How does the iPad change things? What is its impact on public education? Here's one take (and an excerpt):
"The nature of personal computing has changed. Until recently, we mainly used our computers to run software programs (Microsoft Word, Quicken) installed on our hard drives. Now, we use them mainly to connect to the vast databases of the Internet—to “the cloud,” as the geeks say. And as the Internet has absorbed the traditional products of media—songs, TV shows, movies, games, the printed word—we’ve begun to look to our computers to act as multifunctional media players. The computer business and the media business are now the same business..."
BREAKING NEWS: Students are still bored
1 day ago
I'm looking forward to using something like the ipad or ipod touch as a multi-functioning hand held computer or data collector. For instance, I move around quite a bit during a day, changing rooms, and outside most of the fall and spring. If I could do things like take attendance, check email, enter grades in a spreadsheet, pull up videos for use in class, manage my files on the server or bring documents to wherever I am, all of that could be valuable. I'm sure I could do most of that now with a laptop/projector mechanism, but the ipod and ipad are more portable, and if I can connect to a network than it becomes a valuable teaching tool. I might not even have to be connected all of the time, but I'd like to synchronize my data when I'm back in range. Those sound like interesting things to me that might help me day to day.
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