Australian Schools Go iPad-Crazy

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like it's not just Apple fanboys that are going wild for the iPad: in Australia, virtually every state education department is trialling the tablet in schools — and some schools are even trialling it without the official support of their department. One university in Adelaide has even abolished textbooks for first year science students and is allocating free iPads to first year students instead. It will be interesting to see what happens when the inevitable wave of Android tablets hits over the next six months."

Comments

Waste of Money

[16K Ram Pack]

It's just some adults having fun and burning money in the process. If it's about text books, why not give them Kindles which cost a lot less? Oh, because they're not as sexy and cool as an iPad.

Re:Waste of Money

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just some adults having fun and burning money in the process. If it's about text books, why not give them Kindles which cost a lot less? Oh, because they're not as sexy and cool as an iPad.

Because Kindles (and any e-ink based device) royally suck for non-linear texts (i.e., reference books, textbooks, etc). And this comes from someone who absolutely loves his Kindle for reading novels. I would never consider using it for something where I need to constantly flip back and forth between pages, or look things up in charts and tables.

Use the best tool for the job, and at the moment, the iPad is a better tool for this type of usage scenario.

Re:Remember, folks:

[MichaelSmith]

Meanwhile school administrators and your wife's employer are delighted at the restrictiveness of the device.