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Hi Danica – you are very wise to ask advice. Have you also thought about looking at any reviews on google?
I have resisted getting one so far because I was always under the impression that they are a bit of a toy. Great for watching films etc but for real work? But.. I am speaking from ignorance. I would rather buy a Mac – the thin Air ones.
I was recently at a conference and one of my colleagues had an iPad. She used it for making notes during the sessions and said she likes it because it’s less obvious and bulky than a laptop. She seemed to think it is excellent and it certainly had plenty of word and PDF files on it so she obviously used it a lot. However, I couldn’t help think that for the cost I would rather have a decent laptop.
It depends what you want it for. I bought myself a Livescribe pen a while ago. Not sure why, but I waste money on ‘gismos’ (which is why it interests me that I haven’t bought an iPad). Anyway, the Livescribe pen allows you to record stuff. It has a notebook with it (special dotted paper) and if for example you wanted to record a lesson then you can write down key points rather than full notes – in addition to the recording. When you play back the recording, rather than having to listen to it all, you tap on a section of your written notes and the recording jumps to that part of the session. There is also software that you can download onto your computer and that transcribes the recording into a full text transcript. It is expensive to buy the pen and you are tied in to having to purchase the special paper (although you can print your own with a particular kind of printer?). But it is cheaper than an iPad.
I wish I had had one of them when I was a student. A bit of a gimmic for someone not in education or the kind of job that requires careful notetaking but… It is expensive compared to other recorders.
So I was just thinking it depends what you want your iPad for – you might want to think about getting your government to pay for a Livescribe pen? It would be easy to justify in terms of getting the information down and transcribing into text. If you are easily distracted then it does mean you wouldn’t miss anything.
Another colleague has recently bought an iPad so I will ask him how he’s getting on with it. But kc’s daughter is probably the most relevant source of info. if she’s studying.
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