So, 1 month in to my iPad journey - some thoughts. I started this exercise with an objective of trying to replace my laptop as my prime computing tool. That's a big ask - because in my role as an IT director at a large independent school I have a number of different functions that I need a computing device to do.
In no particular order I need to
1. Provide pd to staff at all levels
2. Presentations to staff, students and parents
3. Research into new and emerging technologies
4. Teach - I teach ICT to middle school students and we do anything from web design to 3D modeling. So I need applications to do video editing, photo manipulation and animation.
5. Interact with our various administration systems, including how we manage these devices in a large deployment.
6. Maintain my blog and other websites.
7. Have full editing access to Google Docs or other such cloud tools.
8. Must be capable of projecting via a data projector.
We run pretty much a Windows environment for our students - they have laptops running either Vista or XP - and while we are almost clear of running Windows only software, there are still a couple of areas where we have a dependence on that platform.
So, in my explorations over the last few weeks I've been asking myself the question - "can we introduce an iPad as the student device at our junior levels?" All of this while being mindful of the fact that the absence of support for Flash will make an impact?
Some findings so far ...
1. While the iPad doesn't support most applications via a data projector, if you jailbreak it and install TVOut2 you can get pretty reasonable projection capabilities - enough to satisfy me that this aspect of presentation and teaching is well enough covered.
2. It would be fair to say that while I can manually configure proxy connections for the iPad and Safari works quite happily over our network, none of the other applications that use the network by default currently work. For example I can not access the App Store or mail etc. Now, we do have an issue with iTunes on our PCs too - unless you have Safari installed on a PC and have it configured, then iTunes doesn't connect properly - this is a relatively new phenomenon for us and as yet we have not spent any serious time trying to resolve this issue. So, this is looming as an increasing priority if I can satisfy myself that other issues of multimedia creation are doable for students.
3. I have found the lack of Flash support more annoying than frustrating. That said, there are a couple of apps that we are currently deploying that make use of Flash - MyPortfolio.school.nz is one, and the Aviary suite of tools is another that I was planning to introduce but will now have to find an alternative to.
4. I must that when I spoke with a couple of our DPs a week or so ago I made the comment that perhaps we may be a year away from an iPad type device in our environment. I based this on not having found a video editing package or a 3D modeling tool. I now have - at least at a superficial level - but enough to make me not too concerned about this.
5. Google currently have an issue that they only allow editing of spreadsheets through their mobile application - this is a pain. In addition, there is a bug in the new Google Docs that stops you being able to download and edit documents created in Docs through such tools as Docs To Go - I understand that several attempts have been made to fix this issue but it remains unresolved as far as I can tell.
6. If we can get a web front end to our main admin system sort then we should be ok with our various admin connectivity for teachers - the rest of our stuff is based around SharePoint and Moodle - there is a mobile app for Moodle should straight web connectivity prove an issue. We are still very early in our Moodle stages with no deployment yet, so if we manage this component with our developers it should not prove an issue.
7. Maintaining blogs and websites is proving a bit more problematical. The likes of Yola and Weebly make extensive use of Flash and so are not a happening thing. I've yet to try the likes of Google sites or other tools, so have a little more work to go here. Maintaining my this blog with BlogPress (as I'm doing now) is OK for basic stuff, but not really a good enough editor for my liking. I'll explore the WordPress app for some new blogs we're setting up for a couple of classes and see how they go.
8. At this stage the iPad still relies on having access to another computer of some type for various functions - the extent of this for a school environment has yet to be considered (by us) to any extent.
9. The "instant on" is a huge benefit to a mobile student population.
10. The battery life is awesome. Easily get a day without a charge - so students won't need to bring a charger to school.
That's about enough for the moment - more to come as the exploration continues, but suffice it to say that I am getting happier with the iPad as a primary computing device by the day. Sure there are some big issues still to resolve, but with functionality in other areas (application wise) seemingly clo to being resolved, at least we can look at the big issues with a purpose.
More as we continue our journey.
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