot, or proof of concept to explore basic features.
Small Business - Pricing starts at $3 per user, per month for communities with up to 1,000 employees.
Enterprise - Pricing based on your company's specific requirements. Deployments for 1,001 - 200,000 users with volume pricing.
Socialcast provides its users a number of resources to improve and enhance their social collabration platform:
If you are wondering how you calculate the ROI of social enterprise software, Socialcast has the covered with this very interesting infographic:
Socialcast is no early stage startup, but has been designing and deploying social collaborative tools since 2005. From the beginning the company has concentrated on developing superior technology and providing the best customer service in the industry. The Company's Mission is "to help clients solve distinct business challenges using innovative software and a people centric approach."
Industry research shows that the market for collaboration software used by corporations—commonly called Enterprise 2.0 technology—is growing, despite the sluggish economy. Gartner, an information technology industry analyst group, began tracking revenue growth of social business software in 2009. Gartner predicts the market for enterprise social software technologies will continue to grow from $664 million in 2010, $769 million in 2011 and $1.3 billion by 2014.
As the popularity of social collaboration software grows, companies are sorting out which tools are most useful. A 2010 Gartner survey of 416 U.S.-based IT professionals shows that e-mail remains the favored communication tool in the office. However, these same IT professionals are betting that collaboration tools will burrow a niche in daily business operations.
Forrester Research, in a survey of 934 North American and European collaboration and software decision makers, found that many professionals planned to buy "team workplaces," or tools that share data, documents, and calendars among workers online, while allowing users to track changes to shared content.
Professionals also planned to implement more Web 2.0 tools—wikis and microblogs, for example—in business. However, IT professionals were less likely to want "unified communications," which allow employees to check each other's availability, in real time, on shared calendars, and then choose between voice, video, e-mail, or instant messaging to initiate conversations.
Gartner's revenue analysis shows that North American businesses are more likely to adopt social business software than businesses in other regions. In 2009, North America accounted for 60 to 65 percent of enterprise social business software revenues. Europe and Asia made up 25 percent and 10 percent of revenues, respectively.
Looks like competition within the internal-use social collaboration software markeet is really beginning to heatup along the same pace as regular consumer social networks. You can read about it HERE.
It certainly appears like Socialcast is very well managed and ideally positioned to take advantage of the anticipated growth in social collaboration tools.
Courtesy of an article dated March 31, 2011 appearing in Technology Review and an article dated December 9, 2o10 appearing in Gigaom
He shows ad revenue from help wanted classifieds dropping 92% in last 10 years, hitting $723 million last year, down from $8.7 billion in 2000. Once that easy money left the newspaper industry it was a lot harder to earn as much profit.
Cendella says it didn't have to be this way: "Newspaper executives knew what had to be done to compete successfully in the future but were afraid to upset the people responsible for the past. It was a lack of courage, not a lack of clarity."
COMMENTARY: The demise of the newspaper industry is due to advances in technology. The shift from print to digital is the main culprit. Print media is now moving online or on mobile apps for viewing on smartphones like the iPhone and tablets like the iPad. This shift in technology has affected many industries, including film, photography, newspapers, magazines and books. It seems that a day doesn't go that a major newspaper doesn't announce layoffs or closes down. Printed books will probably be obsolete in about five years. Borders recently filed for bankruptcy.
The inevitable shift to digital finally came in 2010, as more Americans got their daily news from online sources other than print, according to the Biannual News Consumption Survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The findings were released this week as part of Pew's annual overview of the news media.
Specifically, Pew found that the proportion of U.S. adults who said they got their news online the day before increased from 29% in 2008 to 34% in 2010. The proportion that cited print newspapers as the source of their recent news fell from 34% in 2008 to 31% in 2010.
Online still trailed broadcast and cable TV as a news source, which still enjoys the broadest reach. Indeed, the proportion that said they got their recent news from these sources actually increased slightly to 58%.
Likewise, the Internet came out ahead of print in terms of time spent with news sources, with an average 13 minutes per day, according to Pew. That stat beats print newspapers at 10 minutes, but trails TV at 19 minutes and radio at 15 minutes.
