Education, Tablet Computer | featured news

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is set to unveil a tablet computer for public schools on Monday at the SXSWedu education technology conference in Austin, Texas, Bloomberg reports. The $299, 10-inch tablet is the brainchild of Amplify, News Corp.'s education division, which is fronted by former New York City schools chancellor (and current News Corp. executive vice president) Joel Klein. A 2-year subscription will cost $99 per year. A 4G model will also be available for $349, for students without Wi-Fi at home, at an annual cost of $179. The device will come loaded with curriculum materials and apps, including a graphing calculator, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Some content will be provided by other News Corp. units such as HarperCollins.

As the mother of an autistic son, Marlena Odon says she used to worry about sending Kharon off to school into the hands of others who might not be able to interpret what he was trying to say. But now, thanks to the integration of the iPad into Kharon's New York public school, Odon says he is able to communicate his wants and needs -- and his excitement over this is unmistakable.

Apple on Thursday lifted the veil on its plans to remake the educational landscape in a way that centers on its best-selling tablet computer, the iPad. "Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, said in a statement.

More and more schools are seeing the benefits of equipping their students with tablet computers.

Spending money on tablet computers may seem an extravagance, but some educators say they are more than just a cool new toy.

It looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.