So today every student at my high school got their very own iPad to do... Ahem, 'schoolwork'. What do you guys think about this? Good idea or bad idea? And do students have the responsibility to take care of such an expensive device?

Without going into any detail, this was a horrible idea on your High School's part. I'm surprised that the guy who put forward the idea kept his job.

how did they even get the money to do so. its not a very good idea considering that people most likely wont be doing work. im sure theyll take care of it just fine but i think productivity will go down

I bring a laptop to school every day. I do work on it. This is not beyond high school students.

Technology is evolving. We used to teach without paper, you know? I can imagine a similar argument against paper. "They're just going to draw on it without paying attention. They'll do cartoons and draw faces instead of paying attention, and the paper will make it very easy for them to stop paying attention." Yet, while that probably happened quite often in the beginning, it doesn't destroy classes at this point in time.

Maybe the problem isn't that kids are being distracted in class, but that the lessons suck ass. Some kids won't do work no matter what, but then even if they had no paper, pencils, laptops, etc, they still wouldn't pay attention. I think you'll find interesting classes would solve a lot more problems than teachers are willing to admit.

Yes, they have the responsibility. If they don't, that's not the school's job to teach, is it? Sounds like a parenting thing to me.

But there are also somethings that paper can't be replace by ipad. That is... Toilet paper. Haha! Try giving a toilet paper roll app on your ipad to someone who is stuck in the toilet without toilet paper. Jkjk just joking around

Nah, it wont end well... Trust me, I've tried it. You'll be crawling back to the books.

>>4 makes a good point

At my school we sometimes get chrome books to work on, but we don't get to keep them. My English teacher is always telling us to use computers as a resource since we are born in "a generation of technology" and that if we don't know how to use it that's bad. Of course, other teacher's at my school say that it's also good to use resources that aren't just the internet like our textbook. In my opinion, I think if there is a balance between using the technology and also using encyclopedias, textbooks, class notes, etc. it is okay. Of course, it also depends on the student. If you give someone who isn't motivated an iPad for schoolwork well they aren't going to use it but if you give someone who lives for grades then it's a completely different story.

>>1 That's happening for grade - high schoolers at the Int'l school my mother teaches at.

Its something that will inevitably happen over time. A big problem i'v seen is poor implementation. Most schools seem to think that just throwing laptops and tablets into the current curriculum as is will work out. If they're really serious about using technology in education they have to start restructuring how they teach with the use of technology in mind.

Unless it's a private school it's a very idiotic thing to do, to waste tax payer's money to give kids Ipads.

I personally think that if they're going to give students ipads for curriculum activities then thats stupid. I mean, why an iPad? iPads are expensive and it is expected that technology will take over and help with studies and if so then there should be devices which help completely with studying and research like the Kindle is used for reading. iPads are expensive and are just basically tabs so why not get the kid a tab which helps completely with studying only? Yes, I know it hasn't been invented but if it is then I believe that would be much better then getting a kid an iPad.

My little sister goes to private school and they require that all students have ipads but the school doesn't provide ipads. The families, who are already paying about $5,000 a year for tuition, have to buy for the ipad with their own money.
They also put a program on my sister's ipad so they can't use any apps besides the ones they allow in school while in class. She seems to use it mostly as a planner they may take some notes on it or get books from the ibooks store to read but it doesn't seem to have much function besides that. So I question why they need it.

Technically, ipads are hard to manage for schools. Apple does not want you to manage idevices. you can only setup some sort of limit of apps that students can use. For example, you set all the ipads though a thing called "profile" say no one can download things above 17-year-old limit (or even does not allow students to download any apps by themselves). Or you block websites (forums/social medias) through school network. But either way creates inconveniences:Example 1: youtube may have a lot of educational videos does do good to students, however on the other hand, they could want youtube funny videos at school all the time. Example 2: there is an app for student to take notes, but the age limit is 17 and they can not download on the ipads (browsers and lots of other apps usually have a 17 limit.)
We even didn't talk about the trouble ipads causes for teachers.
For conclusion: do not use ipad, use something else.

Well you see, the kids at our school (American grades 7-8 along with the High Schools 9-12) Are receiving IPads in this upcoming week. I would prefer that SOME of the kids shouldn't have IPads because they aren't the most responsible and it's just asking to get smashed in the hallway where us 8th graders throw footballs during passing period. Most students at our school are extremely poor and can't afford good clothes, and nevertheless consider a flip-phone (or any phone for that matter) a luxury, so I do like the idea of having IPads because in High School it is required for every student to have one and I understand that they are preparing us for the next two years. So my opinion is that... Yes, we should allow it because it allows for the teachers to communicate with the students outside of class, but also no we shouldn't because we don't have enough responsibility. (Honestly I just want one so I can play games XD)

i think a tablet would be fine, and while I hold no anti apple sentiment, i feel like ipads arent the smartest choice. As someone said, kids are irresponsible, and ipads cost alot of money. Plus, they dont have enough control, so the school wouldnt be able to do much to stop kids from downloading games. I feel an android table like the nexus 7 or 8 would be better

iPads have a great deal of potential if the school invests heavily in which apps will be supported and deployed prior to purchasing and deploying the units. There are some great educational applications out there that I think could be a huge benefit when augmenting lectures and coursework. However, without planning, they are essentially expensive toys.

