I recently came across an interesting article in a LinkedIn group I’m a member of. Its all about the impact of the iPad and its uses, or not, in education.

Now I have to admit, I’m a confirmed fan of both my iPad and my iPhone. As friends and colleagues as well as regular readers of this blog know, this has not always been the case ! and to those who took a sustained shed-load of abuse and ridicule over their alleged lemming-like rush into so-called Apple slavery, I apologise wholeheartedly. But can we take things too far,as the image in this post (from technology.desktopnexus.com)might suggest?

But I was press-ganged into having an iPhone by my other half and my excuse is that I was taking my time, evaluating, and making informed decisions based on experiences and technological advances in operating systems functionality and the merits of one Smartphone vs the others blah blah blah

Anyway, I digress somewhat…

The article argued that, whilst the iPad is a fantastic device for collecting, storing, and consuming content, this ‘content controlled’ aspect is perhaps limiting in an education system being currently regeared towards creativity. (rather like the difference between Trad jazz so beloved of my father and freestyle jazz, which is more to my taste). The writer goes on to extend this argument into the area of textbooks, positing the view that having spent the best part of the last hundred years delivering up our students to the text-book publishers, we are now doing the same by sending down Apple street, Kindle rise, or Microsoft Alley.

So is the iPad a creative tool ? well I wrote this blog post on mine using a creative writing tool, which also has drawing software for our Glass Arts design business.
So judge for yourself