Thursday, April 01, 2010

A Week Long Class Preview of the iPad

My class recently had the opportunity to spend a week using the pre-released iPad in our classroom. You may ask how a small school in the Midwest was allowed such a wonderful opportunity, it was because of my close relationship with a very vocal Mac advocate.

I am only allowed to give a very concise review of the use of the iPad, Apple wants to save all the good quotes for a white paper, but here is my generic impressions:

     1) iBook is not a killer app for schools. It doesn't come with any books!
     2) There is no built in keyboard. Get real! I teach keyboarding, completely useless.
     3) The screen is beautiful, but without Flash I couldn't watch Hulu.com while I was supposed to be
     working.
     4) The app store was great! My students spend most of the week downloading free demo games 
     involving shooting zombies or racing pretend cars. You can bet that was a great use of class time!
     5) The long battery life was truly amazing!

 Here is a link to the original proposal I sent to Apple: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dskqh8g_73d9fksxfn

16 comments:

Reeves said...

Wow! Great information for a person that doesn't have an IPad! Very convincing...

Jack58 said...

Is the ipad good for schools or bad for schools because I thought it would be great; is the touch screen sensitive?

Mackey said...

That must have been fun!

Osman said...

You are so lucky to be able to test the iPad and is the ipad able to use to windows on the internet.

jack said...

Using advanced technolagy can extend our knowledge and discover new things. The Ipad was a gigantic hit here in the U.S and we just now found out are teacher received one.

Osman said...

You are so lucky to be able to test the iPad and is the ipad able to use to windows on the internet.

Andrew said...

I have thought about getting one, but now I don't think so. Our tech teacher got one , but she has to pay $30 for wifi.

Harry said...

Ha ha nice April Fools. If I didn't know that it was a joke i would have been very jealous!

Cameron said...

Wow! Is the Ipad really big? I heard you have to pay 30 dollars for wifi monthly. Your class was soo lucky to have the Ipad.

Harry said...

Ha ha nice April Fools. If I didn't know that it was a joke i would have been very jealous!

Anonymous said...

This is a great description on the iPad I would love to have the same oppertunity to use the iPad

McLean said...

I might have to get one for my birthday! It looks like something that is truely amazing. Hopfully schools will start using this piece of advanced technology.

Henry said...

It must be fun to have an IPad because there is a ton you can learn from it. How long did you have it? Was it great or was it awesome?

Jack said...

I thought that it is so cool that you'll used an ipad. I've thought that they were awesome and I would love to use one.

Nick said...

WOW!!!
How lucky are you guys. It seems like you had fun with the I-Pad. I really wanted one until you actually told me how it was.
That was really convincing.

Nick

Wm Chamberlain said...

@Nick,

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, this was an April Fool's joke. I actually haven't my hands on an iPad yet, but I will be sure to write a post on it when I do.

Mr. C