There are those who look at the technical specs of the I-Pad coupled with those who think of the I-Pad as a “giant I-Phone without a phone” and that is the view from that particular market, it is a view albeit lined towards the conformity of a particular user group.

I like the I-Pad for one singular reason, that it can be plugged into a physical keyboard LATER. Of course there is an onscreen keyboard, but that is where the I-Pad lights up my imagination, without a physical keyboard in site, it becomes both an observation and more importantly a READING tool.

If innovations in E-Learning had rested outside the education environment, e-Learning would not have scaled as a specialist group. Likewise it is the imagination of the Education Community that will drive the changes to education and not the actual device.

This is where I credit the future of education to be the individuals who make up this sector of the mind professions. The question is whether the education sector can embrace change that involves the simple as well as collaborative.

Soundbite media has flooded the market and I have seen people who know are “conditioned” to respond in two line quotes. It is as if they no longer need to think as they write and that a short microblog is a cool thing to do.

The personal change I would expect once I get an I-Pad for myself is in HOW I LEARN TO READ. I too have got into the horrible habit of skimming and jumping from tweet to tweet. There is nothing wrong with fast thought process but there is if that is the predominate lens that becomes a “conditioned response”.

I have always been a rather poor reader, trusting my ability to be creative and/or original in pouring out thoughts as they occur, but there is a connection between depth (quality not quantity) of reading and quality of understanding that gets sacrificed because we no longer consider the purpose of the quantity of reading we have personally chosen.

Along with developments in neuroscience, the change in education therefore IMHO [Sorry, In my Humble Opinion], begins with RE-EDUCATION and not EDUCATION.

What does it mean to educate oneself?
What does it mean for others to educate themselves?
What does it mean to know how others educate me?

If we can see how we learn and what we need to re-learn in order to make the most of this new technology, then the corresponding innovations that emerge make the talk of I-Pad specs mute.

IMHO . . . It is people who transform product in a human world. In a inhuman or mechanical world, it is product that transacts with people . . .

[Em]

As the parent of a child with ADHD, and one without, I have found that they both learn differently when exposed to “white noise”. I can handle music in the background as I work, but no visual stimulation. I have one child who is similar to me, and one who actually learns better with multiple sounds and activities going on around him. When there are multiple streams of sound coming at him from different sources, they blend to function as “white noise”, thus creating an auditory environment that allows him to focus better on the task at hand. As an example, last night he (8 yrs old) was working on a laptop at the dinner table, with his sister starting her science project, with the TV on just 12 feet away, and the dishwasher and clothes washer all running. His focus was much better than if he and I went to a quiet room to concentrate.

I think that as educators, we need to find the differing styles of learning that fit our classroom learners best, and adapt our instruction to them. Yes it is difficult, and I remember this from my past life as a teacher for 8 years, but it isn't impossible. Grouping may work; altering lesson plans may work, introducing technology to some may work. It really is a situation where educators have to answer most questions on how to differentiate learning with “it depends”.

Thanks for the great post and your comments about tablets. I think they are extremely valid, and I look forward to seeing how tablets are used in education over the next few years. Again, I really hope that tablet device makers are willing to talk with educators when creating updates!