Carts of iPads = Carts of Laptops = Déjà vu all over again

Elliot: I think we are getting a reputation for being anti-iPad.
Cathie: Who we?
Elliot: Very funny, ha ha…. Wesley Fryer, in his provocative blog says that “Soloway's voice seems to be consistently anti-iPad in mainstream media articles…”
Cathie: Perhaps we need to be clearer: we have nothing against iPads – heavens knows you blither on every day about standing in line to be the first one in Ann Arbor to get an iPad2!
Elliot (plaintive whine in his voice): I just GOTTA have it!
Cathie: Yes, Yes, but what we use personally isn’t necessarily appropriate for K-12 schools!  We in education must learn from the past: a cart of iPads will do for learning what a cart of laptops did for learning…
Elliot: … pretty much nothing. Yes, the children will enjoy using the iPads – as they did the laptops. In comparison to using pencil-and-paper, of course the kids will be more engaged.
Cathie: But, the cart of iPads because it is a shared resource can only be used as a supplement to an existing curriculum.
Elliot: Stop! That’s a key statement; please unpack it; start with the impact of a "shared resource".
Cathie: How much time can students have to use a device when it is shared resource? 1 hour a week? Kids spend more time brushing their teeth than they do using a computer – laptop or iPad – when it is on a cart.  How much impact can 1 hour of use per week have on student achievement?
Elliot: … and “existing curriculum”?
Cathie: Thank you for giving me so many good lines!
Elliot (crafty smile illuminating his face): My pleasure… but fear not, I have some zingers coming up, too!
Cathie: For that hour or so, while the students are using that shared device in a 1:1 fashion, then the teacher can adopt a more student-centric pedagogy. Why? Because each student finally has in their hands a tool that can support them in engaging in their own learning activities. But, back in the classroom, with pencils and paper and textbooks, without the 1:1 computing devices, creating a student-centric classroom is a great deal more challenging and thus it makes sense that teachers will just continue to use their existing curriculum and pedagogy.
Elliot: Folks, see, we do not hate on the iPads per se – it’s the carts of iPads that schools are buying that is so upsetting to us. Schools spent millions on buying carts of laptops and there is no evidence of increased student achievement attributable to those carts. No surprise – they were used as supplements to the existing curriculum, as Cathie just pointed out.
Cathie: And now schools are buying carts of iPads. Are we in education going to repeat with iPads what we just did with laptops?
Elliot: Sadly, it appears so. In the words of the great Yogi Berra… it’s Déjà vu all over again
Cathie: But why? On the one hand we hear about data-driven decision making…
Elliot (color rising in his face): … and on the other hand, schools can’t order carts of iPads fast enough –without any positive data and oodles of negative data!
Cathie: Careful, Elliot; remember your blood pressure… take a deep breath… this isn’t personal…
Elliot (color STILL rising): I TAKE it personal… it hurts. It’s more than the money. K12 is squandering yet another opportunity and technology is going to take the fall – yet again. I can hear it now: see, technology isn’t useful in education.
Cathie: I hear you. And I hope the folks that call us iPad haters hear you too!
Elliot (pouting): Oh well, 5 more days till I get my lighter-weight, 2-camera, thinner, iPad2.
Cathie (in the tone of a kindergarten teacher): Yes, yes, that will make you feel better – gadget-therapy!
 

Comments

[Heida Reed]

iPad is perhaps not all bad, it works wonders for children learning how to read or computer illiterate people as a “surf the Internet for dummies” type of thing . The iPad is a convenient for college students and people in general that have a lot of online reading they have to get done; however the iPad’s convenience ends at being a glorified Internet browser. The productivity tools available using PC computers to create something from something you have learned, on an iPad is inconvenient at the very least if not impossible. This may just be years of using a PC lap top speaking but I like to read, learn and then put down my own ideas as I go along with my learning. I can see using iPad for leisure reading, playing and again for computer illiterate people and children but beyond that I do not see iPad’s ever becoming a tool for people who use their computers for productivity; and therefore not relevant for use in K – 12 teaching environment.

[Elliot Soloway]

Thank you for your comment, Heida. I am sympathetic to the ambivalence I sense from your comment. There is something amazing about the iPad, for sure. Consuming media is not only easy, but fun, on an iPad - and making reading fun can't be a bad thing. Creating media, on the other hand, is definitely a challenge, we (here I can definitely speak for Cathie) agree! We are not alone in our ambivalence. For example, David Pogue recently observed: "The iPad was superfluous. It filled no obvious need." http://tinyurl.com/4voseu9 But, as Pogue further observes: "Once you get [an iPad2] in your hands, you get caught up in the fascination of manipulating on-screen objects by touching them." But our blog post is more about carts of computing devices than about carts of iPads, per se; carts of any kind of computing device are not the right way for schools to go since a shared resource is not going to have an impact on student achievement. Carts of laptops didn't move the needle; carts of iPads or even iPad2's, similarly, won't move the needle.

[Computer Repair Orange County]

Yahoo laptops and i-pads, O my God.
Just love such kind of electronic stuff.

[electrician liverpool]

apple has started a revolution in the computer market with the invention of iphone it has overtaken the microsoft ,