Homeschool. Like school, but at home. It’s horrible. At least it is in this house. Three kids all of Junior School age, and two full-time writers trapped here with them. It’s hard work.
We were very, very lucky (and hugely grateful) that a good friend of ours donated their old Macbook for our eldest to do his schoolwork on last year. It’s made a huge difference.
Besides playing Fortnite and fishing (his two main interests) our eldest is also interested in photography and video (mainly YouTube, naturally) so we got him an HD camera for his last birthday. Of course, soon he wanted to edit and mess with his pictures and videos, and it made sense for him to use the Macbook for that.
“Dad, how do I plug my memory card into the Macbook?”
Hmmm….
When he is doing his schoolwork, he does have a tendency to lie on his back, curled into a ball, in the corner of the sofa, with the Macbook balanced on his neck, and the screen tilted at a mad angle a few inches away from his face.
Ideally, he wouldn’t do that. Ideally, he’d be sitting up at the hall table, or even better at the desk in his room. Ideally, he’d have a proper keyboard AND some kind of hub so that he could connect all his devices and memory cards to the Macbook more easily.
The Kolude KD-K2 is a keyboard and all-in-one hub designed for use with Apple devices (although it *is* supposed to be also Windows compatible, I couldn’t get it to work with my PC).
The polished aluminium keyboard is available in three colours: black, grey, and silver (I got black). The keys are circular and use scissor-switches, which means they’re as quiet and responsive as a good Macbook or laptop keyboard, but with better and more comfortable spacing. The keys are backlit in white, and the brightness can be easily adjusted.
All in all, it’s a nice-looking, responsive, easy to use keyboard for sitting up at a desk / table and typing on, as opposed to lying on your back while noisily cascading half-chewed crisps out of your face.
All that is before we get into the hub side of things.
The idea is that the Kolude KD-K2 isn’t just a dock or a way of connecting your peripherals, it’s also a charging station. As well as changing devices, reading memory sticks and cards, the hub also provides an HDMI interface to output your TV or HDMI monitor.
If you have a Macbook or an iPad (with a decent stand) then the Kolude KD-K2 is a great way to turn those mobile devices into something a bit more stable, fully functional, and home-officey in these stay-at-home times. The keyboard has all the Apple shortcuts and media keys you’re already used to. If you or anyone in your household are trying to use those Apple devices for home-schooling, then the Kolude KD-K2 could make a real difference in terms of getting people sat up to do “proper” work, as opposed to laying around.
The Kolude KD-K2 Keyboard Hub is available to pre-order now for $119 (US)