Opinion

The Inference Engine anticipated much of what Apple announced in NYC on Thursday. Some interesting questions remain.

Katharine Hayhoe is an associate professor of geoscience at Texas Tech, a climate researcher who has suggested the northeastern USA prepare for hotter summers and shorter winters, and the deeply Christian wife of an evangelical preacher. She was invited by Newt Gingrich's co-author to contribute the opening chapter on climate change to an upcoming book on environmental entrepreneurship. Of course, that was before Newt decided to run for the presidency, felt the need to atone for his moment on the couch with Nancy Pelosi, determined that "conservatism" referred to conserving destructive momentum rather than conserving the earth, and spiked Hayhoe's chapter which explained why environmental entrepreneurs were any more valuable than the inventor of the next pet rock or chia head.

I was sitting down to a meeting with one of my committee members. He was telling me about a phone call he had just received from a colleague asking if he knew anything about a “Katy Meyers” because she was doing some good work online that was worth checking out. Hearing things like that is not only a great confidence booster, but it means that I’m doing something right. My name is spreading in my field, and in a positive manner associated with my academic work. I’m not going to say I’m a genius at managing my identity, but if you Google my name without any qualifiers, I dominate the first page. Creating a recognizable brand is a way of managing your academic identity. You want your brand to be just as recognizable, even if its just in your discipline.

The Apple Education Event is now available to watch online. Have you checked it out yet? We will have to see how this all plays out in the next 24 months, if Apple's push for iPad textbooks gains any significant market share (vs. mindshare), if textbook prices move at all, and how other digital textbook players such as Inkling, Chegg, and Kno are impacted.

When I was a graduate student and was assigned to teach (and design) a course, the first thing I did was order the textbooks for that particular topic. It seemed to me then, that everything would fall into place once I had accomplished the major task of choosing a textbook and figuring out the readings. In contrast, now, when I am about to design a new course, the specific readings sometimes end up being one of the last things I choose.

My three-year-old son hates school. The larger issues facing higher education can wait. The problems and challenges of education are happening to me, right now, and it’s all I can think about.

Apple's announcement shows us one of three routes we can take toward the future of knowledge and education. Will academics follow the path blazed by Apple and Kindle and use these open publishing platforms to buy and sell - or will they feel educational materials are more valuable if untethered from the digital marketplace?