ABIS will soon join a small group of schools from around the world who have initiated a 1:1 iPad program. This puts us on the cutting edge of educational technology. But it’s important to note that we’re certainly not the first school to do this, and thus we can learn from those who have come before us.
I recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with the technology coordinator at a school district in Michigan, in the States. This school district began their own iPad program last fall, releasing 2300 iPads to students and staff. (Yes, you read the number correctly. 2300.) Based on this discussion and a host of research and anecdotal evidence available on the internet from educators around the world, I can make some predictions about the impact of the iPad on ABIS students. Let me dust off my crystal ball…
- Students won’t be blown away by the experience. Our kids are certainly excited–who wouldn’t be?–and there is a lot of buzz around the classrooms upstairs as the launch date approaches. But it’s important to remember that our students are what Marc Prensky calls “digital natives”; they’ve grown up in an environment where personal technology is the norm. When I was in grade 7, our school was equipped with a brand new lab of Apple Macintosh GS computers. This was a *huge* deal. None of us had computers at home and so the weekly trip to the lab was a real treat. And this was before the internet, so the computer’s use was, by today’s standards, pretty limited.
Our students at ABIS are as familiar with a touch screen as we were with a standard keyboard. Perhaps even more. They think nothing of having access to unlimited information at any time, anywhere. To many them, I suspect, this iPad program is less a giant leap forward than simply the natural progression of things. They will take this all in stride.
- ABIS will still have pens and paper. It’s tempting–especially for those of us who didn’t grow up with personal tech–to say things like, “This changes everything” or “We’re re-inventing education” or something equally grand. But the fact is, at a fundamental level our school isn’t changing at all. Our philosophy of education, grounded in student-centered classrooms and inquiry-based learning, remains untouched. The iPad is a tool, an enhancement, to how we do business. And while it is certainly an amazing and versatile tool, it is not intended to replace all the tools that have come before it.
To wit, a number of blogging educators who work with the iPad have commented how students have personalized how they use their iPad. Some do nearly everything on it–reading, writing, note taking, projects, presentations, communication–while others prefer a hybrid of the “old” way and the new. For example, a teacher remarked how one of his students takes all her notes with pen and paper, but then goes home at night and revises by entering her information into her iPad. Thus it is digitally and cleanly stored, but the initial note taking was done in a format that suited her best.
- Student-teacher collaboration will increase. At ABIS we’re blessed with small class sizes that allow wonderful interaction with our students on very personal and meaningful levels. The iPad will take this even higher and establish a new norm of collaboration that will be vital as the school grows and class sizes expand. In my conversation with the tech coordinator from America, one of the highlights was his excitement at how closely teachers and students work together over the digital medium. Students submit work and the teachers easily and quickly provided that vital piece of the process, feedback.
The iPad is ideal for this because it promotes a paperless system. (Indeed, this tech coordinator told me that paper use has dropped 50% since the iPads were rolled out in his district) The entire process of any work, from brainstorming to final revisions, can take place on any one of the number of powerful education apps. Students and teachers instantly exchange ideas and work, all while cutting out those traditional middle men, paper and printer.