By Tech Powered Dad | August 19, 2011
Apparently, this tablet thing is really taking off. While I expected tablets, specifically the iPad, to make significant inroads in schools this year, I have to admit I’m surprised by the volume of stories on tablets in school already this year, specifically the iPad, of course.
The latest news has Apple, Intel, and Microsoft all competing over a 15 million tablet deal to make their popular devices for kids in Turkey. This comes on the heals of the South Korea’s announcement last month that they will be replacing all textbooks with electronic version by the year 2015. Of course, with the Unites States being one of the few advanced nations that gives local communities almost autonomous control, don’t look for such rapid change on a national scale here. That said, there are plenty of districts jumping right in this year, encouraging students to bring their iPads, and in rare cases, requiring it. As this shift continues, my plan is to highlight more tablet related information here on Tech Powered Math.
One last interesting tablet note is this week HP’s announcement that they are pulling the plug on their mobile unit. Oh, TouchPad, we hardly knew ye. Hardly a couple of months after its introduction, and only one year after HP purchased Palm and the rights to WebOS, it’s all over. I find this a bit sad, both because WebOS was a great operating system that never got the credit it deserved, and because it is really the end of Palm, a company that was very innovative in its time. This is just further fuel for the theory I proposed earlier this week that there are three major driving forces left for a potential SAT compliant tablet maker, Google, Apple, and Amazon.