If you are using a Mac computer in the classroom you should have no problems.
It is possible to use the iPad for most of the course activities. The forums, discussion questions, and quizzes, can all be done on Safari, Firefox, or Chrome for iPad. You should be able to stream any on-demand audio/video, and download and read pdfs. However, any audio and video files enclosed in a ZIP file, may need to be downloaded to a computer, un-zipped, and then synced to your iPad.
Modern browsers on the iPad should allow you to type in the discussion forums without a problem.
More information on ZIP files.