Saturday, September 28, 2013

Discussion - iPads

I just read the 2 articles on iPads that Dr. Loertscher sent this morning.  I'm going to give my two cents but curious what is going on in your areas of the country.

In Maine we have been going 1:1 for sometime now.  Laptops were the original device and were given to 7th - 8th graders to use.  With iPads coming into play many districts have switched to ipads and have spread the usage to 6th grade and up in many cases.  In my daughter's district all freshman and sophomores were given iPads last year.  They were told they would be able to keep them all through high school and then own them (of course a 4 yr old iPad would be pretty obsolete by that point.)  This year they changed the policy and told the kids they needed to get the new iPads instead and wouldn't be able to keep them.  After parent complaints they had to change the policy again and told the students they could buy the one they used last year.  As a parent we have talked to sveral different people in the district and get different stories.  What I have found in that district (where I used to work) is that they are so worried about appearing to be "cutting edge" that they haven't really thought things through.  Then they have had to change policies and the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing.  As a side note...my daughter uses the iPad more for entertainment than for actual school work.

The district I currently work in tries really hard to keep up with my daughter's district.  Follow the leader is a popular game in our technology department - with the same results.  Let's buy a bunch of iPads and give them to teachers and students.  No training.  Of course the students are going to use it for entertainment.

My husband is a network admin in yet another district.  They (he) has taken a more cautious approach and has really tried to think through the policies.  They have given students iPads this year.  His biggest gripe...the amount of youtube use - educational?  Probably not.

I did my research paper for LIBR 285 on iPads because of what I have personally seen.  I think they have the potential to be powerful tools.  But, teachers and students need to know what to do with them.  I don't feel we can restrict students to death...we need to just show them how we would like them used in a classroom setting.

No comments:

Post a Comment