Yesterday I used my iPad for a wedding. More than likely, I’m never going back to paper again. My next test will be to use it to teach from, which I’ll try out over the next few months.

I’ve always been the type to fully write out my talks and speak from that. So when I used my iPad yesterday, I had to modify my document for reading purposes. The 9 point font was just a little too hard to see, so I jumped it up to 17 points. Perfect.

I was also a little curious as to how I was going to access my file. After playing around with it for a few minutes, put copies of the document in both word and pdf formats in dropbox. I was able to open the word doc in pages and transfer the pdf into iBooks. In the end, I liked having it in iBooks. What I loved most about the iPad as a place to display my notes was that it was smaller, more compact and freed up my hands a little more. At several weddings, I’ve been given a microphone to hold and balancing my notes with a microphone on a windy day is not fun. Holding a microphone still isn’t ideal, but with the iPad, I can hold it with one hand and turn the page with one finger touch.

I haven’t played with it yet, but I need to change the setting so the iPad to not go to sleep and the screen go to black. This way I can use it more effectively for notes when I speak, which I’ll test out this summer at camp… maybe even a few times before then.

The only thing I felt I needed to be cautious of was making sure I had a paper backup. I couldn’t imagine having any problems, but I did print out a copy of the ceremony. I left it in the car, but I think that next time I’ll keep it in my coat pocket. If my iPad had failed, it would have been awkward to say, “hold, on a sec… let me go grab my notes from my car.” Secondly, I’ll need to test the screen backlight settings. I did a wedding not too long ago where they had a low light setting. It would have probably looked weird for me to have a bright screen illuminating my face during the ceremony.

When doing a quick web search, I found they do make super cool podiums for the iPad. How great is that?