When asked how the iPad can impact the education industry, my first thought was how easy it will be for college students to carry to and from class. With it’s integrated Wi-Fi, smaller than a standard magazine and weighs only 1.5 pounds, it would take up hardly any space in a student’s backpack.
The iBooks application will allow students to download their text book from the Apple store and have it available on the computer. With at least 16GB of internal storage, there is plenty of space for the semesters books. The online Notes application would eliminate the need for paper and pen utilizing the onscreen keyboard. The 10 hour battery life would eliminate the need to carry a power cord and the touch screen functionality would eliminate the use of a mouse.
There are almost 140,000 apps available from the App Store to be used with the iPad. This will combine e-mail, photos, iTunes and video all in one resource.
This is all great, but will this one advance in technology see a change in our primary schools?
Today, many school systems are struggling with budgets and find technology as a place to save funds. In the 2009 budget for Hopkinton, they combined the school and town technology services eliminating 2.6 teaching positions and eliminated funding to purchase computers for the elementary schools. This is just one town, but it echoes through our state.
iPad is not the first electronic textbook reader. Many of the articles and blogs are comparing the iPad to the Kindle DX, each having pro’s & con’s. I don’t think that it is a matter of technology, but one of finances. When society puts more value into education, you will see many technology advances providing tools to education. I am sure that iPad can be one of them.
http://www.apple.com/ipad/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/188239/apple_ipad_vs_kindle_dx_which_is_better_for_education.html
http://www.hopkinton.k12.ma.us/newweb2/schoolcommittee/budget/08_09/Budget_Booklet_FY09.pdf
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