Fraser Speirs has been chronicling on his blog his experience getting his school using the iPad in their classrooms. The latest article summarizes the experience classrooms have had so far. It’s all gold, and I recommend the read but I like the last paragraph the best:

We have only given one directive to our teachers for using the iPad: it should be used everywhere it’s useful and nowhere that it’s not. We did not dictate many specific uses for the device, preferring to leave it to classroom teachers to identify the places where the device will be useful for each subject’s unique requirements. 

The only specific use we dictated was that everyone should use the Calendar app to record homework. That’s a useful context for learners and we’re seeing dramatic improvements in homework return rates. 

… I personally believe that pupils - particularly early secondary pupils - crave relevance and authenticity in their learning. I can teach about mainframes and disk drives and everyone’s bored. When I facilitate a discussion about why Apple switched from hard drives in the iPod Classic to flash memory in the iPhone, everyone wants to talk about it. 

By deploying the iPad in the school and using real-world commercial software instead of “education-specific” clones of real software, we are delivering an authentic experience in school that mirrors and is relevant to the experience of technology that pupils have outside the school and bring to school with them.