Does anyone use an ipad for HE, and if so, was it worth the money?

[AmanitaMuscaria]

I'm just about to start HE with my DD (aged 8, almost 9). Her last day at school is tomorrow.

We're going to be making a great deal of use of the internet and the teaching/learning resources there. We've currently got a laptop and an older desktop. I was reading about ipads today and looking at some of the educational apps you can get here and they look amazing! Obviously though, it's a huge amount of money to fork out.

I wondered if any of your children use ipads, and if so whether there are notable advantages over a laptop or desktop? Was it worth the money? Are the apps as great as they look?

Thanks for any advice.

footprint

That is such a wicked idea for a feature I think it is worth suggesting it to apple.

Oh that I could code !

flussy "I'm inclined to think that if your daughter's old enough to handle a mouse and PC". She is, and likes using pcs and laptops, but there's something different about actually touching the screen and moving things around. I really agree with fastweb about it being due to connectability.

footprints I think that's where supervision comes in; 'yes you can play the ipad, but on x game for minutes.' I did that today when DD wanted to play on it while I was making lunch. I told her she could either do the maths app or the telling the time app. We first did the telling the time app yesterday, and I have been trying to teach her to tell the time for ages - I just don't know what it is that she's not getting, but she hasn't had that 'penny-drop' moment where she makes sense of it. We'll seem to get it straight in her head, and she'll get it right, but then next time I ask her what the time is (at 13.30) she'll say '6 to 10'! I got her onto this app (she was reluctant) yesterday, and by today she was excitedly showing me that she'd got the whole set of 50 correct. that's how shit my teaching is The power of the ipad! I think it's that she's actually moving the clock hand and numbers around with her finger, as opposed to looking at a clock or picture.

Sorry to hear about your zombie, fastweb. You can borrow my royal python if you like. She likes rat shaped zombies.

btw with regards to running with a direction of interest, I think you can equally do that with the ipad. We were playing an anatomy app this morning, and that led onto a discussion about how muscles work; their contractility and how they work as agonist/antagonist pairs. We put down the ipad for a while and experimented with moving our bodies around. I could have (and have many times) got my anatomy book out, but honestly she was much more engaged by it being a quiz, where she had to race to identify various body parts. It's a great app ! I just had to slow her down a bit to explain a bit about each thing before she did the next one.

I can't get mobile rice either fastweb - it told me to try the US store, then said it wasn't available there either.

woah there.

bbc global iplayer? is that what i think it is? bearing in mind that in deepest darkets canada i can't get bbc iplayer unless i run it through a uk server?

bbc global iplayer? is that what i think it is

Yup.

BUT

It doesn't have the same content as the UK iplayer, cos of licencecing ....stuff.

On the other hand you get huge swathes of archive stuff from years gone by (Porridge) to slightly delayed access to crap like East Enders.

There was a weekly Casualty update too, but for some reason that has stopped while the less enjoyable Holby City trundles on.

My son has loved the series of MI High and the Sarah Jane Adventures. We watch an episode of Primeval most nights.

Download the app and you can see what is availble so far even if you can't watch it all, althpugh some stuff is free. New stuff in most days.

I love it, at under 7 euros a month it is dirt cheap for what you get.

I can't get mobile rice either fastweb - it told me to try the US store, then said it wasn't available there either.

It really annoys me when that happens. What on earth can the licencing issues be that require restricting access to the US store only?

The whole point of the web is that it no longer matters where you are, so restrictions are invented ?

I love the BBC iPad Good Food mag, thank goodness they didn't go all boarder obsessed with that one unlike other digital mags I could mention.