Miss Barbara Bilton's Education Blog: The Teacher's Guide to iPad use in Education

by: Med Kharbach

iPad is a cool versatile tool that has a huge potential in education. It is widely believed that iPad has started tranforming the face of education and revolutionizng modes of learning. Results coming out of pilot studies on the integration of iPads in the classroom seem to be promising. Reed College, for instance, took the Apple iPad for a spin in 2010 and was pleased with the tablets performance as an educational tool. As part of a pilot program, Roslyn High School on Long Island handed out 47 iPads on Dec and the school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1.100 of its students. Another report shows that hundreds of middle school students in the central San Joaquin Valley, Calif, are using curriculum apps for their classwork and homework.

There are in fact more than 600 school districts in the States that have already adopted a 1;1 iPad program and the list is too long to include here ( check out webliography links below to learn more ).All this growing body of research clearly displays the potential of this gadget in education. It might even replace or displace computers and laptops but it is still early to confirm this fact.

Given this huge importance of iPad in education, let us now go through some of the reasons behind the raise of the iPad star in education and some of the ways we can leverage it in our classroom.

Reasons why iPad is important in education

Here is a list of some of the reasons why we should consider using iPads in education:

iPads are capable of providing enhanced ebooks featuring images, video and audio.
Students are using a wide range of different smartphones and are already acquainted with touch screen technology
According to Neilson Survey," 35 % of tablet owners said they used their desktop computers less often or not at all now, and 32% of laptop users said the same. Most tellingly, more than 75% of tablet owners said they used their tablet for tasks they once used their desktop or laptop for."
iPads ( and almost all tablets ) fits in with students lifestyles. Their light weight, portability, ease of use make them much easier to take and use in the classroom than a laptop or a netbook.
iPad's responsive and smooth scrolling touchscreen made it ideal for reading content in the classroom.
No more heavy textbooks. Gone are the days when you would carry a hefty backpack full of books, the light weight iPad is a great alternative with its integrated etextbooks all in one place.
iPad provides a limitless amount of information through wireless technology. Students can have a free access to tons of reference apps for facts, questions, statistics, articles, dictionaries, data and many more.

How to integrate iPad into your classroom

Here are some ideas and suggestions on how you can start using this gadget in your classroom:

Teachers can put ditigal books into the iPad to share with students. iBook Author allows users to easily create ebooks and share them with others. Read this guide to learn how to create yours.
Provide students with some awesome learning apps to find definitions, facts, statistics and many more. That could help them alot in their learning. Here are some apps to start with : Dictionary , Wikipedia, and Qwiki,
iPad can be used by students and teachers to work on classroom projects and make research papers. There are several IOS apps that can be of some help in this regard such as a good mobile browser , use Safari for IOS to browse and find quick information. Flipboard, Zite, and Pulse are also great for reading and finding ideas to write about.
Use iPads to save information and classroom work by emailing it directly to your email account or using such apps as Instapaper or Read It Later
iPad can also be used in the classroom for taking notes and there are some great apps to help students do so namely : Simplenote, Plaintext, Bamboo and Evernote.
Teachers can use iPads to manage classes, assignments and social life using a set of apps such as InClass ( helps students manage their chaos ), Wunderlist and Producteev. There are also many apps to mange your social life such as Twitter, Skype, Facebook, My Pad and many more.
iPad can also be used in the classroom to break the monotony of teaching and give students some time for educational fun by watching movies, playing games, and listening to music.