Add in the management issues, as described by Dav_00 and they can end up generating a lot of headaches for the school's IT department as well as being a potential waste of the school's financial resources if they are not well utilized.

In my last job, I managed a small deployment of iPads (15) which were heavily underutilized by our faculty members. The only professor who made relatively good use of them was an Instructional Technology professor who was demonstrating potential uses to students who were planning to teach K-12.

TL;DR - they can be useful if proper planning is done first.

where im at the district gave everyone a chromebook and i thought it was a great idea untill it actully happened. it was nice for homework and stuff like that but in class some students watch videos behind the teachers back and things similar to that. however if the chromebook were to break the student as to pay for it unless they have the insurance for it. i guess its a good idea for those who dont have the money to but a laptop or device for school work but they should pay attention to what the students do with it at school more.

Chromebooks are great choice.

I think it's a double-edged sword. It may be wonderful if you uses in the right way, but if not, well...
Each one needs to take reponsability to what concerns to yourself.

Never had one in high school. Never found a need for it in high school.

I believe that people with responsibility should receive an iPad for schoolwork.

Haha actually, my school uses it. For ever 2nd year, you get an iPad. I just started using mine, and after 3 weeks, I really got to know more about devices. I think it's because our school was sponsored by Apple or something, but all our devices are Apple. Our notes are soft copies, retrieved from Edmodo groups or maybe Gmail, and some of our lessons requires our iPad (like Linear Graph apps to study Math etc, or GarageBand for Music Lessons). Some of our projects also require apps, like Keynote for presentation, or maybe iMovie for a video. With the new Airplay and AirDrop, things can be easily presented just by connecting to the wifi and projecting it on the screen, photos can be easily sent via AirDrop too. Lastly, we can save our notes all in one device. After using this, my bag really became lighter. But for me, sometimes I still prefer the ol' pen and paper. However, I do think that this is a new step towards Education with technology.

My school has also implemented iPads since September 2014 but only for sixth form (age 16+). Anyone who wanted one had to pay 60% of retail price and the iPads on this offer were previous iterations of the iPad which I felt was kind of off since it's such an expensive piece of kit, you want to get the newest one to last you the longest.

Aaaaaanyway! Because we had to pay, only half of my yeargroup have iPads and so the teachers don't really have the option to implement iPads into the lesson as effectively as >>23 has explained. The people who do have iPads will really only use it to do research and check emails during study periods. In class however they're pretty much obsolete. We can't use them during class anyway because of the potential to misuse it for games or social media.

It seems crazy to me that any school has the money to give away iPads to all of their students. I mean, they're barely funded enough as is, where are they getting all this money? You could build a new sports center or a new computer room for the same price...

Very true, but my school is actually pretty well funded. My school was under a government scheme in the UK called "Schools for the Future" and so our school was rebuilt with a £30M budget. (It was wasted so our school is still pretty bad (no air conditioning/plain white walls which look like a hospital/computer systems that are slower than windows vista/ect)) But at least we have a gym (which no one can use because the teachers need to supervise you but they're always too busy).

My point is, schools could find better ways of spending their money, so I agree with you Megarame.

>>25
Only public schools are poorly funded. Most private schools well off.

>>27 ARE well off*

It's very useful to give an iPad to the students, even if most of them use it for games and stuff others that don't have an I phone/iPad now has one so this may help the students a lot.

yes they should have one nut use should also be supervised so as to make sure that its not being used inappropriately

They should only have one if they are forced to keep them in school. They should NOT be allowed to take it off school property.

I think its a good idea because now that our future is going to probably revolve around technology, its good to be able to use it for everyday things, right? But I also agree with @Kaneki because you can't monitor or block things on iPads like you can do on computers.

>>27
Fair point, but you pay private schools to attend. If you're paying to go to the school, why is it a good use for them to use that to get you an iPad? They could hire more staff or something more useful.

>>29 >>32
I think it's good that students get taught to use technology, but to give them a tablet is a different story. I was taught to use a PC in school when I was young, but they didn't buy me a laptop! Just have enough to teach a class at a time. >>31 makes a good point. Maybe leave them on school property. That way you could give the ones final year students have to new students in the next year and it's not such a stupid waste.

i think its a good idea but u have to be taught how to use it responsibly and its already being implomented at my junior high they have a few sets of surface touch pros for projects and research

>>34 You think it's a good idea for every student to be bought an iPad for personal use, or a good idea to teach kids how to use tablets in schools?

