A Text-Book App for Facebook well…mostly for iPad

Kno (pronounced “Know”) is a company that produces an application to for digital text books for downloading onto iPads, eReaders, the web and now for Facebook.

The application allows you to Highlight any text on a page. Zoom in on any picture by double-tapping (iPad only).Create stickies for a highlight or any page. Preview any page from an entire book (iPad only.) Search for any words in your textbook or PDF. Organize all your textbooks, PDFs and content in one spot (iPad only).

Other iPad only features include:
Journal lets you create a digital notebook by clipping images and text from your textbook.
Quiz Me turns any diagram in a book into a multiple choice quiz.
Share with classmates and study buddies right from within your book.

This is the future of textbooks and its only the beginning but having a textbook on Facebook…interesting, I saw a study years ago that said that about 50% of the interactions students had with each other on Facebook were school related. So Facebook textbooks make perfect sense in that context.

Here is a video of how it works.

How Kno Works from Kno on Vimeo.

PS. I wonder how this new textbook application is going to work with the Missouri law banning social network interactions between students and teachers. As one area moves to push forward with technology for learning, other non-educational forces are working as hard as they can to turn back the clock.

See the article Teacher-student online communication = BANNED? for more on this crazy law.

The article states that part of the reason for the law is because:
Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, sponsored the bill said Missouri is the 11th worst state in the nation for sexual misconduct with students and social networks promote sexual misconduct. Do you think maybe Missouri should examine hiring practices? Don’t you think that might have something to do with all that sexual misconduct? I don’t think banning social networking is the answers, plus how do we teach students about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate when we ban technology.

We can’t teach kids how to drive safely without teaching them to drive. We can’t teach kids how to use technology safely without teaching about…technology. Banning it sends the wrong message.