Playing with the iPad

Edited on October 16, 2010. Duh! iPad has a built-in microphone - I should have known that. I played with an app on the iPad where I talked to an animal, and he repeated what I said. Cute - but useful??? Then, our media specialist showed me a free app - dragon dictation - you click on the red record button and speak, and when you hit done, what you said is translated into text which you can edit - and then email, tweet, blog, etc. Now, that is very exciting and very useful! I could almost live without the camera.



I am so excited.I got to borrow an iPad for the weekend. Previous to this opportunity, I wasn't too keen on the iPad. It didn't support Adobe Flash.I was disappointed that I couldn't view my live webinars from Classroom 2.0, which are delivered through the wonderful Elluminate platform. That kind of soured me. However, after playing with all the other wonderful features, I'm becoming a convert. First of all, I found that some of the archived sessions of Classroom 2.0 webinars have been recorded and are available in Vimeo. The clarity of the chat and slides was great. I just read that Discovery Streaming is adapting so delivery of content on iPad will be possible. I was able to stream NPR live as well as listen to archived sessions. I looked at some of my videos I uploaded to YouTube, and the clarity full-screen was awesome. The iPad is very easy to hold. I love the keypad-so much easier than my iPhone. Google apps editing is coming. The fact that I can sit in my backyard and update my blog is awesome!Finally,I can't believe how great the battery life is. Is this going to revolutionize education? It is certainly going to help.It's a natural for kids. Actually, they do great on the small screens of iPods and iPhones. If the new generation of iPad gives me a microphone  and a camera so I can participate in conversations online and take and store pictures,I'll definitely find a way to get one. With G3 I'd give up my iPhone and use the pad.