The inertia of established education is stark to see in a New York Times article today: Curling Up With Hybrid Books, Videos Included. Here are some excerpts:
For more than 500 years the book has been a remarkably stable entity: a coherent string of connected words, printed on paper and bound between covers.
But in the age of the iPhone, Kindle and YouTube, the notion of the book is becoming increasingly elastic as publishers mash together text, video and Web features in a scramble to keep readers interested in an archaic form of entertainment . . . .
The new hybrids add much more. In one of the Simon & Schuster vooks, a fitness and diet title, readers can click on videos that show them how to perform the exercises. A beauty book contains videos that demonstrate how to make homemade skin-care potions.
Not just how-tos are getting the cinematic work-up. Simon & Schuster is also releasing two digital novels combining text with videos a minute or 90 seconds long that supplement — and in some cases advance — the story line.
So, what about the obvious “vook” approach to school books? A word search shows neither “school” nor “textbook” is mentioned in this hybrid book round-up article.
School vooks can — and I feel certain — will soon be a mainstay of the new handschooling that will emerge around mobiles. We are in the age of the iPhone, Kindle and YouTube. Here is an opportunity for the mobile industry to tap into the billions spent every year on textbooks — an archaic form of curricula.
The kids will love text vooks and learn from them. If vooks teach homemade skin-care potions, why not physics? What are educators waiting for?
