A couple weeks ago my small one bedroom condo became ground zero for my team of editors working on a project we submitted to the annual 48 Hour Film Festival. This is a great competition that gives filmmakers 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a seven minute film. We were under the gun to get the project done on time, but some of my teammates had families with kids that they invited over to my place while we were working through the final edits.
My place isn't very big and needless to say we were a little cramped for work space. With a packed house, lunch was delivered by our executive producer and her 3 children. Don’t get me wrong, I love kids and hers are great, always well behaved, but I could tell they were getting a little restless after around 10 minutes or so.
Being the great host I try to be, I wanted to find something to keep them entertained. As I was scrambling to find something, anything for the kids to do, I had a flashback to the night before when a producer kept going on about things he needed us to do while we were trying to focus on editing. I handed him my iPad, and coached him how to play some games and get online. He was content, quiet and kept to himself in the corner. I wondered, if it works on a grown man, could it work on children?
I broke out my iPad and the kids’ faces immediately lit up. "Oh Cool! You have Assassin's Creed!" one shouted out. Another editor handed his iPad over "Angry Birds!" the second kid gushed. What to do with the last child? I wasn't sure. It was at that point I wished I’d had a third for the young ladyt that was left out, but she waited patiently for her turn as her brothers played games. So I showed her how to use Apple TV while she waited for her turn. The mom looked at me in disbelief; I had actually found a way to silence her children. Does this mean that I am destined one day to be parent of the year? Let’s not go that far, but I was feeling pretty good about myself!
As they left, I heard a chorus of "Thanks, Louis!" To that, I say thank you, iPad.
The great thing that this story tells us is that the iPad is universally known by both children and adults, and is so simple to use that a toddler can find their way around this incredible piece of technology without breaking a sweat.
The iPad has over 90,000 Applications (Apps) that span from the office to education to the latest in video games. It’s a communication tool, as well as a way to access the internet, and take photos and video. It’s the Swiss pocket knife of technology.
Here are a couple notables for family life. There are apps that can work with office files. PDFs, Word, Excel and others can be read offline through different apps. They can also be viewed through Safari which is standard Mac Internet Browser. For road trips with the kids, the iPad can hold movies which can be downloaded from iTunes and enjoyed between the kids with a headphone splitter. Movies can be upwards of 1 or 2 gigabytes easily so this is where the difference between the 16 and 32 gigabyte storage on iPads takes place.
For the musician in the family, there are apps with guitar/bass tuners, amplifier effects and even a whole drum kit. iMovie for iPad allows you to do editing and uploading on the go.
For the reader, there is iBooks. No more searching around for to find the right book to read to the kids before bed. Just bring it up the app. And the iBooks app is free.
Along with education apps that involve English, science, math and history... There are coloring books! Yes there are apps for coloring books. Learn more about the educational apps at this link.
Is it worth the investment? I've found it to be and I think your family will as well.
Share with us some unique ways that iPad has changed your families lives. Tells us about ways that you think the iPad has helped your family, and how your kids use it.
Pick up an iPad 2 in black here.
Pick up an iPad 2 in white here.
*Image from CNN
5 reasons why the iPad was made to keep parents sane
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