iPads. So then, why iPads?

So if there's one thing we're learning, it's that this process is all about decisions. Not "what am I going to have for breakfast?" type decisions - these decisions need to be weighed out and considered, because a plethora of other decisions will depend on these early ones.

In all honesty, the decision to go with the iPads was only complicated by one caveat. Ever since they were introcuded we have been taken with Google's suite of applications, namely Google Chrome (and their virtual favourites bar), Google Drive and Google Docs. The potential of sharing and accessing work remotely has great appeal to our population. As we were approaching our purchasing deadline there was lots of talk about Google creating iOS supported apps so we inevitably went with iPads anyways, more on that later.

When all was said and done, we chose to go with Apple iPads for this project fora few reasons:

1) Apple is universally regarded as having not only more, but superior apps, many of which can be easily tailored to education. iBooks, iTunes U, and Newsstand all provide potential opportunities for an Alternative classroom that from the outside seem almost too good to be true. One of the goals of this project will be to determine if these apps actually do improve the classroom experience for teachers and students alike.

2) The iPads offer a completely integrated package of hardware, software and networking setup and for a program like us, with little to no tech. expertise on site and limited opportunity to spend time learning new equipment, the user friendly (famous for not coming with an instruction manual) iPads won out.

3) Finally, the ease of ordering the iPad with our board (HWDSB) pushed us over the edge - after seeing an official release supporting iPads in HWDSb schools we decided to go that way. By ordering through the board purchaser we avoided any red tape regarding education discounts, we sped up the process of getting out money, and we should even get a deal on our HST.

As we've already stated, our first batch of iPads arrived a few weeks ago and we're still getting used to them and their unique iOS systems, but so far we're pleased with out decision. The Google Chrome and Google Drive apps are already installed and seem to be working well, and while we await Google Docs to be created/released we have found something that does the same thing (CloudOn - see app review elsewhere in the blog).

As always, we'd be interested to hear anything from teachers with similar experiences. Let us know what you think of the blog.