The book, that tried, true and often loved form of media that has been with us for such a long time may have a competitor: at least in terms of academic texts that students are expected to buy for their courses. The company Inkling has come up with a very compelling model of that allows distribution of books, supports collaborative learning between students, and addresses the vexed issue of cost.
Maybe sometime soon, we will see students going to class and actually taking their text books with them because they can annotate the text, share and discuss ideas, and the iPad books have interactive content as textbook makers start to exploit the affordances of the tool (see The Elements).
Watch this space.
