A Week with an iPad

I picked up a 3G iPad ahead of their release here in NZ exactly a week ago. Resisting the temptation to post an initial impressions type entry, I've held off until now. So, what are my impressions one week into the exercise?

Positives:
1. the size - I've had an iPod Touch for a while, and one of the things I've not liked about it was it's small screen to use with the on screen keyboard. The iPad has a look and feel about it that suits my big fingers. The size is great.
2. The battery life - quite simply I can get a day's useful life from a charge. That beats the best laptop I have used by several hours.
3. Instant on - no wait for extended bootup times on a PC. Just turn it on and you are in action. Certainly makes it easy to do that last minute forgotten task - like booking the movie tickets I forgot to do last night. Took no time to do compared with having to reboot my PC - which inevitably takes 5 minutes to be usable.
4. Applications launch instantly. Get working quickly.
5. Screen - awesome clarity.
6. Weight - you hardly notice it. I've longed for a device that was both light enough and had enough battery life to allow me to read RSS feeds and the like from the comfort of the couch - this is it - light as a book - I've read more this last week than I would have with my laptop a much more.
7. Availability of applications to do work.
The App store makes it pretty easy to spend money! I splashed out on the iWork suite (Keynote, Pages and Numbers)for around $40NZ






and last night decided I couldn't be without editing access to my Google Docs accounts so paid another $19 for Docs to Go.






Other than that - all the apps I have so far are free and while I haven't spend that much time looking - there are literally tens of thousands available. The low cost nature of so many of them is both a good and bad thing in my view - low enough to entice me to pay for them without plenty of research.
8. Diigo has an iPad app - just found this yesterday and have enjoyed using it. It seems to work just fine with all the usual Diigo features.
9. Blogpress - decided that I just couldn't use the web version to edit my Blogger account so splashed out the $4 for BlogPress - already worth the spend by being able to insert graphics. Still need to sort out video and some other formatting basics though.

Negatives:
1. No multitasking - having to head to the home pages each time to launch a new app is slight drag - if therr is a mitigating circumstance it is that the instant switch from one app to the next is bearable.
2. No folder structure for organizing apps - so I have several home screens that are kind of in an order that I like, but I'd much rather have a few folders on one screen with my apps organized - I know that both of these issues will be fixed with iOS 4 (which I have installed on my iPod) - but I want these now!
3. No Flash. Yes, like most others I've read the press about Apple and Adobe and their very public falling out - but I'd be a lot happier if all the web sites I wanted to use were fully functional. No Flash is a pain.

There are still a number of things I need to get used to. I'm typing this on the iPad - and am about to go back and try to put in the links for this post - this is where multitasking would be handy and I don't have it! BlogPress makes is a bit easier.

My aim is to make this my main tool for most of my work ... So far I'm pretty happy with the functionality, but there are still a few things I need to resolve before I can go completely over to my iPad.

I have now completed my first KeyNote presentation and am more than happy with how that application comes together. But my biggest issues seem to be that I have yet to completely master editing my blog posts and that moving files around is not as "intuitive" as I might like.

Location:Christian Rd,Waitakere,New Zealand

The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us

Take 10 minutes and 48 seconds of your busy schedule and watch the presentation by Dan Pink about The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Then I have some questions/observations for you.



Questions/observations:

• can you/do you identify with the research findings in your educational setting? I certainly do - once the basics of pay are out of the way - dam would I love the chance to do a 24 hour development with the 5 minute chance to show what I'd done to colleagues at the end  - kind of like the TechCrunch Disrupt events.
• would something like this 24 hour (or whatever) event work with students? This is a bit rhetorical because I've seen what our Year 12 media students do over a weekend of intense film making.
• What a cool way to present ... the geeky part of me ... what a stunning presentation. I want to know how to do something like this. Anyone know of some software/hardware which might help?
• isn't Youtube great

What's happening with my world?

I waited several moments. Like my brain really. It's been over capacity with a full disk for way too long.

Office Web Apps Arrive

Well, they are here. The much hyped Office Web apps as part of the launch of Office 2010. I've only had a quick look at the functionality of the Powerpoint module (as I have a presentation tomorrow I thought I might try it).

Initial impressions were that yes, you can create a presentation of sorts, but you are limited by what you can create to some pretty basic stuff. One image per section for example. But hey - it's a web app, and maybe simplifying presentations is not that bad after all?
I'm looking forward to experimenting with OneNote to see how this goes - more on this later in the week.

"Tread Softly on My Dreams" - Sir Ken Robinson at TED 2010

He's back. Sir Ken Robinson spoke again at TED earlier this year. Entitled "Bring on the Learning Revolution" Sir Ken makes another passionate case for transformation of education systems - not just a reformation of them.
He talks of "dislocation",
He talks of "how do you innovate fundamentally?"
He talks of how we "are enthralled by the linearity in education" and how we take this for granted.
I recall hearing him speak at a conference on the conditions for growth to flourish in Death Valley in the US a few years ago. He makes this point again in this talk.
And he concludes with a very poignant quote from a Yeats poem - hence the title of this post.
Enjoy the 16 minutes.

Selling a product to people that don't want it - the future of maths in schools?

"I sell a product to people that don't want it but are forced to have it by law." These are some of the opening remarks of Dan Meyer, a maths teacher from New York. In an 11 minute TEDx talk he goes into his method for making math problems more meaningful and realistic for students. He makes the case that text books and their approach to problem solving are "buying you out of your obligation" to be a successful maths teacher.
This short video is worth the look - and if you are a math teacher and you have access to some technology in your classroom, then try and take up the challenge. It might be worth it - especially for those who struggle a little.



You can get an idea of some of the stuff Dan has tried from his blog - the general address is here.
For some specific approaches to curriculum try this link.

iTunesU as a resource for schools

I guess I've always had a soft spot for Apple - they do make some of the coolest kit around. And so too, their software. Take iTunes for example. Sure - everyone uses it for music and maybe for iPod games, but increasingly it is serving as a resource for all manner of educational material for anyone to consume. A large number of universities have used iTunesU for some time now, but over recent years a growing number of K-12 institutes have added resources that you might find valuable.


According to Apple iTunesU is ..."The world’s smartest download.
Discover iTunes U and never stop learning. Download lectures, discussions, language lessons, audiobooks, podcasts and other opportunities for enlightenment — all from top universities, museums and other cultural institutions around the world. So whether you’re a college student or a student of life, learn for free with iTunesU.


This post just gives you the instructions to find some K-12 content and download it. Have a good look around - there is some good stuff here that you can use tomorrow,