Today I went to an introudction to the Pacific Institute which was supposed to de-mystesize the process somewhat. It didn't de-mistfy me that much but I have a general idea now what it is supposed to do. Basically it is training for staff to help the college achieve Investment In Excellence and from what I gather it is all about thinking about how you do things, reflecting and using that to change the way you work. Now I'm not pooh-poohing it just yet but if I get on the training (you have to be selected) I will be interested to see how it alters my way of life (especially as the 'facilitators' themselves have confessed there is a need for a refresher course as once away from the training room for a few weeks people go back to their old habits).
But more excitingly our college has borrowed 6 i-Pads from JISC to trial and 'play with' in the library. I was a little sceptical at first as from feedback I've heard i-pads aren't that great and you need a lot of apps to be able to do anything. I had a play today and I quite liked it. Its my first real 'go' on a tablet - although I do have a touch screen phone and we have touch screen computers in the library (which aren't very sensitive and take forever to do anything). I found the interface really easy to use and it was suprisingly easy to type using the on screen keyboard - it is a shame it is only in a notes facility though.
I was able to do quite a bit by accessing the wifi through safari (although I didn't know this is what safari was until I pressed the app) - I went to the college website and was able to access e-books through athens. I liked that i could do everything with my fingers - make texts bigger, cut, paste etc.
Overall I really liked the i-pad but i still think it is very expensive for what it is. You can access the internet (thorugh wifif) on an i-pod touch and dowload apps. You don't have an 'office' package availble on an i-pad unless you download a similar app, moreover there are no usb ports so you have to rely heavily on cloud style technology to save your work in an accessible way. I would like to try other tablets by different compnaies to see if they match up to the i-pad, but for useability I would stick to using a netbook as they are similarly small, have basic operating syetems and the ability to plug in a usb for 3G connectivity if wifi isn't available.
There is an interestinf project that has been run by JISC relating to using mobile devices in the learning envrionment fi you are interested read it here http://wiki.rscwmsystems.org.uk/images/c/c2/LJMM.pdf I found it quite interesting and highlighted some key uses for mobile technology.
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