I also worry that iPads might transform the classroom from a social environment into an educational subway car, each student fixated on his or her personalized educational gadget.
(Please note that Leap Motion has nothing to do with Leap Pad, the children's toy. That gadget is educational in a completely different way).
The market for "educational learning-aids", as such gadgets are grandly called, is still just 2% of the overall toy industry; and, thanks to VTech and its Asian competitors, margins are less than half those elsewhere in the business.
But it's also true that smart phones, iPads and other gadgets are powerful educational tools, both at home and in the classroom.
The success of Guitar Hero has inspired other musical gadgets, including some that are meant to be educational.
For her birthday a few years ago, Ann Kirschner, an educational consultant and long-distance runner in New York, was given an exercise gadget that was supposed to help her prepare for a coming marathon.
WHENEVER school boards start swooning over the potential of new educational technology, skeptics often make a deflating point: In a few years, they warn, some gadget will come along that will make this one seem dated.
Today the gadget sits ignored in the family's giveaway bin, while the company that makes it, Educational Insights, is bleeding cash.
The educational possibilities for teaching kids using today's technology and mobile devices are expansive, with online services, apps and connected gadgets easily capable of transforming into distance learning tools, communications and research centers, musical instruments, art boards and more.
