Some of you may have noticed the iPads. We bought three of these to evaluate whether they would be good tool to use in our district. For those who haven’t seen them, they are like large iPod Touches. Below are some pictures.
Of course, iPads are super cool. There compact size make it easy to carry. But is it a useful tool or just a big toy? How handy would it be for teachers or students?
I have to say that I love my iPad. Email was easy to setup and is easy to access. It did take awhile to figure out how to setup a second account but I found it under Settings and soon had it going. The mail icon on the toolbar shows how many unread mail is in your inbox and the interface looks very nice.
One draw back is that the iPad is not a stand alone device. You do need a computer in order to sync the iPad. You don’t have to sync the iPad, but you will want to sync it in order to back up your apps and if you want to transfer music or books. (You sync through iTunes) But that is a minor problem as you can use any desktop in you room or even your home computer. It works on Mac or PC but you can only sync it to one computer! The software won’t allow you to sync back and forth between two computers.
There are a lot of free apps in the App Store that you will find useful. The apps you have to pay for are generally very inexpensive, some only $.99! There are two that I purchased. The first was Office2 HD. It is a word processor that is compatible with Word and Excel files. Google Docs file can be opened, edited and saved from Office2 HD. This app was well worth the $7.99 price tag. Another word processor is Pages ($9.99). Reviews have been good on this app but I was worried about how well it would work with Word files.
The other app I sprang for was Print n Share ($8.99). This app allows you to print email and pictures to a network printer or any printer shared on a computer using a special (free) software. One can print from Google Docs using an add on that costs $1.99. This is another program that was well worth the money.
Some free apps that I like are iBooks (there is also a Kindle app), a weather app by the Weather Channel and the Photobucket app.
The biggest draw back so far has been using Gradebook on my iPad. I get an error that multiple pages are open and can’t continue. I’ve got the question submitted to Region 8 and I’ll post a comment here when I find out anything. This Gradebook incompatibility maybe a mute point since a new version of Gradebook is due to be rolled out in the next year.
I should mention that iPads don’t support flash enabled websites, but for me, that hasn’t been a real problem. All in all, I am very please with my iPad. It is easy to carry, has a very crisp display and has been very useful for me as a technician. The two teacher who have them (Mrs. Pitts and Mrs Purviance) seem to be very pleased also. I do reserve my final judgment until I find our more about the issue with Gradebook.