This good news for broadcast and cable TV was tempered somewhat by a more pronounced shift in news consumption habits among younger adults. Pew found that the Internet is now the No. 1 news source for the 18-29 cohort, with 65% saying they get most of their news online, compared to 52% for TV and just 21% for newspapers.
By contrast, TV still dominated in the 30-49 cohort, with 63% citing TV news as their top news source compared to 48% for the Internet.
It's worth noting that online news consumption is still dominated by traditional news sources -- including Web sites maintained by newspapers, which many publishers see as the key to future success.
Conversely, Pew noted that online advertising has not proved nearly as lucrative as print for newspaper publishers, raising questions about their ability to maintain both profitability and large news-gathering organizations.
Pew also noted the rise of online-only news operations, such as The Huffington Post, which now hold seven of the top 25 spots for online news consumption. However, five of these seven generate most of their traffic by aggregating traditional media.
I get all my news stories from TWITTER and I encourage you to follow me and read my blog regularly.
For a detailed discussion of the U.S. newspaper industry and up-to-date list of U.S. newspapers that have gone out of business or on the verge, check out Newspaper Death Watch.
Courtesy of an article dated March 14, 2011 appearing in SAI Business Insiderand an article dated March 14, 2011 appearing in MediaPost Publications Media Daily News
Using a four-meter-tall lightbulb-studded stick and long-exposure photography, the designers "paint" a picture of network signal strength onto cityscapes.
What does wi-fi look like? It may seem like a silly question, but not to Timo Arnall and his collaborators on the "Immaterials" project, which combines clever design and technology hacks to visualize the electronic networks humming and buzzing all around us. Their latest interation "explores the invisible terrain of WIFI networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs":
Arnall and his team are familiar to readers of Co.Design: Previously, they've used the iPad as a light brush and visualized RFID networks. The wi-fi project mashes up all those previous techniques, which are a delightful fusion of low and high-tech. They built a four-meter-tall rod studded with 80 small lightbulbs and hooked it up to a network-strength sensor, creating a probe that would light up to a certain height depending on the strength of the wi-fi radio signal. Then they walked it through the deserted nighttime streets of Oslo, Norway, revealing a cross-section-in-light of the wi-fi radio networks that blanket the city.
Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen got the idea for the project after visualizing much smaller RFID fields in a previous "Immaterials" film. "What if we built a huge light painting apparatus that could map out architectural and city-scale networks in the places and spaces they inhabited?" Arnall writes. "After a week of walking through urban spaces holding and photographing this instrument, we have a much better sense of the qualities of WiFi in urban spaces, its random crackles, bright and dim spots, its reaction to the massing of buildings, and its broad reach through open areas."
The ghostly cross-sections are as beautiful as their device is ingenious. I wonder if Timo and his team could paint these networks in 3D as well?
COMMENTARY: I know of mobile sensor's that can detect if WIFI signals are emitting from a building. A friend of mine uses this technique to surf the Web without having to pay for WIFI. Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen have developed a strobe light that detects WIFI signals and makes them visible and measures their strength based on the height of the visible display. That's really cool.
This much we know: the iPad 2 is due soon. We also are pretty sure about a few things having to do with the design, but until now the snippets of rumor we've read have come from speculation—"insiders" inside Apple's Asian supply/manufacturing chain and logical deduction based on previous Apple design moves with different devices. Now the Wall Street Journal has joined the fray, and this puts a different complexion on the matter.
Given that it's now over one year since the first iteration of the iPad, we're all expecting Apple to announce the second-generation device very soon. Now that the WSJ (which we suspect is used by Apple to officially, unofficially "leak" news to control the PR hype before a new product arrives) has acted, we suspect the iPad is finally inbound. What can we tell about the device from the leak?
iPad in production
The WSJ notes that Apple's "started manufacturing a new version of its iPad tablet computer" and cites "people familiar with the matter." In order to deliver a new device in large quantities sometime in March or, at the latest, April, Apple's supply chain would certainly have to be working their socks off right about now--tallying with the WSJ's reveal. In fact, we'd hope they've been doing this for some time in order to avoid the same kind of supply-chain issues that the iPad 1 suffered, including a hugely delayed global roll-out.
