Student Critique of iPad in the College Classroom

Like  &  Dislikes

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Last week my colleague asked a student to critique the iPad for us.  The student was already familiar with the Kindle DX.  It was very kind of Vaughn to take the time to evaluate how this helps or hinders his work while taking a class here at Palm Beach State.  Below find a summary of his remarks.

What he likes:
Ability to integrate professor's online notes and textbook material while in the classroom

Ability to take notes and relate these to the lesson plans

Using online materials for instant references when using textbooks and listening to professor's lectures. This is a great feature for visual learners.

What he dislikes:
Using the Kindle app on iPad gives the look and feel of using a Kindle

As a business major, I'm not able to use some business apps such as spreadsheets.

Not able to load learning websites such as myspanishlab.com which is used for Spanish 1 & 2

Vaughn's Overall Comments:
I think the iPad is a great investment for the college that offers a wonderful and unique learning tool for students.  I would certainly suggest that the college get more of these units.

When Vaughn returned the iPad and Kindle DX, he also made these verbal comments. This is my summary of our conversation that day.

He said it was wonderful to be able to zip back and forth when studying from his textbook on the iPad and getting references and the ability to verify his resourses from the our library online to complement his work.  He really enjoyed using the iPad in class to use notes from the teacher's website.  Vaugh said the glare wasn't bad during the day, but was noticeable at night. 

Thank You!

 Thanks again Vaughn for sharing your review of the iPad and letting

us post your comments on our blog:]

E-Textbooks expected to grow by 11% by 2013

E-textbooks:
11% growth by 2013
4% by this end of this year

See link below for new info about e-texbooks and the projection for growth in the near future.
Article from Reuters, US Edition
Sept. 15th, 2010


http://alturl.com/yehuq

Samsung Galaxy Tab-Sneek Preview

http://alturl.com/pcpte

Entering the European markets September and October

[According to the site above, none of these stats are confirmed]

1.0GHz ARM S5PC110 processor 

 Android 2.2 Froyo doing OS duty

 7 inch screen 800 x 480 pixel

  3.2 mega pixel rear camera and tiny front-facing shooter

 Swype keyboard, Flash along with WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS

http://alturl.com/efot6

Both picture-taking and video chat with front and back mounted cameras

 Weight 380 grams (0.8 pounds) is considerably less than the iPad

iPad weighs 680 grams (1.5 pounds) without 3G and 730g (1.6 pounds) with it.

Samsung says the Galaxy Tab will run Adobe Systems' Flash Player 10.1,

[more games available over the Web]

High-definition video for at least 7 hours on a single charge and

 perform less strenuous tasks for much more than 10 hours

 Android 2.2, called Froyo, but will be upgradable to 3.0, called Gingerbread

http://alturl.com/ocgsa

No launch date- No pricing-No network announced yet

 7-inch capacitive touch screen with a 1,024x600 Wide Super VGA (WSVGA) resolution

 Android 2.2 (Froyo), the complete Google apps Market, Flash 10.1, 16GB or 32GB of memory, GPS

Plus integrated sensors, such as a gyroscope, accelerometer, light sensor, and geomagnetic sensor

Promises, Promises!

We'll have to wait to see how this compares to iPad.

It looks like we might see this item in the US near the end of the year. It's going to be crazy for new buyers to make a decision during the holidays for gift giving. If you are interested in e-readers for your library, you might want to browse our older posts.