Stephen posed the question about our thoughts on Apple’s new iPad. Of course, in the past week, it’s been impossible to not view a million different opinions.  So, thank you for asking, because this time, I think I actually do have an opinion on this.

Here’s my response:

I love the aesthetic of Apple as much as the next person. The iPhone really changed the way people do things (my brother constantly calls it a “game-changer”) and I love my mac laptop, however, I am not ready to pre-book my iPad just yet.

There’s an organization called Defective by Design and they are dubbing the iPad the “iBad” because of the way Apple handles Digital Rights Management (DRM). Basically DRM puts locks on content.

I have recently watched RiP: A remix manifesto on the National Film Board of Canada’s website and it reminded me the importance of why content needs to be free. The first key point in the manifesto: “Culture always builds on the past”. Throughout the history of humanity, we have built on the knowledge from those before us. Yet in this past century, we have found ourselves allowing corporations to take ownership of our content. Not creators but corporations are locking us out of our own culture.

Now you don’t have to wake up every morning and sing the Free Software Song or be a card carrying member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to see the value in free and open content.

The iPad is not designed for content creation. It is designed for content consumption. It shifts back to “read only” from the read write web.

This is the beginning of what some are calling the dawn of the Splinternet, where more content is moving behind logins and password.

BBC News summarized this best:

“At the heart of this and many other fights lies an attempt to limit the ways in which the network and the computers connected to it can be used, and to do so in ways that serve the interests of corporations.
These interests may sometimes be aligned with those of the wider public, but that alignment is conditional and contingent and cannot be relied upon, which is why it must always be challenged.”

So, personally, I’m going to take the advice of all these wise folks’ blogs I’ve been reading.

I’m going to choose my devices carefully and I’m going to let vendors know that DRM is not okay.

I’m looking for a device that is elegant and open, usable and free. If Apple takes the iPad in that direction, then I’ll be happy to jump on the bandwagon.

Up until this September, I wasn’t too motivated to write about anything really, then I received a phone call from Helen from the Botshaft von Kanada. She invited me to speak in Berlin, Germany at a conference for German academics and administrators interested in the integration of lifelong learning into universities’ missions. She felt that as president of the Ontario Council for University Lifelong Learning that I was a suitable workshop presenter to represent Canada. There was going to be one presenter each from Canada (me), Australia (Krishna Sen), U.S.A (Sherryl Weems), U.K. (Tom Schuller).

I rushed to the passport office with my application and photo and within 6 days it was official – I could travel out of the country. My flight and hotel were booked for me and all I had to do was come up with a presentation that represented the state of lifelong learning in Canadian Universities. Oh, is that all?

The conference organizers sent some leading questions to keep the presenters on track which I shared widely- with my colleagues from my institution, OCULL, CAUCE, anyone who would stop and talk to me about lifelong learning. Many people contributed a lot of reading material, advice and input; so much that at the end, I felt that I was a mere messenger and that the workshop presentation was a collaborative effort from many experts.

I read and made notes for a solid 6 weeks and rarely slept due to the sheer excitement of the upcoming presentation. I put so much work into this project that it consumed a portion of me. So after returning from Berlin, I felt the only reasonable thing to do would be to encapsulate this workshop by writing it all out and make it public. I’ve been told that anything I put on the web then becomes “published” and then is no longer eligible for “real” publication. I guess that’s a risk I should take. It would be ridiculous to keep all this research sequestered away from anyone interested in knowing more about it.

Without further ado, I will now announce the scope of this blog and its intended mandate and audience. I’ll be creating a series of static pages on the topic of Lifelong Learning in Canada. My audience is anyone interested in knowing more; ideally administrators and policy makers, but just as importantly citizens who believe in lifelong learning as more than a buzzword.