Cameras
We've suspected Apple will add cameras to the iPad for a number of reasons--it was suspected to arrive in the first version, but seemed to have been removed by Apple at the last minute, and the growing number of Android tablets boast cameras of various resolutions. The best guess so far is that Apple would have a VGA resolution on the front for video conferencing, and a 1-megapixel-plus rear-facing one for imaging for augmented reality apps and productivity.
But the WSJ's article has one teasing bit: "at least one camera on the front of the device." Could Apple be planning some kind of surprising 3-D imaging trick? It's a long-shot, but you never know.
Thinner, lighter, more memory, faster processor, better graphics
These are all features we've thought Apple would add to a new device--the thinner and lighter aspects of the design would tackle some of the few criticisms aimed at the initial iPad version. More memory, better graphics and a faster processor are also natural steps to take to keep the product fresh and competitive in the tablet market--we even think Apple will adopt the ARM Cortex A9 architecture.
Screen
Big rumors surfaced a little while ago that Apple would quadruple the number of pixels on the iPad 2's screen versus the first version--a smart move since doubling the pixels horizontally and vertically would allow for easy compatibility with existing apps, which could simply be blown up onto the new screen. The trick would also give the iPad 2 near "retina display" resolution, matching the iPhone 4's impressive display.
But such a high screen resolution would require processor power that could generate too much heat, and suck too much battery power, for a tablet format. A leaked part revealed that the iPad 2's screen may have the same visible display area, but a smaller bezel and a thinner profile--bringing the display pixels closer to the surface to improve visibility--but didn't hint at higher res.
Now Apple may have leaked the news to the WSJ to quell these expectations, and it seems the new iPad will have the same pixel density as the earlier one.
FaceTime app?
Enterprising coders have taken code from the developer release of an upcoming iOS update, and shoe-horned it into an existing iPad. The result is FaceTime on an iPad 1--revealing how we imagine it'll work on the iPad 2. It's very similar to the iPhone 4's edition, and it too suggests the screen resolution will remain at the 1024 by 768 pixels of the iPad 2. Controls and features on the FaceTime app are similar to existing implementations, and it'll pop-over running apps to announce an incoming call.
NFC?
One biggie missing from the WSJ's coverage is any mention of near field communications--the wireless tech Apple's expected to build into the iPhone 5 to transform the mobile payments market. This doesn't obviate it's inclusion in the iPad 2, of course, but it does cast some doubt
COMMENTARY: I like the thinner and lighter, camera, faster processor and better graphics, but if it does not support Adobe Flash, there is almost a 100% certainty that I will only buy it to cut veggies like Stephen Colbert. It does a fine job. Sorry Apple iPad owners bitch to Steve Jobs. No flashie, No watchie.
Courtesy of an article dated February 8, 2011 appearing in Fast Company
As promised, Netflix has published its rankings of the fastest Internet service providers in the United States, based on the average video streaming speeds its users have been able to obtain.
Cable companies are the clear winners, including Charter on top and Comcast next. Verizon, notably, is in the middle of the pack. So is AT&T. That's NOT because FiOS and U-Verse aren't fast, but because both telcos still sell slower DSL to millions of people in areas without FiOS or U-Verse.
Clearwire, a WIFI company, comes in last. No surprise there.
What's really remarkable is that the U.S. lags behind other countries in broadband speeds. Japan, South Korea and France kick ass in broadband speed. Check this:
If there's one thing that sums up Steve Jobs, it's vision. So let's zoom into the eye of this portrait:
Even in this tiny span of the portrait, we can see a microcosm of Jobs's iEmpire: iPod, the product that turned Apple from a niche computer concern into a world-dominating music and media company; the iMac, which marked Jobs's triumphant return to the company he founded and the birth of its reinvigorated product-design ethos (remember the quip, "The back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else’s"?); you can even see a Mac OS X box in there, which has continually lived up to its self-description as "the world's most advanced operating system."
But let's peer even closer...
To Tsevis's credit, here at the center of Jobs's eye are his greatest successes and his occasional misfires. We can see the iPhone and iPad, which may end up being Jobs' biggest, most world-changing legacies. But we can also see the eMac (a short-lived, cheaper, underpowered version of the iMac meant for schools -- my Mom had one and even she found it lacking), as well as the Mac Mini and first-generation Apple TV -- two products that failed to catch on despite intriguing designs and intended uses. Even Jobs's bold-to-a-fault design experiments are in there if you squint: The infamous"Cube" and the "lamp"-style iMac.
Think different, indeed...
Obviously Jobs didn't do all this by himself. His longtime design-genius-in-residence, Jony Ive, can take a huge amount of credit, as can scores of unknown engineers and product designers who've whipsawed between Jobs's legendary leadership and equally-legendary (some would say "lunatic") capriciousness.
But if this mega-image communicates anything, it's not "Apple rules, others drool!!1" or some other techno-partisan yawp. It's that Jobs's legacy, when he finally shuffles off this mortal coil, is essentially this: He created a new world within our world. Whether you micro-analyze the details or just enjoy the delight of the big picture, it's the world we live in now.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Apple reported results on Tuesday for its best-ever quarter, with revenue of $26.7 billion driven by holiday iPad and iPhone sales that were much better than forecast. Apple's profit of $6 billion also set a new record.
The Cupertino, Calif., company sold 7.3 million iPads in the quarter, easily surpassing the expectations of nearly every Wall Street analyst. Those sales essentially matched iPad sales from the previous two quarters combined.
The iPad's success is coming from multiple sources. While Apple's Macintosh computers have always struggled for traction in the business world, Apple said the iPad is generating strong crossover interest from business customers. Around 80% of Fortune 100 companies have deployed the tablet for their employees.
Apple also announced that it sold a record 16.2 million iPhones, just before the smartphone goes on sale on the Verizon Wireless network, beginning next month.
"We had a phenomenal holiday quarter," CEO Steve Jobs said in a prepared statement. "We are firing on all cylinders and we've got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon, which customers can't wait to get their hands on."
The company sold 4.1 million Macintosh computers and 19.5 million iPods during the its fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 25. Mac sales were at an all-time high, but still a bit below analysts' expectations. On a conference call with analysts, that raised a question about whether the iPad was cannibalizing Mac sales.
"Yeah, I think there is some cannibalization, but there is also a halo effect," said Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, referring to the way sales of one Apple product can lead to sales of other Apple gizmos. "If this is cannibalization, it feels pretty good."
The company also noted that iPad sales will likely fall back somewhat in the current quarter, since the tablet proved to be a hot holiday purchase. The iPod follows a similar trend, with holiday-quarter sales typically doubling the average sales from the other three quarters.
Apple continues to add new revenue streams. The $4.4 billion in iPad sales during the quarter come from a product that didn't exist a year ago -- the tablet computer first went on sale in April. The company also expanded its chain of retail stores, which reached $1 billion in sales for the first time.
The news comes a day after Jobs temporarily stepped down from his job, taking his second medical leave of absence in two years, and his third since 2004.
In his stead, Cook will once again handle all day-to-day operations.
In the conference call following the financial results release, some analysts asked about Apple's business plan for the future -- especially if Jobs does not return to the company.
In response, Cook said the Apple team has "incredible depth of talent and a culture of innovation that Steve has driven, and excellence has become a habit."
He added: "We have incredible hope for the future of the company."
Apple usually provides a conservative outlook for the current quarter, but this time the company blew away analysts' forecasts. The company said it expects earnings of $4.90 per share on revenue of $22 billion this quarter, compared to Wall Street's expectation of $4.47 per share on $20.8 billion of sales.
Shares of Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) rose more than 1% afterhours, after closing down 2% on Tuesday, in the first day of trading following Jobs' announcement.
COMMENTARY: Wow, those are incredible numbers. That 7.3 million in iPad unit sales for the 4th Quarter 2010 is incredible. That makes it 14.3 million iPads sold in 2010. Everybody thought it would come in at 5.5 to 6.5 million iPads. But, Steve Jobs surprises us again. Those revenue and profitability numbers are a new record. Apple grossed $602 per iPad which tells me that Apple Store sales made up most of the units sold. Can it get any better for Apple?
