Curse you, English! You broke my alliteration!
Tablet technology has existed for around a decade, but it wasn’t until recent years that the technology became user-friendly (and cheap enough) to become mass-produced. The big breakthrough tablet is the Apple Corporation’s iPad and its successor, the iPad 2.
Schools and education programs have taken a liking to the iPad 2 for a multitude of reasons. One reason is that it lightens the carrying load of students. This is especially advantageous to high school students that have to carry around heavy books such as Literature textbooks. While it is quite the generic app available through the App Store, iBooks is fantastic for students. With the ability to download novels, short story collections, and poetry anthologies, the student’s carrying load is lessened. Even better, books on iBooks are always cheaper than the actual physical books. Writing is also affected by the iPad2. While no formal word processor is available on the tablet, there is a notes app that allows the student to type up notes. Papers and other assignments can also be started in this app. This way, the teacher can see the real-time progression of the assignment.
The iPad2 has a multitude of other apps that can help a student in high school literature. Take for example the 500 AP English Literature Questions app. This allows students in higher classes (or even in the lower class, just for an extra challenge) to test their knowledge of the subject. It can also be used as a test study guide.
Shakespeare Pro is another useful app, especially for the teachers of British literature and poetry. It is the complete works of one of the greatest writers, William Shakespeare. It includes all 154 Sonnets, 41 plays, and 6 poems – all of this for only $9.99. Compared to an expensive text book, the iPad2 certainly sounds like a good replacement for the traditional text book.
MaxJournal also proves to be a useful app. It allows for a better writing experience on the iPad2. It gives the user the ability to separate entries into specific fields (personal, work, travel, etc) and photos into the journal entries. This app would fantastic for writing reflections about the stories and poetry read in class.
These are just a few of the apps available for iPad2 that enhance the literature learning experience. However, below, I’ve listed a few more apps and other articles speaking of the iPad’s advantages:
Click here for a list of other apps that cover almost every high school subject there is!
Click here for an article discussing the addition of iPads in high schools in Santa Cruz.
Click here for another list of English focused apps for the iPad.
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