Since tablets became mainstream in 2010, more and more students have started relying on these nifty gadgets to take their learning experience to the next level.

However, many students still are unaware or unconvinced of the advantages of tablet-based learning. In the following section, we’ll look at why exactly a tablet is a fantastic investment.

Why a tablet?

In short, there are four reasons:

1. The most obvious advantage of a tablet is the level of mobility it offers. As a student, you’ll most probably carry around at least a notepad, your prescribed books and your class notes. And, for many, a calculator, dictionary and diary/calendar are also indispensable. Carrying these items around all day long can quickly become a back-breaking burden – which is why most students simply leave their heavy books at home.

With a tablet, though, you can have all of these resources compacted into the size of an A5 notepad. No more forgetting books or notes at home – everything you need is but a few finger taps away. This is a killer feature in itself.

2. However, the true academic value of a tablet becomes evident when one looks at its potential as an in-class companion. Not only does a tablet keep everything you need at hand, it also allows you to manipulate these resources in useful ways. For example, you can add bookmarks, highlights and notes to your prescribed books and class notes while the lecturer is discussing them. You can also efficiently create rich notes of your own.

You’ll be able to combine typing and drawing on the screen to capture, for example, key points in a class discussion or diagrams and charts drawn by the lecturer. You’ll be able to neatly organise these notes in subject folders for future reference.

The biggest killer feature of a tablet in class, however, is the fact that it allows you to record what is said in class so that you can listen to these recordings while preparing for an exam. While it’s not practical to record every second of every class (because –let’s be honest –you’ll never listen to all of that again), this feature is extremely handy to record important bits of a lecturer’s explanation or a class discussion.

Lastly, a tablet also gives you quick access to handy reference material. Need to quickly look up a word’s definition or do a calculation? A tablet lets you do both at lightning speed, which means that you won’t lose track of the train of thought in class.

3. Tablets don’t only shine inside the classroom. Any student who’s had to scour stacks and stacks of paper notes to review specific content before an exam will testify to how frustrating, tedious and time-wasting this can be.

Having all of your own notes –and the slideshows or hand-outs provided by the lecturer –neatly organised on a single device, where it’s accessible with a few taps of the finger, eliminates the hassles of paper-based exam preparation and gives you more time to actually study.

4. An often-missed advantage of tablet-based learning is the fact that e-book versions of prescribed books and textbooks are usually cheaper than their print counterparts. While many books are not yet available in digital format, the savings on those that are can quickly compound to a substantial amount.

And, of course, using an e-book offers all of the advantages of digital learning, including such timesavers as being able to search for words and phrases, jump to specific pages and chapters, add multi-coloured highlights and make digital annotations.

Next time : Buying a tablet: The choices

[ARTICLE BY JOHANNES JONKER]