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Education Input Devices Media (Apple) Apple

iPads On American Campuses? Maybe Next Year 177

Posted by timothy from the please-don't-overcommit dept.
Velcroman1 writes "Slashdotters have read extensively about the iPad pilot programs at colleges and universities: Australian schools are iPad crazy, we read yesterday, and thanks to the iPad's success, 2011 will be the year of the tablet. But on US college campuses almost half a year after the iPad's launch, it's a whole different story — at least so far this year. FoxNews.com reports that high-profile schools like Duke and Stanford are far more cautious about the device than has previously been reported. 'It definitely facilitates studying and recall because you don't get bogged down by all the paper,' noted first-year Stanford med student Ryan Flynn. But it's still a work in progress. 'The iPad isn't the best input device. Some people have gone back to paper and pencil.'"
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iPads On American Campuses? Maybe Next Year More

iPads On American Campuses? Maybe Next Year

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  • Budget (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:31PM (#33678404) Homepage

    College students on a budget would also have a hard time justifying the cost of a laptop or high-end netbook, while having only half the functionality. Ditto for universities looking to purchase them for students.

    With the way most colleges and college students are going nowadays (as far as finances are concerned), this shouldn't be much of a surprise...

    • They'll just ask for charity... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by recoiledsnake ( 879048 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:42PM (#33678546)

      I recently saw that that the a 'Restoring Truthiness' (Stephen Colbert rally) charity on DonorsChoose.org was requesting iPads.

      http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=439788&challengeid=39361 [donorschoose.org]

      My students need iPads to assist them in English, Social details
      Studies and Creative Writing!

      Creating writing on iPads with one of the worst input methods among electronic devices? But it worked, they collected $10,000+. In some countries you can build a school with that instead of contributing to Apple's really fat margins.

      Atleast with MS, you can run what you want, but with iPads? http://www.businessinsider.com/latest-app-store-rejection-outrage-apple-rejects-app-that-teaches-kids-to-program-2010-4 [businessinsider.com]

      Sigh, the things that shiny baubles can get people to do....

      • "Atleast with MS, you can run what you want, but with iPads? http://www.businessinsider.com/latest-app-store-rejection-outrage-apple-rejects-app-that-teaches-kids-to-program-2010-4 [businessinsider.com] [businessinsider.com]"

        The rules said they'd reject this type of app and they rejected it??!?!?1 I'm outraged!!!!1!!

        • Re:They'll just ask for charity... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by recoiledsnake ( 879048 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @03:18PM (#33678932)

          The point is that the rules suck and that a device that is being pushed as a educational tool by schools and universities is locked down stopping kids from learning how to program. Not enough people being distracted by 'Ooh shiny' know about this.

          Not just that, the app store rules are ambiguously and capriciously enforced. For example, Lua for game scripting has been approved though it violates the rules. There's no way of telling what will and will not be approved.

          • Re:They'll just ask for charity... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Missing.Matter ( 1845576 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @04:56PM (#33680234)

            a device that is being pushed as a educational tool by schools and universities is locked down stopping kids from learning how to program.

            It pisses me off to hell that schools are pushing the iPad when it lacks the one thing that made tablets a killer tool for education: a stylus. I did my undergraduate degree in physics and I used tablets throughout for note-taking. I started with a HP TC1100 and moved on to a Latitude XT, but I would not trade a tablet PC for a pen and paper ever.

            Tablet PCs with a digitizer for stylus input have very good precision and ink reproduction for comfortable writing. Applications like Microsoft OneNote have amazing features like on the fly handwriting recognition, note indexing, searching, tagging, aggregating, and sharing. I used to keep wiki style class notes my friends and I would edit on our tablets. In Windows "Ink" is a datatype recognized across applications, so you can copy/paste and edit your notes in different apps.

            The iPad eliminated all of this functionality. I've tried capacitive pens and they suck hard by comparison. The palm rejection algorithms suck, there's no handwriting recognition to speak of, and the applications are as robust as "put ink on canvas." If that's all I wanted to do, I would use paper.

            The sad thing is that tablet PCs never really took off in education, and now that the latest generation of tablets (sans PC) lacks EVERYTHING that made them worth while, they're suddenly being adopted. This tells me one thing: It's not about how well iPads work as teaching tools; it's a marketing ploy. I can see the University Administration sitting around a table saying "The kids love these whiz bang things, lets give them away and maybe they'll come to our school!" They did it with iPods, they're doing it again with iPads.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by macslut ( 724441 )

              "It pisses me off to hell that schools are pushing the iPad when it lacks the one thing that made tablets a killer tool for education: a stylus."

