by Derek Morrison, 14 July 2011, updated 17 July 2011
I’ve noticed more and more people turning up at various higher education conferences or seminars with iPads rather than the traditional laptop. My interest lay not in the iPad’s obvious attraction as a highly portable media access and consumption device but rather in how it is being, and could be, used as a creative device at the simplest level, i.e. for taking notes.
Theoretically, as a tablet computer the iPad could be a powerful writing machine. But … (that Auricle “but” again).
It depends what we mean by “writing”. If we actually mean typing there is always the iPad’s on-screen keyboard and that is what I see most HE conference delegates using. Alternatively, touch typists can plug in a bluetooth keyboard thus converting their iPad into a quasi netbook/laptop. I’ve not seen too many do the latter because after all it’s the convenience of touchscreen computers which has gained them such traction.
But why shouldn’t it be easy to use the iPad and similar for ‘real’ cursive writing which in efficiency terms going to be streets ahead of the hunt and peck that even skilled typists are forced into when using the iPad as a notetaking device? So I set off to see if I could find out.


