Ever since the introduction of the iPad a great number of people have been saying that it will change the face of education. The first time I saw that potential in person was with the introduction of Theodore Gray's The Elements ebook for iPad. Suddenly there was a way to literally manipulate the elements of the periodic table and learn all about them in a fun and exciting way.
A few months down the line and we finally start to see something even more exciting. One of the major school textbook companies, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has launched a pilot project to teach Algebra to California high-school students on the iPad. Apparently 400 students will participate in the project, with one group using the app and a control group using a regular textbook.
They even produced a cool little video that both illustrates how this app would work, but personally I find it exciting because it fires up the imagination and you start realising that in a few years time schools will look very different to what we know today. Maybe our kids won't have to "shlep" such heavy bags full of textbooks to and from school anymore. Instead of "Take out your Ancient-Greek history book and turn to chapter 4", they will hear "Take out you pad and turn to location marker 1467". It will make perfect sense to them. Probably will sound like ancient Greek to us.