Source: MBA Online
Archives For Technology & Culture
Thanks go out to Dr. Barbara van Ingen for passing on this excellent video!
Math professor Robert Talbert decided to go as paperless as possible because:
- Paper-based student work is cumbersome.
- Paper-based student work is expensive.
- Digital student work saves time.
- The tools available today to work with electronic documents are better and cheaper than ever.
Talbert provides a very good explanation of how he digitally grades two Calculus and one Communicating in Mathematics courses. While he uses some methods and software tools that could easily be replaced with simpler solutions the fact that he is exploring this option is exciting. I have been working almost exclusively digitally for several years now and once you start there is not turning back.
I think what I find more surprising than the plummet of interest is that here was any interest to begin with. I was shocked to read that in the first quarter of 2011 46% of people surveyed were interested in a Windows tablet The drop to 25% two quarters latest reveals that there are alternatives that people are moving to. The following comment to the blog really summarizes the consequences of Microsoft’s missed opportunity”
@itguy10
Hey… Microsoft gave us a choice ten years ago. They gave us the Windows tablet amidst much hype and hoopla… and guess what??? The buying public had little interest in it. I know, I actually owned three Windows tablets but I rarely met anyone else who owned one.
Now I own an iPad and it does everything Microsoft’s best effort couldn’t.
I speak for many people when I say that a Windows 8 tablet offers little more than a big yawn. What good is it? What will it’s big advantage be over the little Windows 7 tablet I have that’s basically gathering dust?This is not 2001. It’s time to move forward. Windows had it’s chance. Time to let the true innovators move us in directions Microsoft failed to see.
Even though I am not currently an Android user I think it is very important to watch this platform develop. Why? As Jason Hiner points out many of the top Android apps can also be found in Apple’s App store which means the platform isn’t as important as the app or the task itself. Of the 20 listed apps, I have the following 13 on my iPhone:
- Google voice (not active in Canada)
- Dropbox
- Evernote
- Documents to Go
- Google Docs
- Tripit
- Amazon Kindle
- Google+
- Photoshop Express
- Audible
- Shazam
- Ted Air
- Google Places
Only 3 of the 20 are unique to the Android platform and I just don’t prefer the remaining 4 apps on Hiner’s list. It is very important to note that 17 of the 20 apps are available on the iPhone so this confirms that cross platform functionality of smartphones and their related tablets is fully established. Once again the best technology is the one that goes away and it doesn’t matter if you are using the iPhone or the Android you can do the same task on either.
