Martin Spriggs

This past week Apple introduced electronic textbooks through their iBook store and available in the iTunes University (iTunes U). iTunes U had previously been available only to higher education institutions. It is now available for K-12.. Also a part of the announcement was the introduction of a new iBook / Textbook authoring tool called iBook Author. With textbook publishers like Pearson “signed up” to populate the offerings, Apple is getting serious about getting electronic textbooks in the classroom.

Over the last day or so I’ve been using the iBook Author application to convert an ebook I wrote on church websites. I am fairly impressed with the tool and will blog a review of it in the near future. There is great potential for paper textbooks to be replaced with these very interactive and engaging products. Almost makes me want to go back to school.

Those of you that follow this blog know that I recently finished a series on Google Chromebooks in the classroom. So if an elementary school administrator is looking to “go digital” do you go with Chromebooks or iPads? By the way, iBook textbooks can only be used on iPads. Right now I’d have to lean toward Chromebooks for the following five reasons:

1. Chromebooks can be shared, while iPads are meant to be owned and operated by one student. I suppose you could share an iPad but the students couldn’t take their own notes, do anything customized for themselves or store documents/homework locally. One of the Chromebooks greatest strength is any student could pick up any Chromebook, login and start working. Since Google Apps is cloud based all documents, etc. are not stored on the local device…making the device just a vehicle to get at cloud based content.

2. iPads have limited storage. If you put five 2Gb textbooks on one (depending on the version of the iPad), you’ve used over half the available space. Chromebooks aren’t meant to have onboard storage, thus everything needs to be in the cloud. I think a smarter model for textbooks rather than chained to a device.

3. IPads are expensive. The lowest price model currently costs $499. To ask each child to own one at the elementary or even high school level is a tough sell. Chromebooks come with a monthly fee ($20/month) a school or parent can pay over time, and then if desired “own” the device after three years. Schools could do the same with iPads and cover the initial cost, but that is a large capital cost for most schools.

4. Google Apps have an excellent management console which allows very granular control over each device. iPads aren’t set up that way. Each has to be individually managed and don’t provide a lot of tools that allow them to be locked down.

5. Google Apps provides an ecosystem of Docs, Email, Groups, Sites, etc. that a classroom can use to provide needed services for homework submission, collaboration, and communications. The iPad environment can offer some services like that, but not nearly as cohesive or seamless.

Having said all that I do have to say that the interactive textbook experience offered by iBooks has great possibilities. What is available on Chromebooks right now isn’t as advanced. However, since the Chromebook relies on the web, any publisher or person who would want to create one could.

It should be interesting to watch how all this shakes out.

When people mention "tablet computing" you probably think they are more than likely referring to Apple’s iPad. However, there is a growing group of non-Apple engineered tablets that might be worth a try as Android’s "Honeycomb" operating system has closed the gap a bit in the race for tablet computing supremacy. There are two major benefits of moving toward an Android-based tablet over the iPad: 1) price, and 2) flexibility. Because we are in the process of building WELS apps for both platforms I purchased one of the higher rated Android tablets from Asus to test things out. The model that I purchased was the Eee Pad Transformer. It is a 10 inch tablet that allows you to attach an integrated real keyboard (on which I’m typing now) and "transform" the touch-based tablet into a nicely equipped netbook, complete with a couple of USB ports, SD Card slot and video out.

The cost of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer is about $100 dollars cheaper than the equivalent iPad, not including the keyboard which is in the $125 dollar range. The screen is beautiful and is in the 16:9 format which makes viewing wide screen movies/videos a more pleasant experience than the iPad. However, because of the longer/narrower form factor, it is most usable in landscape format. Holding it in portrait mode seems odd and is a bit too narrow to be useful.

Another place the Eee Pad shines is in the flexibility of the Android Honeycomb operating system. I will say it is not as elegant as the iPad, but far more configurable. You can add "widgets" that can take up more of the screen real estate than the rigid tile system of the iPad. Nice home screen views of your calendar and email are totally doable and very handy.

