The iPad 2 for Learning: Students’ Choose Laptops

These days, now that the shine has worn off, students involved in the action research project involving iPads more regularly come to school without them. This may sound minor, but considering the initial buzz around the iPad in the classroom and the school, it marks a shift. Indeed, when students are accessing information, consuming media, or producing media, their overwhelming choice is to use their tablet laptops, not the iPad. In fact, the savviest students use the iPad as a kind of sidecar, like an extra monitor for holding text that they can use while they make things on their laptop. This is anecdotal and it remains early days, but the sense I’m getting is that the iPad is not as good as a full-powered computer for what students do most.