MacRumors posted an article today on the “The Wall Street Journal report on eTextbook publisher CourseSmart, which is looking ahead to the release of Apple’s much-rumored tablet and is using this week’s CES conference in Las Vegas to show off its thoughts on how its content could be offered on the new device.”
The video detailed below is taken from this posting and provided through YouTube.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSjXO7Odh9E]
Although not the most realistic of concept videos it does highlight the power of a tablet based device for education purposes. The ability to not have to carry large heavy text books around and to also be able to annotate for later review and incorporation into essays and articles. It is a just a quick and easy step to see the same technology in the corporate environment.
In my view it is this type of technology that will change behaviors in people in the work place and encourage better knowledge sharing amongst employees which will only further drive innovation through participation. Making it easier for people to share notes, thoughts and ideas through what they have read or discussed is key to having an innovative organisation. The reason I call this out is it is quite often the idea of one strong voice that can sometimes take away from the innovative side of others. We all know that person, the generally verbose, strong willed and always opinionated person in the room. The power of an innovative organisation, and leader, is to provide the space and opportunity for others to participate in their own way.
I recently experienced this exact situation where one voice was always providing their opinion and would always preface it with statements like, “a few years ago we investigated and found”, “based on research we found”, or “we discussed all these options and we found that”. Whether or not these statements are or were true or not is irrelevant, what happens in this situation is the room shifts as it cannot contradict what appear to be facts (yet reality may actually not reveal these views to be based on facts). I have digressed slightly, but not without purpose. The reason I raise this is these devices, tablets, once they are the norm, will bring the facts, real-time, to the discussion table . The facts can then be shared, understood and discussed, and used to develop an appropriate innovative response. I guess “it will remove the opinion from the facts”.
Therefore, it is exciting to see concept videos like this that show the power of these devices for education, which can then easily be taken to the corporate environment.
Cheers
