Education - iPad makes the perfect learning companion. iPads In Education – How’s It Going So Far? A growing number of schools have launched programs to provide iPads to students.
What returns is this investment yielding? There’s no doubt the iPad is a hot topic in education technology today. Just about every week, my preconfigured Google Alerts deliver stories about schools that have decided to provide iPads to their students. With this trend on the rise, the question arises as to how well this investment is paying off at schools that have taken the plunge.
Picture from article about iPad adoption at Naselle High School This week I decided to do a little web research to learn more about this topic. Naselle High School – teachers and students motivated and engagedThe first article I came across was this one, about the rollout of iPads at Naselle High School in Washington state in the US. They put some solid effort into into implementation planning. Higher Education – a more balanced perspective? The article contains a lengthy and informative section discussing “Pluses and Minuses”. iPads Make Better Readers, Writers. Literacy Skills iPads Make Better Readers, Writers In a research paper titled “Unlocking Literacy with iPad,” Ohio English teacher James Harmon found that state-compiled statistics indicate that those students with iPad access in the year leading up to the Ohio Graduation Test had a 6-percent greater chance of passing the test’s reading portion than those without, and an 8-percent greater chance of passing the writing portion.
By Margo Pierce09/06/11 Once upon a time teachers stood in front of a blackboard writing letters of the alphabet with chalk and drilling students to develop literacy skills. But now that children are growing up with laptops, streaming video, and even iPads, what’s a teacher to do? During the 2010-2011 school year Harmon conducted a “teacher-research” study to measure the effect Apple’s iPad had on the language test scores of his students taking the annual Ohio Graduation Test. This convinced Harmon of the appropriateness of the iPad as a teaching tool.
More Schools Embrace the iPad as a Learning Tool. Exploring the impact of Apple's iPad on schools & schooling. – USATODAY.com. HARTFORD, Conn.
(AP) – For incoming freshmen at western Connecticut's suburban Brookfield High School, hefting a backpack weighed down with textbooks is about to give way to tapping out notes and flipping electronic pages on a glossy iPad tablet computer. A few hours away, every student at Burlington High School near Boston will also start the year with new school-issued iPads, each loaded with electronic textbooks and other online resources in place of traditional bulky texts.
While iPads have rocketed to popularity on many college campuses since Apple Inc. introduced the device in spring 2010, many public secondary schools this fall will move away from textbooks in favor of the lightweight tablet computers. Apple officials say they know of more than 600 districts that have launched what are called "one-to-one" programs, in which at least one classroom of students is getting iPads for each student to use throughout the school day. New programs are being announced on a regular basis, too. More High Schools Implement iPad Programs - High School Notes. With most schools back in session, students in about 600 districts nationwide will return with a new piece of tech: their own personal Apple iPad.
Since the iPad launched last year, some schools have replaced textbooks with E-books. Programs in two thirds of the 600 districts are new for this year; others started these "one-to-one" programs, in which schools provide one iPad for each student, soon after Apple released the tablet in April, 2010. [Learn about an Iowa school's one-to-one program.] Thousands of college lectures, videos, and textbooks are already available on Apple's iTunes U store. Recently, major K-12 textbook manufacturers have started releasing their products electronically as well. In a pilot program in four California districts, students who used the Algebra 1 app outperformed students who used traditional textbooks, according to teachers at one of the pilot schools. Tablet computers are more than electronic textbooks. iPads Become Learning Tools for Students With Disabilities. Published Online: October 17, 2011 Published in Print: October 19, 2011, as Appetite for Learning Gadgets & Games When a speech therapist suggested last fall that it was time for 4th grader Sloan Brickey to use a device to help convey her sometimes-garbled words, the first option was a 2-foot-long board that offered a choice of six words at a time.
Sloan, 11, has Down syndrome and already sticks out enough at her elementary school in Powell, Tenn., says her mother, Kelly J. Brickey. So Brickey did some research and found a different solution: a list of applications for the Apple iPad that work well helping children with autism communicate. Sloan’s mother happened upon a tool that has made its way into schools in big numbers 18 months after its debut. For examples of special education applications made for tablet computers, see "Special Ed. The machines offer a sense of independence many children, especially those with disabilities, may never have experienced before. Vol. 05, Issue 01, Page 12.