It was excellent hearing from Mark Hines ETEC doctoral student and head of the Student Centered, Project Based Learning program called Mid-Pacific Exploratory (MPX). He spoke about the wonderful and exciting ways that the Mid Pacific Institute has implemented and incorporated the Apple iPad into its curriculum. It was really interesting to hear about the research and the decision making process that went into selecting the iPad. He also discussed the many obstacles and challenges that took place while both teachers and students were being trained on the use of the iPad.
I still have my own doubts and reservations about using the iPad as a students exclusive technological device. I myself am a avid and loyal iPad user. However I mainly use my iPad for video chatting, web browsing, video/picture taking and social networking. I have found through personal experience that typing on the iPad is extremely slow and cumbersome. Even after I purchased a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad I found that typing more than a paragraph or two is very slow, uncomfortable and generally annoying. Anytime I have to do any sort of extended writing for emails, letters, memos, or papers I find that using my laptop computer is far easier and more convenient.
While I do agree that the iPad is an innovative and groundbreaking device, I sincerely believe that it cannot be a students exclusive technological device. It can and will function wonderfully as a supplemental device, but I sincerely believe that any serious student also needs a laptop to write papers, use spreadsheet software such as Excel and use other web page programming software. So I guess the bottom line is that in an ideal world with an unlimited budget all students would benefit most from owning both an iPad and a laptop computer. However if their were budgetary constraints, I would recommend that my students spend their money purchasing a laptop computer instead of an iPad.
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