[Air-L] Ipads and fieldwork

Mark Warschauer markw at uci.edu
Tue Jul 20 16:23:00 PDT 2010


I thoroughly enjoy my iPad for web browsing, reading emails with light
responses, twitter use, watching photos and videos, etc., at home, but
I don't bring it to the office or use it much for serious academic
work.

However, there is one exception to this pattern--I think the iPad is
terrific for fieldwork. I do a lot of research in schools and I would
much rather bring my iPad than a laptop.  First, I'm often walking
around from place to place, and it's a lot easier to do that with an
iPad than with a laptop that has to be closed and opened again and
again.  Also, I sometimes take notes standing up, which is pretty easy
with an iPad but almost impossible with a laptop.  Then there's the
long battery life, which also makes life easier, and the speed with
which I can get going on any program (as compared to my laptop, which
needs to wake up from sleep, etc.)  The non-intrusiveness that people
are talking about can be another benefit.

As for the question asked earlier, why an iPad as opposed to other
tablets--was that serious or facetious?  Are there any tablets in
existence right now that even approach the iPad in terms of touch
interface, speed, ease of use, range of apps available, battery life,
and weight?  I know that I and many others have high hopes for Android
tablets in the future, but I don't think we are there yet.
Mark

Mark Warschauer
Professor of Education and Informatics
University of California, Irvine
Education 3000C
Irvine, CA 92697-5500
tel: (949) 824-2526  fax: (949) 824-2965
markw at uci.edu; http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw
twitter: http://twitter.com/markwarschauer



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