MANILA, Philippines -- I’ve written how I felt about the iPad or any tablet form and how I felt it has affected the way people access content and communicate.  Truly revolutionary!  But one particular medium it’s changed is how it has enhanced the experience of accessing textbooks.

The EBooks when they first came about was truly heaven sent already for book lovers. That was just the beginning. But more so now I think we will begin to see 3-dimensional content combined with 2 dimensional content and pretty soon even holograms.

Having attended Computech recently I saw how this is fast becoming a reality.  If this kind of experience is available on devices like the iPad or any Android devices and can be used anywhere, then that would be a complete change in the youth’s life style such as when they get together whether it’s in a school setting or at leisure.

That should also radically change the teacher’s role in the learning process – and actually make their teaching lives easier.

I’m already actually experiencing how this evolved.   As I mentioned, my “sorta” niece in Year2 at the British School Manila already use the iPad at home and at school and they are encouraged to use it for research, emails and the like. My own Keoni Grade 4 is tasked to make PowerPoint presentations, on the laptop and also does his “googling” (and yeah his “Angry Bird-ing”) on the Archos tablet we keep.

In the U.S., the iPad is having tremendous success being used in school classrooms – from kindergarten classes to university classrooms. The iPad has spawned the so-called ‘tablet wars’ with a whole new wave of tablets that have come out in the market at more affordable prices at that!  You can now have Android tabs for half the price of an iPad.

Lower price points will make tablets even more appealing to schools over time. For close to a year, Apple went virtually unchallenged in the tablet market. Increased competition should drive down prices. With dozens to hundreds of offerings, many based on Google’s open source Android OS, we can expect to see prices falling quickly just as they have for laptops, smart phones and HDTV sets.

In Greenhills, you could actually even find Apple’s original iPad for as little as P25,000 and even cheaper still for refurbished ones.

It’s worth noting that the iPad has surpassed even the most optimistic of projections to define a brand new product category and become the “best-selling gadget of all time” and as Forrester analysts projected last year, tablet sales have doubled.

At the recent Computech this question was posed: How close are we to tablets displacing computers on campuses?

I really don’t believe the tablet should replace computers, not for specific things at least. Finger typing still makes the grade as far as writing articles, doing thesis are concerned but there is certainly a place for the tablet in every student’s learning curve.

It will enhance their studying experience. Tablets are definitely ready for the classroom.

(To be continued)

Lemme hear from yah!

techiemommy@gmail.com