Hot off the blocks to hit the education market were Apple with their iPad. Early adopters of tablets had only one realistic choice and the iPad was it. However, with the rise of Android and now the entry of Microsoft (and to a much lesser extent, Blackberry), we now have a number of major companies vying for a slice of the education market.

For me, a tablet has a couple of advantages over a laptop or desktop. The main one, for me, is the fact that they are instantly on. That is, you press a button and you can be online in less than 5 seconds. A Windows laptop or desktop takes about 1-2 minutes to get warmed up. Aside from that, tablets have a decent battery life and they are generally easy to use.

The problems with some tablets are the lack of a keyboard, the lack of easy connectivity to a projector and the lack of Flash.

Most of the problems above are easily rectified with a dongle or plug or some sort of other device.

However, with regards to Flash, Apple (and, now, Android) say Flash is dead.

I would argue that Flash is certainly not dead in the education sector. Almost all decent online educational content is written in Flash. I find it bizarre to hear people saying that there is no need for Flash or that one can download an app to watch Flash videos. I don’t want to watch Flash videos, I want to play games; and almost all educational games on the web are written in Flash.

If Microsoft’s Surface does allow full Flash access, I think that they could be the victors in the war of the tablets at education level. I also think that if they sell the familiarity argument – i.e. all your PCs and laptops are Microsoft – this could be another feather in their cap.

It’s a while since Microsoft have been the underdog in a technology fight but I think given the above weapons, it could be enough to bring them back to being the kings of the education sector.

Apple TV is a digital media receiver developed made by Apple. It basically hooks up your iPad to a projector. However, it does a lot more than that too. In order to make it work, you need to plug the Apple TV into your projector and then you can wirelessly work with your iPad and the results are seen on the big screen. Apple TV costs around €109 at the moment.

A cheaper option is to buy an adapter from Apple as shown on the right. There are two possible disadvantages to this. Firstly, the iPad is no longer a wireless device so it can’t be easily passed around the room. The second disadvantage is that many iPad apps are not compatible with the adapter.

The third option, that I know of, is the Reflection App, which essentially mirrors whatever is on your iPad onto the big screen. There’s a small bit of setting up to do but it seems to work well. It costs around €12 for a single licence of the app.

I presume someone is going to invent an app or a product that will allow people to interact on the IWB with an iPad plugged in at some stage but for now these will have to do!

Unfortunately life won’t be simple. Back in the 1990′s content was developed for Windows in Ireland. We had (and still have) lots of CD-ROMs with titles such as Millie’s Maths House, Who Took the Book and The Vikings. I was involved in Who Took the Book and didn’t once consider any other platform other than Windows as almost 100% of schools in Ireland used this operating system.

The Tablet market seems to have 3-4 big players that are not going to go away. Windows, of course, will be one of them. Android and Apple’s iOS are the other two main players. (I can envisage Linux working its way in soon enough too.) The problem is that all three platforms are incompatible with each other. This may have the consequence of schools committing to buying only one type of device, for example, the iPad and only running iOS apps.

While, in the short term, this might sound like a good idea, in the not-so-distant future, the concept of BYOD will happen. BYOD means Bring Your Own Device, and will open up the classroom to children bringing in their own tablets, phones and other devices in order to do their school work. This means, we will have lots of different operating systems in action. This will make problems for companies who only develop their products in one flavour.

The only solution is for companies to design and produce their content to work on any device. History has shown that there is generally one winner in the area of technology. Think BetaMax vs VHS and Windows vs everyone else in the 1990s. However, I don’t think this will be the case for this. I believe this market is so big that there is plenty of room for a few companies to grab a slice of the tablet pie. The content will be king and the winners will be the ones that can adapt to whatever piece of hardware they happen to be on.

There are a number of basics that every classroom should have though and no matter what type of situation you are in, the following items are definitely going to be needed:

Must Haves

Image from http://gavcommediaproductions.blogspot.ie/

A projector is probably to most used tool in the Irish classroom. It’s great for whole-class teaching and can be used to show images, videos and other content. It’s a fantastic stimulus for classwork. For example, when teaching a topic, let’s say The Burren, unless you live there, it’s very hard for children to visualise it. Apart from getting on a bus and going there, it’s nearly as good to go on to YouTube and search for videos that give a good picture of the place.

Laptops

Your projector will need to be connected to a computer of some sort. I would advise a laptop rather than a PC. The laptop can double up as the teacher’s computer. Therefore, if the teacher wants to put content for the projector they can bring the laptop home to do so rather than having to stay in the classroom or mess around with USB keys.

