iPads for Classroom Education - An Analysis

Written by Admin

Friday, 10 September 2010 11:07

News Desk: The iPad is certainly adding excitement to the classroom, and will become a powerful tool in education. What a great price for education! So many rumors were out there that the device would be near $1000. A price tag of $499 makes it more than competitive with the net books. The iPad Keyboard Dock will be available for $69 and this will be a great accessory for education. The greatest feature for education is the ability to have the iWork Suite available on the iPad. That is what the iTouch was missing. Now students can do word processing, slide show presentations, and create spreadsheets, and so much more for only $10 for each iWork app. Adding iWork is AWESOME! Making the iPad an eBook reader combined with all of the other great features is a treasure. Let us take a look at how iPad could help in school, or be problematic. Better battery life/Light weight: “10 hours of battery life” is likely wishful thinking. But so is the “up to 7 hours” on Mac Book Pro. The iPad can shave three pounds off a college student’s shoulders. “Bag of Holding” for class materials: Printing out an entire course-load of lecture materials, lecture supplements, lab reports, sports scores, fantasy draft rules, team standings, notes, research materials and cited sources will quickly bulge a notebook to bursting, requiring industrial-strength banding to keep closed. With an iPad, one can keep all that on a device slightly larger than a composition notebook. Easier to do work in the library: When doing research in the stacks, using of the iPad in tight quarters will be a boon. Also, I won’t need to worry as much about finding a comfortable table near a power outlet. Laptop Stigmata: The laptop screen should not be a wall between the teacher and you. The iPad will sit on the table and act much more like a traditional notebook. Single-tasking may let me focus better: The iPad not being capable of multitasking might help focus students a little better. So one cannot check mails or play games while taking notes. Lack of e-textbooks: Hopefully this will change, but the Kindle DX was marketed as a potential e-textbook reader, and a quick scan of the textbooks section of the Kindle store yielded slim results. No camera: While some people have bemoaned the missing camera for its video chat purposes, but in class, one can found it a lot easier to take an iPhone picture of a diagram the teacher drew on the board than attempt to recreate it in notebook. The ability to take a photo on iPad and integrate it into notes would be fantastic. No citation/equation support: If one has to use major equations during note taking, this could be a problem — hopefully; there will soon be an app for that. Locked-down/Walled Garden: For the most part, Apple controlling the gates of the App Store hasn’t caused me much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sure, I’d have loved a native Google Voice app, but since I need an Internet connection to use it, I’m OK with a web app. However, if there’s a specific application you need for a class, if there isn’t a similar app already in the App Store, you’re out of luck. No full-size keyboard (speculation): One of the big unknowns is how the keyboard will fare in real-life usage — it might not be that bad, or doing any sort of long-form writing could be unbearable. I’m OK with using the small Apple keyboard(it’ll likely be a permanent resident in my carry bag, but I’d love to just use the iPad. Also, the lack of travel is something that bugs me about the Apple keyboard, so the iPad keyboard could be hard for me to get used to. I’m ok with the iPhone keyboard, but that’s for light typing and I’m usually using just my thumbs. I’m also leery of touch typing on it. An iPad may be a useful device for people who are less tech-savvy, have needs that are more recreational than learning-centered, and want something like a smart phone but with a larger screen. (breakingnewsonline)