Info - POW!

A new aid to rapid – almost magical – learning has made its appearance.  Indications are that if it catches on, all the electronic gadgets will be so much junk.

The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organised Knowledgebase.  The makers generally call it by its initials, BOOK.

Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching aids on which most people are brought up nowadays.  It has no wires, no electric circuit to break down.  No connection is needed to an electricity power point.  It is made entirely without mechanical parts to go wrong or need replacement.

Anyone can use BOOK, even children, and it fits comfortably into the hands. It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire.

How does this revolutionary, unbelievably easy invention work?  Basically, BOOK consists only of a large number of paper sheets. These may run to hundreds where BOOK covers a lengthy program of information. Each sheet bears a number in sequence, so that the sheets cannot be used in the wrong order.

To make it even easier for the user to keep the sheets in the proper order, they are held firmly in place by a special locking device called a “binding”.

Each sheet of paper presents the user with an information sequence in the form of symbols, which s/he absorbs optically for automatic registration on the brain. When one sheet has been assimilated, a flick of the finger turns it over and further information is found on the other side.

By using both sides of each sheet in this way, a great economy is effected, thus reducing both the size and cost of BOOK. No buttons need to be pressed to move from one sheet to another, to open or close BOOK, or to start it working.

BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it.  Instantly it is ready for use.  Nothing has to be connected up or switched on. A special sheet is provided near the beginning as a location finder for any required information sequence.

A small accessory, available at trifling extra cost, is the BOOKmark. This enables the user to pick up their program where they left off on the previous learning session.  BOOKmark is versatile and may be used in any BOOK.

The initial cost varies with the size and subject matter.  Already a vast range of BOOKS is available, covering every conceivable subject and adjusted to different levels of aptitude.  One BOOK, small enough to be held in the hands, may contain an entire learning schedule.

Once purchased, BOOK requires no further upkeep cost; no batteries or wires are needed, since the motive power, thanks to an ingenious device patented by the makers, is supplied by the brain of the user.

BOOKS may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference the program schedule is normally indicated on the back of the binding.

Altogether the Built-in Orderly Organised Knowledgebase seems to have great advantages with no drawbacks.  We predict a big future for it.

I'm loving the posts all you Year 2 students are making - and the comments to one another's blogs, as well!  Keep up the energy and the inquiry!  You're all off to a fantastic start!

I would like you to please activate your links.  Whenever you include a URL, please make it an actual hyperlink. In the Compose window, there's a row of formatting buttons just above the box where you write your post's text.  Just click the button that looks like a couple of chain links (get it?).  Then paste the URL (web address) into the field. If you like, you don't even have to type the actual URL in your post, you can just say something like "it's all here", or some such. It'll make it easier for everyone to visit the links you share.

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I just attended (w/ Dr. Scott) an Apple Mobile Learning seminar, where we were sufficiently impressed by the myriad ways handheld mobile technology is being used in tertiary education across the globe.  (By "handheld mobile technology", in this case, I refer, of course, to the iPhone and the iPod Touch - it was sponsored by Apple, after all.)  It was really exciting and inspiring to see the many ways different educators are approaching learning using this technology, with all its different functionalities.  Look forward to our integration of this stuff more in the near, and more in the slightly-longer-term future.  Not only is there the capability to podcast lectures and other backup materials (sort of Web 1 useages). But what's really exciting are the interactive possibilities - using the technology to involve students in their (your) own learning processes...some of the stuff Thom Cochrane was talking about in the first half of the New Tech's class on Delivery (last Tuesday).  [BTW, it was Thom who made me aware of this seminar in the first place.  Thanks, Mr. C (a Vox neighbor).]  Our thinking caps are on tight now.  Watch this space.

And so begins this ol' bloggeroonie which will hopefully house some real interesting stuff related to new realms of possibility with technology (gizmos with levers, springs and gauges).