What do I think of the iPad?

So, what do you think of the the iPad? Seems to be the most popular question at the moment, whenever I pull out the iPad, I get a that question, usually followed by "yeah, but you can't actually do anything with them can you?"

Anyway, let me introduced myself, I am a teacher in a large secondary school in Bristol, UK. I am trained as a Science teacher but now teach mainly ICT and I am fed up! I am fed up teaching students how to use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. There is nothing wrong with either of these two programs per say but it's all we ever teach. Look up information (using MS Explorer) and then produce a PowerPoint presentation or Word document. There has got to be more to ICT than this, surely? So I decided to buy an iPad and set up a blog to talk about all things iPad, education and IOS. It's probably fair to say now that if you don't like IOS devices, this blog is not for you.


So what do I think of the iPad? Well, actually, I am very impressed. I really do think Apple have created a new category of device here.
A lot of people criticise the device stating it can't do this or it can't do that but I think they are missing the point. This is not a PC (or Mac) but a new type of device and a new way of doing things. The iPad is designed for people who don't like technology, they just want it to work. They aren't bothered about file structure or changing the way the OS looks, they just want to access information, check e-mails and type up the odd document. To this end, the iPad works exceedingly well and is probably all most people need, these people are not power users, just people who need to use a computer for real life tasks.

Of course, the iPad is capable of much more and I shall be looking at how it can be used in an education environment in subsequent posts.

Oh, by the way, this blog is being produced almost entirely using an iPad.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad