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iPad for Uni - Is it worth it?

After seeing several of my friends revising using their iPads for presentations and past papers I was wondering whether it may be useful for me to get one for university. I have a decent laptop, but it's very bulky/heavy so I wouldn't take it to lectures, and I have an iPhone so I wouldn't be using it for games really. I'd be using it purely for the facility to listen to podcasts, read iBooks (assuming some of the physiology books are on there) and revise through powerpoints.

I'm going to the RVC and I know their blackboard technology would be great for this, but wondering if anyone else had any opinions on it? Preferably people who have used an iPad for university!

Thanks
Original post by Eat.Sleep.Row.Repeat.
After seeing several of my friends revising using their iPads for presentations and past papers I was wondering whether it may be useful for me to get one for university. I have a decent laptop, but it's very bulky/heavy so I wouldn't take it to lectures, and I have an iPhone so I wouldn't be using it for games really. I'd be using it purely for the facility to listen to podcasts, read iBooks (assuming some of the physiology books are on there) and revise through powerpoints.

I'm going to the RVC and I know their blackboard technology would be great for this, but wondering if anyone else had any opinions on it? Preferably people who have used an iPad for university!

Thanks


If you cannot revise from viewing lecture slides on a laptop or listening to podcasts on your laptop/iPhone/iPod, getting an iPad is not going to magically transform this process or improve your grades. Bringing a laptop into lectures is also unnecessary unless you have a genuine need (eg; dyslexia).

Revising from PowerPoint, Podcasts and ebooks again, you can get by perfectly fine with just a laptop. I got a book reader to flick through presentations and lecture notes because I do a lot of commuting but frankly it is a luxury and I could have got by perfectly fine without it.

If you have money to burn great, otherwise don't sweat. It is just another gimmicky Apple product designed to make someone else rich, not to improve your studies. Considering that you haven't even got to uni yet and you haven't worked out how you revise/work best you have even less reason to run out and buy one.
Reply 2
Avatar for kookabura
kookabura
13
I'm at RVC, in 3rd year now, and there are a few people who have ipads with them in lectures (there were suddenly people came back to uni with them after the christmas holidays!)

On one hand they look like a good way to annotate lectures etc. But equally you get lecture handouts printed for you anyway, so whether it would be any more use for you using that is dependent on you and your way of learning. I know some of my friends who really like having them, others just spend the entire lecture playing games on them.

I think like chocoholic says, I would say you are probably better waiting until you are here and seeing how you work/learn. Personally I know I prefer having a hard copy of a lecture in front of me, I will print journal articles off to highlight as I hate reading them off the screen, so I would just spend a fortune printing of things anyway. But other people are fine with working straight from a screen.

Blackboard is moving over to RVC learn or some other name...but will basically have the same stuff on offer. All lecture ppts etc online, with the echo recording of them available after the lecture as well, extra reading etc loaded onto it, computer aided learnings available online as well. Plus all the other sort of resources, potcasts, wikivet etc.... This can all be accessed on site and off site by a normal computer/laptop the same as with an ipad.
Reply 3
Avatar for kookabura
kookabura
13
To give you an opposite opinion though, one of my friends who has an ipad also writes a blog, and here is one of her posts:

I bought myself an iPad in July as a "congratulations, you passed first year!" present to myself. At first, I was worried that it would just be an expensive toy that I could play Angry Birds on. I also didn't really use it for the first few weeks of school because I just couldn't find any apps that seemed helpful (or useful, or convenient).

Then a couple of friends (former G&T's as well) got their own iPads and managed to find an amazing app called iAnnotate pdf, which let's you add notes and sound bytes and other things to pdfs that you download from the internet. Brilliant, because some of our notes are pdf files! So lately, I've been googling other cool apps that might be helpful. I've found a few really amazing ones.

1. Equine Advances : These developers create apps for equine vets and veterinary students. So far, they have three; Equine Drugs, Equine Techniques, and Equine Lab. Haven't bought any of these yet, but I might just have to.

2. A Vet Tool : This one's pretty neat; it has common drugs and their uses, a calculator for conversions, x-ray comparisons, and more all rolled into one app.

3. Saunders Vet Terminology Flashcards : For reviewing terms. I haven't bought this one yet, but I'm sorely tempted to.

4. Veterinary Board Exam Review : Bought this last year after a friend recommended it. I seriously love this one. The questions are designed to help prepare you for the NAVLE, but I use it as a little review whenever I have a few minutes to spare.

5. Last but not least, Kindle. Get it. There are a bunch of veterinary textbooks available through the Kindle store, and they're cheaper than buying the hard copy (and easier on your back). It has a highlighting tool, a bookmark tool, etc etc. I've already started buying textbooks on it, and it's so nice to have them at hand whenever I want.

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I've really had time to find/search for. At least now I feel like I've bought a real educational tool and not just a really expensive toy.


She is american, hence the mention of the NAVLE. They also seem to be the ones who like gadgets a lot more than the brits (out of the few people who have ipads, most of them are americans). Like I said in my other post though, it depends on what you like - she obviously likes having books on kindle - I would still end up having to buying books because I can't study with books on a screen. So whatever suits your learning style! Also, it is very easy with any of these sort of things to get caught up with all the 'amazing apps' you can download...and kinda lose sight of what we actually need to learn, and that it might be fun having apps, but at the end of the day we are being examined on our lectures!
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by kookabura
To give you an opposite opinion though, one of my friends who has an ipad also writes a blog, and here is one of her posts:


I agree with what you said earlier.

Too many people are trying to reinvent the wheel just to make a little bit of extra money. All practices have formularies, Noah Compendiums, bookshelves full of BSAVA manuals, etc. You don't need an electronic version, let alone pay for the privilege, and a hard copy is more reliable (ie; less likely to be stolen or broken, no battery issues).

From someone who has a Kindle it is much easier to use hard copies, the diagrams and tables are easier to read and there are fewer formatting errors. You don't save any money buying an eBook, you may save a little bit of money on the original purchase but there is no resale market. My Dyce hardback may have cost me £60, £10 more than the Kindle version, but I know I can flog it for £40-50 when I'm finished with it.

A lot of people struggle with revision due to self discipline and work ethic, an iPad, gimmicky apps and eBooks are not going to change that. Putting the hours in making your own flashcards and your own notes based on your own lecture material is going to be far more useful to you than vet terminology flashcards and equine techniques apps (and such like).
Thank you all for your advice. My only problem is organisation and I thought maybe the iPad would help with this. I'm not great with filing mass amounts of paper, which is why I thought an iPad would be useful. I've got some inheritence money which I could use, which was supposed to be for uni (£1000) so I could take a chunk out of that but i've not specifically got cash to burn. It just seemed like a good idea for annotations in lectures and for organised notes. I generally revise quite well, the iPad, I thought, would be a way to boost this as I'm definitely a visual learner.

So far for A-Levels if i'm given a handout I won't really revise from that, I'll instead write it out myself. Thanks for the help, will talk about it with my parents as well!

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