More Schools Embracing iPads

This week featured the launch of the much-ballyhooed Motorola Xoom, the tablet PC which industry analysts claim poses the biggest competition to the Apple iPad. However, I was struck by a front page story in Monday's Providence Journal, "Electronic Tablets Break Down Barriers in RI Schools." The piece highlighted recent efforts in some Rhode Island charter schools and districts to integrate this technology into the curriculum.

The story highlighted iPad use at the Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, a brand new charter school in south Providence for students in grades 7-12. Over the Christmas break the school purchased the tablets for all 34 of its students and its six teachers. (The school has such a small enrollment due to the fact that it is only in its first year of existence.) The seventh grade students there use the iPads in all content areas- from doing research and essay writing for their ELA class to blogging about the political upheaval in Egypt in social studies. As a major tenet of the school is parental engagement, the school wisely established an online portal that allows parents to review their child's math homework assignments nightly. As standard protocol, students upload their work through the use of the iPad, adding to their sense of responsibility.

Critics such as Stanford University's Larry Cuban state that tablet PCs are just the latest technological fad and there is no solid research yet that shows the benefits on improving student learning. He further states that districts should be investing resources into more human capital, i.e., providing more funds to recruit, hire, and train more teachers, particularly in these economically challenged times.

I don't necessarily agree with that notion for several reasons. First, schools cannot be oblivious to emerging technologies. We need to train our students for the 21st century workplace, one where these technologies are omnipresent. (In fact, you could easily make the case that our kids already have these technologies in their homes!) The real challenge is integrating this technology into the curriculum so that it is not just a "flashy fad" that grabs students' attention, but is a meaningful tool that enables the use of higher order thinking. As I said in an earlier post, the use of a technology like the iPad is only as good as the skill of the teacher who is facilitating its use.

The teachers at Trinity Academy are also using the iPads as e-readers, citing the cost-effectiveness of using it instead of purchasing paperback novels. In fact, many of the books (such as the complete works of William Shakespeare) are in the public domain for free, which could be an opportunity for considerable savings. Also, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported, two of the nation's largest textbook publishers are dramatically expanding their textbook offerings for the iPad. This surely is a sign that the tablet is becoming more mainstream in K-16 education.

This is good news from a pragmatic standpoint. But are we there yet?? With a $500 base model price tag, it would be a cool $750 K to outfit all students at MHS with an iPad. Licensing fees for downloaded textbooks would also be a large expense. I believe that like most technologies, the price of the iPad will eventually come down (witness the now-$49 iPhone). We will reach a point in time where it will make more economic sense to go the tablet/e-reader route rather than make a significant annual investment in textbooks. This is the future.... and we are almost there.

Besides.... don't we want to save the backs of a future generation??