Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Much of the technology world has been swept up in the excitement of the Apple iPad -- the nearly pocket sized web browser and eBook reader, with all sorts of other bells and whistles.
Prior to the iPad, Amazon.com's eBook reader, Kindle, was the device of choice for replacing textbooks in the college world. It wasn't long though, according to an eCampus News report, that college students and professors began learning that the Kindle was a less-than-perfect substitute for old-fashioned textbooks. Kindle's text, it seems, is too small and too difficult for the vision-impaired to read and to manipulate.
Enter the iPad, which provides larger text and easy-to-handle buttons on its new-millennium touch screen.
Some colleges have now scrapped their Kindle experiments completely and are implementing use of the iPad, which comes with numerous built-in education tools and makes for easy reading of texts and supplemental articles.
The K-12 world tends to follow in the steps of the college world in many areas. So, one has to wonder how long before schools jump on the "Apple tree," embracing the iPad in the K-12 classroom, and tossing out the antiquated textbooks.
