[LINK] Apple iPads for Victorian School Students

[Tom Worthington]

Ivan Trundle wrote:
> 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. ... hoping that you could be more descriptive
> about the failings of the iPad. ...

The lack of a physical keyboard was the most significant problem I saw 
with the iPad for education. There is not much more I found to say: it 
is just a tablet computer which behaves like a big iPhone.

> I agree with Stil in that new possibilities will exist for learning
> and teaching with devices that might or might not include an iPad ...

What I see more important is that we can use the Web and the
Internet for education, the particular hardware used is not that
important. It would be foolish for an educational institution, let alone
a whole state education sector, to tie its education plans to an Apple
iPad, or any one device.



-- 
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