It comes with no surprise that iPads are the tablet of the future. We see a rise in use of them in schools all over the country.
After collaborating with Apple for a year, Ireland’s Wallace High School has launched the country’s largest 1:1 iPad initiative. The school’s principal, Deborah O’Hare, said in a press release that she and her staff had been letting students bring portable devices into the classroom.
In time, the faculty and administration realized that if they could identify a single device that would be appealing to students, useful to the teachers and understandable by the parents, they’d be onto something.
The iPad 2 is that device.
“In-depth research into the range and quality of educational, productive and creative apps has led us to the conclusion that the iPad allows for greater independent learning on a cost effective, resource rich platform,” Principal O’Hare said.
Today, the school has equipped 530 students at Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14) with an iPad 2. Noting that both students and teachers have “an appetite for technology,” the school’s administration will review the program’s effectiveness when considering future planning.
Meanwhile, the school’s Vice Principal David Cleland has been named an Apple Distinguished Educator and often posts Apple-themed tutorials with an educational bent at DigMo.
We’ve seen other schools adopt iPads on a large scale. Most recently, another Irish school, St. Coleman’s College, let students choose between traditional textbooks or iPads. Similarly, a Tennessee school has begun using iPads with its 4th-12th grade students and a Maine kindergarten has purchased iPads for all of its tiny learners (though not without controversy). Fraser Speirs has been documenting his school’s 1-to-1 deployment on his blog.
What do you think? Would you support your local school to use iPads in the classroom?
[via: TUAW | Image via: Flickr]
Mark says
I hated school in Ireland when i was a kid, but THIS?!?!? This makes me wanna, move back and seriously start lying about my age.
Brian Alexander says
Me too!
Matthew Irvine says
So, our local school district is opening a new middle school (grades 6-8) this fall. They are providing every student in the school an iPad 2. My biggest concern is the inability to filter Web sites on home networks. It really makes me concerned that tweens and teens are walking around with iPads and iPhones and their parents don’t even have a clue that they’re getting more and more exposed and addicted to pornography through them. Right, it’s not every student. But, increasing access to the filth doesn’t seem like a good idea to me either.
Brian Alexander says
Good thought Matthew. I would hope that it would be considered.
Kenny Jahng says
My kindergartener had iPads in the classroom this year and of course at home.
The school is equipping grades K-3 at this point with the iPad initiative. This year, parents went into the computer lab at school for a multimedia “powerpoint” presentation the K students made with computer art and annotated audio. Loved it.
I definitely attribute a lot of my own technical background to the fact that I was using PET computers (with audio tape drives!) in 3rd grade, Apple //+ by age 8, mainframe card stack computing with Fortran, Cobol and C++ in our highschool (air-conditioning in the mainframe room in school!). So I appreciate the familiarity with technology kids will get this early on.
Matthew’s concern is good. I use OpenDNS. Always thought a good tutorial eBook for set-up would be good, so it is on the project list this summer.