Traveling with my iPad

I'm in Washington DC this week looking at colleges with my son. It is nice to get away and DC is beautiful this time of the year with the blossoms still on the trees.

One of the great things about online education is the flexibility in both teaching online courses and as a student participating in online classes. While I'm away I'm able to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi offered at the hotel to check into my online classes and post to the course discussions. However, my travel plans this week had to first work around my face-to-face MBA class I taught Monday evening. While I still really enjoy teaching in the physical classroom, I appreciate the flexibility offered in the online environment.

This week I decided to take along my iPad rather than bringing my netbook or lugging my laptop. The iPad fits nicely in my bag, is very light, and allows me to watch a few purchased episodes of The IT Crowd while on the plane. While it was great having my iPad along on this trip, posting to my discussions and writing this blog post takes much more time; especially when I have to go back and edit my posts. At this point I wish I had packed my netbook or laptop.

I think my experience this week typifies most of the iPad reviews. This device is a much better content consumption devise than a content creation device. However, the portability does make up for the challenges of the onscreen keyboard. Maybe the challenge of the keyboard is worth all the benefits of this great device.