It sounds obvious , but you need to be completely clear as to why you are looking at integrating iPads or other mobile devices into the classroom. What do you have to gain from it? (Note: iPads will be used but could equally be iPod touches or Android devices)
Computer suites and interactive whiteboards were often installed to impress parents and their integration in order to transform learning was not part of any coherent strategy. I would argue that interactive whiteboards have had little positive effect on the quality of education with the majority not being used effectively. Even worse, by putting the teacher back in the front of the class with ready made materials that covered the curriculum, but were seldom exciting, a very dull learning experience was provided.
Laptop trolleys often created a barrier to learning as they often wouldn’t log on, had flat batteries and the students work would disappear into the ether, never to be seen again.
VLEs are a case in point of systems that should be able to transform learning through technology, but rarely do. The main issue seems to be that they are systems we choose for students and they themselves would not choose to learn using them. This needs to be taken into consideration. Android tablets may well fit more easily into your current system and play flash, but if students dont rate them then they may well not be successful.
iPads can be a laptop replacement in that they can be used for research and producing documents and powerpoints, they have the advantage that they switch on instantly, have a very long battery life and connectivity is rarely a problem. They would make an effective laptop replacement as long as security and storage of work issues are considered, but this would be missing the real point of iPads in that they can be used to instantly create and import media such as films and photos and then edit them into very sophisticated multi media easily shared with others.
If we consider the skills that our students will need to cope with an ever more rapidly changing world. Google is only ten years old, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are under six years old. We are preparing them for forty plus years of work with no idea of what they will do.
Skills that are timeless are the ability to create, collaborate and communicate.
For the first time ever we have a device you can give to students and say “Show me your learning in whatever form you like.” This calls into question the role of the teacher who is no longer the controlling, giver of knowledge limiting what the students can achieve. Used properly we can hit the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, integrate Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, have full differentiation and switch the focus to the students so have them working harder than us.
The introduction of iPads will have little educational benefit if they are used in traditional ways in traditional classrooms. We need to have an embedded culture of independent learning which is the opposite of the spoon feeding exam factory reality of many schools forced by the League tables to adopt a teaching to the test strategy.
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