In an earlier blog post I commented that the one ‘clunky’ aspect of using the iPad was that the wifi connection to known networks did not happen. With further experimentation, I found that different strategies were needed including:
be patient and wait, sometimes the connection issue would sort itself out
manually choose the network from the list stored in the wifi settings panel
on some occasions, I was asked to reenter my wifi password again
complete power off and restart
and in a more persistent situation, I went through the ‘forget network’ process and set things up again.
Interestingly, this challenge seems to be mainly with the combination of the iPad and the newest OS. My iPhone and iPod touch do not have this issue. Yesterday, when this issue surfaced again, and I decided to try something new. In the settings panel, I choose the Safari tab and used the options available to clear the history, cookies and cache. Immediately following this action, the wifi connection worked fine.
Maybe I am on to something here. I will continue to test this process to see if it yields consistent result.
After using my iPad for the last 6 weeks, thanks to @ron_mill, I thought I would share a few first impressions and some thinking about use in education. On the topic of first impressions, I note:
how much I enjoy using the touch screen interface – very easy to use
the context sensitivity of having the right options at the right time (such as a pop up keyboard) is amazing
the pop up keyboard is sized to allow for ‘traditional’ typing (not the fingering poking method)
battery life is amazing – I am getting 9 – 10 hours per charge.
the selection of quality apps is good
e-reader capabilities are strong
overall, lots of potential
the only drawback I have found to date, is that the wifi connection process seems a bit clunky as stored known networks do not always auto-connect
With all of these good qualities, I can’t help but think about the possibilities …. iPads for classrooms, staff development, library learning commons, moving the e-books agenda forward all would link nicely to our key initiatives.
Currently, the following iPad plans are in place for the 2010/2011 school year:
some will be available for staff to try at CATC Camp, our summer teacher PD session
a number of units will be available for use by elementary classroom teachers
iPads will be used in our secondary school Futures Forum project, developed as our PLP project
units will be purchased for our central elementary teacher librarian group for September
Other plans under discussion include:
iPads preloaded with staff development reading material that could be loaned out
I began my day by reading @dougpete‘s blog post about David Warlick‘s new book, A Gardener’s Approach to Learning. Based on Doug’s comments about the book, I thought I would enjoy reading it too. The book is available in a print version as well as a downloadable pdf file. Immediately, I started to think about reading the publication on my iPad, so the buy online and read now process was appealing.
This was an easy decision – get the book now, enjoy reading it and take advantage of the opportunity to read on my iPad and learn something new today. I visited Lulu’s online publishing site, updated my credit card credentials, made my purchase and downloaded the file. Next, I used Calibre ebook management software to convert the downloaded file to the epub format. After attaching my iPad to my laptop I chose the ‘send to device’ option in the Calibre software to send the file to the iBooks app on my iPad and presto – my new book is ready to read on the go.
I look forward to reading David’s new book, perhaps sitting on the back porch later today.
An interesting ‘event’ happened to me earlier this week. I was mulitasking on a number of projects in my office and had taken a short break to discuss a couple of ideas with staff. On returning to my office, I sat down and ‘it happened’ – I started using my laptop but absolutely nothing happened – weird for sure.
Then is struck me – nothing happened because I was touching the screen on a non touch screen device – yikes! I gave my head a shake, reverted to ‘laptop mode’ and carried on with my work after sharing this incident with staff.
Was this a defining moment in my technology use? Have a used my iTouch, iPhone and iPad enough that a touch screen now seems normal? It would almost seem that way. I must admit, this event really caused me to stop and reflect.
For now, like many, I will continue to bop back and forth between touch screen and regular screen devices. Currently I am spending more and more time with mobile technology – a mix of these 2 worlds. I am writing this post with my new Lenovo x100e and plan to write my next blog post with my iPad.
~ Mark's Musings ~ blog.markwcarbone.ca 