I found a new blog about devices in education by Kennisnet. Amongst other experiences, it contains posts from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the RijksUniversiteit Groningen about the iPad in education. A nice read, but with predictable results.
Pros of the iPad include once again that it’s very user friendly, portable, approachable and has an long battery life. Cons of the iPad once more include the lack of Flash support, bad support for Microsoft Word documents, the fact that the iPad doesn’t invite longer, ‘real’ work (like typing reports) and that there aren’t ‘perfect apps’ yet.
Something that I did find interesting, and that came up during my session with the iFontys students as well is the lack of immediate file sharing. The blog posts describe that Dropbox isn’t immediate enough as a file sharing mechanism. And the students of iFontys also said that not everyone has access to internet all the time, making them wish there was USB support.
Immediate file sharing seems to be a very important aspect for a ubiquitous education device. But is adding USB support the solution? Or should we just obligate every student that has an iPad to purchase an internet bundle as well? This is not such an unlikely scenario, since any institution can cover this under the ‘normal expenses per year’ a student has to make anyway.
Update: According to MacRumors, the iPad 2 is scheduled to ship by end of February. While interesting information (I might buy this one myself), it also states that one of the rumored new features could be USB support. One student concern solved!
Photo courtesy of shho on sxc.hu.
A Pad Full Of Noodles 