Schools Using iPads Before Business

Posted on by mkaufman

ipad in school

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 $267,748 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 by mkaufman

ipad on college campus

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

Principals Using iPads

Posted on by mkaufman

Here’s something I haven’t seen much of yet – administrators starting to use iPads. In this case, Principals are using iPads to evaluate teachers. It’s really just enabling them to ‘fill out a form’ but hey, that could be the start of something more couldn’t it?

Lyon County School District policy requires principals to spend at least an hour a day in classrooms to observe and evaluate teachers, and according to Scott Lommori, the District’s Director of Testing & Educational Technology, the new iPad program allows them to fill out the evaluation form and upload information immediately, giving the teacher immediate feedback into what they are doing right or wrong.

Here’s a link to the article that spells it out in more detail (including the fact that some parents aren’t happy about the district spending money on iPads for Principals!). This could get interesting!

New program allows principals to use iPads to evaluate teachers

Private School Goes iPad

Posted on by mkaufman

Here’s another school that’s going to be giving all of their students an iPad. A private school in Scotland is going 100% iPad in school.

Scotland’s Cedars School of Excellence is running a very cool, very bold tech experiment with their students: they have ditched all their books, pencils, pens and paper, teaching all of its 105 students using only Apple’s iPad for taking notes and conducting class.

iPads in School

“We wanted to give each of the pupils an opportunity to use the best equipment available,” IT teacher Fraser Speirs told the Daily Record. Each and every one of the 105 students at the modestly named Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock will now take all their lessons on their personal “magical and revolutionary” devices.

The students, ranging in age from five to 15, will also do their homework on the Jobsian tablet — although whether they’ll each be given an Apple iPad Keyboard Dock with which to type or be forced to tap away on the onscreen keyboard wasn’t noted.

“Each of the children will have their own iPad,” Speirs said, “which is hooked into the school’s wireless network and from there they will use the computers for learning in different subjects.” The tablets will enable the young ‘uns to access “pre-approved websites for lessons in English, maths, languages and history.”