              I couldn't disagree more. I can type far faster on a keyboard and even a virtual keyboard than I can write. Better, my notes can be better organized, spell checked, etc...

              The use of a stylus is specifically what made me *not* get a tablet before the iPad. Also, you know what's faster than even typing on a keyboard for me? Simply recording the audio.

              But input as

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by macshit ( 157376 )

            Not just that, the app store rules are ambiguously and capriciously enforced. For example, Lua for game scripting has been approved though it violates the rules. There's no way of telling what will and will not be approved.

            Note that the "rules" have apparently since been changed so that things like Lua scripting are officially OK -- the new rule is something like "scripting languages are allowed, as long as no scripts are downloaded from the net."

            That's a good change, of course, as the "old rule" was insane, but while it shows that Apple does occasionally listen to reason, it also emphasizes how capricious they can be, and that should make iphone/ipad/etc devs nervous.

            [Not that any of my starry-eyed, just-discarded-all-thei

      • Edit: Looks like 10k was asked, not given, and the school is classified as a high poverty school...

      • Here's another school requesting $50,000 to buy 81 iPads [refresheverything.com] on Pepsi's "Refresh Everything" site. And so far there's a good chance they might get it. What a waste.

      • Umm, your outrage is out of date. The relevant limit on what types of apps can be done has been removed, e.g. even the "convert Flash to native app" is back to being worked on by Adobe.

    • Depends on how it all works out. If somehow the cost of the iPad plus digital textbooks was at all comparable to the cost of all the print textbooks, then It could work out.

      Of course, that's unlikely because the ridiculous cost of print textbooks has nothing to do with the cost of printing.

    • Basing things on the current iPad price is not realistic. We are very early in the iPad's lifecycle and Apple is probably still pricing things according to the willingness to pay [wikipedia.org] of early adopters. As manufacturing ramps up and the regular public becomes the expected audience there will most likely be models that are far less expensive than we see today.

      Also there is the potential for the cost of a tablet to be offset by saving from going to digital textbooks.

      As for half the functionality, add a blue

  • I don't think so (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:33PM (#33678436)

    Most people my age (I'm going back to school in the spring, at 24), are pretty tech savy. They're also pretty broke. Buying an Ipad means that they can't hook up their laptops to a TV to watch the legions of entertainment that netflix on demand/thepiratebay offers. not to mention the ubiquitous use of USB flash drives that people wouldn't be able to use.

    If there was a tablet that offered the functionality of a laptop, I'd say sure. but college kids, as much as we love the newest gadget, will more often than not chose functionality over form when it boils down to what saves money.

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DeathFromSomewhere ( 940915 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:46PM (#33678592)
      iPad can already watch videos downloaded from TPB and has a netflix app for streaming video. Some Android tablets being released in the coming months have HDMI outputs on them as well as USB ports. All this while still being cheaper then a laptop and having better battery life. Also most have 3G connectivity so there is no need to be stuck near a hotspot while working. I know I will be buying a Notion Ink Adam when they are released.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sancho ( 17056 ) *

        iPad can already watch videos downloaded from TPB

        How do you get them onto the iPad? Do you have to have a computer in order to do that?

        Can you watch them on the TV? An App must specifically authorize use of the VGA-out dongle.

        All this while still being cheaper then a laptop and having better battery life.

        Better battery life? Probably. Cheaper? Not so much. The cheapest iPad is $500. I can go to my local Best Buy and get a laptop for less than that. I haven't seen US prices for Android tablets yet, but if they're similar to the prices we've been seeing for other countries, they won't be cheaper than the iPad.

        Also most have 3G connectivity so there is no need to be stuck near a hotspot while working.

        Most what have 3G?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by b0bby ( 201198 )

        iPad can already watch videos downloaded from TPB

        If it's like the new Touch, you'll need to convert the videos first on a desktop or laptop, so it's not an either/or situation. Also, if it's like the new Touch (I just got one) you can't do anything until it's authorized through iTunes on a desktop or laptop. Mabe the iPads don't need this step, I don't know.

