I am required to get an iPad for school next year. Any iPad is acceptable, as long as it has at least 32GB storage. Is anyone on the iPad program at their school? What apps are the best for textbooks or english books? Note taking? Assignment planners? Which iPad should I invest in?
If your main priority is for nottaking and PowerPoint/Word then Apple don’t do you any good, you should get a Microsoft Surface. Much better for the learning environment, way easier to do work on than an iPad.
We all have to have iPads at our school, and we just end up playing stupid games in the middle of class everyday. Its really ruined the educational environment.
@Orioles21 my school requires an iPad. Trust me, if I could, I’d get something from Microsoft.
@musiclover131 Notability, Pages, and GoodReader
Thank you!
Why don’t they let you use your phone? 90% of kids check their phone at least once a period…
@Anish14 Phones are too small. Google Chromebooks are the best, and they’re cheaper than iPads. You can do more on them too. And they have a keyboard!
Lol I wouldn’t buy an iPad for school.
Well if you were mandated to, you would. Otherwise you wouldn’t be allowed in the IPAD program… :-"
I second getting the Surface, especially Surface Pro, for a working environment. But if you’re required to get an iPad b/c of the OS, then I guess you gotta get an iPad.
@Anish14 My school doesn’t allow phones, and everyone has to get an iPad for next year, unless you get special permission, which I doubt anyone will be unable to obtain.
There are iPad apps for Google Docs: Drive, Sheets, etc. Sounds like your school will probably mandate some of the apps you have to use, anyway.
I’d wait and buy over the summer in case they change their minds (or Apple drops prices, but that likely won’t happen until November). Many school districts are realizing the things others have said here about iPads vs. Chromebooks, Surface, etc. I am a parent on an elementary school board, and we are going to move toward iPads for K-2nd grade and Chromebooks for 3rd-6th with a few iPads per upper grade classroom for taking videos, etc.
Google Classroom is the greatest thing ever… if your teacher knows how tf to use it.
@Ynotgo My school has the iPad pilot program for about 150 of our students. After taking a survey, the students on the program voted positively for the iPad program, and the school has already sent out requirements for the iPads that we need to get.
iPad
32GB or more
Has the warranty
Other than that, they don’t care.
What are the younger children using? How about the iPads in the rooms for the older children? Thanks for sharing(:
@Anish14 thankfully they’re putting our teachers through a training program to teach them about everything there is to know about apple, google, etc.
That’s actually pretty smart then. I still don’t agree with making you buy your own iPad… Google Drive, Docs, and all those Google Apps are amazing 
I’m actually finishing my research paper on Google Docs right now lol. No more USBs and you can access and edit your files anywhere, even multiple peopel can access one document at the same time
The ones we are getting for the elementary students have WiFi only (no 3G support) and most have the minimum memory. But, we aren’t letting the kids take them home. If you are getting this for yourself, you may think about whether you will be using it in locations with no WiFi and want access to the internet. The iPad I have for myself has 3G access, but I leave it turned off most of the time, except on long road trips. 3G and more memory are the main extra cost options to decide on.
Personally, I don’t think the iPad Air 2 is that much better than the iPad Air, but I’m not sure which we are getting. It’s a staged purchase, kind of like your pilot, so Apple will probably phase out older models as we go. We thought about iPad minis, but the bigger screens are needed for lots of curriculum apps. The iPads for the younger kids are the same as the ones for the older kids. We may get some external keyboards for typing practice.
Google has a really good training program for teachers. I’m more familiar with the class that deals with Chromebooks, but I’d suppose they can do similar training for Google apps on iPads. The trend is to have the teachers have time set aside to coordinate with other teachers at their grade level about useful apps and how they are teaching with them.