I’d also recommend a minimum of 4 laptops for children’s usage and a maximum of 16 (or a 2:1) ratio. In both cases, I’d also recommend refurbished laptops if you can get them as they are cheap and good enough for children to use. Below is a short video from the NCTE about laptops and their benefits.

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Network Hubs / Cables

In order to connect to the Internet, you may need cables. If you have a decent wifi set-up (which is unlikely in Irish schools), this may not be an issue.

The Flipcam is a fantastic device for recording video. There are also a number of good alternatives to it out there.

Camcorder/Camera

This is one of the most important tools a child can use and it can be used in lots and lots of different ways, whether it be a maths trail or making short video clips, it is an invaluable tool.

Software

The NCTE won’t let you use the grant for annual subscriptions. There isn’t really a lot of good software for PCs out there. The best two in my opinion are Wordshark and Numbershark from Whitespace. They are two pieces of software that can genuinely track how a child is doing.

Nice Things To Have

Interactive Whiteboard

Many of you might be surprised to see this here rather than the section above. Back in 2008, it certainly would have been there. However, as things have evolved, we are finding that most teachers use the interactive part of the IWB very rarely and when they do, it’s mainly being used by the teacher or by one pupil at a time. Using the IWB as a station is probably the best use of it so if you’re going to do that, get a board that allows for multiple touch and get some decent software to work with.

Visualiser

This is a handy teacher tool to show objects quickly on a big screen when attached to a projector. There’s no need to spend very much on one but the more you pay the more it can do and the better the image quality.

The battle between the tablets will shape the future of learning

Tablets

This will eventually be in the section above but right now tablets like iPads, iPods, Androids and Fizzbooks are a nice addition to schools. Until things settle down, I wouldn’t recommend a high investment in them as there are a number of issues, which still haven’t been answered. For example, how long will you get out of a tablet? 1 year or 10 years? What do we need to do on a tablet? What about apps and other content? Right now, I don’t believe there are many decent apps out there to suit the Irish primary curriculum. The iPad probably has the most – Cartoon Maker and Book Creator are two of my favourites but most of them are simply colourful ways of consolidating information but without providing any data. The best thing about any tablet is that they have a decent battery life, they have Internet access and they are instantly on when you need them. If you’ve spare cash, buy 3-4 of them and trial them out.

Network Storage

A few years ago, a server would have been top of the list in any school. However, things have changed and most content can now be stored online so the server isn’t really needed. However, a network storage device is very handy to have for storing music, videos, etc. for everyone to access. If you share a network drive on all teacher laptops, you can share all your CDs, DVDs, etc. with everyone. I find it very handy for the CDs that come with the various commercial schemes.

Laptop Trolley

This trolley allows you to store and charge all your laptops in one go. It also is used to share a number of laptops around the school for usage. I find this is its best use. Even better are laptop trolleys with inbuilt wifi extenders. This gives a stronger wifi connection to the classroom that is using the laptops.

Final Thoughts

This list above should give you a good start whether you’re starting off or in an established school. If you are in a new school and you are filling your first classroom, I would buy a projector, 8-10 laptops, camcorder and software. That should leave you with enough money to choose other items that you might like such as a visualiser or an IWB. In an established school, a laptop trolley might be of benefit.

This grant is one of the few important grants left for schools. As ICT is going to be the backbone of a lot of what we do in schools, it’s important to have a good infrastructure behind it.

Animation

• Animation Creator HD
• I can Animate

Looking and Responding

• Make your own Art Gallery
• Art Authority for iPad
• Art Jigsaw Puzzles
• Monet Album
• Musée de Louvre
• National Gallery, London

Creating Art

• ArtRage
• Art Studio for iPad
• Brushes for iPad
• Brushes for iPhone
• Doodle Buddy
• Drawing Pad
• FlowPaper
• KidArt for iPad
• Kiddy Art for iPad
• Let’s Create Pottery
• Line Art
• Scribblify
• Sketchbook Mobile
• ZenBrush

Don’t get me wrong – I love Apple products as much as the next fanboy. While I ditched my iPhone for a HTC Desire, I love my iPad and my new Mac Book Air is the most beautiful laptop I have ever used.

As far as I can see, the new iBooks textbooks are going to provide students with a much more interactive textbook in that there will be animations, videos, slideshows and links to web sites.  This is all good stuff.  At least it’s better than text and diagrams.

The problem I have is that there isn’t real interactivity.  By this I mean, the social side of interactivity. Wouldn’t it be great if students could share their own notes with their classmates and teachers?  What if a student could add their own content such as videos or web links to a book?  What about a forum so students could chat about particular parts of a book in real time?  In Apple’s words, that would be “insanely awesome.”