  • Just as a replacement for expensive heavy books at the very least. Laptops are too cumbersome, I'm sure teachers dislike staring out at just the tops of students' heads cresting from behind laptop screens. (think grade schoolers lol) I really do believe that the right tablet at the right price will be the biggest game changer for education we've seen in a long long time.

  • The lockdown begins... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Microlith ( 54737 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:37PM (#33678464)

    I suppose it's a good thing to see a locked down system like the iPad slowly displace relatively unrestricted computers in college. Convince everyone as they go through school that restrictive, vendor controlled platforms are the way things should be, and you'll make them all the more amenable to heavy DRM.

  • Even laptops aren't good enough to input... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by e065c8515d206cb0e190 ( 1785896 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:37PM (#33678476)
    It's not only tablets. Try to efficiently draw a diagram or reproduce a table on a laptop/tablet.

    If you want to write your thesis, fine, use either one. But if you study science or any other topic where notes are not only pure text, it's bound to be very limited.

  • I loathe anything forced onto me and as such, I'd not like to be forced to use the iPad. If anything, I would like to use one of the many Android devices or even Google's Chrome OS. Let's urge these many OEMs not to cede the educational market to Apple and its control freaks.

  • Hm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:39PM (#33678500) Journal

    I was in university about 6 years ago, right during the shift when students were just starting to bring laptops (at least, where I went). I never had one, and I liked the fact that with notepaper I wasn't limited in any way: I can write, draw, colour, do whatever since a pen has no restrictions.

    That said, the amount of paper I had to lug around sucked, so definitely an iPad or similar device would help. If I went back to school now, I can honestly say I would definitely try an electronic solution first, but if I felt any slower or that I couldn't get all the notes down, I would switch back.

    One thing I never got is the students who recorded the whole hour lecture. I could barely even sit through them once... ah, who am I kidding, I often didn't :).

    • That said, the amount of paper I had to lug around sucked, so definitely an iPad or similar device would help. If I went back to school now, I can honestly say I would definitely try an electronic solution first, but if I felt any slower or that I couldn't get all the notes down, I would switch back.

      After 15 years in the software industry, the old-fashioned black lab-book is still my preferred method of taking notes. I literally have a stack of them going back to the mid 90's, and occasionally dig out some

  • Ah, the old Return on Investment argument (Score:3, Insightful)

    by scosco62 ( 864264 ) * on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:39PM (#33678504) Journal
    Glad to see that rational thought is shining through the morass of hype. It's a good tool - but just that, a tool.

  • Yes, the writing is on the wall for companies like Samsung. This video [crunchgear.com] shows much of what Samsung's tablet can do. Personally, I am impressed by it and joyous that I did not get 'infected' with heard mentality by buying the iPad when it was released.

    • Re:The writing is on the wall for Samsung (Score:5, Informative)

      by CannonballHead ( 842625 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @03:24PM (#33679024)
      You know, the "writing on the wall," if referring to the Biblical event, was a bad thing, not a good thing. It was doom for the current ruling empire. :)

    • Very serious, honest question here:

      What does an Android Tablet offer you that an iPad doesn't, in terms of *functionality*? I understand the "it's free" and open principle. But there's still... a touchscreen. With an on-screen keyboard. How much "real work" will you get done with that model, if the iPad form factor is unsuitable for your needs?

      Will the Android tablets be "just the toy" that the iPad is being dubbed here? If not, what extra stuff do you expect to do with an Android tablet that you canno

  • Paper and pencil (Score:5, Interesting)

    by massysett ( 910130 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:47PM (#33678606) Homepage

    As a law student, at first I used a laptop to take notes in class. I had a 14-inch laptop and it wasn't light, especially when you factor in the power cord. I got tired of lugging the thing around.

    This was years ago, so light laptops were quite expensive and there were no netbooks. One guy had a Palm and a fold-up keyboard. I thought of getting this but I couldn't justify the expense.

    Then I realized I was making this way too complicated. I got a bunch of $2 spiral notebooks and started taking those to class instead. I could write a lot faster on a laptop, but I realized that having page after page of class notes was not really helpful anyway. Without the laptop and all the distractions it brought, I could focus better in class. In the end I was glad I had stopped using the laptop. My bag was a lot lighter too.

    I think computers in the classroom could perhaps be helpful, but only if the professor actually takes steps to integrate them--maybe by teaching from materials that are online. Law school instructional methods do nothing to take advantage of laptops, so they just end up being a burden. An iPad is even less functional than a laptop, so I doubt it would be useful in most classrooms. I don't see how medical school would differ from law school in this regard.

