Why the iPad Should be used in Classrooms

Posted on May 22, 2011 by mkaufman

As I’ve written in previous posts, the iPad is having tremendous success being used in school classrooms – from kindergarten classes to university classrooms. The iPad has spawned what I’ve called the ‘tablet wars’ with a wave of tablets introduced at CES in January is just the tip of the iceberg.

Lower price points will make tablets even more appealing to schools over time. For close to a year, Apple went virtually unchallenged in the tablet market. Increased competition should drive down prices. With dozens to hundreds of offerings, many based on Google’s open source Android OS, we can expect to see prices falling quickly just as they have for laptops, smartphones and HDTV sets. If you look at the right time you can even find Apple’s original iPad for as little as $349 (if you get the timing right and don’t mind a refurbished model).

It’s worth noting that the iPad has surpassed even the most optimistic of projections to define a brand new product category and become the best-selling gadget of all time, and Forrester analysts project that in 2011, tablet sales will more than double.

How close are we today to tablets displacing computers on campuses? As I’ve mentioned I don’t believe the tablet should replace computers for certain things – but there is certainly a place for the tablet in every student’s learning experience. Tablets are definitely ready for the classroom. In his Mashable article of May 16, 2011, Vineet Madan makes an argument for colleges and universities to consider as he lays out 6 reasons why he believes the tablet is ready for the classroom.

In that article, he cites positive reports from recent iPad pilot programs at schools across the country and notes that some colleges have even begun distributing tablets to all of their students.

Here are the top reasons Vaneet says the tablet is ready for the college classroom (and I would argue that these reasons are applicable to younger age classrooms as well).

1. Tablets Are the Best Way to Show Textbooks

ipad edu image

Tablets are capable of offering enhanced ebooks featuring images, video and audio. These elements are impossible to include in print or in a standard ebook. Read about music? No thanks, I’ll follow my auto-advancing sheet music as the audio plays. See a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. as I read his “I Have a Dream” speech? I guess that’s fine, but with one tap of my finger, I’m watching it. The result is a more integrated learning experience, which is more engaging for students. This isn’t the future — this is today.

By allowing students to highlight text, take notes in the margin and access a dictionary directly within the book itself, tablets are matching (and in some cases, surpassing) everything that a traditional book — print or digital — can offer.

2. Classrooms Are Ready for Tablets

Though tablets are a recent phenomenon, many students in high school and college have been using smartphones for years, and are already well-acquainted with touchscreen technology. Because they’ve become so accustomed to using these devices, students are increasingly expecting to use them in the classroom setting. When classrooms don’t implement what has now become “everyday” technology, we’re doing students a disservice.

Additionally, students — and consumers in general — are becoming more comfortable using tablets for advanced tasks. According to a new Nielsen survey, 35% of tablet owners said they used their desktop computers less often or not at all now, and 32% of laptop users said the same. Most tellingly, more than 75% of tablet owners said they used their tablet for tasks they once used their desktop or laptop for. While tablets can’t totally match laptops in terms of functionally (yet), they can get today’s students most of the way there.

3. Tablets Fit Students’ Lifestyles

The appeal of tablets to a college student is obvious: They’re thin, lightweight, and spring to life without delay, making them much easier to take to (and use in) class than a laptop or netbook. Longer battery life means that students don’t have to worry about carrying a charger with them. Forgot what the professor said at the end of class about the mid-term? Launch Tegrity, tap the lecture and replay it in just seconds. That’s faster than texting a half-dozen classmates and waiting for what might be an inaccurate response.

4. Tablets Have the Software to Be Competitive

Some of the most innovative software around is being developed specifically for tablets. In addition to the thousands of exciting educational apps available, tablets are fully compatible with online teaching and learning platforms, such as Blackboard, which are becoming the norm at colleges and universities. In fact, tablets’ current shortcoming — limited multitasking — could be their greatest asset in education, as it forces students to focus on one task at a time.

