[collabs]

I am thinking why not use the iPad simply as a letter pad with infinite pages? the new iPad with the new iPad pencil can do that and I am sure with the right software you can write, erase, rewrite as much as you want? What am I missing?

[ncr100]

Human biology likely makes it harder to write on a glass screen with a perceptible Gap in time, latency between where the pen is and where the pixels appear as well as the physical colocation Of the pencil tip and the written line differs more so on a tablet screen than on direct application of matter to paper.

This confuses us, a little tiny teeny tidbit. And that is not helpful!

Plus because glass is slippery you must rely on your visual system nearly entirely for part of the handwriting performance. Because it's not paper you can't measure distances using tension that your nervous system picks up inside your hand, nearly as easily as you can when there's a high friction surface like a piece of paper to rest your hand on.

Also there is visual fatigue of staring into a light, the LED or OLED backlight, which does flicker imperceptibly but it does tend to flicker. This is more of a strain.

Plus there is disorientation... Your tablet can infinitely scroll long past the point at which your body physically dies, whereas if you run out of paper you got to go get some more paper. You write to the end of a sheet and there's no complex thinking involved around virtual viewframes and scrolling and using the scrolling UI.

[stonogo]

That isn't a matter of human biology. You learned to expect a specific experience when you took pencil to paper at a young age. Other people can learn to expect different experiences. Your acquired habits are not a genetic imperative. All of this post seems like ex post facto justifications for an implicit claim that the tech you grew up with is natural and good and the tech that came later is somehow inimical to life.

[bigstrat2003]

The point is that it's foolish to require inserting an iPad into the classroom purely for the sake of using an iPad. The goal (or proposed benefit) should be identified first, and then decide what the best tools to achieve that are.

[Danox]

Those students that have the discipline and have an iPad and can use Goodnotes or Notability they are just gonna be ahead of the rest, like typing the earlier you learn the better off you’re going to be, and there are no shortcuts if you are a student.

[snazz]

No matter how you restrict it with MDM profiles, it’s distracting compared to pencil/paper.

[layer8]

Can’t it run restricted to a single application in kiosk mode? Unless the application itself provides distraction, what would be distracting?

[shimman]

Why do we even want to pay $500 per device for something that is easily replicated by a $1 paper notebook? The only people that benefit from forcing classrooms to adopt these devices is big tech relying on corporate welfare to juice their books.

[sparqlittlestar]

The very light it emits, the liquid glass lensing animations, etc

[econ]

I recall some research in the TV age. They observed, if the subject is looking into a light source, (be it a camp fire, a screen or a bulb) they go into a kind of sleepwalking mode. They also mentioned the phenomenon was already well documented by hypnotists.

In the early internet days I couldn't help but notice people who read zero books now spend the whole day reading.

I think it means the tool is used the wrong way? Interactive should be e-paper or real paper. Dull cramming or basic reading skills would be a good fit for glowing displays.

Perhaps we even need a device that can do both.

[tracker1]

You also don't get the physicality as part of recall with eInk over real books. When reading technical books, as an example, I often would look back when going to review something based on where it was physically in the book... I completely lose that with ebooks.. I still mostly use ebooks and online docs these days all the same because moving hundreds of pounds of books when you move sucks.

[layer8]

At least with OLED, the light output can be auto-adjusted to match the reflecting light of the environment. This can be quite convincing, looking like a purely reflective surface. And a dedicated app doesn’t need to use any distracting animations or highlights.

[nathan_compton]

I friend of mine once made an observation that really stuck with me: a kindle is not a book: it is simultaneously all books at once. If you lock it to a single book, its still all books at once, but with a lock on all the others. Also, why not use paper?

[layer8]

I’m not an advocate of using tablets in class, I was just curious where the parent is seeing unavoidable distractions, compared to traditional tools like for example textbooks and calculators.

[shakna]

Blue light changes the way you think. Makes it easier to focus on the thing emitting the light, than the rest of the room. Just having a screen, with perfectly locked down control, can distract.

[nsxwolf]

It's just not as good as a notebook. I've tried to make it as good. It sleeps, there's too much fumbling around with it to get to what you want. You lose the muscle memory of where something is in the book, you can't quickly flip to anything. You notice you used to do certain things, like flip to two different pages at once. Everything is just immediate and tactile.

[irishcoffee]

You can just use a pencil and paper, and it's a lot cheaper?

[ptek]

Yes it is cheaper and who will steal or rob a student of pencil and paper compared to a iPad also pencil and paper doesn’t require age verification.

[throwway120385]

It's also probably good to make sure students know how to figure using a pencil and paper because pulling a calculator out on a job site is pretty impractical.

[tracker1]

Not sure I agree with that last point... you probably have one in your pocket already (phone app). Though I'm strongly against electronic devices as core education materials in K-6 especially.

[kleiba2]

That's being done, but it would not be sufficient to satisfy the powers that be.

[nathan_compton]

For awhile I tried all sorts of digital notetaking devices. Eventually I realized that pen + paper notebook was vastly superior to all of them for retention, ease of use, and cost. I am sure that, for some people, the calculation is different (for example, I have a pretty good memory and thus writing something down once is sufficient for me to recall it later) but for me, the idea of a digital letter pad eventually seemed utterly wasteful and absurd to me.