Feb 4 2012
iPad therefore iAm
So we have been using these iPads for a good 2 or 3 weeks now. Contrary to my original doubts, it has proven rather useful. Addressing any teachers fear of procrastination: I actually never got round to buying any games, the most entertaining thing that I have on it is probably minesweeper. However I will adit that sometimes during class I will have a sudden urge to check eBay for that cool guitar I have been bidding on or to check my Facebook, all though these sudden distractions only ever last around 3 minutes or less and I always go back to being productive and taking notes.
This is mainly a ‘people and machines’ problem; you have given the student the power of the Internet during lessons, it is his own responsibility to use that power well. I personally came to the realisation that there is absolutely no way in which the iPad can benefit me in a non-school oriented way whilst I was playing around with it for the first time. And since then I have had no urge to download angry birds or FIFA or anything that might hinder the productivity.
the teachers who weren’t part of the iPad program were skeptical at first however after showing my maths teacher the app ‘pocketCAS’ a graphic display calculator with far more functionality than the standard ti-84 GDC’s he seemed a lot less worried about them. In fact he even said he was impressed when a fellow iPad lab rat sent me notes real time over Dropbox when I could not get to school. Our English teacher, who can only be described as a technophobe, was convinced when a another fellow iPad lab rat did his entire creative writing assignment on his iPad that they weren’t all bad. And lastly when I did an entire presentation on keynote (the iPads PowerPoint equivalent) it even convinced me that the iPad isn’t useless.
Admittedly however, there are instances where I wish that I were using a piece of paper, as it is much faster to draw graphs and small diagrams, I think that the note taking capabilities should not be considered an adequate replacement to the old fashion pen and paper just yet. Perhaps more utilities could be added to the note taking programs…
I have been using a combination of 2 apps for my time management, myHomework and forgetful.
MyHomework is a homework planner with an easy to use and smooth GUI, it allows the user to add classes to a timetable, and add assignments corresponding to these classes. It even allows users to prioritise different assignments. You can also set reminders for the assignments and if an assignment is late, the iPad reminds you to do it. Combining this with forgetful, a user friendly reminder app which is far simpler than the iPads built in utilities I have managed to stay on track with all my assignments.
Anyway, the iPad has proven excellent for getting me organised with my assignments (even outside school tasks) and its ultra-portability and usability make it an excellent tool for the right tasks, the one problem is being able to distinguish between what is the right task and what is not.
Written from my iPad 
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