The iPad has already gained its popularity with huge success in the K-12 education market over the past year. iPad has been rated as an excellent learning tool by the schools that brought the Apple product into the classroom claiming that it has immensely strong to transform education. Hundreds of thousands of students across the world are becoming iPad users, attributing it to its one on one deployment. The news is that tablets running Microsoft windows8 will soon replace iPads. The prophecy is completely hypothetical till now, without any logical as well as practical proof to it.
iPad has a dominating market
iPad has had enough time to establish its own market worldwide. Its widely expanded in education, business and consumer markets. If you ask anyone on the street on a classroom about what an iPad is, even the people who haven’t used it, are able to give some description about it. Ask about Windows RT, you won’t get the same reaction. Even non users encounter the device somewhere or other in their daily routines for eg: as a digital menu, in doctors office,as a digital kiosk in a hotel, as a flight entertainment system, as a catalogue in libraries etc. It has a huge brand awareness that cannot be denied.
iPad Management solutions
Given that iPad is an established product in the education sector, widely accepted by the schools and that it offers a range of tried and tested management solutions and also integrates with other Apple devices like Mac, Apple T.V., Desktop, OS X server. Windows 8 will take quite a period of time to this position. Schools have wide range of choices to meet their budget, needs, performance and outcome. Whether management solutions for Windows 8 will be available or not, is still not clear.
Thumbs up by teachers
More important than the IT perspective is the comfortability of the teachers with the product. Planning lessons, digital content, making class projects and class reports can be done easily. A new device with a new OS and technical advancement is not subjected to a smooth acceptance by the teachers. Professional advancement on the part of technology is to be made. Schools have to make efforts to ensure that teachers are comfortable enough with the device to involve in its procedure in learning.
Teacher Resources and Apps
The huge number of resources available helps teachers to use the iPad as a learning tool in best possible way. The resources include lesson plans, worksheets, e-books, projects and experiences. Windows 8 still has time to develop these. There is an incredible amount of education apps that ios has offered, i.e. more than 33,000. The apps cover every possible category like, resources, reference, health and fitness, news, academics, phone, video, music, business and many more. Windows 8 will be able to run many apps alongwith a range of educational software, but many of them are not designed for touch interface. Also Windows 8 won’t be an option in schools for 2013-2014 session, therefore it is a great advantage for apple to take the lead.
Data source: classteacher
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