There is no denying it; the newest addition to the Apple family has got tongues wagging. Whether you can’t wait or couldn’t care, the iPad represents the direction mobile technology is taking and it is sure to have an impact on the evolution of education technology.
With a 9.7-inch LED-backlit multi-touch colour display, a choice of models with 16, 32, or 64 GB of Flash Memory and up to ten hours of battery life, the iPad is surely here to stay.
What does the iPad mean for education? How, if at all, will it benefit learning? There have been a number of positives and negatives aired on the blogosphere, but I would like to hear any more opinions from those who use online learning technology on a daily basis.
Positives:
- The display screen will make reading course materials easier than on a smartphone, saving a lot of scrolling and zooming (not to mention paper printing).
- The iPad is a more portable platform than a laptop or desktop
- There is the option to include 3G wireless capability, GPS and a plug-in keyboard
- Users can save and review resources (ebooks, podcasts, social media, videos)
- It offers a more engaging medium for learning than current options
Negatives:
- The iPad does not support Flash (by far the most controversial ‘missing’ feature)
- There is no integrated camera which limits the virtual classroom to an audio-only experience (an issue rectified in the iPad 2)
- There is no built-in USB or SD card slot
- The iPad is not as portable as a smartphone
- The iPad is priced out of most elearning budgets
If you are involved with elearning please post your comments here, we’ll see what conclusions we come to…
The iPad does have potential, but it is lacking in many ways.
I agree with all of your points and even wrote a similar article a while back. Read it and let me know what you think – http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2010/01/apple-ipad-is-it-game-changer.html
Basically you are saying it is very cool, but not yet an educational tool.
It would be hard to imagine that it won’t become a permanent fixture though, so will Apple adapt their iPad to address the issues highlighted, or should learning technology start to adjust to fall in line with Apple’s new release?
The lack of multitasking is a pretty fundamental deficiency too.
I’m worried about how I’ll be able to edit my moodle pages. Safari doesn’t currently have the html editor features and I’m not expecting firefox or chrome on the iPad
The release of Moodle 2.0 includes a new HTML editor that does work in Safari, so you will be able to edit your content in all major web browsers which should not be limited to Safari on the iPad.
Another great feature of the upcoming Moodle 2.0!!
Useful to see the new Ipad in terms of how we have reached this point as I found at – http://myamazingpeople.com/en/832/gutenberg-and-the-ipad-an-amazing-journey/
im loving the ipad personally. what do you think of it now? was it upto your standards?
Good article. Clearly the restrictions placed on the iPad make it unlikely for use in eLearning, but it certainly has some characteristics which would make it a good addition to the eLearning industry.
Mashable reported recently the Department of Justice is inquiring Into Apple’s Flash policy http://mashable.com/2010/05/30/doj-apple-flash/
Just got hold of a device and trying things out. It is a potentially smart device for students consuming and participating – we will trial 30 in a maths class here. I’m having trouble with Safari as it doesn’t support drag and drop and rich text editing (resource creation Moodle and Mahara affected by this).
Of course, the fact that Apple will “gate keep” is disturbing too in more general educational terms (if you are at all “liberal”).
I am impressed by the slickness and usability device (5 mins to connect to our exchange server for example) but it needs more in ways which have already been pointed out. Of course institutional management is a potential nightmare with each individual needing an iTunes account and so on.
One thing I did see all too briefly this morning was Win 7 remote Desktop running on the iPad and showing me our network drives. With a beefy wireless I guess you could run it as a thin client.
Interesting but the issues could be resolved by a company that listens.
@Suneil Basu
You can check out mTouch for moodle. We are about to release redesigned version for iPad.
Check out for the early bits of mTouch for iPad http://bit.ly/bRLc16