I was one of my city’s pioneers in online learning. I first switched in 2005 and graduated high school online in 2008. For me, the ability to manage my own time and set my own pace of learning was tremendously valuable.

The set up back then consisted of courseware hosted online through a private WebCT system. On this system, you could access assignment instructions and some basic curriculum, email the teacher, and use interactivity components if activated, such as discussion forums, embedded YouTube videos, or instant quizzes. Often times though, most of the learning happened via textbook.

In many ways, online learning was just traditional paper-based distance education upgraded. Instead of mailing the textbook and courseware to you to eventually mail back for grading, the exchange of essays occured online and courseware no longer needed to be snail mailed. This reality is often far from the grandiose visions of engagement and interactivity that technologists declare when pushing online learning or other technology-enhanced educational opportunities. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that, as it currently exists, online learning is essentially less engaging than a real classroom (most of the time), but its advantages in terms of time outweigh that downside.

With Apple’s announcement today of the new iPad textbooks, the iBooks publisher, and the re-designed iTunes U, online learning has taken a big leap forward. We currently require a student to sit down at a PC with their textbook on hand while accessing assignment notes off WebCT - this new educational ecosystem streamlines and enhances that whole process.

Instead, students will be able to access their courseware through the iTunes U app, dynamically linked to either professional or self-published interactive textbooks, all from their iPad. No longer is online learning tied to the desk or to paper. It is entirely hosted and managed from a lightweight, powerful, and affordable device that can be used for so many other purposes.

One of the most important aspects of this platform is its ease of use. Apple software is leaps and bounds ahead of the current technology in this space. WebCT has rightly been decrieded by all the students who’ve used it over the years. It’s dated, slow, and hardly engaging. And the software of the static, paper-based textbook is no doubt ripe for change itself. With this ecosystem, there’ll be less time spent on debugging and troubleshooting, and more time spent learning.

Another big component here is self-publishing textbooks. With iBooks Author, any individual or group can create a fully interactive textbook, with images, video, and quizzes, super easily. The textbooks can either be shared with others for free or sold for minimal expense on the iBookstore. This platform can enable teachers or government to create custom interactive textbooks with ease. Custom textbooks are often significantly cheaper than professional options and more customized to the actual curriculum, but do require time to be invested in their creation. Instead of worrying about layouts or printing costs, creators can focus solely on the actual content.

No doubt this requires buy-in to the full Apple platform. But so too did the iPod and the iPhone, ecosystems which, although locked-in, were far more powerful and easy to use than any of the alternatives. With these new tools announced today, Apple has presented itself as undeniably the optimal platform for online learning. While that doesn’t mean that online learning itself is in any ways more engaging than person to person education, it is definitely the next step forward in making online learning a more interactive and simple learning option for more people.