The iPad is the iDeal Classroom Tool
Travis Allison at the OurKids blog asked me for my first impressions of the iPad. Here’s the interview.
But in short, I think it’s the ideal tool for the classroom working in the cloud (and everyone should be.) At Island Pacific School, where I work, I’ve divided web tools into five categories: research, production, publication, discussion and time and task management. I also try to use Alan November’s six jobs for students as much as possible, although as we’re not yet 1:1, this is a comes off more haphazardly than I’d like. The iPad would let me and my students handle most of these better than an iPhone/Touch (which, though a fabulous tool, is too small to share in a classroom) and at half the cost of a laptop.
| iPad | iTouch | Laptop | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $500 | $200 | $1000 |
| Portability | Great | Great | Poor |
| Sharability | Great | Poor | Great |
| Research | Great | OK | Great |
| Production | OK | Poor | Great |
| Publication | Great | OK | Great |
| Discussion | Great | OK | Great |
| Time & Task Management | Great | Great | Great |
| Class Scribes | Great | Poor | Great |
| Curriculum Reviewers | Great | Poor | Great |
| Tutorial Designers | OK | Poor | Great |
| Researchers | Great | Great | Great |
| Collaboration Coordinators | Great | OK | Great |
| Contributors to Society | Great | Great | Great |
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Posted in Discussion Tools, Management Tools, Publication Tools, Think by Braddo / February 15th, 2010 / 5 Comments »
I interviewed Michael DuBroy from Trinity College School yesterday and he said something brilliant that hadn’t even crossed my mind:
No multi-tasking is EXACTLY what you need for a classroom tool.
Another benefit!
But of course! (Doh! Wish there was a little smiley for bopping your forehead with the heal of your hand.)
[...] I posted my reasons for thinking an iPad makes the ideal classroom tool (that’s classroom tool; ideally, all students ought to have a smartphone, the ideal [...]
I concur 100% with the attention focus that comes from the iPad one-app-at-a-time “feature.” Granted, multi-tasking is supposedly coming with version 4.0 of the iPhone/iTouch/iPad OS, but the one-window nature of the iPad is a great benefit for students. With a notebook and external monitor, it can be so easy to get distracted/side-tracked by any one of a variety of things. With the iPad, you tend to be focused in that one app until you navigate out and make another selection.
I also like the one-button design, too. (Forget the power, no-rotate, volume controls, they don’t count.) One button to take you home, then select your next task. Simplicity of design.
I think the laptop is a strawman. At the price of an iPad and given the portability factor, what you really want to be comparing it to is a netbook: price would be $250-$500, portability would be OK, and all the rest of the comparisons would stay the same.
The point about single-use (at a time) devices is well-taken, but given the average student is already carrying an MP3 player and a cellphone, I think distraction is less of a hardware issue and more of a classroom management issue.