Los Angeles
public schools created a stir of sorts by announcing a contract to purchase $30
million worth of iPads for one-to-one student distribution. Many school
districts have bought iPads or other tablets, but L.A. is by far the largest.
But will the district get its money’s worth?
That may
depend on how much preparation the district undertakes before handing the
tablets over to the kids. “Simply purchasing slick devices like iPads for the
classroom is hardly a recipe for educational success,” says Lee Badman, a
network architect/administrator and adjunct faculty member at Syracuse
University in New York, in a commentary for InformationWeek.
Badman poses
a number of questions that schools need to think about before deploying tablets
as a classroom tool, starting with determining a concrete purpose and plan for
using the devices. If the intent is to simply give students hands-on experience
with the new technology, that’s not much of a goal, in Badman’s view.
“Students
are often more adept in using devices than faculty are,” he says.
Quality
instruction should still form the foundation for student education, he adds.
Underperforming teachers won’t be transformed by the presence of tablets, while
effective teachers may find their instructional time sucked away by technical
problems.
And the
technical problems could be plenty, Badman says, if the district doesn’t set up
a fully functioning wireless network with enough access points and sufficient
ISP connectivity. Printing capabilities and streaming video should also be
considered. Badman says this calls for a skilled network administrator, not a
teacher or administrator trying to squeeze those extra tasks into a busy day.
