The iPad is certainly attracting interest in the education scene, with lots of questions being asked about it’s use and value etc. Graham Brown-Martin shared the following post tonight on BECTA’s ICT research network list in response to a question about the pros and cons of buying iPads for use in school;

You may be interested in joining the Handheld Learning Community & Forum that has been online for over 5 years now and has a membership of more than 2,000 practitioners who have an active interest in using mobile computing technologies, including iPads, within their teaching practice:
http://www.handheldlearning.org

An article about the iPad in education that may be of interest:
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/64/
Specifically this article makes the case that the desktop PC is dead and that laptops are “on death row”.

There’s a community thread about the use of iPads in schools that practitioners are now contributing to:
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,58/topic,1693.0

There is also a professional networking group on LinkedIn.com for those interested in using mobile technologies for learning:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=137892

If you Twitter there is a channel for Handheld Learning at:
http://twitter.com/hhl

Finally you may be interest in attending this years Handheld Learning Festival & Conference in London this October:
http://www.handheldlearning2010.com
The event is FREE to attend on the first day and delegates registering for the conference receive a FREE iPad.

Thanks to Graham for these links – I’m sure we’re going to see lots more research and papers on this topic in the near future!

POST SCRIPT (added 7.6.10)

Entry from Jakob Nielsen’sAlertbox, May 10, 2010: iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing provides an interesting use case perspective on the iPad in education. The summary reads:

iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems.