Upcoming iPad Workshop -- EdTechTeacher -- Thoughts Looking Forward to Tomorrow

Today I'm winging my way from Seattle to the other end of the United States.  In Boston, I plan to attend an iPad Workshop put on by EdTechTeacher.org which starts tomorrow and continues through Wednesday, July 10.  The location of the sessions will be in Hauser Hall on the Harvard University campus.  Each day starts at 8:30 a.m. and continues on through 3:30 in the afternoon.

Even though we don't use iPads at my school, the thinking behind attending a workshop where the focus is on "The iPad Classroom" (the workshop's actual title) is that learning more about how the iPad tablet can be and is used in classrooms will have applicability in the use of other tablets (i.e. Samsung Galaxy [Android] or Surface RT/Pro [Windows 8]) in the classrooms where I work.  The thinking here is that it's not literally so much the specific apps that are used but rather how a device like a tablet can offer kids tools not otherwise available and enhance what I hear referred to as "workflow".

What I'll be looking for, then, is the ways in which using a device such as a tablet offers specific ways to enhance learning for kids in the classroom.  Not that this is necessarily a contest between tablets and laptops to prove one is the superior to the other.   But, in my school where there is an existing 1-to-1 laptop program that begins in grade 7, this is a chance to begin to discovery whether or not a tablet device can materially add to the curriculum we offer to our 5th and 6th graders.

From this vantage point, the prospects are for a fascinating -- and rewarding -- time.