    • Palm + Keyboard (Score:5, Informative)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @03:11PM (#33678840) Homepage

      One guy had a Palm and a fold-up keyboard. I thought of getting this but I couldn't justify the expense.

      Got through both my studies in Medicine and in Bioinformatics using such setups.
      It really, really helped me because, unlike plain paper, Memos on Palm are searchable.

      I could write a lot faster on a laptop, but I realized that having page after page of class notes was not really helpful anyway. Without the laptop and all the distractions it brought, I could focus better in class.

      Well it all depends on how you take notes : if you're the "write down absolutely everything down", "hands directly wired to the ears, skipping the brain" type of notes, a laptop, a Palm or whatever won't help much more than a voice recorder sitting and recording passively the lecture.

      If you take notes, i.e.: take time to digest the content of the lecture, extract key points and write down a few keyword a few sentences that you reworded to your liking, to help you remember the most important stuff - then no matter the support, notes are going to be much more helpful.
      Paper notepads helped you because, apparently, you don't scribble as fast as you type. And thus you *have* to write down a condensed version of the lecture material, and thus have you brain active during the process.
      Myself, I got used to re-word what's being said from secondary level, and the move to Palm for university wasn't much a change. Except perhaps that quickly drawing figures isn't that easy on a Palm and therefor I had to do even more reprocessing of the information before writing it.

      I don't see how medical school would differ from law school in this regard.

      There's a huge amount of available applications for PDAs, some dating back as far as the Palm era, with lots of useful information for med students : Drugs databases like "Epocrates", or e-books like "5min Clinical Consults". Carrying arround said information in paper form would require much more pocket space than available on the average trouser.
      Also, I don't know how lectures are organised in your law faculty, but the problem-oriented teaching in our med faculty made rather useful to be able to perform a quick keyword search to exatract some notes you took one and a half year ago at another lecture or while reading scientific literature.

      Not everyone around me back in med school was doing note-taking directly on the palm as I did, but none the less, lots of them used palm to carry around reference material in a practical form factor.

      • Re:Palm + Keyboard (Score:5, Interesting)

        by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @04:04PM (#33679516)

        Well it all depends on how you take notes : if you're the "write down absolutely everything down", "hands directly wired to the ears, skipping the brain" type of notes, a laptop, a Palm or whatever won't help much more than a voice recorder sitting and recording passively the lecture.

        That always seemed terribly ineffective to me. If you spend all your time simply typing down what is said instead of actually listening to it, then you missed the entire lecture. All you have to show for it are some poorly transcribed notes -- you might as well have just read a book on the subject.

        For me it's the same thing with photography. I used to take tons of pictures when vacationing, until I realized that I was worrying so much about photographing everything that I wasn't actually LOOKING at anything. Now people complain that I don't have enough pictures, but at least I can remember what I did on vacation now.

      • If you take notes, i.e.: take time to digest the content of the lecture, extract key points and write down a few keyword a few sentences that you reworded to your liking, to help you remember the most important stuff - then no matter the support, notes are going to be much more helpful. Paper notepads helped you because, apparently, you don't scribble as fast as you type. And thus you *have* to write down a condensed version of the lecture material, and thus have you brain active during the process. Myself, I got used to re-word what's being said from secondary level, and the move to Palm for university wasn't much a change. Except perhaps that quickly drawing figures isn't that easy on a Palm and therefor I had to do even more reprocessing of the information before writing it.

        Very true. I guess I find it ironic however that I have seen 3 ipads in 3 of my classes, (3/17 individuals) between the math classes and the computer science classes)

        Although by far the best "hack" (yes he had to manipulate it to make it do this) was Maple on an iPad. Because our classroom has a wifi input for the display, the teacher already has toggled to his iPad screen a few times. Granted the resolution is a little weird and I have no idea how he accomplished it, but I just thought it was interes

    • As a law student, at first I used a laptop to take notes in class. I had a 14-inch laptop

      Well, at least it was legal sized.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      I never really never got the idea of using a computer to take notes. When I was in college I was one of the few with that capability since I did have a a laptop computer that I could have used for many classes, but, as mentioned, the purpose of note taking is not just to write down everything the professor says or puts on the board. It is to comprehend, analyse, and output a meaningful sequence or marks that summarizes the topic. Some people do not even use notes, the process of listening and writing is

  • Not unless they're 100% accessible to the blind... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Freddybear ( 1805256 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:52PM (#33678664)

    http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/January/10-crt-030.html [justice.gov]

    "WASHINGTON – The Justice Department today announced separate agreements under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City and Reed College in Portland, Ore., regarding the use in a classroom setting of the electronic book reader, the Kindle DX, a hand-held technological device that simulates the experience of reading a book.

