I watched Apple’s announcement with great interest. The expectation was that this announcement would “revolutionize” education.

That’s a pretty tough expectation. Unrealistic. And Apple didn’t revolutionize education.

I’ve read plenty of criticism of the announcement.

Audrey Watters was totally unimpressed.  She wanted the revolution. She quoted Phil Schiller, “ It’s the same great content we’ve always had in textbooks, Phil Schiller said onstage today, just in a new digital format.” For Audrey, that’s the problem. She doesn’t want textbooks.  She has a compelling argument. She feels that primary source material is easily available now and teachers can compile it themselves.

In theory, I totally agree. In my first teaching job (7-8^th grade social studies), there were no textbooks. I was allowed to create my own class, totally from scratch – including topic, sources, assignments, outcomes. It would’ve been a great opportunity – except I was 24 years old and had never taught before. I’d LOVE to have that opportunity now. I was in no way prepared for it then. We did end up with a pretty good class, somehow.

Most schools don’t run that way – wish they did. It would take more than a revolution in education to get states out of the business of selecting texts. It would take way more money to pay teachers fair pay for developing curriculum.

Beyond that, Audrey Watters and others complain that Apple’s products are proprietary – they work only on iPads. That the EULA is restrictive. That the “interactive” features are really only frosting, they are just the same type of teaching, just with bells and whistles. There is not social feature in any of the tools introduced.

All these things are true.

But I still think the announcement is a big deal. Why? Because it pushes mainstream digital publishers to recognize that digital texts are reality. It brings these ideas into everybody’s attention. Apple is much more of a household name than Inkling. It’ll take Apple to get school administrators, teachers, parents and students to take this seriously – even if they don’t have iPads.

Most schools aren’t anywhere near ready to abandon textbooks. Jumping to a digital textbook is enough of a revolution. For the schools that are lucky enough to already have iPads, this really is a great deal. It’s a great first step until the software and books mature.

The iBooks Author tool will be another step towards moving away from textbooks – it’ll let teachers (and students!) see that they can collect, curate and deliver content.

Things will evolve. It’s only a matter of time until Apple gets the pressure to have iBooks Author publish to other formats – or someone else will figure it out. The copyright issue will have to change. iTunes U will have to add some social features.

While this may not be a revolution, it’s a great first step!