Though pricey the iPad is, to me at least, a device with immense potential and numerous use cases in education.
Even very young learners seem to get almost intuitively what it means to simply touch a screen in order to get things going. As Steve Jobs himself famously said at the , nobody wants to use a stylus, humans have a natural stylus even ten of them.
In a matter of days, I learned about two initiatives that see big potential in the iPad for special needs students as well.
The first is not only dedicated to this group of students but explicitly includes them in what they built. I wrote about this startup for EDUKWEST just this week to support their Kickstarter campaign. PointScribe want to teach children handwriting in a new interactive way with lots of autonomy for the individual student using touchscreen devices especially on the iPad.
The second article comes from the Maplewood NJ school district where they had nearly 300 iPads delivered to teachers of special needs students and those teachers were all very enthusiastic about the potential and various different ways the iPad would bring to teaching their classes.
Made possible through a federal grant they had a workshop taking place with over 130 educators from all over the state participating and with the aim to learn how best make use of the various options the iPad offers.
I’m sure that in the near future we will not only hear about the iPad finding its place in an increasing number of classrooms worldwide but particularly with special needs children. It just seems so natural to any human to use an iPad which not only shows ingeniousness in itself but also bring a new quality to learning and teaching students with special needs.
Picture: by allaboutgeorge
