“A technology shift is underway,” David Worthington reports for Technologizer. “The PC’s promise to transform how learning happens in the classroom is being realized by Apple’s iPad. Students and teachers in grade school through higher education are using the iPad to augment their lessons or to replace textbooks.”
“ennifer Kohn’s third grade class at Millstone Elementary School in Millstone, NJ, mastered the iPad with minimal training. For the most part, the students didn’t need to be taught how to use their apps, Kohn says,” Worthington reports. “College students are also turning to the iPad to do what they do instinctively well: saving themselves money. Marianne Petit, a New York University staff member, recently began taking credits in pursuit of another certification, and uses her iPad in place of textbooks.”
Worthington reports, “The iPad is less than two years old, and it’s already proving to be a disruptive technology in education. Despite years of talking about going digital, PCs never were a suitable substitution for paper. The iPad and other smart devices just work better. The long reign of the traditional textbook could finally be coming to an end.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Other smart devices?
Mac Book Pro’s, Air’s and iPad in education are the plan Stan. PC’s should go the way of the Dodo there. Who needs the grief? Smart college kids are getting it. My nephew who long had a PC while in high school switched to Mac in college and never went back. In fact wished he had never gone there!
Yet throughout my school years the standard talking point was “I know Macs are ‘better,’ but we’re using Windows PCs because that’s what people are using in the ‘real world'”—as thought there’s a major learning curve in handling a mouse on one platform or another.
I use the BlackBoard app for my grad work (both downloads and uploads), but despite a good UI, my school still posts streaming lectures in flash, so I use my MBP 13″ for that bit. If the degree program I’m in would use html5, I’d be all set.
In the meantime, the assigned text reading is posted as links inside blackboard or is otherwise available as a kindle title. I wish iBookstore would carry more titles; I hate giving amazon money.
Whatever the replacement is, it can’t come soon enough. That said, I wish there was some way the text book publishers could be kept out of the electronic text book market. Another overpriced, valueless market waiting to happen!
Yeah, those pesky publishers that do market research, developmental editing, style design, art production, video/animation production, accuracy checking, editing, permission securing, compositing, copyright registration and defense, shipping fulfillment, accounting, contracting solution manuals and ancillaries, etc, etc, etc, really add no value beyond contracting printing and binding.
My wife seldom carries her 13″ MacBook Pro to her U now. Everything she needs to do she can do on her iPhone 4S.
thats amazing
Students will surely embrace this new learning platform!
Textbook publishers will both love and hate a shift to digital. They’ll love the fact that they won’t lose profits with used textbooks, but hate the fact that digital versions will jot carry e same profit margin.
Students will win though. No lugging around expensive and heavy textbooks… Just an iPad!