Q: I-Pad Charging issues

A co-worker gave me his ipad that his comapany gave him. It didn't come with a charger. I was using an iphone cable and charging plug and it would only charge if it was turned off. I called up radioshack and they said that yes the ipad I have takes the ame CHORD as the iphone, but a different plug. So off to radioshack to get the right plug. However when I turn the ipad on when it's connected to the power source it doesn't charge, it STILL only charges when the ipad is turned off. Is this normal? How do I get it to charge while it's on? I really don't want to sit around all night waiting for it to get fully charged to set it up the way I want to.

Also I know this next part is unrelated, but I plugged it into my macbook and it doesn't show it as a device for me to swap my photos/videos/music to it....there are no slots in the ipad for me to toss my sd card into to transfer files onto it...so how do I even get my pictures/videos/music onto it? So that's my issues, not being able to charge it while it's turned on and not knowing how to put my files onto it.