Salman Khan helps justify all those new iPad purchases, releases Khan Academy iPad app
We don't know yet just how many new iPads Apple has already sold. Apple is, as usual keeping quiet about actual numbers but has said they're "off the charts." We know that, for all intents and purposes, Apple has sold all of them. And second-generation iPads? I sold mine the day the new iPad became available for pre-order for $385 on eBay, just $14 less than the price of a new iPad 2. True, I included a nice case in the sale, but I wish I could just put new floormats in my car and get almost 80% of its new value when I go to trade it in.
To say that demand for the new iPads (and even the old iPads) is strong would be a ridiculous understatement. My colleague over at Edukwest, Kirsten Winkler, believes that $400 iPad 2's will bring widespread adoption of Apple's tablets to education and McGraw Hill called the price a "tipping point" (although they obviously have a vested interest in ubiquitous iPads in schools since they are one of Apple's premier textbook partners).
Perhaps, though, one of the more interesting bits of educational content now available on the iPad comes in the form of the Khan Academy app. The app gives access to 2700 videos from the academy with progress monitoring, subtitles, and offline storage for the videos. According to the iTunes Store, integrated assessments are coming soon. This is actually the entire collection of Khan's videos which provide outstanding supplements to any STEM curriculum and remediation for college students.
In fact, creative instructors have replaced science and math texts with Khan videos, which have proved more effective for many students than traditional texts. They also form the basis for countless flipped classroom lessons. Combined with content creation tools from Adobe and Apple, instructors, parents, schools, and academies could develop powerful curricular materials using iPads as 1:1 devices. This might actually be the best differentiator for iPads over Android tablets for students to date. The app will work on all generations of the iPad; I'll share additional images from my new iPad when I get it and install the Khan Academy app this weekend. For now, here's a screen shot from the iTunes App store:
