Like all of us in the educational industry, finding common ground with technology seems like a fantastic notion. Did you realize there are nearly 100 serious tablets on the market? Talk about too many choices. Research shows when faced with so many choices, we decide NOT to decide. We certainly can’t let this happen so lets me make it easy.

The uphill financial battle faced by most administrators does not help anyone but frankly, it will help you narrow the field. Some of the tablets are just way over priced. Others may simply have too many bells and whistles not needed for classroom and library use. Flash capability is also a factor. Lets face it, no matter what you hear about HTML5 capabilities, Adobe Flash is still engrained in videos, websites, interactive e-books and learning exercises everywhere. Let me assure you as a publisher, we are working diligently to produce learning materials that can be used on nearly every device and platform, its simply a major task with limited resources—but we are making progress. So if you are planning to make any tablet purchases in 2012, this will need to be considered. Once the plethora of learning materials have been converted to non-Flash content, your tablet will still be relevant so don’t sweat it.

Now this should have you down to a nice selection where you can start making decisions based on screen size, battery life and of course, warranty. Well, we may be able to help here too. Since we develop technological learning materials used in classrooms worldwide, we have had to test our programs on relevant hardware and, that includes tablets. While running our interactive web served and installable learning materials we have found several that work great including the Android Asus Eee Pad ($400.00) and the new Android based Kindle Fire ($200.00). Both tested Rourke’s products without a hick-up. So depending on your budget, give these two a good look.

Let me also say that those last couple sentences were not easy since I am a lifelong Apple user. Ive owned or used nearly every version of Apple computer and LOVE my ipad. But no matter how fast it is or how cool it looks, the dollars and cents just don’t add up for most educational institutions.

For more information or help with your selection contact us at:   it@rourkepublishing.com

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