    Under the agreements reached today, the universities generally will not purchase, recommend or promote use of the Kindle DX, or any other dedicated electronic book reader, unless the devices are fully accessible to students who are blind and have low vision. The universities agree that if they use dedicated electronic book readers, they will ensure that students with vision disabilities are able to access and acquire the same materials and information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as sighted students with substantially equivalent ease of use. The agreements that the Justice Department reached with these universities extend beyond the Kindle DX to any dedicated electronic reading device."

    • Right. Because notebooks, textbooks, projectors, smart boards, et. al. sure didn't take off on campuses.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by FullBandwidth ( 1445095 )
        Accessibility accommodations for all those materials are well known and currently in use. Try running a touch-screen device with a blindfold on sometime.

        • Accessibility accommodations for all those materials are well known and currently in use.

          Really? So, how exactly does a blind person read the handwritten scrawl in my notebook? Half the time, I can't even read my own handwriting, so I'm not sure how somebody else, sighted or not, would be able to.

  • I'm Working On A Feasibility Report (Score:4, Informative)

    by pshumate ( 1004477 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:53PM (#33678674) Homepage
    I've been tasked with writing a feasibility report on using the iPad in the college classroom. For reference, we're a small college (1,300 students). I think the biggest disadvantages are a.)the inability to easily incorporate figures into your typed notes; b.)the lack of wireless printing; and c.)the relative scarcity of e-textbooks. Not having a USB port doesn't bother me, nor does the lack of USB. As of right now, the iPad is more secure in terms of malware and viruses (though I am willing to be wrong, and told I'm wrong, on this point). The fact is, most students don't care about network or personal computer security past making sure their machine works and doesn't get stolen. Removing the USB port removes a virus vector that's been particularly nasty on our campus. Making sure the students get just the apps they need helps the faculty in that the iPad, when used in class, won't be bogged down with distractions. Now, there are a slew of other issues that must be considered (the students are allowed to buy other apps, music and such, will half of these end up in pawn shops in a week, do we have the capability to handle that many wireless connections at once), but there are a lot of advantages to the device.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      > As of right now, the iPad is more secure in terms of malware and viruses

      It's no more secure than Linux or MacOS.

      The problem with the PC approach is Microsoft software, not the PC approach.

      • Re:I'm Working On A Feasibility Report (Score:5, Informative)

        by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @03:44PM (#33679300)

        As of right now, the iPad is more secure in terms of malware and viruses

        It's no more secure than Linux or MacOS.

        It's no more secure than Linux or OS X (both of which are fairly secure) except it has to be those OS's being run in a specialized environment where security policies forbid unsigned and un-sandboxed end user applications and all applications have some vetting process. Since that eliminates 99% of all installations of either OS, I'm going to have to disagree with you and say the iPad is more secure than most desktop Linux or OS X installs in use today.

        The problem with the PC approach is Microsoft software, not the PC approach.

        I don't know what you mean by "the PC approach" but locked down distribution of applications has been used by many organizations worried about security. It can be done in a way that is less restrictive than Apple's approach while still providing the same level of security, but so far no one has stepped up and implemented such a system on a mainstream consumer offering.

    • What if you somehow took notes or something and want to put it on another computer? A USB port is rather useful for that sort of thing... basically, any attempt to move data off your iPad to work with it on another platform, how does that work?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 )

        What if you somehow took notes or something and want to put it on another computer? A USB port is rather useful for that sort of thing... basically, any attempt to move data off your iPad to work with it on another platform, how does that work?

        Why would you use USB for that? You have your wireless internet connection. Even for PC's you can use wireless or ethernet to transfer data more efficiently. And if you don't, Firewire is a crap-ton faster than USB for moving data.

        • Not all campus networks allow you to easily network two computers on the public campus network.

          • Not all campus networks allow you to easily network two computers on the public campus network.

