Last week, Apple announced their big push into education (iPad textbooks, iBooks creator, iTunesU…) Quite frankly, they're incredible; Apple has just created something phenomenal that will spark huge ripples of change in education and finally modernize the way we've taught our children for the last 50 years.

That said, I don't think that Apple will ultimately be the victor when it comes to providing the learning platforms that will teach the eGeneration. Apple's trademark walled-gardens will finally catch up to them in this market. Really, education is all about breaking down walls...

Apple has really created something amazing with their new education suite. iBooks creator is insane. It's so simple and creates such astonishingly good looking books that it will kick down the door on which Amazon started knocking with their self-published e-books. The quality/usability gap between professionally-created content and "hobby-novellist" is being torn down and that will rapidly democratize book publishing in the same way Youtube democratized entertainment. However, it's unlikely that the whole world will actually create iBooks on Apple's platform (you need a Mac to use their iBooks Creator, after all), but Apple is setting a very high bar that will raise the standard for eBook creation & publishing tools in the same way that iPhone OS created the de-facto standard for touch-based mobile operating systems, app stores, etc.

Similarly, iTunesU is exactly the course management/communication system I wish I had available when I was in University. It's by no means revolutionary; it's basically BaseCamp for students, but seriously– why has it taken education software developers this long to create this kind of beautiful, integrated course management system?? Once again, Apple has set the bar for others to follow. However, the reason I don't think iTunesU will be "king of the classroom" is because Apple can't help but build walls around their gardens. That strategy may work well for them in the free market, but walled gardens make people uncomfortable and educators are nervous types. Apple is expensive and the fact that Apple's custom ePub format doesn't play nice with others creates a vendor lock-in that will quickly throw up the collective arms of the PTA and the IT departments.

A good time to be in e-Learning

Instead, what Apple has done last week is fire the starting pistol. There have been many new eLearning startups founded in the past few years (I've had the pleasure to work with a few of them). You might think that they would be sweating bullets right about now, however, Apple entering the eLearning space was actually the best thing that could happen to the market. The investment dollars that will flow into this race into the classroom will make for an interesting ride to the top. Apple showed the world what e-Learning should look like, and the race for a viable competitor is on.

The fact is, the education systems of the future need to be based on open platforms. Physical textbooks are an open platform (OK, dinosaur publishing industry aside) you don't need a specific device to read a hardcopy textbook. Apple's onerous software policies would require every student to own an iPad and that's simply not going to happen in public education (I do expect Apple will heavily promote their new e-Learning tools to private schools)

Google is smiling...

I expect Google to launch a similar e-Learning suite within the next year. They already have all of the components ready, Google Books, Scholar, Apps for Education, Calendar, Docs, GMail, Android, Google+, Hangouts (seriously, think about it for a second.) All Google really needs to do is package these existing products into a super functional and clever eLearning portal and Google will quite likely beat Apple at their own game, Android style. Actually, Google has already been making headway into the world of higher education.

I'm willing to bet that Facebook will also roll out a social e-Learning application, focused primarily at the university level (they did start on-campus, after all.) Microsoft will almost certainly want to join the party too, and with deep pockets. But they won't do a very good job. And swimming with the giants will be a handful of nimble, independent e-Learning startups, some of who already have a sizeable head start and lots of funding. Yep, e-Learning is going to be very, very big.

Reaching the Youtube generation

For the first time since the creation of the TV, our mediums for learning will actually speak to kids and capture their imaginations. eLearning will be a wave of change for our 1950's-era education methods that do more to squash creativity than to promote independent thought. It won't be an overthrowing revolution in education, we're just giving teachers tools that are finally suited for the X-box, Facebook, Youtube world that lives outside the classrooms.

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