iPad evaluation

I managed to pick up an iPad just before I left Perth, from the recently opened local Apple Store – a beautifully laid out and designed store with ultra friendly, knowledgeable & young staff. There has been a real demand for the iPads in Perth and I had been following a thread on the local discussion forum as to where there might be one about. So when I went into the Apple store last Wed. morning and had to leave my email to be advised of the next shipment, I was not holding out much hope of getting my hands on one there. It would have to be at least another month or more before the iPad gets to NZ. Anyway, a shipment did arrive & I was able to pick a 16G WIFI model up :) on Thursday evening. Too busy to do much with it until I got back home yesterday and then was able to upload apps, music, videos and photos from iTunes on to it.

Synching everything across went well but the photos were not ported across as my iPad was only 16G & the ipod touch I have been using has 32G. So had to delete several apps & tidy up music to allow for more space. All apps work well although being ipod touch apps, they do not make use of the whole of the iPad’s screen. Will need to explore iPad specific apps next and evaluate a few which may be useful in a voc. ed. context. So if I want to also access email etc. will have to be careful with the types of media the iPad will hold. So 16G may not be the best option if you have lots of media to access. Other option is to store things on itunes and only sync across media you intend to use, archiving others for access when required.

As with the ipod touch, user friendliness of the interface is a great plus factor. The one thing which is really impressive about the iPad is the screen display and this makes it a worthwhile piece of hardware to undertake work on introducing it as a mobile learning device. There have been several articles on how to use the iPad in education including pros & cons, with two Universities in the U S of A making it a compulsory piece of hardware for their students to bring to college.

The screen real estate makes the use of the iPad as a ebook reader & hence a text book a logical progression especially if the text book was much more interactive and there was WIFI available both within & without the classroom to allow students to explore topics in greater depth through featured website links, embedded interactive quizzes, links to relevant discussion forums etc. So lots of possibilities to explore.