Is a Super-Sized iPad the Future of Education?

theodp writes "Perhaps people are reading too much into Apple CEO Tim Cook's 'Big Plans' for 2014, but hopes are high that the New Year will bring a biggie-sized iPad. Over at Forbes, Anthony Wing Kosner asks, Will The Large Screen iPad Pro Be Apple's First In A Line Of Desktop Touch Devices?. 'Rumors of a large [12.9"] iPad are many and constant,' notes ComputerWorld's Mike Elgan, 'but they make sense only if the tablet is a desktop for schools.' Elgan adds, 'Lots of schools are buying iPads for kids to use. But iPads don't make a lot of sense for education. For starters, their screens are too small for the kinds of interactive textbooks and apps that Apple wants the education market to create. They're also too small for collaborative work. iPads run mobile browsers, rather than full browsers, so kids can't use the full range of HTML5 sites.' Saying that 'Microsoft has fumbled the [post-PC] transition badly,' Elgan argues that 'the battle for the future of education is likely to be between whatever Google turns the Chromebook into against whatever Apple turns the iPad into.'"

Tablets will be good in education

[rolfwind]

Idk, I don't think for kids bigger is better. I guess I know when I see it, but the current iPad is already heavy after a while for my hands.

But tablets in general will be awesome in education coupled with programs like DuoLingo. Some kids really need to learn at their own pace (with a minimum requirement), that factory like schoolrooms just don't provide.

But as much as I like Apple tablets, not for school. Just too expensive. I bought from Aldi a 7" $99 medion brand tablet for family recently (free and clear, no 2 year plans attached), and I'm impressed how competent it is. Not the most beautiful screen, some things take several clicks, and battery life isn't an iPad.... but it plays netflix, has skype and most other programs, and surfs the net, and google's voice to text was surprisingly good. $99. I was blown away. Who knows how cheap they will get. If a kid breaks or loses that, who cares compared to an iPad.

Re:The future of education

[ecotax]

The best thinkers in history were educated by people.

And the best teachers in the world have always used whatever tools could help hem in that. Crayons, cave walls, scrolls, blackboards, pens, notebooks, televisions, you name it. And now they have iPads.
Not to replace them, but to assist them.

Re:I fear a monoculture

[supercrisp]

As a professor, I'd welcome a monoculture. I'd love for all my students to have the same machine with the same OS and the same apps. Otherwise, every class with a computer component becomes a class in teaching half the students how to change systems settings or whatever on different machines. The average student doesn't have any great computer competence, despite the "digital natives" hype. They can get on Facebook or use Google, but inserting a header in a document or hooking up to an external monitor is beyond them. I can really understand why other educators would want a "monoculture." (However, I think the emphasis on computers in education is misplaced and overhyped. My students, at the college level, would benefit much more from learning touch typing and a few basics than from whatever malarky they're being taught now.)

Re:iDesk

[Anonymous Coward]

So you get to send your kid to a public school and forced to buy a product from a private company? Nice setup.

Nothing education centric about these

[onyxruby]

I worked at a University for a few years where we had thousands of staff tablets. I can assure you that the tablets never got used for anything other than consuming content, status symbols and brief emails or notes. Even when they were actually used to produce content it's always easy to tell when an email was written on a tablet due to the short and abbreviated way it was composed.

If your in school you should be there to produce content (homework, research etc) and for that a tablet is the worst choice possible, and it's no different for industry or government. It's the one thing Microsoft got right about the Surface, give it an integrated keyboard to make it feasible to actually produce content. Without the keyboard your left with a consumption device or a status symbol.

That being said, if Apple makes a 12.9" tablet, there are a lot of people that would buy it for a content consumption device just like they do with any other apple tablet. Apple should make it just for all the people that would appreciate a larger tablet for lounging around the house with and it would do quite well there, especially if it gets the upgraded screen that was talked about. But don't fool yourself into thinking that a larger tablet would have a damn thing to do with either education or producing content.