Intel Versus Apple: The Fight to Educate Your Children

On Friday, news broke that a school district in Auburn, Maine has made the decision to purchase iPad 2s for every one of their kindergartners and kindergarten teachers. 285 of the new tablets will be purchased. The district has budgeted $200,000 for the project- which includes educational software and training for teachers.

For tablet PCs, the educational market is potentially as lucrative as the enterprise market. Students, especially very young students, interact more easily with a large touchscreen device than they do with a traditional PC. The keyboard and mouse are barriers to a direct, action/reaction computing experience. Kids learn better and have more fun learning on a device they can directly manipulate. I saw this for myself when I brought my iPad 2 to play with children in a rural Guatemalan village.

Apple has big plans for the educational market. But they aren't the only ones eying the impressionable young minds of our collective national future. Intel has just made the first move towards establishing themselves as a major player in educational tablets. They're set to invest $30 million in Kno.

Up until recently, Kno made a line of dual and single display educational tablets. The recent explosion of tablet offerings has caused them to re-evaluate their strategy. The company now plans to focus on releasing educational tablet software designed to work on a variety of platforms. But this doesn't mean the dream of the Kno Reader is dead. Intel plans to draw up plans for hardware and push them through several OEMs.

While Apple has quite the headstart here, there's reason to believe Intel's Kno tablet could be real competition. Kno already has agreements with four major educational publishers, covering an estimated 90% of higher-education curriculum. Kno's OS is entirely browser-based. It supports highlighting and stickying and stylus use. In fact, the stylus is a critical part of Kno's approach to the educational tablet. From Kno CEO Osman Rashid.

“There is no real concept of a stylus on the iPad, the current iPad is meant for the finger. We hope Apple over time sees the value of a stylus in education because kids do need to learn how to write.”

This is an excellent point. While touchscreen-only interaction is perfectly fine (perhaps even ideal) for very young students, learning to write is still a necessity for any grade-schooler. If tablets are going to take off with the larger educational market, they'll need software and hardware that is focused on the unique demands of the classroom. Apple will need to do more than simply 'show up' if they want to win here.

Updates

Classpad set to make learning fun and interactive

Source: Economic Times

NEW DELHI: As educational innovations transcend the boundary of classroom teaching, learning is no longer destined to be a monotonous task within the four walls of a classroom but a fun and interactive activity. Marking a remarkable sh ...
Full article at: Economic Times  More like this  5 hours ago

Samsung argues 4G Galaxy Tab not in direct competition with Apple's 3G iPad 2

Source: AppleInsider

Published: 10:10 PM EST (07:10 PM PST) Samsung is fighting Apple's requests for a preliminary injunction against its Galaxy Tab with the argument that the 4G capability of its tablet means it does not directly co ...
Full article at: AppleInsider  More like this  6 hours ago

Apple Can Do More than a Traditional TV - the iPanel

Source: Softpedia

For many Wall Street analysts, it’s not a question of “if” Apple will ever release a full-fledged television set, but “when”. Yet many of them fail to consider the unexpected from Apple. Which is why there’s a good chance ...
Full article at: Softpedia  More like this  6 hours ago

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