iPads, Education, and Kids.

My daughter is a sponge.  This is a five year old who can beat my 3-star score on some levels of Angry Birds.

I'm a huge proponent of giving toddlers the iPad.  Watch any baby, their first inclination is to touch anything.  They'll go to the TV and touch the screen, or this toy or that food.  Their second is to taste everything, sometimes with disastrous results.

However, it's difficult to teach a child how to use a computer.  My kids just can't get the hang of the mouse and the screen and the cursor.  They're always reaching out to the screen to tap what they want to do.  I've done that myself a couple times, much to my embarrassment. They'll learn with a computer eventually, but it's just so much easier with an iPad.  iPads are the future and I can see one where they'll go to school with nothing but the iPad. Their textbooks will be in iBooks or the Kindle app. Each class will have an app on the iPad for that specific class with their assignments and coursework neatly tied into their textbooks. The thought of this makes me ALMOST wish I was a kid again.  ALMOST, but I'm glad I'm an adult.  I remember in high school when I'd purposely leave 2 or 3 textbooks at home to reduce the weight of my backpack and I'd look over on a classmates book if needed. No reason to lug around that 20 pound chemistry book if you only crack it open once a week, right?  What would kids today need a backpack for if all this stuff is on the iPad?

An iPad feels so natural to kids. If you can get past the "they might drop it and break it" or the "it's too expensive to give to them" then it can pay significant dividends.  I personally put a case around both of our iPads.  There are some cases that practically make them indestructible, but I use it also and I don't want to have to take it on and off all the time so it's about finding a balance, something that's strong enough for the typical drop, but not so strong that makes it uncomfortable for ME to use it.  I find that I will slip the case off sometimes at night when I know they're sleeping to take some weight off if I'm holding it for a lengthy period of time.

Granted, accidents happen. I've had to replace the screen once at a cost of $100 because one of my daughters, (who has since been scolded - no iPad for a week!) got frustrated with it and kicked it to the floor where the screen cracked.  Other times, it fell and there's a small dent on the side here and there, but it's still usable.  I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives of it breaking. If price is really an issue, get the Mini.

It's clear to me that the future is with the iPad.  The knock on it is that an iPad is easy to consume information, not to create it.  Nobody wants to write a 5 page paper on the iPad, which I can understand. However there have been many new accessories recently, like keyboards, etc. that make it easier to create content on the iPad. With future generations of the iPads, it'll get easier.