![]() Second, you take your findings and new technical material and process everything with the most powerful computer in the world: your brain. You can likely visualize the stages in much the same way as a course calendar.įirst, you read your textbook, attend lectures or webinars, and discuss new technical material with other students. In that time, I’ve noticed five specific “modules” or “stages” I find myself working though from start to finish: Over time, I’ve taken between 60 and 70 courses and written about 60 to 70 exams. Thanks to hindsight, it’s clear the iPad is a tool worthy of investment and is sure to meet most student needs for their post-secondary careers. I expect future iPads to only double-down on this core strength - future iPads are likely to support external displays in new and improved ways, the Apple Pencil is likely to become even more responsive and adaptive, and iPadOS software is likely to continue evolving to meet the needs of modern tablet users. When you’re in the learning zone, the last thing you need is a disconnect when transitioning from typing to handwriting. And thanks to the iPad’s incredible battery life, you can flip between modes all day long. In an instant, you can flip from handwriting-ready iPad mode to typing and cursor iPad mode, diminishing the hiccup times between input methods. Lastly, the iPad Magic Keyboard (or Smart Keyboard, if you don’t need the trackpad) is also a worthy tool for any iPad-toting student. Modern iPads have great apps, like iBooks, or Notability, or PDF Expert to process educational problems. Modern iPads have a desktop-class browser, enabling the iPad to provide access to video seminars and other modern delivery methods. Handwriting is still the most optimal input method for learning and comprehending material for the long-term. The iPad provides the same ability to read, write, and compute like a MacBook Air or a Windows PC, but the iPad’s secret weapon is the Apple Pencil. The iPad is the best educational tool because of its ability to adapt to any input method. Why the iPad is the Best Educational Tool The iPad is humankind’s greatest educational achievement. It’s this experience that has led me to believe the iPad is the world’s greatest learning tool. With this hindsight in mind, I want to reflect and provide some guidance on how I transitioned my entire post-secondary schooling to the iPad. From the start when the iPad was a myth to a finish line where the iPad can facilitate every aspect of the educational cycle, the past 11 years have seen technological evolution at a backbreaking pace. ![]() In hindsight, the iPad has undergone the most evolution and has been the most consequential tool of my post-secondary career. In hindsight, the hoops we jumped through seem hysterical, but they only seem hysterical because of how easy everything is today. Access to professors and facilitators has moved to a digital format - most respond to emails within 24 hours and no longer require booking a meeting to meet with them in their messy offices, and most are accessible by video calls these days. Google is an acceptable form of finding sources for research (though of course the source still needs to be reputable there was a time when I was not allowed to use Google to find external sources for any research). ![]() I haven’t walked the streets of a university in a few years, but all my courses over the last five years have been offered digitally, with digital textbooks and online delivery of lectures and webinars. In the 11 years since, everything has changed. I didn’t need a fitness regiment in 2009 - I just needed to fill my backpack with my textbooks for the walk to school. Tuition, usually, was the smaller chunk to pay.Īnd you had to carry those textbooks with you everywhere you went. Those textbooks cost thousands of dollars each year. Once that code was redeemed, the used textbook was largely useless.) (Eventually, textbook publishers and authors gained some wisdom and started including a digital code in the back of new textbooks that was required for the “full” textbook edition. ![]() But of course, most professors insisted on you purchasing the latest edition (likely because they had a hand in authoring the textbook). Normally, you’d opt for used textbooks, both for the prior owner’s highlights and to save money. I vividly remember heading into the university two days before the semester started to purchase textbooks. Blackberries were the rage.įor school, digital textbooks didn’t exist. The iPhone had just been introduced and wasn’t available in Canada. The post-secondary landscape in 2009 was very, very different than it is today. Looking back, this story is one of those “walked to school in 4 feet of snow, uphill, both ways” sort of stories. I’ve been going to school for a long time.
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