May or may not prove to be counter productive.

>>25 ok well for my school we still have to pay for the iPad, but they offer a discount. And it is a MUST for all secondary 2 students and above to buy one so :/ however all other apps come free so at least you won't need to pay for other things.

>>37
Making students pay for them makes more sense. They're making a deal with Apple there to get you all to buy them at discount, and then I'm sure taking a bit off the top from it all.

It seems weird you HAVE to buy them though. What do you even use them for? iPads aren't even that good in comparison to other tablets you can get out there. A few years back when I was in Uni I bought a Samsung Note and that thing was 100x more useful than an iPad for taking notes and stuff.

The same thing happened at my school. I only partially agree with this new strategy of learning. But I've started to notice kids have stopped writing completely. As a little present I gave my nephew a year planner and I knew he'd love it. But the next time I came to visit I saw it in the recycling and he said that he doesn't need it because he has his 'Ipad'...

I've also noticed kids are starting to have very poor handwriting. They should be able to write neatly and straight by the time they're in year 2 or 3.

>>39

People (especially kids) have always had bad handwriting, I don't think that's an advent of technology thing. But who really cares? No-one handwrites things much anyway, unless it's something to give to someone who likely knows your handwriting anyway. Everything is typed up.
I can't think of one person I work with that has handwriting I'd call neat... Legible is enough.

no.

Sounds like an awesome idea. iPads are great for students, being a closed box and all, and the only scrubs that are going to complain are the ones who cannot play games and waste their time screwing with them. If the students respect the device for what it is, a powerful piece of technology, you'll never have any issues.

That's probably similar to the BYOD program some schools are doing

>>40 I guess you do have a point about kid's handwriting being bad, but what about a 10 year old kid who still can't spell 'you' or 'table' on his own? DX

He does all of his homework on his iPad, probably using word doc so he doesn't learn to fix up his own mistakes. I miss the days where kids would have spelling tests and dictations to do!!!!!!!!(screams at the top of her lungs)

>>44

There are always kids that can't spell, as there are always kids that can. If anything, spellchecker on computers has helped, as you can real time see and fix errors you make. Before, it was wait a week for your teacher to mark your work and tell you where the mistake was. And who's likely to care about work from a whole week ago?

Looking at some data from wikipedia, literacy in countries that have easy access to iPads has risen year on year, and is projected to carry on doing so, so it doesn't look like access to computers causes kids to not learn to spell, or even learn slower.

Doing spelling tests these days seems outdated, when everyone has a dictionary in their pockets that can correct any spelling mistakes they make. It made sense back when that wasn't the case.

>>45 But what if they're left with no sort technology or dictionary and only have a pen and paper? I'm not sure how spelling tests are done in your area, but here the're corrected as a whole class as soon as they're done. And in preparation for a spelling tests, students are required to write out the word 10 times. Whatever word they got wrong in the test they would have to incorporate it into their homework again.

This is just from my personal experience, but this sort of routine helped my spelling greatly. I'm a distance ed student now where you practically live and breathe you're laptop and I noticed how my spelling started spiraling down embarrassingly. Of course, my nephews could be different.

But remember there was a reason why society was at it's peak in literature and writing in ages before technology.

Sorry if I'm coming out as aggressive, I'm kinda passionate about literature >_<

>>46

The point is that you learn through use. They'll still know how to spell the words they use the most. They might misspell the odd word, but who really cares? Everyone does. As you say, you learn how to spell by seeing and spelling the word a lot, aka spelling tests. Why is it that typing the word is less effective than hand writing it in your opinion? I do believe spelling tests are still a thing at primary schools, so how is using a tablet in high school stopping kids from learning?

"But remember there was a reason why society was at it's peak in literature and writing in ages before technology"
That just isn't true, have you anything to back that claim up? More people are reading and writing now than before "technology". This smells like "everything was better in the olden days" to me.

I don't mean to sound aggressive either, but I feel like your argument is the same as the people that hate e-readers because they aren't "real" books, or people that think you can't have internet friends because you can't see then IRL. Functionally they're the same, and you get the same experience from them as a user.

>>48

ehh Well I do read through e-readers, but I also don't mind the usual paper backs. I'm not really against technology, but there's a limit to where it should be used and I think the limit is with school work. People may be writing more and more than ever before, and that's thanks to technology. But it doesn't necessarily mean it has made it better.
I read quite a bit about history, one story that really caught me was how the victim's last words was a poem before he got murdered and through that, people were able to find the murderer without the murderers even knowing what it meant when they passed it on. I could tell you the whole story if you like but that just proves to me how advanced they were in literature back then.

