The iPad: consumption not production?

For another spin on the iPad, see Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine:

‘after having slept with her (Ms. iPad), I woke up with morning-after regrets. She’s sweet and pretty but shallow and vapid.’

Or EducationTechNews: ‘The younger, harder-to-please demographic were quick to point out the iPad’s shortcomings:

no camera no USB port no flash no multi-tasking [...]

Early reports on iPads in higher education

Kolowich, S. (2010) Minor bumps for iPad Inside Higher Education, April 23

A report on how some USA universities and colleges have reacted to the iPad. Two interesting things to note: a high proportion of students are not interested in buying any digital book devices; and can Apple continue to ignore compatibility with Adobe’s [...]

Educational affordances of the iPad

For a very quick and preliminary review of possible educational uses or affordances of the Apple iPad, see Elliott Masie’s 10 minute video at: http://www.ipadlearninglab.com/ (Thanks to Clayton R. Wright for bringing this to my attention – from Sierra Leone!)

It would be a good idea to keep an eye on the Masie web [...]

More news from the eLearning Africa 2010 conference

The news portal for the eLearning Africa 2010 conference in Lusaka, Zambia, between May 26-28 has the following news items about presentations to be made at the conference:

Haggards, S. (2010) African Digital Diaries – Portraits of Ad Hoc eLearning in Africa, eLearning Africa 2010 News Portal, March 31

This is a podcast about [...]

Will banning laptops in class work?

de Vise, D. (2010) Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls Washington Post March 9

An article about instructors who have banned the use of laptops in class, and why. I liked the comments by Professor Vaidhyanathan:

“If students don’t want to pay attention, the laptop is the least [...]