Battery life is acceptable, but not on par with the iPad. However, if you add the keyboard, which has it’s own battery, that can add up to over 15 hours of battery life in my testing.

I’d give a slight edge to the iPad for it’s app store, but Android is a close second and gaining every day as more developers realize the large potential of creating apps for the Android platform. Most of the main/useful apps are available in the Android marketplace. One complaint however is that many of those that work great on an Android phone, don’t look or even install correctly on the tablet OS Honeycomb. One of those apps that doesn’t fare well is the WELS ONLINE app. We’ll have to work on that.

While I think the iPad as well as the Eee Pad will work well for anybody looking to move into a tablet, the sweet spot foe either is in the education space, and specifically the classroom. Adding the keyboard option to the Eee Pad makes the tablet a nice netbook for heavier duty typing, but the elegance of a tablet when you don’t need that.

Here are a couple of links that provide much more detailed information about the Eee Pad if you are interested:

• http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/
• http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/asus-eee-pad-transformer/4505-3126_7-34467853.html

Even better news…if you are are interested, our ShopWELS program is offering the Eee Pad on sale right now for only $395 while supplies last, or until the end of July. The keyboard can be ordered separately. Just visit http://www.wels.net/shopwels/product-month.

You can’t help but notice all the buzz these days around tablet computers. The iPad 2 was recently released and immediately sold out of every store it was offered in within day or two. Millions of people willing to shell out between $500 and $800 dollars for a 10 inch display that has no physical keyboard and can’t do half of what your desktop or laptop computer can do. Hmmm… What’s the deal? My mother-in-law uses one as her sole "computer" for web surfing and email. I’m writing this blog article on one right now. So there must be something to it. Have you been debating the need for one? Is there a ministry need for one? Let’s explore that question a bit.

Portability is probably the lead argument when debating the need/desire for a tablet. Let’s face it, lugging around a 5 to 8 pound notebook computer is no fun and not real practical in many circumstances. To pull out a tablet to retrieve meeting information or take notes is one of the best uses for a tablet. They are great notepad replacements for that reason. They fit nicely in a briefcase, backpack or large purse. On the fun side, there are many elegant and fun looking cases, carriers and portfolio covers for them.

The speed of access to information is also a great reason to consider a tablet. In literally seconds you can be reading a document, typing an email, or brainstorming ideas. It makes it more "inviting" to get to work when you can get right to it. The “instant on” nature of these tablets can save a lot of time…and frustration.

The final argument that could be made for a tablet as viable ministry tool is the apps. There are apps for everything…from taking notes to doing sermon text studies to preparing lesson plans to showing Bible maps and virtual tours of Solomon’s Temple. Just take a look at apps like the GloBible or YouVersion and you can tell that the app model is well suited for specific ministry tasks.

While I don’t believe that tablets are ready to replace regular computers, it is a category worth watching. For instance, the process I used for writing this blog was to use and iPad notetaking app for the raw text, emailed it to myself (I could have also sent it to DropBox) and then finished up the editing (added links and images) on my laptop via Windows Live Writer. While I could have done that all on the iPad, it is still easier to finalize things on my computer. What was helpful however was the ability to use the iPad to write the basics of the article wherever I happened to be, which wasn’t a place I had ready access to my computer. That is gold to me. To be able to make use of my time wisely by grabbing those free spaces with good tools to get the job done. I can easily imagine a pastor sitting in a hospital lobby or waiting room banging out a sermon outline or thoughts in prep for the sermon writing process later that day at his desk. I can also imagine a teacher doing research on tomorrows lesson on the human body’s nervous system, jotting down a few notes, tagging a few websites, ready for the time when she can sit down later to finalize things.

There are many other scenarios. Some might work for you, some not. But I think for many a tablet might be a great asset for some tasks. And they’re fun!