5. Tablets Integrate With Education IT Trends

Cloud-based solutions have become ever more popular with colleges and universities, which are looking to deliver synchronized experiences that are device agnostic. Tablets align well with this trend, given their portability and options for constant connectivity. With tablets and cloud-based systems, students can work anywhere on campus and make sure that their work is saved in a central location and accessible from all of their devices. They also don’t have to pay for computing power that they no longer need.

6. Tablets Are Becoming More Available

One of the primary reasons that tablets have been slow to penetrate the higher education market was their limited availability. Apple’s supply chain issues and the difficulty that some Android tablet manufacturers have faced in getting their products to market have made it difficult for schools to get serious about adopting. As these issues are resolved over the coming year, expect to see more and more tablets popping up on campuses.

This post taken from an article by Vineet Madan, Vice President of McGraw-Hill Higher Education eLabs. His post is entitled, 6 Reasons Tablets Are Ready for the Classroom and was published on Mashable, May 16, 2011. He wrote the article on a tablet with a touchscreen keyboard.

Do iPads in School Change Behavior?

Posted on February 22, 2011 by mkaufman

I was just reading an article about some studies being conducted at Wharton Business School to see if the iPad changes behavior in the learning environment. I imagine the study will find that it does – but we’ll wait until the research is reported.

Combine that research with a recently published study by Reed College that concludes the iPad can meet the demands of a higher ed curriculum, and it’s likely we will see more iPads showing up on college campuses in the near future.

From the Reed College report:

After extensive student interviews throughout the Fall 2010 semester, “The bottom line feeling was that the Amazon Kindle DX was not adequate for use in a higher education curricular setting,” Chief Technology Officer Martin Ringle tells Fast Company. “The bottom line for the iPad was exactly the opposite.”

The most impressive iPad feature was also the simplest: a smooth scrolling touchscreen. “The quick response time of the touch screen was highly praised and seemed to be extremely beneficial in class discussions because it allowed students to navigate rapidly between texts to reach specific passages,” notes the report.

Add the smooth scrolling touch screen to the growing list of positives for the iPad (the battery life, the apps, the size and weight, etc.).

Several business schools have been testing iPads for use with students – and now Wharton is also going to be adding a small iPad test for their EMBA program.

On the business school front, IMD (The International Institute for Management Development) broke ground by giving all 400 participants in its Orchestrating Winning Performance executive programme (spelling intentional as this ‘program’ is based in Europe) iPads back in April 2010 just after the iPad was released. The intent for using iPads in the Orchestrating Winning Performance program was to run a completely paperless program. No text books, no handouts, no printed reports or case studies.

Many other programs are initially attracted to the iPad for its form factor and for the ability to reduce the need to carry around heavy text books. But now, these same programs are looking beyond just delivering course materials to see how the iPad might influence the learning environment in other ways – like team based learning, the culture, communications, etc.

At Iese Business School in Barcelona, which is running an iPad pilot with 60 EMBA participants from April, assistant professor Evgeny Kaganer says the device will enable participants to remain in touch when they are back at work between modules. “For the full-time MBA students this is less important because they are on campus and they see each other all the time.” Prof Kaganer points out that the pilot has to be more than just a means of distributing course texts.

“We want to run a research study, observing how people interact. How does this [tablet device] affect team-based learning, social culture, collaboration. The critical thing is that it should go beyond delivering course materials.”

At Wharton, as in some of these other programs, administrators want to see if the use of the iPad is really the next stage in the evolution of teaching.

On the other end of the spectrum we can see a marked impact on behavior when using the iPad with autistic and other learning disabled youth. The article referenced below tells an amazingly touching story about a young boy that has ended up using the iPad for vocalizing his thoughts during class – as the particular type of autism he has was impacting his vocal chords. Until using the iPad to articulate what he was learning and what he knew, no one in his environment had any idea what he was picking up and what he wasn’t.

Imagine the joy of being able to express one’s self and being able to be in mainstream learning environments – all enabled by the iPad.

