As a veteran Tablet PC user and iPhone enthusiast, I eagerly joined the masses today for Apple’s unveiling of their long-awaited tablet-like device, the iPad.  Thin, light, and blazing fast, it is Apple’s “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”

Twitter was overflowing with iPad tweets hours after Steve Jobs left the stage, and while opinions varied, there was no shortage of people ready to place an order when the product starts shipping in late March.  Unfortunately, a good number of those early adopters will be teachers.

Somewhere lost among all the rhetoric about how “cool” it would be to have students read colorful iBooks, flip through digital photos, and watch high resolution videos is the fact that the iPad is designed for consuming rather than producing, and students need to create.  The iPad may be great for reading, but try composing and revising a document using a virtual keyboard and your finger as a mouse.  Similarly, importing images may be a snap, but how practical is it to manipulate and store media on a 16 GB hard drive?  And video?  Unless it comes from a camera phone and doesn’t need editing,  forget about it.

Jobs’ characterization of netbooks as nothing more than “cheap computers” and assertion that the iPad can do “thousands of things a tablet PC or e-reader can’t” are misleading.  A “cheap” netbook like those our 5th graders use can Skype with other classrooms, create Google Earth tours, compose blog posts, publish podcasts, edit images and video, and share digital stories.  The Tablet PCs our older students have leverage the note-taking capabilities of DyKnow and OneNote, the ink-enabled computational power of FluidMath, and the editing features of Photoshop and Premiere.

Is there an app for that kind of learning?  I didn’t think so.

If you are an educator and want an iPad because of how well it lets you experience the web, by all means get out your credit card and start counting the days; I absolutely love my iPhone and I’m sure replicating the touch screen experience on a 9.7″ scale is nothing short of amazing.  But if you want your students to use technology to communicate, collaborate, and create, pass on the iPad and use your limited funds to get something “cheap” but useful; kids deserve better than a shiny new fad.

Posted: 01|27|10 at 6:52 pm. Filed under: 60 Second Rant.
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