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iPad for Students

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Superbike81

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I'm a part/full time college student (near full load) and full time active duty Air Force, my primary reason for buying the iPad was for school. I've been taking a laptop to school for some time now, and I was just never satisfied, battery life wouldn't last through two back to back 2.5 hour classes, always hated the touchpad mouse, and just generally a little clunky for school.

So I'll share my experiences thus far, and share my likes and dislikes, as well as the apps I've found to be very helpful.


First off, the iPad really does do everything I've demanded of it so far, and more.

The touch typing with the onscreen keyboard took me all of about 10 minutes to get accustomed to, and now I am typing around 60wpm with very few mistakes. The iPad auto correct feature is great, when I do make a simple typo it automatically corrects it with most common words.

The Safari web browser, even though it lacks Flash functionality and Java, seems to run my school's website perfectly. I do get a warning in the beginning saying since the browser doesn't support java that the website won't function fully, but I haven't found an area yet that doesn't work correctly. I am disappointed that I can't really use the iPad as traditional file storage, so if I need to turn in an assignment online occasionally I won't be able to, I'll have to use my PC for that.

I've downloaded a few different apps for school that have made a huge difference:

1) CourseSmart (App is free. Books must be paid for) : This app is still in it's infancy, so has some minor issues, but for the most part they lead back to poor quality scans of certain books. Some books are only "online format" which means you have to be online to access them. The books that are downloaded to the iPad seem pretty good. Not quite the multimedia experience I was hoping for, but I'm sure that will come in the future software updates. All books are easily readable and navigating is fairly simple. I wish there was a better inboard note taker, but once OS 4.0 comes out I'll be able to more easily run my note taking program at the same time. Books are significantly cheaper than the standard text version, big plus there!

2) Notes Pro (free) : Amazing note taking app, supposedly better than all the paid ones as well.good integration of typing and hand drawing graphics, as well as inserting graphics. I'm faster and neater at typing notes here than I am writing them by hand, when I rush my writing gets very sloppy, no worries with this program.

3) Cramberry ($1.99) : I'm a big user of flash cards, I was buying a pack or two a week at $1.50 a pack. Now I don't have to use paper cards any more, they are all on is program. It's still new, and needs some improvements, but anything more than basic flip-over flash card functioning is just icing on the cake for me. Can't wait for future updates for more features to be added.

4) Plants vs Zombies HD ($9.99) - I know it's not school related, but I play sometimes between classes or during breaks, great time killer, and great fun.




So far I am very pleased and completely satisfied with my iPad purchase for school, all of the improvements I would like to see mostly revolve around the apps, not the iPad itself.



If you are a student or know of an app that would be good for students please review the iPad and the apps you use here, it would be nice to have a compilation of the best (and worst) apps for students!
 

Lisa

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cool.never though of it as a school tool.
some good applications there too.
 

brhon

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I'm a part/full time college student (near full load) and full time active duty Air Force, my primary reason for buying the iPad was for school. I've been taking a laptop to school for some time now, and I was just never satisfied, battery life wouldn't last through two back to back 2.5 hour classes, always hated the touchpad mouse, and just generally a little clunky for school.

So I'll share my experiences thus far, and share my likes and dislikes, as well as the apps I've found to be very helpful.


First off, the iPad really does do everything I've demanded of it so far, and more.

The touch typing with the onscreen keyboard took me all of about 10 minutes to get accustomed to, and now I am typing around 60wpm with very few mistakes. The iPad auto correct feature is great, when I do make a simple typo it automatically corrects it with most common words.

The Safari web browser, even though it lacks Flash functionality and Java, seems to run my school's website perfectly. I do get a warning in the beginning saying since the browser doesn't support java that the website won't function fully, but I haven't found an area yet that doesn't work correctly. I am disappointed that I can't really use the iPad as traditional file storage, so if I need to turn in an assignment online occasionally I won't be able to, I'll have to use my PC for that.

I've downloaded a few different apps for school that have made a huge difference:

1) CourseSmart (App is free. Books must be paid for) : This app is still in it's infancy, so has some minor issues, but for the most part they lead back to poor quality scans of certain books. Some books are only "online format" which means you have to be online to access them. The books that are downloaded to the iPad seem pretty good. Not quite the multimedia experience I was hoping for, but I'm sure that will come in the future software updates. All books are easily readable and navigating is fairly simple. I wish there was a better inboard note taker, but once OS 4.0 comes out I'll be able to more easily run my note taking program at the same time. Books are significantly cheaper than the standard text version, big plus there!

2) Notes Pro (free) : Amazing note taking app, supposedly better than all the paid ones as well.good integration of typing and hand drawing graphics, as well as inserting graphics. I'm faster and neater at typing notes here than I am writing them by hand, when I rush my writing gets very sloppy, no worries with this program.

3) Cramberry ($1.99) : I'm a big user of flash cards, I was buying a pack or two a week at $1.50 a pack. Now I don't have to use paper cards any more, they are all on is program. It's still new, and needs some improvements, but anything more than basic flip-over flash card functioning is just icing on the cake for me. Can't wait for future updates for more features to be added.