On a less than optimistic note, it’s also important that we not forget there are still many things that can be done to improve the iPad in a learning environment. There are weaknesses that have been discovered/experienced in using the iPad in business schools. From another article it says:

The virtual keyboard is a pain for composing anything beyond short notes. The nonexistent file system makes finding important documents difficult and sharing across applications nearly impossible. Finally, managing a large number of readings in PDF format becomes a major time-suck. Syncing PDFs via iTunes was found to be “needlessly complicated,” emailing marked-up versions back to oneself was “prohibitively time-consuming,” and even the cloud-based storage, Dropbox, “failed to work seamlessly with PDF reading/annotating applications.”

Sources:

Reed College Report

Business Schools testing iPads

iPads used for Autism

Schools in Australia Going iPad

Posted on October 9, 2010 by mkaufman

It looks like school boards and departments of education in Australia are going for the iPad. In this article in the Delimiter, it says there are many schools testing out the iPad – some with formal policies and some on a trial basis.

Western Australia’s Department of Education and Training revealed this week that some schools in the state were displaying an increased interest in iPads and tablet devices, purchasing the handheld computers independently to trial in various education programs.

“The department does not have a policy on the use of iPads or Android-based technology at this stage, however some schools have bought tablet devices to trial in various settings,” said departmental chief information officer Bevan Doyle. “There appears to be a level of interest in this technology for educational use.”

The Queensland Government confirmed that a dozen “small” schools are involved in a trial where “handheld” computers – and other devices such as computers, data loggers, MP3 recorders and USB microscopes — are used as education tools to compliment and enhance science classes.

The Tasmanian Department of Education’s official stance on iPads or similar devices is that not enough time time has passed to give the technology serious consideration. “As the technology of iPads is so new, the Department of Education has not yet had a chance to consider their potential use in the department or in schools,” said a departmental spokesperson.

Since the school year in Australia is different from the US I imagine they will have some experience to speak of before many of the US schools. We’ll keep an eye out to see what they report.

Schools Using iPads Before Business

Posted on October 8, 2010 by mkaufman

I just came across a great resource documenting some significant school investments in iPads. The author makes a bold claim that since there is this much investment to buy iPads for school use it is likely schools will be using them ahead of businesses.

I don’t think this is a fad. Schools cite numerous reasons for investing in iPads including:

Instant and personalized access to information
Creating more interest
Making users more productive
Freeing users from wires (and letting them move around)
Saving money
Keeping users up to date with current technology

Here’s the top 13 schools and their investments from the list I found (see a link to his google doc below for more than 50 examples of schools making investments in iPads):

1) Florida State College at Jacksonville has deployed 350 iPads to executives, administrators, faculty, IT staff and students. “It’s the first phase of a project calling for a thousand iPads to be delivered throughout the college by the end of the year, including at libraries and labs where students can ‘check’ them out,” wrote Tom Kaneshige in CIO magazine.

2) As many as 736 students in the Chicago Public Schools will test iPads this year in 23 schools. One school, Burley Elementary, will use them to provide individual instruction and encourage critical thinking through multimedia apps and collaborative tools.

3) The California Department of Education, in conjunction with textbook vendor Houghton-Mifflin, are testing iPads with 400 eight-graders in four school districts (San Francisco, Long Beach, Riverside and Fresno).

4) Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop High School is investing 7,748 for 320 of the 16 GB Wi-Fi iPads with extended two-year warranties plus wireless infrastructure for the public high school near Mankato, Minnesota.

5) The University of Adelaide in Australia plans, starting next year, to give free iPads to “hundreds” of first-year science students. Lecture notes, audio, background docs and textbooks will be delivered through “tailored web-based apps” for iPads as well as regular notebook PCs.

6) In rural northern California, Avery Middle School is using 170 iPads with 6th-8th graders to help “displace expensive textbooks, promote active engaging and learning…and greater flexibility in accessing course materials, even in rural areas,” according to a news release.

