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nhibbard
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« : February 27, 2013, 06:51:02 PM » |
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This may seem out of place for me because I love technology, but I don't get the 1:1 iPad programs. I understand the apps that are fun and teach kids through games, my own kids loves to watch Dora on ours. However, I never had that kind of access to technology in school and neither did most of my college friends. We have degrees in Finance, Business and Networking among any other degree you can get from Champlain College. I had access a few times a week to learn to type, occasionally play games, study halls if they were free and other classes when necessary. I'm fine with a labs worth of iPads/Macs/PCs in each school where kids can get the experience, but I don't see the use when it will be obsolete in a few years when the operating system is no longer updated. For those who don't know about that part, Apple likes to phase out is support for older generations of their devices in 2-3 years so that you'll have to buy new ones. That doesn't mean it won't work, it just means there won't be software updates and/or new programs can't work on them. The shelf life on a Windows computer is far greater at 5-8 years with proper maintenance. I know this because I support over 60 computers at work and have for the last 8 years. The more you have the more the cost, this type of program won't generally get cheaper because it will always require more resources. If you kept it to small labs, you could curtail some of that cost while maintaining the exposure.
I'm not saying I don't believe in the benefits, I'm saying I don't believe in the scale. I'm saying I'd like to know exactly how these are going to be used and how they are of greater benefit in reality than traditional learning. You can't type as fast on an iPad so it isn't useful for teaching that. You can't program on an iPad so that's out. They don't run Flash so that excludes a chunk of the internet. What's the long term plan when the updates aren't there? Just my point of view and questions, if there are answers to these, I'm happy to read up on them. But since the first iPads didn't release until 2010, I can guarantee you there is no data to support any long term theory that iPads will lead to any greater success at lower or higher grades.
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