Apple have had the clever idea to allow anyone with a Mac to make their own eBooks, which I intend to try out.  While these will only be available in their full glory on Apple products, a more boring PDF can be exported to lesser machines.

If I were more sceptical, I would argue that this product is a sinister marketing tool to put pressure on users to buy iPads rather than cheaper Android and other tablet devices.  It wouldn’t have been too difficult to have made the textbooks more open so that any tablet could use them.  Rumour also has it that Apple have some sort of exclusivity thing going on so that companies can’t put their iBooks on other devices.

This new initiative hasn’t really revolutionised the textbook.  Right now, all it is, is a fancy book.  Even the Apple Web site can only think of two advantages – your book won’t get dog-eared and you’ll have a lighter school bag – which doesn’t really justify the term “reinvention” when most eBooks already do that.  However, iBooks textbooks are probably going to do well and many of us are going to start publishing stuff on it then get addicted.  I’d say a lot of schools will already have decided to spend a gross amount of money on iPads instead on other more useful devices too.  The Apple machine continues to take over our lives and not necessarily for the better this time.  If this is the “future of education”, as many of today’s headlines are reporting, education isn’t moving too far.

A few months ago, again with great furore and publicity, a secondary school in Co. Meath gave all their first year students a Fizzbook (a tablet/laptop combo) with electronic replicas of the textbooks.  So, it’s the same old story except with a cooler device storing the books.

While one could look at these two stories as the first step on the road to integrating technology into education successfully, it also raises questions about why we have to start that process this way.

The only difference between the iPad book and the traditional textbook is the weight.  Both are used exactly the same way.  Here are a few simple tweaks that the iPad version of a textbook could have done:

Video

A book cannot show a video but an iPad can.  Hence, wherever possible, the iPad book could be used to show videos of teaching concepts, real life scenarios, etc.

Internet Links

Let’s say you’re reading about a particular topic and would like to read more about it.  A nice list of links to related web sites might be useful.

Dictionary

I’m reading my school textbook and I come across a word I can’t understand.  What do I do?  A few years ago, a trusty dictionary would come to the rescue.  Nowadays, most electronic books can link up to an online dictionary.  Simply click on a word and its definition shows up.

Sharing Notes

Your teacher tells you to remember some phrase or definition.  In anyone’s language, this means that it is likely to be important (or come up in a test).  Let’s say you could highlight this text and save it then share it with other users.  Amazon’s Kindle allows this so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Interactive Quizzes

Most textbooks have revision questions at the end.  Surely it is easy enough to make these self-correcting or at very least have the ability to send them electronically to the teacher who can send you back your score or grade.

There’s probably plenty more ways that one could enhance a textbook on an iPad.  In fact, it’s quite likely that this will be the route that these textbooks will go down over the next few years as companies head down the road of digitising their schoolbooks.

However, the iPad (and any Internet-enabled device) is capable of producing much more than all this.  Even with the above tweaks, these digital textbooks are still textbooks doling out content to students, which they will eventually have to regurgitate at the end of 6th year.

Could the iPad version of the textbooks have started differently?  Why did it need to take the textbook and simply digitise it?  Why did it not think of some other way to help students learn?

One possibility for the iPad would have been a content-free platform for sharing curriculum knowledge.  Students could build their own portfolio according to their own learning needs and styles from an almost infinite bank of knowledge on the web.  Why should one book company dictate how it teaches Shakespeare or Boyle’s Law?

Why can’t students find examples of re-enactments of plays and videos of science experiments then store and share them on their own personal learning network?

Why can’t teachers share their notes or their favourite links with their students to help them through the finer details of trigonometry?

Why can’t developers create beautiful games and quizzes for schools  that not only challenge their memory but also their skills of searching for information, finding that information and expressing that information well.

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to be seeing iPads and other tablets being used in a traditional sense, at least for the time being.  I suppose it will be up to primary schools to show them how it’s done properly!

Opinions on iPads

• How the iPad is changing our lives by Jeff Bullas
• What Students Think are Obstacles to Learning by Audrey Watters (ReadWriteWeb)
• What Features Should an iPad Book have?
• How we already use iPads according to Google (ReadWriteWeb)

Apps

• Verbally (Assistive Speech Solution)
• Best Children’s Books on the iPad (New York Times)
• A Large List of Apps for iPod/iPad
• Another list of Apps for iPads
• Top 30 Photography Apps
• Apps for Meetings and Presentations (Mashable)
• Comic Life
• 20 apps for designers
• 5 Apps for students with Special Educational Needs
• More great educational apps

Guides / Books

• Steps to Success in Using iPads
• How to get books on your iPad with iTunes
• Extras you can get for your iPad
• Ten things you never knew you could do on an iPad

Other

• An Irish Times Article about technology in schools

Laptop/Netbook

Laptops have been around for many years in Irish classrooms.  However, it’s only in the last year or so, they have become very popular.  Previously, schools chose to buy desktops over laptops as laptops tended to be more expensive for less power and they were also more easily stolen.

