Nick Noakes

or another question ... What are the emergent practices that are productive for learning and teaching using xPads/TouchTablets? ... whataever they end up getting called.

Derek Chirnside wrote,

Yes a laptop will do all this, but the portablity of the iPad and it's unobtrusiveness and it's coolness was great. A remarkable support for this sort of work. I actually liked the outputs in paper rather than yet another lousy powerpoint.

A couple of months back, I replaced my old PowerBook with a MacBook Pro ... the article below is making me question my decision and wondering if I should've waited a couple of months (although the free printer and free 3rd gen iPod Touch with the purchase was a clincher at the time).

http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20101027/macbook-air-has-the-feel-of-an-ipad-in-a-laptop/

I'm not saying we have to have apple products, more pointing to this spec as it seems to meet your requirements. And maybe we'll see this type of thing in other flavours (netbooks?). It seems like the range of devices keeps on increasing rather than converging.

http://garr.posterous.com/ipad-steve-jobs-and-a-twist-on-simplicity

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/wilson-free-biology-textbook/

(Edited by Sylvia Currie - original submission Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 12:28 AM. Split off discussion from welcome thread, renamed subject to "Hopes for the future", copied original subject heading "I hope this is one strand for where education is headed ..." to body of message)

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/wilson-free-biology-textbook/