What will the iPad bring to language learning?
With the announcement of Apple’s iPad yesterday it has got me thinking of what it could possibly bring to the world of language learning. One of the things I am most interested in about language learning in general is what language education will be like in the future since I believe that new technology will change the way we learn languages and I think Apple’s iPad could definitely be pushing forward that change. Off the top of my head I can already think of a few uses of the iPad in studyong a language. You could read foreign language books on it, review flash cards, listen to podcasts, watch foreign language TV and movies…
I’m going out right now but I wanted to leave a quick post here to see what some of you guys think about the iPad. Are you thinking about buying one? How do you think iPads could contribute to language learning?
I’m not sure if it will bring anything new to language learning because it just seems like a large iPod Touch to me. It’ll just make everything easier to see. Maybe I’m just skeptical though. Or maybe I’m just sick of expensive Apple products. Personally I would still prefer a netbook than any sort of internet tablet.
Personally, I don’t think the iPad adds that much to the market. It’s just over-hyped and a case of too little too late.
You know what you can use to read books, do SRS reps, listen music, watch movies? A netbook. and it’ll do all that and much more for far less money. In fact, there are netbooks with touchsreens you can use as a tablet and still have a real keyboard.
Steve Jobs looks like a nice guy, but he lied to us in that keynote. The iPad is in no way revolutionary. Like Jennie said: it’s just a big iPod.
Maybe the hype has gotten to me during the last 24-hours because when I first saw it yesterday I wasn’t exactly that impressed and it did just look like a big iPod, but I have definitely become more interested in it during the past day.
giant iPod or not, it just shows that technology is always evolving and I think it will take language learning with it! I also think that the iPad might be a nice companion to say, an iMac if you happened to have a lot of money to burn, but I’ll stick with my 4-year-old Macbook for as long as possible!
Thanks for your comments, guys! I really appreciate them!
I think the iPad has tremendous potential for being a revolutionary language-learning tool, primarily because it has the one thing that Kindle (et al) are missing: hype.
It gets so complicated for me, sometimes, when I am reading my lesson book and I get to the dialog part and then I have to cue it up on my iPod and play the dialog, then stop it and read along, then cue up the next one, and so on.
The iPad offers us a reading platform the size of a comfortable book, with an interface that would allow us to simply *touch* the words, or phrases, or dialog when we are ready to hear them spoken.
Yes, it’s just a big iPod… but why does that have to be a bad thing? It’s an iPod with a useful size!
It is for exactly those reasons that I think the iPad could be a very successful language learning tool. Size, app store/developer community, hype… I expect great language-learning things to come from the iPad!
Thanks for your comment!
Of course a lot of this kind of thing has been possible (if slightly less simple) with Kindle, or iPod, or even Palm Pilot… but the reason I think Apple’s iPad can work for this is because they have the App Store, and a developer community, and they also have the interest of publishers who want desperately to make money in the digital age.