I just reported on Steve Jobs medical leave and his record accomplishments since he returned to Apple in 1998 after being fired in 1986, and I expected Q4 2010 numbers to be impressive, but this performance is a blockbuster. You can find my post HERE.
Courtesy of an article dated January 18, 2011 appearing in CNN Money
This has been a significant few weeks for Millennial Media. The ad network just closed a$27.5 million investment round, announced that the company had tripled its revenue in 2010, and today, is releasing one of its more noteworthy monthly reports. Millennial, whose ads reach 63 million of a total of 77 million mobile web users in the U.S., or 81 percent of the U.S. mobile web; is reporting that for the first time in the company’s history Android surpassed iOS as the largest Smartphone OS on the Millennial network in terms of impression share.
Android OS impression share saw an 8% increase month-over-month and a 46% impression share on the network in December, compared to iOS’ 32% share (which is down by 6% from November). RIM followed with a 16% impression share for December, down by 3 percent from last month.
Android ad requests grew 141% from Q3 to Q4 and since January of 2010, Android has grown 3130% over the year. Apple requests grew 12% in Q3 to Q4 2010, and since January, Apple increased by only 14%. Apple saw more growth with its tablet device, with iPad requests growing by 280% Q3 to Q4 2010. RIM requests increased 60% in Q3 to Q4 2010, rising by 224% since January.
This month, Millennial broke down the revenue generated by apps in Q4, and interestingly Android had a 55% share as opposed to 39% for Apple. Android apps had a 13% increase in ad revenue quarter-over-quarter.
General smartphone impression share increased by 2 percent month-over-month and accounted for 60 percent of the mobile phone impression share in November. Touch Screen devices grew 10% month-over-month, with approximately 57% share of impressions in December, thanks to an increase in smartphone usage.
While Apple may have lost the top spot in terms of impression share, Millennial reported that Apple continued its reign as the top manufacturer on the Millennial network (as it has been for the last 15 months), representing 21 percent of the network’s impression share by manufacturer in December. In terms of actual devices, the iPhone and iPod touch made up the two of the top three individual mobile devices.
Samsung came in second in terms of manufacturers, followed by Motorola and HTC, which had a 9% growth month-over-month. Android devices represented 16 of the Top 30 Mobile Devices in December, up from 11 devices in November. And smartphones accounted for 23 of the Top 30 Mobile Devices, with a combined 48% impression share in December.
With respect to apps using advertising on Millennial’s network, Android applications represented 55% of the Application Platform Mix in Q4 2010, a 13% increase quarter-over-quarter.
Clearly the most compelling statistic out of the entire report is that Android finally surpasses iOS for mobile ad impression share on the network. While this is a first for Millennial’s network, Android has steadily been eating away at the smartphone marketshare that Apple and RIM once commanded.
And why is this a big deal on Millennial’s network? According to a new IDC report, Millennial is the third largest network behind Google AdMob and Apple’s iAd, so a shift in share on Millennial’s network is significant.
Of course the real test will be whether Android can sustain its domination over the next few months. But Android has a lot of leg room to loose even a little bit of its impression share (there’s currently a 14 percent spread between the two operating systems) so it looks likely that the report will show similar findings for January.
COMMENTARY: Android's open standards really is a competitive edge when it comes to advertising dollars. Apple's iAd advertising network is tightly closed and controlled. This has pissed off a lot of mobile app developer's. According to Distimo, Android now has 130,000 apps, and has become a force in the mobile app marketplace, and many developers have taken flight to produce apps for Android smartphones, which is widely distributed through several carriers, not one (AT&T for now, but Verizon Wireless is distributing the iPhone beginning in February) like the iPhone.
Courtesy of an article dated January 13, 2011 appearing in TechCrunch
As students returned to class this week, some were carrying brand-new Apple iPads in their backpacks, given not by their parents but by their schools.
