Emerging Technology Post 2: PDA's

The technology that I explored was PDA's. My main focus for this technology was on the iPad. But first what is a PDA? A PDA is a personal digital assistant that functions as a information manager. The internet and the ability for such devices to access it has made them more helpful than ever before. Most of the PDA's today are all touch screens. These devices can be helpful as all have appointment calendars, for education this could be helpful as your semester or year plans could be kept on it as well as your computer. Another helpful feature is the synchronization of data from computers or laptops, a way this could be helpful in education is you could always be working even when you’re away from your computer. As I researched the ipad I found that it was probably one of the best handheld devices for educational purposes. One way it can be helpful is the apps that you can download to help give lectures, monitor student progress, and stay organized. One such app is the iTunes U app, this app has hundreds of thousands free lectures, videos, books, and podcasts from prestigious Universities, including IU. I have personal experience using this feature as one of my history professors put every class lecture on iTunes U. The lecture was not just him talking after downloading the first lecture I found that the whole lecture was on there including coinciding slides and students questions.  One way it can be helpful for students is that its large touch screen keyboard makes taking notes easy. The app for note taking not only keeps your notes it organizes them chronologically and in landscape view you can see a list of all the notes you have taken for that class. Well if I had an iPad I would use it in all of the ways I described to help give my lectures and help monitor my student’s progress. I learned about all of the ways to use the iPad in the classroom on apples website http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/#itunesu , this website provided detailed instructions on just how to use what app or feature in order to best serve the purpose you need it for. The website also has video instruction on the use of the different apps as well. There is now an ipad 2 in fact that has even more features than the previous version and different interactive tutorials on another apple destination http://www.apple.com/ipad/ . Till next time thanks for stopping by.