Learning with Apple Live

March 9, 2015 by Brian Hughes

Apple’s live events keep evolving, and I would love to be able to use their “live broadcasting” toolkit—essentially turning their website into a media-rich live blog of the event. Here’s a screenshot of what today’s Apple Watch-focused event looked like:

The key features of this mode of presentation are:

Live video of the main presentation—which is being produced somewhere (usually California) for a live audience.
Produced video elements are used during the presentation. Split-screens are sometimes used to juxtapose the speaker and other content (as above).
Pre-made, widget-like cards appear from top to bottom with short summaries (including images and video) of the presentation content. They have simple, built-in social sharing functionality.
When you scroll down to see older cards, the video is shrunk to a thumbnail and continues to play at the top of the page.

These elements combine for a simple, compelling online presentation. One can easily step away and come back, and skim the cards to see what was missed. It would be equally great if the presentation could be replayed from the point of any ‘card’… though I don’t think this is currently the case!

So, if I had this presentation toolkit, would I use it? Given the amount of pre-planning and multimedia in use, it would certainly take a significant up-front investment (e.g., time, money, preparation). However, to deliver a high-impact event to a web audience, it seems like a great place to start.

I especially like the live element—which underscores the event with the sense that, “this would be even more impressive in person, but I’m as close as I can get!”

Supporting Academic Creativity With Online Tools

May 11, 2011 by Brian Hughes

A presentation on some intersecting interests.

How to Credit . . . via DesignSponge

April 15, 2011 by Brian Hughes

This is a fun summary of citation options online, and makes me wonder: are new methods of publishing making scholarship better, or just more complicated?

Holiday Data Snapshot

January 15, 2011 by Brian Hughes

This is a short write-up about a month worth of pageviews on the Gottesman Libraries’ Pressible site. There’s a lot more one could do with the analytics, but I was just sharing a brief analysis.

Taking responsibility for the impact of software

May 16, 2010 by Brian Hughes

Here’s Steve Jobs, from a recent email thread with Gawker’s Ryan Tate:

Do you create anything, or just criticize others (sic) work and belittle their motivations?

This last missive from Job’s is a nice rejoinder from a back-and-forth with Tate about Apple’s iPad platform (and related technologies). And if you don’t look too closely, you might be impressed by it.

By now it’s well-known that Apple draws the ire of the free software community. But Steve Jobs take the time (here in a private email conversation) to clearly articulate his views and motivations. Really? A CEO taking the time to pursue an email flame war with a spiteful blogger? Very respectable. Admirable, even.

That’s what it seems to take these days to engage the public, especially in the software development space. And I like Jobs’ response and his insistence on participation: he asks (I paraphrase), “Are you at least engaged in similar work?”

But wait, is that enough? Tate started the email thread by criticizing Jobs’ abuse of the language of “revolutions.” Does Jobs offer an adequate defense?

Jobs’ response is related to a too-easy dismissal: “If you don’t do X, you can’t criticize it.” But I don’t think that’s Jobs’ attitude in this case. Tate’s criticism against Apple is steeped in deep knowledge of the software world. I think Jobs’ is asking for empathy, saying (again I paraphrase), “It’s hard to bring these new technologies into the world, isn’t your quibble with us a minor one? Why can’t this discussion be more civil?” Or even, “It’s a mistake to equate what we’re doing here with something important.”

But then that’s why Tate is right and Jobs is, ultimately, a corporate ass: Jobs isn’t taking personal responsibility for his company’s ridiculous (“it’s magical” and “it’s revolutionary”) claims. Jobs’ insistence on deflating the significance of the iPad’s implications for the software community flies in the face of Apple’s language describing it. Once you say it’s revolutionary, there’s no going back and saying that you didn’t mean “in a cultural or political way” (Jobs’: “It’s not about freedom”).

So, frankly, this exchange turns out to be as offensive as it is instructive. I’m glad Tate shared it. Sure, we can empathize with Jobs… it is tough making great things. Especially complex things. But the work of understanding them – seeing their implications, assessing their value, and measuring their impact – is a shared responsibility between both developers and consumers. Indeed, it’s part of the cost of doing business, though easy to forget.

So, how can a development group take responsibility?

Do an impact study and publish it
Build assessment into your development process
Perform ongoing data analysis and research, and share it
And, of course, talk openly with your customers (at least Jobs got that one right!)… with luck, they’ll engage you in a fruitful conversation about culture, politics, and the future.

Publishers as purveyors of education

September 20, 2009 by Brian Hughes

In Post-Medium Publishing, Paul Graham makes the very elegant point that people have never paid for content. He explores this point from a few directions, pointing the way toward a future with low-cost distribution and high-quality “events.”

Publishers of all types, from news to music, are unhappy that consumers won’t pay for content anymore. At least, that’s how they see it… In fact consumers never really were paying for content, and publishers weren’t really selling it either. If the content was what they were selling, why has the price of books or music or movies always depended mostly on the format? Why didn’t better content cost more?

If he’s right, it’s amazing how slow publishers of all kinds have come to appreciate this – even as they run their businesses into the ground. (Perhaps they are just being optimistic that they will survive long enough to retire!? Anyone under 60 should probably adopt a different strategy.) The same could be said of academic institutions.

While academic publishers are conveniently tied to institutions with event models, I suspect they will increasingly see “traditional” publishers move to compete in the academic marketplace… offering new and powerful educational experiences. Will they be able to compete head-on with colleges and universities? I suspect they will. After all, they’ve been distributors all along – it’s just a new kind of content.

After Ed TV is launched

November 16, 2007 by Brian Hughes

After Ed TV is the new home of EdLab‘s nascent web video channel. We designed this site to serve as an archive of past episodes, but also as a destination for upcoming promotional efforts. Our primary goal at this point is to see if we can get other organizations to post our multi-video player on their websites – which we hope is seen as a low-effort way to make any website more active. New videos on the future of education appear on a weekly basis.

The next phase of our growth will be getting the word out about the website. Our audience is, broadly, learners and teachers. We’re currently working on events and other outreach efforts to broaden our exposure and visibility. Coming up in December, for example, we are working with a New York City school to use After Ed TV as a resource for thinking about the future of education. At an Edit Jam event on 12/14, the production team will help students and teachers produce their own web video which will be highlighted in our lineup.