Our district purchased several iPads for special ed and for our ESOL teachers. I’ve had one for a week to put it through its paces and see how it might work, and how we might design some staff development. I can see the educational benefits of iPads in the classrooms, and I’ve seen some excellent results form kids working with them. However, from a personal standpoint I’m still conflicted as to whether I really like it, and how useful it might be compared to other options. Since I already have a netbook, Kindle, and iPod Touch, the device just seems redundant. Personally, I probably wouldn’t buy one, but if I didn’t already have these things, would it be a good choice? My very first thought was that it was just an overgrown Touch.
Coming from a laptop/netbook experience, my first impression was that the shortcomings of the iPad are numerous…
- No USB connections
- No easy way to transfer files
- No real GPS functionality for maps
- NO FLASH!!
…and lots of other pesky problems that prevent it from doing what I think it should be able to do. The lack of Flash is especially bothersome, because it prevents me from using slide shows on Flickr, and even using the admin screens of this blog effectively. Aviary.com won’t work at all on it, and Google Docs is a real bother.
My colleague Shirley Smith reminded me that I shouldn’t think of this as a laptop. Perhaps it’s best to think of it as a smart peripheral, rather than a stand-alone computing device – an extension of your computer, as it were. In that sense, it is like an overgrown Touch.
That being said, there are some things I really like about the iPad. It does come in a slick little package, and the display is absolutely gorgeous. The device is very simple to use. I especially like Garage Band on the iPad. The “Smart Instruments” are loads of fun, and the virtual piano keyboard is actually easier to play than I thought it would be. The camera and related apps are quite slick, and easy to use.
We purchased several several Bluetooth keyboards to go with the iPads, along with a camera card reader and VGA out so we could use the devices with a projector.
These accessories make it almost like a laptop, but not quite. The VGA out works perfectly. The card reader only allows one-way traffic. You can only copy images from a camera or card to the unit itself, but you can’t interact with the images while they are on the card.
The keyboard is a nice addition, and is almost necessary if you’re going to be taking lots of notes or doing a lot of typing. The on-screen keyboard is fairly easy to use, and is much better than the smaller versions on my Touch and on my Android phone. However, it won’t suffice for larger projects. I’ve also found that having two separate things (keyboard + screen) can make this awkward. You can’t set it in your lap and type like you can with a netbook or laptop.
As elegant as the iPad is by itself, with all of the supporting peripherals, it becomes rather clunky. The device itself is as heavy as my Dell netbook, but isn’t nearly as versatile.
Then there is the problem of connectivity. Most of the apps I’ve found require an Internet connection. While WiFi is available in lots of places, I can’t find it everywhere. With my netbook I can tether the device to my Android phone via USB cable when wireless isn’t available. That’s not possible with the iPad, unless I pay another $30 per month to Verizon to enable the WiFi hot spot on my phone, or root the phone.
As I’ve spent more time with it and talked with other iPad users I’ve found apps to make the device more useful. One of my favorites is Flipboard, which takes feeds from Google Reader, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter and formats them in a beautiful newspaper-like page. That one app almost makes up for the other shortcomings. I went ahead and got the iPad versions of the iWorks series – Pages, Numbers, and Keynote – since I use those on my Mac and they will read MS-Office files.
Apple’s trademark phrase is “There’s an app for that,” and I’m finding it to be true. However, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Things that work perfectly in a browser on other devices require a specialized app in the Apple world. There are separate apps for Facebook, Twitter, IMDB, YouTube, etc., etc., etc. While these are available in the Safari browser, they just don’t work as well as the separate app.
The “appification” of the web means that content is being segmented into separate programs. To me this seems the opposite of the trend toward making everything available over the web through a browser. While many of these apps are free, many more are not. So, one is left paying for content through an app, when that content would otherwise be free through a browser.
I haven’t given up on the iPad. However, I find myself switching over to my Netbook out of frustration on a regular basis. I keep thinking that for the amount this device cost in peripherals, etc., I could have gotten a Macbook and had all that plus some.
My office got one for me to use, and to share with other departments for paperless board meetings. I’ve had it less than a week, so I’m still learning what it can do and find useful apps. My personal iPod touch is still my ever-present library & net tool, but the iPad is cool to have on hand. Pages lets you export docs into ePub format for reading in iBooks. FaceTime is that picture-phone we’ve been promised since the ’60s, a really neat way to connect.
It is obvious that you do not want to like the iPad.
You start by explaining that your “district purchased several iPads for special ed and for our ESOL teachers”. That gives you a rare perspective that many would be interested in. However, you chose to write about the iPad as a personal device, a viewpoint that 20 million other people can provide.
You are in a school, and you blame the iPad because you can’t find wifi everywhere. I’d blame the school!
Do you really need GPS in your school? Do you get lost in the corridors?
