By Neil Willis, RCDD

On the evening of April 2nd, I sat in my hotel room highly anticipating the next morning. You see, not only was I on a family vacation at Disney, but the 3rd of April marked an even bigger event than Space Mountain itself. The Apple iPad was scheduled to be released, and I had read enough reviews to recognize what a breakthrough it would be.

As an engineer and integrator for schools, my gut had been telling me that the iPad would quickly replace the Kindle electronic textbook as well as the SMART Technologies Airliner slate for navigation. Like other Apple products, it appeared to be similarly intuitive and potentially addicting to use. But would the device be applicable in a classroom environment for teachers and/or students? I knew it was not intended to be a laptop or PC replacement; that is not how Apple was marketing the product. I saw it as a new HMI (Human to Machine Interface) or modality that would fill a gap between the smartphone and the laptop computer.