So, the new Apple iPad has been released. I’m a big fan of Apple products. I have a Macbook and I would use iMovie over Movie Maker for film editing any day – it works better with a range of digital video cameras and codecs and it’s much simpler to use with better formats for outputting finished films. I would rather use Garageband than Audacity too. Garageband is intuitive and it has built in music loops. I’ve used Macs in schools (primary and secondary) with students with great success for film making, podcasting and animation.

So, just where does the new iPad fit into the great scheme of things in education, if indeed it does?

Let’s  take a look at the product spec  and description on the Apple site. It has a 9.7 inch back lit display. It weighs 1.5 pounds and is 0.5 inches thin. It can show content either in portrait or landscape view. Like the iPhone, it’s multi-touch which means that you can scroll through content and zoom in and out using your fingers. Apple claims it has a battery life of 10 hours. It has wireless Internet access, bluetooth and 3G. It comes equipped with up to 64GB of flash storage. It has a 30 pin connector and built in speakers meaning you can dock it to upload content and charge it. You can purchase additional accessories such as a keyboard dock and a camera connection kit allowing you to import photos from a stills camera.

In terms of general uses, it can be used to surf the web, access email, browse photos, watch video, listen to music (iPod), download content from iTunes. Like the iPhone, you can download any of the 140,000 apps from the app store and now you can even download eBooks using a new iBooks app. It also has (like the iPhone) maps, calendar, notes and contacts.

Considering this in an educational context we need to consider the pricing – the 16GB model starts at $499 – that’s about £300 – it’s currently retailing (pre-order as it’s not available until April) at £399 from educational resellers. This compares to a 13 inch Macbook at about £589 from educational resellers.

A useful, multifunction mobile device is the holy grail of ICT in education and it doesn’t exist (so far!). I’ve looked at PDA’s and mobile phones as have colleagues and they have fallen down in a number of areas. Not many devices have built in cameras or mics. Those that have are only still cameras. Hardly any have GPS (which is a useful function when you look at mobile devices coming into their own – think Create-A-Scape) and those that do or can take accessories that do don’t have the reliability or battery life to support their effective use.

It would be great if the new iPad fulfilled the spec for the holy grail of mobile devices but it just doesn’t cut the mustard. They have very wisely given it a 9.7 inch screen (fits the Molenet funding spec of under 10 inches) but it is yet another content ‘push’ device. That is, it is great for consuming content – the ‘passive learning’ model – teacher is the fountain of all knowledge and students passively receive that content and regurgitate aforementioned knowledge for exams.

I believe Apple have failed (by not providing more functionality – video camera and mic) and built in apps for creating and manipulating/ interacting with content to steal the prize. A useful mobile device for education would have taken advantage of the gap between PC and mobile phone. It would have been a content ‘creation’ device. I firmly believe that by creating content (text, images, video, audio, dynamic, interactive) students learn a huge amount. By making a video they learn infinitely more than watching a video.

In short then, I think it’s a shame, but they have missed the mark on this one.