I have sadly been witnessing my local school investing heavily in iPads and arguing against it. I think iPads are not only not terribly useful for education, but I think for certain kinds of education they actively inhibit it. Especially the most relevant skills of the future - complex manipulation of knowledge and information (software programming being one but just one example). It is no coincidence: the very thing people like about iPads is that they are explicitly designed to reduce cognitive load by simplifying the entire interface. That reduced load is great when you are kicking back on the couch, but it's essential when you are trying to accomplish something complicated. It doesn't help that they are wasting huge amounts of money (if you are going to buy a tablet for children to stab their fingers at and play games on, at least get a cheap one for half the price of an iPad).