4) Plants vs Zombies HD ($9.99) - I know it's not school related, but I play sometimes between classes or during breaks, great time killer, and great fun.




So far I am very pleased and completely satisfied with my iPad purchase for school, all of the improvements I would like to see mostly revolve around the apps, not the iPad itself.



If you are a student or know of an app that would be good for students please review the iPad and the apps you use here, it would be nice to have a compilation of the best (and worst) apps for students!

Superbike-Welcome to the forum, and thanks for serving our Country. My brother is retired Air Force. You should try Evernote, you can put it on your Mac, Ipad, PC and it will sync whenever you are connected. You should also try Dropbox if you are not already using it. You can store 2 gb of info free and can access it from anywhere, Box.net also is another site I use for sharing documents. I use evernote when i meet clients, I take notes from my discussion-when I walk back into my office my Ipad connects and syncs to my desktop. It is great and has more functionality than just serving up notes. You will learn a lot from the forum-the people here are great.
 

swelson

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What a weight reduction, now you don't have to carry all those books

glad it worked out for you
 
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Superbike81

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Just a slight followup, I registered for my next two classes today, both 300-level Psychology courses (which means books aren't easy to find used), both books new are quoted at $120 and $135 respectively. On CourseSmart the books are $65 and $55. So my iPad saved me around $150 just for this term.

It will pay for itself soon.

Also, being overseas in the military makes it difficult to get books in a timely manner sometimes. I ordered books through Half.com once, and they sent them by Media Mail, which is the slowest/cheapest possible way, even though I asked for Priority shipping. My books took just under 60 days to get here, I was already a month into my classes when they got here. So I don't trust ordering them online at this point either. By using CourseSmart on the iPad, I get my books instantly.
 
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jenna

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my Ipad gets it,s first workout at Uni tomorrow, looking forward to seeing how well it will function for note taking purposes. already reading text books on it where possible. Course readings have all Ben given to us in a bound book which I am not happy with. but all additional readings are downloaded from the uni library directly to my Ipad and into Good reader.
 

Agi2002

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Out of all the note taking apps that I have tried penultimate seems to be the most accurate. Paper Desk is cool to because it let's you record the class session while you take notes, but the writing part of the notes isn't as accurate as penultimate.
 

Xpolarbearx

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I also think that the iPad is near perfect for a student. I highly recommend you get dropbox (its free!) for mac/pc and your ipad... you can look at all the files you have on your computer on your ipad. You can also transfer the files directly onto the ipad if you have any of the iwork apps or goodreader. i think dropbox will transfer the file to any app that is compatible.
 

Isaac Newton

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The deeper the fixture within the academic community...the greater the level of day capture, productivity and Bluetooth/wifi print options that will frequently be developed and upgraded.
 

AbblePC

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Sound Paper is great for both recording a seission and taking typed notes that integrate along with that recording, so that afterwards you can simply click any typed content and the audio playback jumps right to that point in your notes.

I've used it a few times and it worked flawlessly. It doesn't support hand written notes but perhaps it will be an update later.
 

stever

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2) Notes Pro (free) : Amazing note taking app, . . .

Is that name right?
It sounds great, but can't find one by that name.

There is an iPhone App named Notes Pro.
(which could be OK. I run a couple iPhone apps.)

There is an expensive 'Notes Pro for Lotus Notes'.
Sundry Notes has just the word notes on its icon.

I am curious now. . . Let us know.
.
 
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Superbike81

Superbike81

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2) Notes Pro (free) : Amazing note taking app, . . .

Is that name right?
It sounds great, but can't find one by that name.

There is an iPhone App named Notes Pro.
(which could be OK. I run a couple iPhone apps.)

There is an expensive 'Notes Pro for Lotus Notes'.
Sundry Notes has just the word notes on its icon.

I am curious now. . . Let us know.
.

I was confused as well. It was called NotesPro, but then I downloaded an update for it that renamed it to "Sundry Notes"

Sorry about the confusion, they must have decided on a name change for some reason.
 

stever

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2) Notes Pro (free) : Amazing note taking app, . . .

Is that name right?
It sounds great, but can't find one by that name.

There is an iPhone App named Notes Pro.
(which could be OK. I run a couple iPhone apps.)

There is an expensive 'Notes Pro for Lotus Notes'.
Sundry Notes has just the word notes on its icon.

I am curious now. . . Let us know.
.

I was confused as well. It was called NotesPro, but then I downloaded an update for it that renamed it to "Sundry Notes"

Sorry about the confusion, they must have decided on a name change for some reason.

You are right. I had already downloaded that one, before the namechange.
(I didn't remember the original name. Could be the iPhone app caused the name change.)
I have still not spent much time on it, so many apps, so little time.

But those features, like adding graphics, and adding logic/math symbols as you type, look good.

By the way, I just saw they dropped Cramberry to Free in the AppStore today.
May be temporary.


Does your school use BlackBoard for its courses?
There are a couple good apps for that,
although the server admins have to enable a couple of things for the students to be able to access it.
.
 
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