[LINK] Apple iPads for Victorian School Students

[Ivan Trundle]

On 03/06/2010, at 7:42 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:

> 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.

Thanks Tom. Your response makes assumptions about what students need to work with, but you've zeroed in on the lack of a physical keyboard as being the primary determinant of usefulness.

I appreciate that you have in the past outlined the usefulness of netbooks from your perspective and knowledge of the inner workings of student courses, but I was hoping that you could be more descriptive about the failings of the iPad.

However, all I've seen so far in the press and elsewhere is either a feature-by-feature knock-down (which is pointless given that it's usually a comparison of apples and oranges - pardon the pun), or seems to think that learning processes are governed by the hardware presented, or that battery life is not an issue, or that system admin of these devices takes little time or effort.

I agree with Stil in that new possibilities will exist for learning and teaching with devices that might or might not include an iPad or iPad derivative, but from what I hear both on Link and elsewhere, only netbook fanatics (if I am permitted to use this pejorative term) extol their virtues, and most others decry their limited battery life, poor robustness, and slow speed for all but basic tasks. Some even complain about the keyboards...

 I've yet to find a student who is not capable of using a virtual keyboard with incredible speed and accuracy (and some incredible records are being set by expert users - YouTube is full of examples), and as further proof of their usefulness, virtually all phone manufacturers are selling phones with virtual keyboards, despite protestations that 'they won't work and we will never make them'. The keyboard argument is a straw man.

Confession: our workplace has invested in iPads, and the clients that we work with are doing the same: a number of businesses are now in the process of handing out iPads to large numbers of staff for a whole bunch of reasons - I am observing a shift in thinking about 'hardware' that I've never seen before, in all the time that I've been involved with computers. I cannot speak on behalf of school environments, but my wife, who is a teacher, sees tremendous potential if only because it releases her from the shackles of having to have extensive IT support to do even the simple things.

iT


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Ivan Trundle
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