• New York Times, Wednesday, January 5, 2011 2:22 PM

As further evidence that Apple has broken the tablet market wide open, schools across the country are racing to get iPads into the hands of students. As The New York Times reports: "A growing number of schools across the nation are embracing the iPad as the latest tool to teach Kafka in multimedia, history through 'Jeopardy'-like games and math with step-by-step animation of complex problems." Yet, despite their offsetting the cost of textbooks and writing materials, critics are asking how schools can afford such new-fangled devices.

Some parents and scholars also suggest that schools are rushing to invest in tablets before their educational value has been proven. "There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines," Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, tells The Times. "IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning." Meanwhile, some question whether the increasingly widespread adoption of iPads is good for Apple's long term interests, as their price points are far lower than personal computers and laptops.

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