Armchair Apps-experiences that will truly blow your mind.

Posted by amydubin on August 14, 2012 08:46 pm 1

What do you think about what Corey Pressman, Owner of Exprima Media, has to say about the changing way in which we educate ourselves with an iPad:

HTML, Labyrinths, and Armchairs

Monday, August 13th, 2012

I think I got 10,000 hours of library-wandering under my belt by 8th grade. I achieved most of this in the New City Library decades before it was to have a digitized catalog, let alone a twitter feed. Among my favorite sections in that air-conditioned temple of intellectual meandering (in my memories, I’m always there in the summer for some reason) was the reference section.

The allure was terrific – atlases, encyclopedias, guides, almanacs; and you could take none of it home with you. Instead, there was an array of vast gleaming tables upon which to spread one’s bounty. Of course, the reference librarian was an ever-present guide and source of new directions of research. It was here that you could cross-reference for hours, tracking multiple lines of inquiry, formulating some big picture or another about a chosen topic. I propose these Hours of TrackingMultiple Lines of inquiry as the original HTML – the behavioral bedrock that made HyperText Markup Language such a hit.

The internet serves as the ultimate reference library – and you can take it home with you. It seems the new HTML has made reference library users of us all. But what of the librarian? We lose some important things- curation, authority, quality – without their guidance. We are in the labyrinth without string. A solution, short of cohabiting with a librarian, lies in software development. In the tablet world, there is an nascent collection of reference works, or ‘Armchair Apps’ – apps that create interactive contexts that provide open-ended, non-linear, multifarious exploration of a topic. Armchair apps like Exprima’s Anatomy & Physiology Revealed and Touch Press’ Shakespeare’s Sonnets are sprawling walled gardens – curated but endlessly explorable.

With a good armchair app, we can replicate that reference library afternoon anywhere anytime. And no need for string.

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He doesn't specifically say anything about an iPad, but these apps are designed for tablet experiences. I truly believe that immersive apps that help you educate yourself, rather than simply amalgamate your life's organizational processes, can have a profound effect on the way in which we decide to build the framework of our lives.