A growing number of schools across the nation are embracing the iPad as the latest tool to teach Kafka in multimedia, history through “Jeopardy”-like games and math with step-by-step animation of complex problems.
As part of a pilot program, Roslyn High School on Long Island handed out 47 iPads on Dec. 20 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students.
The iPads cost $750 apiece, and they are to be used in class and at home during the school year to replace textbooks, allow students to correspond with teachers and turn in papers and homework assignments, and preserve a record of student work in digital portfolios.
“It allows us to extend the classroom beyond these four walls,” said Larry Reiff, an English teacher at Roslyn who now posts all his course materials online.
Technological fads have come and gone in schools, and other experiments meant to rev up the educational experience for children raised on video games and YouTube have had mixed results. Educators, for instance, are still divided over whether initiatives to give every student a laptop have made a difference academically.
Rock N Learn, now with over 50 products, has sold millions of audio/book and video programs to teachers and parents throughout the United States, Canada, and other countries.
Rock 'N Learn programs help students learn math, phonics, reading, early childhood, social studies, Spanish, test-taking strategies, writing, and science using the Apple iPad. Richard Caudle, President of Rock N Learn demonstrates several of its educational apps on the iPad:
At a time when school districts are trying to get their budgets approved so they do not have to lay off teachers or cut programs, spending money on tablet computers may seem like an extravagance.
And some parents and scholars have raised concerns that schools are rushing to invest in them before their educational value has been proved by research.
“There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines,” said Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, who believes that the money would be better spent to recruit, train and retain teachers. “IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning.”
But school leaders say the iPad is not just a cool new toy but rather a powerful and versatile tool with a multitude of applications, including thousands with educational uses.
“If there isn’t an app that does something I need, there will be sooner or later,” said Mr. Reiff, who said he now used an application that includes all of Shakespeare’s plays.
Educators also laud the iPad’s physical attributes, including its large touch screen (about 9.7 inches) and flat design, which allows students to maintain eye contact with their teachers. And students like its light weight, which offers a relief from the heavy books that weigh down their backpacks.
Roslyn administrators also said their adoption of the iPad, for which the district paid $56,250 for the initial 75 (32-gigabyte, with case and stylus), was advancing its effort to go paperless and cut spending. In Millburn, N.J., students at South Mountain Elementary School have used two iPads purchased by the parent-teacher organization to play math games, study world maps and read “Winnie the Pooh.” Scott Wolfe, the principal, said he hoped to secure 20 more iPads next school year to run apps that, for instance, simulate a piano keyboard on the screen or display constellations based on a viewer’s location.
“I think this could very well be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector,” Mr. Wolfe said.
The New York City public schools have ordered more than 2,000 iPads, for $1.3 million; 300 went to Kingsbridge International High School in the Bronx, or enough for all 23 teachers and half of the students to use at the same time.
More than 200 Chicago public schools applied for 23 district-financed iPad grants totaling $450,000. The Virginia Department of Education is overseeing a $150,000 iPad initiative that has replaced history and Advanced Placement biology textbooks at 11 schools. And six middle schools in four California cities (San Francisco, Long Beach, Fresno and Riverside) are teaching the first iPad-only algebra course, developed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Even kindergartners are getting their hands on iPads. Pinnacle Peak School in Scottsdale, Ariz., converted an empty classroom into a lab with 36 iPads — named the iMaginarium — that has become the centerpiece of the school because, as the principal put it, “of all the devices out there, the iPad has the most star power with kids.”
But technology advocates like Elliot Soloway, an engineering professor at the University of Michigan, and Cathie Norris, a technology professor at the University of North Texas, question whether school officials have become so enamored with iPads that they have overlooked less costly options, like smartphones that offer similar benefits at a fraction of the iPad’s base cost of about $500.
Indeed, many of the districts are paying for their iPads through federal and other grants, including money from the federal Race to the Top competitive grant program, which administrators in Durham, N.C., are using to provide an iPad to every teacher and student at two low-performing schools.
“You can do everything that the iPad can with existing off-the-shelf technology and hardware for probably $300 to $400 less per device,” Professor Soloway said.
