The Nook, a tablet developed for by Barnes & Noble, has been pushed hard into the educational world by B&N, and for good reason. It only makes sense that a book retailer would want to be the sole provider of educational tablets for schools. They have even gone as far as signing a major deal with textbook companies in order to have their books featured on the Nook. According to education tech writer Darren Murph, this comes along with the use of new ways to plan course syllabi, notes, slides, images, lectures and anything else that comes with the textbook. That alone is a hard to match feat. Where they come up short is that it is strictly a Barnes & Noble tablet. The option to buy books from say Amazon is in-existent. Regardless, it's a great product though.
The Kindle is a tablet put out by Amazon, a popular website that started out as book retailer and still hold's one of the world's largest selection of books. As far as tablets go, it's a solid choice. Educational tech writer Christopher Dawson, who was originally against Kindles in the Classroom, said that Amazon's new products have made him a fan. They're cheaper than iPads and the ability of them to function as mini computers is growing. Starting out with lukewarm reviews, Amazon has put time and effort into perfecting this product. The book selection is outstanding (because it's Amazon of course), and the prices of educational books are not that bad. When one purchases a book from Amazon though, it may/may not come with extra features, so that's something to keep in mind. They do have some flaws though, and they can be quite severe in an educational atmosphere. In The Unquiet Library's blog, there is quite a bad review of the Kindle that will make one think twice before purchasing. In order to keep up with book purchases, each individual Kindle must have it's own separate email address. While this may be a great option for a classroom or a BYOD scenario, purchasing them for a school would be a nightmare. Also, the fee Amazon charges for its usage licensing is unfeasible for most school budgets.
The Apple iPad is the definition of the tablet. It's what most everyone pictures when the word tablet is mentioned. It's range of features, ease of use, and consistency in usage (meaning it doesn't have technical glitches) makes it the most favored device. It also has many great applications to enhance the classroom learning experience. The iPad has two flaws when it comes to education though. The first is that it is the most expensive. It's the sad truth, but you pay for quality, and the iPad is a quality device. The second is that it does not carry the availability to textbooks that the other two have. Where it makes up for it though is that the App Store has a free Kindle app for the iPad, so all books that you purchase on your Kindle from Amazon can now be accessed from your iPad. Also, the Amazon app is available for download, so books can be purchased that way. Apple has established an iBooks and now an iBooks2 that is making textbooks accessible so in years to come, I imagine that they will have a strong hold in the textbook market themselves. The only other possible flaws that may present themselves, as John Paul Titlow points out in his article, is how schools will determine who purchases (and therefore owns) the books/software.
They may be pricey, but the best option for tablets in education is the iPad. It's hard to beat what all they do and the quality of the product itself. While other brands are stepping their game up, it's hard to match what the iPad has to offer.
This looks a bit like your first assignment, but here the emphasis was supposed to be on the educational impact of each - which you handled fairly lightly here.
ReplyDeleteThanks, though, otherwise this is fine.