hello friends
some of the best advice on educating my kids i got from this forum and this is where i usually come with questions so here’s what on my mind these days : IPAD
we had an old desktop and god how long i dreamed of the convenience of having a laptop to be able to take learnign everywhere around the house , and when finally i could afford one and it really made learning easy , everybody is talking about ipad . i saw them on tv in the news online but never saw one for real . we live out in africa and it is notlike i can go check one in a shop . i will need to order one online .
we are tight financially , we have a specialneed daughter with ongoing therapies and medical bills . but still our approach me and my husband we could save on many other things but not on education when we can of course , meaning you often buy a product and you are disappointed you feel you could have done without it and it was total waste .
my problem we have no public libraries so i actually buy every book we want to read and mostly from amazon uk shipped to gambia .
for me it is not enough for book worms like mine so i started looking at ebooks, there are many for free online and some with paid subscription . my kids are very happy sitting on the bed with the laptop in front of them and me clicking , flipping pages and reading aloud for them .
they are four and 2 .
the four is reading and the 2 on his way. what could ipad add to our homeschool and learning adventure. why would i want to pay for ipad when i could buy a new computer . what makes ipad better than computer the one thing i could think about is portability , my 4 can sit back snuggle with a balnky and read my book on ipad , not that easy with laptop .
can all programs that works on windows can be viewed with ipad . we learn a lot from geography software , science , history and will be nice if we can just use the ipad . are all amazon kindle books read with ipad . are all ipad books read aloud ???
i really hope my post will get some response .even if i convince myself , i need to convince my husband with enough reasons to justify buying an ipad .
looking forward to your replies .
blessings
viv
oh and ofcourse since i know nothing about them , i wouldn’t know which one to get , so some technical info will be appreciated
viv
Even I would be interested to know more about the use of ipad when it comes to early learning. We were thinking of getting it as a gift for my son for his 1st birthday.
I would say that an ipad for learning is ‘good to have’, but not essential at this stage.
No, you can’t run Windows programs on it, but you can use programs like Splashtop Remote to remotely view your PC:
http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader/little-reader-available-on-the-ipad-today!/
I think for the vast majority of useful educational programs for little kids on the iPad, there will be substitutes to be found on the PC. What is difficult to replace are those requiring tactile feedback or control, like:
- drawing apps (but then there’s always pen/paper…)
- apps like Tap Tap where you tap on the iPad along with the song (good for training rhythm and hand-eye coordination).