Comments on: The iPad in education

By: The iPad a tool for working teachers | verso.co.nz

The iPad a tool for working teachers | verso.co.nz — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:44:39 +0000

[...] the iPad was released I posted some brief thoughts about its potential for education. Since then, I’ve had the chance to spend a few hours playing with an iPad now that they have [...]

By: Paul Left

Paul Left — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:12:29 +0000

The Adam (an Android device, still vapourware) would seem to have a better feature set than the current iPad:

http://www.notionink.in/adamoverview.php

By: paul left

paul left — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:22:07 +0000

Perhaps the screen size alone will make apps for content creation more feasible? See my comment here on Stephen Downes’ blog:

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=51994

By: Paul Left

Paul Left — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:53:06 +0000

Thanks for the good point about the lack of a pointer in iPod / iPhone interface: there are some good examples of the significance of this here:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/02/20/an-adobe-flash-developer-on-why-the-ipad-cant-use-flash/

By: Heathrow office property

Heathrow office property — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:51:25 +0000

Flash is an interesting one. From a flash programmers point of view there is a big issue to solve.

A lot of flash programming is based on having a mouse pointer that you drag around the screen. But using your finger there is no pointer. No pointer gets moved around. So a lot of flash would just not work without work arounds.

I hope that the Apps on the ipad will start to grow in wysiwyg editing now there will be space for a proper toolbar etc unlike the iphone.

Multi-tasking isn’t an issue for me as it encourages humans to try multi-tasking which we inherently can’t do.

Better cut and paste support would be great.

By: Paul Left

Paul Left — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:40:17 +0000

Justin, I agree – it’s currently an oversized iPod Touch. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops and whether Apple will drop some of the annoying restrictions – this alone could make it a much more useful tool for teachers and learners.

Thanks for the comment…

Paul

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:57:53 +0000

I think the iPad could be a great tool in education, but I stress, could. To me, it is just an oversized iTouch. It is missing a lot of features that would make it a great eLearning tool. From my understanding, you cannot store regular files to it. With all the restrictions Apple has on it, I would rather carry a laptop which is similar in size and more functional. My biggest concern is the incompatibility of FLASH. Many eLearning courses require FLASH, without it, how can the learner view the content. Maybe HTML5 will take care of this problem, or Apple will launch a player that supports these files. The potential is there, but until then, it’s just an oversized iTouch to me.

By: Topical

Topical — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:05:29 +0000

I think Ipad is not for professionals, but it’s more suitable for gamer freaks…