Two opinions on using iPads to keep students engaged in class.
"Doctor David":
Engaged doesn't mean the same thing as paying attention or not misbehaving.
Too often schools are treated like and viewed as joyless places where facts are pounded into a kids head. If you can get a child to be interested in and maybe enjoy learning they get much more out of it.
A child can be paying attention, not misbehaving and still not be engaged.
Education shouldn't be viewed the same as "getting the trains to run on time".
"addabox":
It's not enough any more to insist that kids "should" act or think a certain way in the classroom. They're growing up in a ubiquitously connected, digital world. Expecting them to learn in exactly the way kids in the early part of the 20th century learned makes no sense.
The pedagogical model as it is practiced in most US public schools literally derives from industrial processes, and originally was intended to provide trained workers for America's industrial economy. It's really not surprising that rote, top-down training isn't grabbing this generation's attention, …
The embedded Soundcloud widget in Janko Roettgers's article "Here's why Soundcloud ditched Flash for HTML5" on GigaOM works pretty well on iOS devices.
I tried it out on my iPhone 4 and was able to play the audio clip, tap to jump to any point in the track and add comments.
It's difficult to tap Like, Download (opens up the audio clip in a new browser window with the standard media controls) and Share in portrait orientation, but works OK in landscape mode.
Hopefully, Soundcloud will enhance the widget to allow touch-and-slide to any point in the clip.
A rather comprehensive report by LongTail Video on how extensively HTML5 video is supported across browsers and devices.
Internet Explorer 6/7/8 have no support for HTML5, and collectively command 28% browser share, so Adobe Flash is still required to address that audience.
Gabe Weatherhead of Macdrifter:
What Ed is apparently mad about is that Apple has created a tool that he wants to use because it's better but it doesn't output the format he wants so he can sell it somewhere else. I would love my Epson printer to output grilled cheese sandwiches. It does not. I don't think Epson is evil.
MG Siegler, writing for TechCrunch:
A new iPhone plus holiday shopping season is apparently like gasoline on a fire. Now we know.
But it would be foolish to think that Apple’s big numbers were only about the iPhone. Remember, Apple set new records in Mac and iPad sales as well. The iPad in particular is interesting because while it’s Apple’s newest business, it’s already the second-largest in terms of revenue. This past quarter, 20 percent of revenue came from iPad sales.
The third-biggest source of revenue is Mac sales – they accounted for 14 percent of Apple’s revenue last quater. In other words, 87 percent of Apple’s revenue last quarter was from products that all saw record sales.
"anantksundaram", in an AppleInsider forum post:
What we know from Apple's SEC Form 10-Q made public yesterday is that it had an iPhone segment revenue of $24,417 million and sold 37.044 million iPhones.
The average revenue per iPhone is therefore $659.
That is the number that the market is so impressively reacting to!