[LINK] Apple iPads for Victorian School Students

[Tom Worthington]

Ivan Trundle wrote:
> On 02/06/2010, at 9:40 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> 
>> At $AU629 each for the iPads, by the time support costs are added,
>> I estimate the trail will cost $1M ...
> 
> I highly doubt that they were purchased for $629 each ...

Yes, education departments are likely to be able to buy iPads for less 
than the retail price, but even so netbooks will still be around 30% 
cheaper.

Ivan Trundle wrote:
> On 02/06/2010, at 9:40 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> 
>> A few minutes trying an iPad was enough to tell me it was inferior
>> to cheaper netbook for education.
> 
> Tom: care to explain your reasons in Link? I've spent a few minutes
> with netbooks to tell me that they are  inferior ...

Sorry, I thought I had explained this on Link before. The Apple iPad and
similar tablet computers lack a physical keyboard, making it difficult
to compose large amounts of text, which a student will need to do for
many subjects.

The iPad is better than the typical e-book reader, in that it has a good
screen and quite a good virtual keyboard, but this still will not be
good enough for the average student.

Students are not passive consumers of information, just looking at
a screen: they are actively creating information and interacting with
their fellow students. In my online teaching, I set up some resources in
the Learning Management System, suggest where the students might go and
then leave them to get on with it together.

The student with an iPad would need at least an external keyboard and a
cover for the device. For a similar cost they could have a netbook
to carry around, plus an external monitor, keyboard and mouse to turn it
into a desktop computer at home. This is the setup I use and it works well.

Some netbooks are coming out with a touch screen which can be swivelled
around to cover the keyboard, turning it into a tablet computer. While I
do not see the value of this, it will be available for those who want it.

There are also tablet computers, such as the one being considered by
Kogan, which are essentially netbooks with the keyboard removed. These
will be around $200. I can't see the value of those either, but it is an
option: <http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/03/kogan-android-tablet-kpad.html>.

For those wanting more detail on the educational aspects of all this I
will be presenting at the Moodle Moot in Melbourne:
<http://moodlemoot.org.au/course/view.php?id=44>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890