Prices of laptops have come down hugely.  One can get a refurbished laptop for about €150.  Coupled, with the onset of laptop trolleys, one can transport several laptops into a classroom and have them all charged up. Essentially, one is bringing the old-style computer room into the classroom.  This opens up huge learning opportunities for children.  If one has a typical class of 32 children and one brings in 16 laptops, there is massive potential for learning.

Netbooks are a more recent phenomenon.  The main difference between them and laptops is their size.  However, because school computers don’t need too much power these days, a netbook can perform most tasks effectively.  Netbooks generally don’t have CD-ROM drives but they do have longer battery lives.

For classroom use, either product gives you all the power of a PC but with great portability options.

Tablet PC / Fizzbook

In late 2010, the Fizzbook reached Ireland with much excitement.  This was the first laptop designed for children.  It had a hard cover case in case of falls and it also had a touch screen.  The screen also twisted and could be placed on top of the keyboard to create a tablet.  There are other tablet PCs out there but they tend to be more expensive than the Fizzbook.

Basically, a tablet PC does everything a laptop does except it doubles up as a tablet (like an iPad).  Generally tablet PCs run Windows operating system so children are generally familiar with the interface.  The problem is the price.  A Fizzbook costs around €600 for a basic model, which is very slow for classroom use.

On the upside, when tablet PCs mature as products and become cheaper and faster, they have the potential to completely replace Interactive Whiteboards.  The touch screen on them will become a child’s personal IWB!

iPad

The iPad arrived with much fanfare in the autumn of 2010 in Ireland.  The iPad is basically a touch screen computer.  One can access the Internet and can use apps (little applications that can be bought from a special store).   Great advantages compared to laptops are that it instantly turns on and a child can access any app very quickly. When it came out, skeptics merely compared it to a giant iPhone but this is where I see its strength: screen space.  The screen space of the iPad is large enough for a child to be able to use the apps similar to that on a laptop.  The smaller screen of the iPod Touch can be frustrating.  The downside of the iPad is its price but that should come down quickly.

iPod Touch/iPhone

There’s a lot of fanfare around the iPod Touch for learning with a few pilot projects running around a few classrooms around Ireland and a number of schools buying classroom loads of the devices.  Basically, an iPod Touch is a small handheld device that allows users to use the Internet and play apps, similar to that of the iPad above.  There are a number of good apps to support curriculum subjects but not nearly enough.  However, apps are being developed all the time.  I have seen some very inventive uses of the iPod Touch in primary education but I’m not as convinced by them as I am with their bigger brother, the iPad.  Screen space is too small to sport a full web site or a decent book.

DS Lite / PSP

Mobile computer game devices are fast becoming popular in classrooms.  There are a number of schools in Ireland already using DS Lites in the classroom with several games available to suit children’s creative skills.  For example the “Imagine” series of DS Lite games are excellent.  There are also a number of brain training games around, which are very good too.

The PSP with a camera attached makes for excited Augmented Reality (AR) learning opportunities.  By pointing your camera at a special QR Code, the PSP can transport children to great learning opportunities such as videos and games.

Both devices have their disadvantages in that they are only as good as the games that are available for them.  As of this date, there has been nothing created for them to support the Irish curriculum, though some games tie in nicely with certain subjects.

Mobile learning is where we are heading.  I believe there will be a number of criteria for the success of  mobile learning devices.  One will be a minimum screen space.  Right now, I think the iPads and Netbooks have it right. The iPod Touches, I believe, are too small.   Speed and instant access will be another criterion. The Apple products certainly have got these right.  Finally, the applications or programmes that run on these devices will be crucial for their success.  Windows laptops and netbooks have a small amount of Irish-designed programmes.  None of the others really do.

As we’re in the very early days of mobile learning devices, it’s probably best to hold your ground.  There’s a number of very interesting tablet PCs coming along.  Android is an operating system that has become one of the most popular in the world and more and more apps are being written for it.  We haven’t even started to talk about using children’s own mobile phones for learning opportunities.  Perhaps, this time next year it will be easier to decide what product will be best for our children to learn with.  At least we know the early signs of mobile learning devices are promising.