Did an iPad Accompany YOUR Child to School Today?

When my oldest was on campus, which was only a few short years ago, the only way one got to

have internet access was to pay the university for a hard wired connection in their dorm room.

Those days are long gone as you see students lounging all over their campuses using everything

from laptops to tablets and now iPads. Who would have thought we would have to worry about

having enough bandwidth to power their apps for iPads? 

Now the HIGH SCHOOL I attended hands out an iPad to every student!

Times have certainly changed and school districts and institutions hopefully with it.

Apple's iPad Goes to School!

A bevy of universities has Apple iPad pilots underway.

Loyola is using the iPad for e-textbooks in its executive MBA program with a blended app suite for alumni collaboration. Duke University is testing the iPad in field research. Abilene Christian University has limited iPad testing in the classroom to build on an iPhone program started in 2008.

The wild-card is whether universities are ready for the shift.

At the Gartner Symposium in Orlando Sunday, analyst Ron Bonig walked through the key questions revolving around Apple iPad deployments in educational settings. Of course, it’s not like universities have much of a choice—the students are bringing along the iPad regardless. Apple products are the student preference.

But Bonig’s points are notable because they also apply to corporate settings. Looking at the agenda here, Apple in the enterprise could be the big theme. Last year’s conference illustrated the CIO interest in Google and its corporate email offering. This year’s conference has the heaviest dose of Apple I’ve ever seen.

Among the key themes to ponder as iPads invade universities:

• Is there enough bandwidth? Bonig said that campuses have to assume every student has a mobile device. The game changer with the iPad is that it is optimized for rich media and graphics. Bonig’s presentation noted:

“Institutions that have already fitted out their academic buildings with ubiquitous wireless will need to reassess the number and placement of Wi-Fi points as an increasing number of faculty members begin to use mobile devices and rich media in their classes. Unfortunately, what looked to be a technology-enhanced classroom two years ago may be inadequate in the next few semesters, if not now.”

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Apps for iPads Recommended Reading:

·         Why universities should hate the iPad - Fortune Tech - News | Markets | Technology | Personal Finance | Small Business | CNN. Buy the Fortune app for iPad My Preferences Video Home Fortune 500 Fortune Tech Fortune Finance Investing Management Rankings BLOGS: Apple 2. We will just pirate the e-books, convert them to pdf's and work it ipad.

·         Colleges Dream of Paperless, iPad-centric Education | Gadget Lab ... - Three universities are getting pumped to hand out free iPads to students and faculty with hopes that Apple's tablet will revolutionize education. Seton Hill University, George Fox University and Abilene Christian University each pre-ordered bundles of iPads sight unseen with plans to experiment with how the tablet could change classroom learning. com just prior to the iPad's launch last week, officials from each university saw the iPad as having potential to render printed textbooks obsolete.

·         University of Notre Dame Apple iPad Class Puts the Fun Back in ... - University of Notre Dame students get to use the Apple iPad as part of their everyday class in Project Management.

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