You blame the iPad because programs that work in Safari work better as a separate app. While many haters complain that the “closed” Apple ecosystem does not provide enough choices, you complain about the choice it does provide – you complain because the choices are better than the default.
You explain that an iPad is “like an overgrown Touch”. The use of the derogatory “overgrown” implies that you think the Touch is the right size for special ed and ESOL, and that the iPad size provides no advantages. I especially like the way you illustrate your point, by comparing the home screen of the two devices – no advantage there. QED! I wonder if displaying school work would have been as convincing.
Welcome to the 21st century. Give your students an iPad, and you can also provide them with the bulk of notes electronically. The idea of teachers writing on the blackboard so that students can copy onto their slates is so 19th century – I thought that went out with teaching nuns. Just because the iPad looks like a slate doesn’t mean you have to revive that archaic practice. Buying a USB keyboard to make mass note taking easier doesn’t make it right.
Wow! This one is just so far, far off the mark that I almost didn’t approve it. However, I think it deserves a rebuttal…
Hmm, the only way you could have arrived at this was if you believed yourself to be a mind-reader, which you obviously aren’t.
Quite the opposite is true, in fact. I’ve been wanting to find something that justifies the iPad, to look for a way that it fits in.
You know what? This is my PERSONAL website, and the views presented herein are my PERSONAL views. I specifically chose to write on THIS WEBSITE about how I PERSONALLY felt about the device. If you don’t like that, I can recommend tons of other websites.
Again, this isn’t about school (which does have wifi) but about how I would use it personally.
By this time it’s pretty obvious that you really, really don’t get it. If you bothered to follow this blog at all, you’d find that MUCH of what I write about involves GPS technology.
The choices are hardly better than the default. The iPad philosophy leads to to the disruption of web applications that go completely against the idea of an open web. By this time you’re starting to sound like a miffed Apple fanboy.
Again, the fanboy attitude does you no good. Functionally, the devices are the same. The only real advantage (and it is a big advantage, I’ll give you that) is the screen real estate.
Completely non-sequitur, and your rant is starting to break down completely. I believe in letting students use the technology that works for them, including cell phones and other non-traditional devices. Sounds like you’d force feed them Apple products, regardless of its appropriateness.
OK, enough of that.
Interesting Tom. I’ve been stewing over iPad v Andoid tablet myself. (Android solves the Flash prob) Like you, I have an iPod, netbook, and Kindle so I’ve had a hard time justifying something that combines the 2. One question, will the VGA cable let you project any app? There are lots of good chemistry tools for iPod and IPad that are not there for Android yet but I’ve heard they won’t project.
I be interested to see how it works w/ a projector and the possibilities from there.
John, the iPad2 will display any app through the VGA cable. The original iPad didn’t.
Well that comment was just plain strange…
Thanks for the heads up on flipboard. I just downloaded it and really like it.
We bought the iPad for our daughter as a communication and learning tool. Prior to that i thought it was silly and frivilous. I still do but i also love it. You need to see AnnaKate with it…amazing!
Kelly
It was strange.
Kelly – your description of Anna Kate’s experience was part of what led me to approve the purchase. I guess the previous poster didn’t understand that I’m actually an advocate for these in the classroom. I just don’t have a personal need for one.
What is troubling about this, and any other similar purchase, is that it’s a pretty big risk financially. I THINK I can see uses in my own situation that would be great, but wouldn’t know until I used it. I know a lot of people who seem to really like these. Probably what happens is that this niche will evolve and grow quickly. The large screen (comparatively) is to me a “no-brainer” for reading or most any work other than texting. But Mr. Jobs needs to stop ‘coping that ‘tude” about Flash and provide OS support for it until it goes away. And make peripheral connection easier (though then you have the issue of drivers or OS support for what people plug or use with Bluetooth). Fascinating … I’m going to google the Nook to see what it does. Not dealing with Amazon right now due to the sales tax issue.
The iPad seems to be a work in progress of sorts. The hardware is great and the software is powerful. We users haven’t yet worked out where this fits. As yet it is not a laptop replacement ( and Apple doesn’t pitch it as such ). It’s strengths are thinness, lightness, portability, long battery life and accessibility.
In business it has been a great sales tool. It just takes seconds to present a PDF or movie or presentation to a customer. People appreciate that immediacy. Its also easy to carry into a coffee shop and check email when on the road.
I don’t miss flash. It’s rare that I find something I want to see that I can’t. I imagine that will happen even less often in the future.
In a year or so I can see using the iPad most of the time. My laptop will be relegated to doing the heavy lifting that requires a large screen and faster processor.
At a conference recently a presenter said that in the past two content revolutions, desktop printing and web page development, it took several years to settle on standard practices, file types and software tools. We are just one year into the use of tablets. The next two years should see intense development of this tool.