. i take a class in astronomy on my iPhone 4s...
It must be terrible having to read on the tiny iPhone4s screen and not to mention the
terrible battery life. The same would not be the case if you were using a sophisticated phone like the Samsung Galaxy S2 with its large sexy screen and super thin profile.
On another note, courses have been offered for for years using email with links to youtube material and ebooks published for free on websites like Scribd.
While Moodle might be a free service, how many Universities actually use it and/or support it?
Moodle has a wide support base abroad. It is currently gaining ground in the States and displacing for pay platforms like Blackboard. I would never consider hosting any material in
Blackboard for the simple reason that it is proprietary and the university has control over it.
Such is not the case for Moodle. You can host Moodle anywhere and charge for access to your course, and there is no nefarious middleman like Apple.
Technologically sophisticated academics have been using numerous techniques for teaching
courses online for years now. The thought of giving Apple 14 dollars for a textbook when you can place it in a website like scribd and charge pennies is pathological. I am sure that many clueless technologically sub-literate academics will embrace iCrap, but the honest truth is that there are much better ways of creating and hosting course material on the web than anything Apple has to offer for pay.
We already have websites that can:
administer exams
host academic videos.
offer collaborative platforms akin to googledoc
host ebooks for free.
Some students I know are fond of employing youtube channels in their smart phones.
Here is an example of one presentation on "separable differential equations" given in the Khanacademy a youtube channel:
http/youtu.be/gM95HHI4gLk
Many academics link to such presentations and send students email or put them on a password protected page with links to numerous other websites easily accessible through a smart phone.
Yes Apple thrives on the ignorance of those its infests.