            Really? In what way do they prohibit computers from easily networking? I'm really trying to picture it. Maybe requirement use of a VPN that filters DNS-SD for some unknown reason? Even so that won't stop an ad hoc network connection between the two.

            What I'm trying to figure out now is: do you just use gear with really, really crappy networking controls, or if your campus network engineers are brilliant and evil. Care to tell me what campus network you're talking about?

            • By "easily" I mean for the average random person on campus. Most college students aren't computer science students, and aren't adept at networking, and probably would not know how to setup an ad-hoc network.

              Not being able to "see" another computer on the network in something like "Network Neighborhood" will keep a lot of people "out" of other computers. Or simply not knowing how to turn on "share files and folders" in Windows on both computers, etc.

              Plus, depending on what you're transferring, wireless con

    • Shouldn't you be looking to see if there is some sort of usage by the students first?

      I can't help but think that putting laptops and ipads in the classroom is just going to lead to distractions. You can't take notes on Ipads. Even on laptops and using one note, there is just a flexibility to a piece of paper that you can't currently get on a laptop. And for science/math classes, drawing graphs is key and software really sucks at drawing diagrams and graphs. I had a hard enough time staying focused on the pr

    • You missed some rather large disadvantages that are unique to the iPad:

      All content on the device is controlled by a single corporate entity.
      A single manufacture controls all aspects of the device. If they switch to a new model, you may be forced to upgrade every device or miss out on important updates, new capabilities, etc. If you find you need some feature not included, you have no option.
      A single hardware form factor may not work well for every student.

      Such a report would be incomplete without conside

  • Same story, different spin (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday September 23, 2010 @02:54PM (#33678694)
    Seems both American and Australian universities are launching a few trial programs with the iPad; however, yesterday's story seem to spin it that the iPad was taking over schools whereas today's article has a different slant.
  • Are these campuses also distributing physical keyboards? The iPad is neat and all; with its lickable beauty and whatnot.

    But when 'typing' on one there are only two choices (natively): hold it in one hand while finger typing with the other, or lay it down flat and attempt to type while looking at the screen at a 90 degree angle. Either way, a person will eventually develop pain and/or numbness from such awkward movements or positions.

    It would work for quick notes, but trying to write a thesis or take de

  • Hint: It's the OS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23, 2010 @03:10PM (#33678834)

    I think a lot of folks miss the point of what makes the iPad attractive for organizations. Bottom line; there's little-to-no need for IT support. It is nearly impossible to corrupt or otherwise screw up the OS. If a user gets lost, there's a single button on the faceplate that takes them back 'home'. The functions of the iPad could be replicated by any number of competitors, but as of right now the most compelling aspect of iOS is in its simplicity. Which is a little ironic because most /. readers are going to consider the limited functionality of the OS to be the iPads biggest drawback.

    • I think that's right: orgs like the perceived (and maybe real, TBD) low support costs relative to all the other platforms available. The novel form factor is just candy. It suggests that a netbook-format ipad/netbook mashup running iOS might be pretty f'ing popular too.

  • Already Happened (Score:2, Informative)

    by tj111 ( 1275078 )
    My brother is a freshmen at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and all students there were given iPads as part of their enrollment (price included in tuition). As to how much it's used in the classroom, who knows, I haven't talked to him much since he got there.
  • As long as one entity is in control of the content being delivered on the platform, you will only get what said entity deems as appropriate. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has been smoking too much of the Apple kool-aid.

    • Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has been smoking too much of the Apple kool-aid.

      Well, that person must be some kind of genius. Smoking Kool-Aid would be pretty difficult, as it's kind of wet.

  • Waste of money. (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by MaWeiTao ( 908546 )

    Let's face facts. Most college kids are going to use these iPads to dick around. The college where I taught a course a couple of years back had given MacBooks to all their students. If I wasn't standing over their shoulders they'd be happily chatting away with friends or wasting time on some other site. It was routine to be going over something with them and have a chat window pop up. What was especially ridiculous was that the classroom, like many others around the campus, was equipped with desktops so the

  • I'm not quite sure why you seem to think we don't.

    We have many iPads at the UW. We also have Kindles and netbooks.

    They all work. They're all in use in classes.

  • Really? So this might be a case where, say, a resistive screen option with, you know, pressure sensitivity levels and an accurate stylus might actually be a good thing and not the Work of the Devil as Steve Jobs and his acolytes have painted it.

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