Is education ready for the iPad?

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Fee iPads are been handed out to students from three universities and faculty with hopes that Apple’s tablet will transform education. These universites include Seton Hill University, George Fox University and Abilene Christian University each pre-ordered bundles of iPads with plans to experiment with how the tablet could change learning in the classroom. Officials from each university saw the iPad as having potential to render printed textbooks obsolete.

One dent in the universities’ plans is that Apple has not inked deals with any textbook publishers to bring their offerings to the iPad’s iBooks store. So far Apple and publishers have only formed partnerships around e-books for fiction and nonfiction titles.

For textbooks, students can currently access about 10,000 e-textbooks through a third-party company called CourseSmart, which includes titles from the five biggest textbook publishers. This is a subscription-based service that charges a fee for students to access e-textbooks of their choice for a limited time with an Ipad app already announced.

Another company hoping to ride the iPad coat tails is Chartered education. They offer ACCA Practice Mock Exams that are inline with the Institute’s 2010 curriculum. Some of the Apps they provide are below:

• CPA Auditing & Attestation
• CPA Financial Accounting & Reporting
• CPA Business Envirnoment & Concepts
• CPA Regulation
• CFA Level 1 Ethics
• CFA Level 1 Corporate Finance
• CFA Level 1 Equity Investments
• CFA Level 1 Ethics & Professional Standards
• CFA Level 1 Quanitive Methods
• CFA Level 1 Derivatives
• CFA Level 1 Economics
• CFA Level 1 Portfolio Management
• CFA Level 2 Ethics & Professional Standards
• CFA Level 2 Economics
• CFA Level 2 Derivatives
• CFA Level 2 Equity Investments
• CFA Level 2 Fixed Income
• CFA Level 2 Portfolio Management
• CFA Level 2 Quantitive Methods
• CFA Level 2 Alternative Investments
• CFA Level 2 Financial Reporting Analysis
• CFA Level 2 Corporate Finance
• CFA Level 3 Equity Investments
• CFA Level 3 Fixed Income
• CFA Level 3 Portfolio Management
• CFA Level 3 Alternative Investments
• CFA Level 3 Ethics & Professional Standards
• CFA Level 3 Derivative

With over 300,000 units sold on its opening day Apple’s new offering has already generated a huge demand with the buying public. Although this Apps driven gadget may serve many needs, the jury is out on whether it can shift this demand into education. Is education ready for the iPad?

Source: Wired.com

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