On "Books in the Age of the iPad"

I thought I would go ahead and include some thoughts on one of the other readings I recommended a couple of weeks ago. In “Books in the Age of the iPad,” Craig Mod makes a very good case for why the death of the book (or, rather, the death of certain books) is not such a bad thing after all. He writes, “We’re losing the dregs of the publishing world: disposable books.” He also makes a good argument for why publishers of works on the iPad should reimagine how they conceive of the page as an aesthetic constraint for their content.

Mod writes, “Put very simply, Formless Content is unaware of the container. Definite Content embraces the container as a canvas. Formless content is usually only text. Definite content usually has some visual elements along with text.” I find Mod’s points here (and elsewhere in the piece) inspired; still, I’m concerned with the phrase “Formless Content,” because it seems to me that content is never formless. However, when Mod says “Formless Content,” he means that the content of the work is only arbitrarily (not integrally) linked to its form. While the meaning of Formless Content is influenced by the form it takes, the meaning of Definite Content depends on its form.

So, books with Formless Content can be easily (and losslessly) translated to digital media devices like computers and Kindles, because the shape of the page, the font used, and the size of the text is irrelevant. (I’m not sure I entirely buy this, given how many books I’ve stopped reading when I found the physical character of the text unwieldy.) However, he argues that the iPad will make it possible for us to (losslessly) read/view even Definite Content on a digital device.

Mod writes, “The seemingly insignificant fact that we touch the text actually plays a very key role in furthering the intimacy of the experience [of reading on the iPad].” This seems crucial to the success of something like the iPad as a replacement for printed books. Part of the problem I have with reading on a computer screen is that the text loses a good portion of its physical character. Words on a standard computer screen might still have texture (a shape they take in our mouths or brains), but they have no weight. Words (and images) on an iPad or Kindle, on the other hand, do seem to have both texture and weight.

So, my question is about the potential of devices like the iPad for online courses and Learning Management Systems. Courses in D2L or Blackboard or WebCT would not be incredibly user-friendly on an iPad. However, the iPad does seem like a perfect device for online courses (given that it would make learning tactile and even more portable). It would, though, require us to rethink the way we build and navigate online courses. And, while devices like smart phones and the iPad do make reading and interacting with digital material much easier, they make producing digital content more difficult. So, the challenge with creating courses that could be taken on an iPad would be to make sure that the learning experience didn't become passive with the student and their device a mere receptacle for information.

Has anyone attempted to encourage the use of smart phones and/or iPads in their online classes? Are there activities we can devise for using these devices in education? I know that if I were teaching a science class, I would love to assign Elements, an interactive periodic table for the iPad, and one of the most beautiful and revolutionary e-books I've seen.