7) Marymount School has given 150 iPads to its students and teachers. The private all-girls school in Manhattan hopes to have enough for all 550 students by early next year.

8) Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland has rolled out iPads to its 115 students, a project being documented as The iPad Project by teacher and blogger, Fraser Speirs.

9) Stanford University is trialing iPads with 91 first-year medical school students.

10) Alexander Dawson School, a private K-12 school near Boulder, Colorado, is leasing-to-own 90 iPads for 3 years for $36,000 total (normal retail price: about $45,000). The iPads are preloaded with about 30 textbooks for the 5th and 6th grade students using them.

11) Morristown-Beard, a private middle and high school in New Jersey, hasissued iPads to 60 students. If the trial is successful in encouraging teacher-student interaction (compared to the laptops used today), it will give iPads to all 500+ students next year.

12) Pikes Peak Prep in Colorado Springs, Colorado has bought 50 iPads for students to use in math, science, language arts and social studies. Students will send screen shots of work rather than turn in papers and also perform virtual frog dissections using the iPads, according to the principal.

13) Notre Dame University is testing iPads with 40 business students, according to a Forbes magazine article by Elizabeth Woyke.

Google Doc with more than 50 examples of buying iPads for school.

iPad on College Campuses?

Posted on October 8, 2010 by mkaufman

Well, it looks like this year the iPad isn’t the overwhelming winner on college campuses. Maybe surprising (or maybe not) is the fact that the iPod is the device showing up on college campuses. Sure there are some iPads in use as well – particularly in certain classes – but students themselves seem to be bringing and using iPods more this year.

What’s interesting about the reasoning given by professors is that the iPad makes them rethink their lectures. In my opinion, that’s a great thing and one of the reasons I created this blog. I want to see how the iPad impacts schools and schooling – and the teaching and learning process.

Professor Satti Khanna at Duke teaches Advanced Hindi; he told FoxNews.com that the “very exploring of iPad use in the classroom makes a teacher rethink the goals of his or her class. The iPad makes me break away from text-dominated lectures to more media-sensitive teaching.”

In the case of the Stanford University School of Medicine, they are experimenting with first year medical students by giving them iPads. But they are having challenges finding the right mix of ‘input’ and ‘production’ (my words). As I’ve mentioned the iPad is a great device for consuming but has some weaknesses in producing content.

The Stanford web site says,

The School of Medicine in August undertook a trial program for iPad use by distributing the device to 91 first-year medical and master’s of medicine students. Charles Prober, senior associate dean for medical education, noted growing challenges from the rapid flow of information, which the iPad’s mobility and graphics might manage better.

From another article about Stanford it talks about the challenges,

Stanford University School of Medicine’s aim to digitize its curriculum “as a way to lighten the load of textbook-toting students, and to learn how best to teach an extremely tech-savvy generation of students who’ve grown up in a wired world,” according to the school’s website, means the entire incoming class is equipped with 32GB Wi-Fi iPads. The challenging process has been somewhat hit or miss.

“It definitely facilitates studying and recall because you don’t get bogged down by all the paper,” noted first year medical student Ryan Flynn. But it’s still a work in progress. “The iPad isn’t the best input device. Some people have gone back to paper and pencil.”

In another case, the University of Leeds in the UK has students swapping out text books for iPods. I haven’t tried reading a complete book on my phone but I don’t think that’s the right way to go – so this experiment might just lead the way for the larger screen tablet in coming semesters.

The UK’s University of Leeds is issuing smartphones to all fourth and fifth year medical students. This will be the first time that a UK medical school has provided undergraduates with all the tools they need to study off-campus via mobile phone technology.

So, the verdict is out on whether the iPad specifically will be a winner on college campuses but my prediction is that we’ll see continued use and experimentation – and as new models of the iPad come out with cameras and the ability to both record video and video conference more and more college campuses will use them.

Sources:
iPads on College Campuses? Maybe Next Year
How the iPad is Changing Med School
Stanford News Briefs
Student Doctors Swap Textbooks for IPhones