Tuesday, February 28, 2012

An Internet of Things in Education



This year’s Horizon Report 2012 identifies mobile apps and tablet computing as technologies expected to enter mainstream use in the first horizon of one year or less.  Of the six technologies highlighted in the Horizon Report, two were also noted in the 2011 edition. Game-based learning remains in the two- to three-year horizon, as does gesture-based computing in the four- to five-year horizon.  For the first time, Internet of Things is introduced and is seen emerging in the third horizon of four to five years.

I'm most intrigued by the report's Internet of Things.  I've noted in the past that the Internet of Things (IOT) will be a driving force in not only web and internet technologies, but will be an ubiquitous part of our lives, seamlessly integrated into our personal lives.  Imagine being able to tag physical objects and being able to connect them to the web.  Ultimately, the IOT extends the way we understand and convey information, thus making objects addressable (and findable) on the Internet is the next step in the evolution of smart objects — interconnected items in which the line between the physical object and digital information about it is blurred.

In the Physics of the Future, Michio Kaku has already pointed this out.  Ubiquitous computing frees the chip from the computer.   Thousands of chips scattered everywhere there is an object, being tagged as it is produced.  Is this exciting or will it just be confusing?  Information specialists will also be important if this technology is to take off.  If the web is one big disorganized mess, what will happen once the physical world expands this messiness?

This has to be an exciting time for libraries.  The Internet of Things is really not so different from what libraries have faced since the card catalogue days: collocating disparate pieces of information from the books to cards.  Eventually it became matching the physical (books) with the digital (OPAC).  Then it evolved to bar codes.  Then RFID with library books.  As a metaphor, the IOT takes this beyond the walls of libraries and extends beyond tagging a book to just about anything that has shape and form.  I encourage you to watch the video above.

Friday, February 03, 2012

Demise of Tradition?

“I’m not interested in selling a bowl. That’s not the business I’m going to be in,” Heather Reisman told the Globe and Mail in November. “I am interested in creating an experience around the table for the customer.” As MacLean's article recently argues, that Indigo Chapters “experience” paradoxically relies on the cultural patina of books—and their ability to provide product adjacencies, especially around cookbooks and children’s books, two categories predicted to defy digitization. As the article asserts,
"The new product mix is wisely skewed to women, the primary book buyers, and exudes comfort, warmth and well-being: teapots, wine decanters, yoga socks, lavender-camomile bubble bath, pretty notepaper and $28 olive oil."
What's happened to the Blockbusters (or Rogers Video, in Canada) is slowly happening to bookstores.   What's happening to Virgin Records and HMV is slowly happening to bookstores.   The method for how one purchases CD's and DVD's has been completely transformed; the way for how consumers borrow a movie is also completely reversed.    Venerable old Yellow Pages which for decades has been the point of destination when it came to finding names and businesses has also lost its market.  People have moved away from the product experience to the "digital experience," and it's really interesting seeing the dramatic change in the way publishing, bookstores, and libraries are transitioning.

In a way, these three businesses - publishing, book selling, and librarianship - have been the last to be revolutionized by the digital world although the tensions are there and the changes are coming swiftly.  With all these changes in business, it is fair to say that it seems libraries and publishing have been the late in the game to be hit with changes.  Two reports indicate more changes to come with print.  The bookstore model has been altered with less demand for books: but how will publishing and libraries fare?

In a recent study released by the Education Advisory Board, Redeļ¬ning the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services, it proposes for wholesale changes to how academic libraries are run: workflow efficiency, relationships with journal publishers, patron-driven acquisitions model, repurposing library spaces, and organizational cultures.   In a report prepared for the Association of Canadian Publishers called The Impact of Digitization on the Book Industry, proposes that Canadian publishers should brace themselves in digital rights management, copyright, and e-books.   Is this the death of the book?   (A popular question nowadays).