And for the spelling tests, there is a sort of 'muscle memory' I would call it. It exists in typing as well. But in all honesty, who 'types' down the word 10 times? Kids would probably be more bored with that then doing actual writing

There's also the thing with humans evolving. We might not notice it now, but the things would be a lot different in the future, and who knows if it will be for the better. I think it might be worse. Take the f-word for example. It wasn't a swear word once upon a time, it use to be used in the fields for some form of work.

That's not much of a big impacting example but it just shows how things can change considerably as time moves on.

In geography and science in my school, they have iPads for student uses... honestly, I think its a pretty good idea. also they could have their uses in other lessons, such as English as you mentioned. Maybe not GIVE them one to take home, but just handing them out for research in class is a good idea though. ^_^

Well, I suppose it depends on the student, if it's a good or bad idea, or not. I'm really bad at learning off of a computer/device screen, and I can never focus when I don't have a physical text book in my hands. However, for some students, this could definitely be good for them. I know that some students at my school have a really hard time keeping track of where things are, so to have everything on an iPad could be helpful.

However, all in all, I wouldn't support the idea, just because I have a hard time learning things from a screen. It's really not different from an actual textbook, I just have trouble focusing when there aren't any physical pages to turn, or words on a page to highlight.

I don't think it's a good idea because there wouldn't be a way to see what every individual student is doing, to make sure they are doing 'school work'. When I was in high school, we had some macbooks and some small laptops and it was easier to see what was going on through some remote desktop viewer software. It was hard enough to make sure those didn't get stolen or broken. If high school kids couldn't even take care of them, then i don't see how they could ever take care of iPads.

In my school, its required that every student have a laptop or device with them. They're trying to take on a new approach to teaching that incorporates use of modern technology.
Of course, it has its ups and downs, because a lot of kids do slack off and use the internet for goofing around in class. But I find that I can type faster than I can write, and it's easy to stay organized.
Most of our lessons don't include textbooks (either physical or digital) so we don't have to do a lot of online reading or anything. It's mostly just presentations that the teacher gives us. Although physical textbooks are supplied just in case.

Aaah I feel like an old lady reading everyone's opinions...

I LOVE MY INK PENS!!!!!!!!!! ;_;

Don't worry Kokkuri-san, I love my ink pens too! ;_; You're not alone.

|___|

My school also teaches with every student owning an ipad. While some may think that it will drop productivity, that did not happen, although it may just be for my case. It's really convenient and I can edit my essays and reports on the go and everything. While the system has flaws and if the students do not have self discipline it's a bad idea, though I think it is working alright in my school, and we're the system begins with middle schoolers and there arent many major problems haha.

Hahaha, for me it is bad 90% of the time as high school student XD But the other 10% makes it useful in class, like if you want to email something to a person, etc. Stuff like that makes it easier to spread any school news. However, some of the younger years walk around with her eyes almost glued to the screen, which if you're pro at dodging obstacles with ease. Is a stupid idea that makes it worse if it he/she is on the staircase walking down. Heck, I remember a teacher taking a student's iPad away because he was walking down the staircase while being busy with his iPad.

Some teachers named ipads "toys". As most of them can not utilize its full potentials and have a hard time managing it, ipads can become something annoying for schools eventually. The idea of it is nice. I prefer something like chromebooks or even surface pros rather than ipads.

my school had ipads but my school kept putting more and more restrtions on the ipads to where we couldnt do any school work at all and at the end of the year they let us buy the ipads for personal use cuz the next year we all got used laptops

What about ...some cheaper and better device? Just saying.

>>61 Or dont spoil the brats. They got enough tech, tho that depend if the kid is poor or not.

>>61 >>62 Android would be better however I dont think it would be as easy to secure like iPads or tablets or would. After all, students would be able to root it and do their own crap with it. Could even install some viruses if your device is rooted. Apple would seem a reasonable solution (for once) for schools and stuff but not for home and other placed.... As much as I hate Apple, I think its just better to have them in schools... If you're using apple outside school.... You're an iDiot.

For 2 years I have attended school where iPads were used. There are pros and cons of having iPads..

Pro
-saves paper..
-kids don't have to carry around text books
-information can be shared faster (through email etc.)
-helpful apps (calculator, dictionary)
-I could look up information fast efficiently
-I could write my paper from anywhere
-can ask teacher questions easier

Cons
-not many of the teachers knew how to make use of them in class
-can be a distraction
-costs a lot of money
-may slow down class due to technical problems
-malfunctions/confusing
-not all textbooks are available (especially old ones)
-makes it easier to cheat, plagiarize and not be academically honest
-needs to e charged

I think that over time iPads may become more useful. I also feel that a student should have the option to use paper and pencils if they desire.