Is Jobs looking to overhaul education with the tablet?

This all sounds original and inspiring on the surface but let's think for a minute here.. what would such a device (that could feature a dynamic textbook or real-time updates of lectures and quality videos, as suggested in the article and in the comments here) offer that a regular laptop can't? The only difference I can tell is a unique touchscreen UI and is this enough to "overhaul" education or even medical industry?

Besides the obvious things like a tactile hardware keyboard versus a touchscreen, both devices would be able to offer the same thing, so how would a tablet device be such a game changer in this regard?

Thank you for this research. I've just finished the great book: "Inside Steve's Brain" hopefully the next one will be read on iTablet ;-)

"We haven't heard this first hand, but we've heard it multiple times second and third hand from completely independent sources"

And now I've heard it fourth hand. If I tell someone else about it, they've heard about it fifth hand.

Doesn't make the original source any more reliable though!

I think that you're on to something here. And the tie-in with the Joel Podolny and Apple U would start to make more sense.

Just part of the tablets mission but a key one.

Great insight. I think the form-factor itself (from what we think we know) would even be enough to facilitate fun educational exploration, given the right applications. I can only imagine the fun interactive learning that could be done with such a large multi-touch screen.

In addition to textbooks it seems that a tablet "Canvas" could be effectively used for interacting with teachers and instructors in whiteboarding scenarios. The teacher could use one tablet to write / draw / present on, which could be hooked upto a projector. The students could then be invited to add things and collaborate via their own networked tablet. Assuming this could all happen over a wide area network rather than just locally then this could have applications in remote learning and other training environments too. The same device could be used to "canvas" the students for opinions and answers in the form of polls and on the spot tests.

I like the idea of videos in a textbook - and maybe having a TI-83 emulator built into a calculus text. I'd love to get the tablet if it works like this for education, but I'm a broke-ass college student, so I dunno how that'd happen.

The biggest hurdle that the tablet will have to overcome is the hype that Apple-related blogs and fans have given it. Right now unless it spins gold from crap, there is a good chance that people will be underwhelmed by it given the massive hype associated with it.

I really do think that he is going to disrupt the educational system as it stands now. The moment that I heard that the tablet was even on the radar, I immediately thought of my son. And it isn't just about the book itself, it is also about the work presented by the student as well.

Usually at the end of a chapter, the student is presented with questions/problems to solve. He takes out his digital page, does the work with a stylus, signs the paper, and turns in the assignment all from the tablet. The teacher gets it on *their* tablet, does any corrections, puts it into their grading chart, and returns it to the student with the score and corrections. All without using one piece of paper.

The other area is the current version of the "textbook". I remember I had textbooks in the mid 90's that were from 1982. They were still talking about the Berlin Wall!! This is the biggest hypocrisy of the current educational model; teaching out of date facts in our information-driven world.

The other thing that this offers is student collaboration, with people outside their school. How cool would it be the your student in your hometown could collaborate with a student in Japan? Or maybe with the neighboring school? That by itself could be a huge benefit of something like this.

I can't wait for Wednesday.... :-D

If this speculation proves out, and every student in America is furnished with a Tablet, then I expect we'll also see much more serious moves to "regulate" -- i.e. censor -- the Internet, as is done in China -- to "protect the children" (always a political slam-dunk) not only from pornography, but also from "unapproved" information, e.g. the truth about Pearl Harbor, or Climategate. After all, should the poor, tender-minded little tykes come to learn that the government lies to them about everything, they might get upset.

Steve has it part right about the problems with our education system, but he misses the real, foundational problem: so long as the schools are run (or controlled) by the government (and supported by involuntary contributions, i.e. taxes), their primary focus will be Brave New World style indoctrination, not real education. Separation of School and State, and return to a free market in education, is the only real solution.