Posts Tagged ‘laptops’

Are High-Tech Classrooms Just a Lot of Hype?

February 4, 2012

There is a current obsession with technology in the classroom. Even so, I would have thought that it was only sensible to bring as much technology as possible into the classroom. After all, we are trying to help children develop life skills. In today’s world technology is all around us. It is integral that our students have a familiarity if not competency with the latest in technology.

Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times disagrees:
Something sounded familiar last week when I heard U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski make a huge pitch for infusing digital technology into America’s classrooms.

Every schoolchild should have a laptop, they said. Because in the near future, textbooks will be a thing of the past.

Where had I heard that before? So I did a bit of research, and found it. The quote I recalled was, “Books will soon be obsolete in the schools…. Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years.”

the nirvana sketched out by Duncan and Genachowski at last week’s Digital Learning Day town hall was erected upon a sizable foundation of commercially processed claptrap. Not only did Genachowski in his prepared remarks give a special shout out to Apple and the iPad, but the event’s roster of co-sponsors included Google, Comcast, AT&T, Inteland other companies hoping to see their investments in Internet or educational technologies pay off.

How much genuine value is there in fancy educational electronics? Listen to what the experts say.

“The media you use make no difference at all to learning,” says Richard E. Clark, director of the Center for Cognitive Technology at USC. “Not one dang bit. And the evidence has been around for more than 50 years.”

Almost every generation has been subjected in its formative years to some “groundbreaking” pedagogical technology. In the ’60s and ’70s, “instructional TV was going to revolutionize everything,” recalls Thomas C. Reeves, an instructional technology expert at the University of Georgia. “But the notion that a good teacher would be just as effective on videotape is not the case.”

Many would-be educational innovators treat technology as an end-all and be-all, making no effort to figure out how to integrate it into the classroom. “Computers, in and of themselves, do very little to aid learning,” Gavriel Salomon of the University of Haifa and David Perkins of Harvard observed in 1996. Placing them in the classroom “does not automatically inspire teachers to rethink their teaching or students to adopt new modes of learning.”

I am a bit in the middle on this issue. I am in favour of all types of technology in the classroom, just not as a replacement for standard teaching. Those schools that are dominated by devises, lose out from the benefits of teacher/student interaction. But that is not to say that i-Pads in the classroom wont make any difference. It just means that those i-Pads are not more important to education than a quality teacher.

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The Argument Against the Apple iPad for Education Scheme

January 20, 2012

I completely disagree with James Kendrick’s reasoning for his stance on the iPad for Education scheme. He is of the belief that the program may unravel due to the kids’ rough treatment of the equipment.

Apple wants to make a difference in areas that matter, and education certainly qualifies. Today’s announcement of a new textbook publishing scheme, that provides rich textbook content for grade schoolers using iPads, is a good step toward bringing the education system into the digital age. There is one thing that may get in the way of the Apple goal: kids.

As part of my interest in covering mobile technology, I made friends with several administrators handling these programs at the schools, which included both middle schools and high schools. Listening to the people behind the laptops in grade schools was certainly eye-opening, and lead me to wonder how feasible Apple’s iPads in schools initiative can really be.

What these program administrators discovered was how destructive school kids can be on a regular basis. The stories they told about how thoroughly destroyed many of these laptops were over the course of a school year, in what would be considered top schools, were mind-boggling. Several years of data found that few, if any, laptops survived the entire school year without extensive physical damage through poor handling by the kids. It was so bad that after the first couple of years the budget had to be changed to reflect the inability to use a single laptop in more than one school year.

The fact that the laptops were damaged in “top schools” doesn’t surprise. Students in top schools often take for granted the value of equipment. They assume that broken items are quickly replaceable with little hassle involved. It is my belief that children from poorer families actually take better care of equipment.

And this leads to my second point. One of the major benefits of iPads in the classroom is the expense of text books will be markedly reduced. Whilst the tablets will be quite costly, so too are conventional text books. This program allows schools to offer students from poorer families access to the best online textbooks at a much cheaper rate.

Sure, there will be damage to some i-Pads. That’s to be expected. But it isn’t reason to desist from embracing this program. Children are not unnecessarily destructive. If they are made to realise the expense and significance of what the school is offering they are most likely going to ensure that they look after the equipment.

If you trust kids to do the right thing they will not let you down.

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