Apple has sold more than 7.5 million iPads since April, the company reported, but it is not known how many went to schools.
The company has been developing a school market for the iPad by working with textbook publishers on instructional programs and sponsoring iPad workshops for administrators and teachers. It does not, however, appear to have marketed the tablet as aggressively to schools as it did its early desktop computers, some of which were heavily discounted for schools and helped establish a generation of Apple users. School officials say that Apple has been offering only a standard educational discount of about 10 percent on the iPad.
About 5,400 educational applications are available specifically for the iPad, of which nearly 1,000 can be downloaded free.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which developed the iPad algebra program in California, said it planned to compare the test scores of students using a textbook in digital and traditional book formats. The iPad version offers video of the author solving equations, and individualized assessments and practice problems.
Many school officials say they have been waiting for technology like the iPad.
“It has brought individual technology into the classroom without changing the classroom atmosphere,” said Alex Curtis, headmaster of the private Morristown-Beard School in New Jersey, which bought 60 iPads for $36,000 and is considering providing iPads to all students next fall.
Dr. Curtis recently used a $1.99 application, ColorSplash, which removes or adds color to pictures, to demonstrate the importance of color in a Caravaggio painting in his seminar on Baroque art. “Traditionally, so much of art history is slides on a screen,” he said. “When they were able to manipulate the image themselves, it came alive.”
Daniel Brenner, the Roslyn superintendent, said the iPads would also save money in the long run by reducing printing and textbook costs; the estimated savings in the two iPad classes are $7,200 a year.
“It’s not about a cool application,” Dr. Brenner said. “We are talking about changing the way we do business in the classroom.”
COMMENTARY: Books, newspaper and magazines are rapidly transitioning from print to digital format and are available for downloading from public libraries, national book store chains, Amazon.com, Google and iTunes.
Driving the rapid transition of textbooks from print to digital format is the explosive growth in tablet computers. Soon there will literally be dozens of tablet computers besides the Apple iPad.
Goldman Sachs predicts that Apple will sell 37.2 million iPads by 2012, and it expects that tablet manufacturers will ship about 55 million tablets in 2011, Sales of tablets will heavily impact the growth of the PC market, reducing unit sales of desktop computers by 20 million or 35 percent of total desktop sales.
With the explosive growth in the unit sales of tablets, it stands to reason that costs will dramatically come down, and that more schools will be able to afford them, with or without grants.
Spur economic activity and invest in long-term growth
Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending
The Race To The Top school program (K-12) has been highly controversial because it rewards grants based on educational performance. High-performing schools located in suburbia benefited more from Race To The Top than low low-performing school located in the poorer inner cities. As a result most of the school grants went to high-performing schools. Many low-performing schools didn't even bother to apply for the grants. If you are interested in knowing how well your school performed click HERE.
Unfortunately, there aren't many people rooting for the Race To The Top school program, which created winners and losers among states. There are also folks in western and rural states who feel they weren't given a fair shake to go after a grant.
Regardless of the controversies, the new Congress has pledged to clamp down on spending in a big way, and Race To The Top is definitely on Congress' cross-hairs. The program was at one time deemed "Arne's Slush Fund"? After all, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan got to give away $4.35 billion in the first year of the program. The Obama administration is pulling to extend the program, even if it is paired down substantially.
The bigger question, and it is a legitimate one, is whether tablet computers will really improve the quality of children's education. I think what we are seeing is a trend which I call "iPad crush", driven by overzealous Apple evangelists, many who are teachers, who love their iPads and believe it is the answer to improving quality of education without substantiation.
Apple would love to sell as many iPads as possible, but even after the school discount of 10%, the cost of an iPad is around $600.00, out of the reach of most schools, with the exception of those in affluent school districts. If Apple expects to make significant inroads with schools it needs to change its stingy pricing for schools, otherwise it stands to lose the school market to other tablet makers with equal or better tablets at a lower cost.
I think that if you are going to continue the Race To The Top school grants, low-poorer and low-performing schools should not be penalized indiscriminately, otherwise you will create a school culture of haves and have-notsw.
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