iPads - Tool or Teacher?

I had a very interesting discussion recently with a group of about 10 CRTs regarding iPads.

If you keep your eye on what's going on in the technology world, Apple and a few other companies are on a bit of a push.  They've been talking about things like robotic teachers and how they could replace human ones among other things.  It sort of makes you wonder about the alterior motives of iPads in education.  Are they the first wave in an attack to begin to replace us?

The interesting part of this subject is that all of the "buzz" is coming from the technology sector, not the education sector.

I know schools who scramble to get every piece of cutting-edge technology they can.  Believe it or not it's not all to do with education, it's also got to do with perception.  These schools feel that if they don't have access to this technology then parents will look unfavourbly on the school.  They will lose students, and therefore funding, if they can't say they have it even if they don't count on the technology to deliver the curriculum.  That's not to say they don't make use of them when they have them, far from it.  What school is going to lay out the money required for all of that technology and not use it?

It is, however, an interesting observation that one of the main reasons to get the technology in the first place was image rather than education.

Our conversation stemmed from an observation where a CRT was following through on a lesson plan left by the class' regular teacher that included an hour on iPads for the students.  The initial observation was how settled the class was during this period and how delightful it was.  The students were obviously engaging and their focus was being held which is great.  As the discussion continued though an interesting point was brought up;  The students are obviously getting something from iPads but what aren't they getting?  Do the drawbacks outweigh the benefits without a lot of extra work on behalf of the teacher? In short, are they the wonderous things we are told they are, or are we buying into the hype just a little too much?

Are you making your students use a Stylus?

How do most apps work?  Well, you download an app and run your finger across the screen.  Simple and easy for the "common man".  This seems great but this actually presents a number of issues but today I'll focus on only one.  The one I run into most frequently in tutoring students struggling with Literacy.

When the iPad first came out, there was a lot of buzz about styli.  Mostly how poorly designed and inconvenient they were compared with your finger.  Which, IMO, is fair enough for home use.  In schools however this can begin to present a serious issue for some students.

When you do your sums you hold a pencil and write your numbers.  When you draw a picture you hold your pencil and move it across the page.  It's practice for the motor skills necessary for writing.  With an iPad you point your finger and run it across the screen or point your finger and tap buttons which doesn't always translate well for students to writing skills.  Of course this can easily be changed with the use of a stylus and having the students hold it correctly - like a pencil.

The thing is, I don't know one school that encourages the use of a stylus let along require their students to have one.  Why not?  It is a foundational educational concept that students should always hold their pencil in the correct manner as that translates back to letter formation and fluency of writing.  Along comes iPads though, the wonder of wonders, and these concerns seem to have just gone by the wayside.  A basic educational concept that has gone all but completely ignored.

Education driven by consumerism rather than learning potential.

On top of this, most companies didn't bother trying to make a good stylus that addressed consumer concerns until a popular app came out that made one somewhat necessary.  Within a very short space of time, many new designs hit the market.  Although iPads are being touted as a great educational tool, education is not actually what's driving them; consumerism is. This is some elegant proof.

What's that say for the future of iPads?  We all know that there's a lot of "educational" apps out there that are very poorly constructed.  They've been slapped together and put out into the app store under the "educational" heading leaving us to all fend for ourselves to find the good ones.  I've certainly run across a lot of highly rated "educational" apps that I just look at and shake my head.  Looking through the comments and ratings?  

"My child just loves XXX - 5 stars".  An educational app is being rated highly because a child enjoys it, regardless of any actual educational value held within the app itself.

Do App stores, for all tablets and not just iPads, have a duty to run a "teacher comments and ratings only" app section?  A section where only teachers can rate so we know what's going to have solid classroom value for students rather than just be "fun for the kids"?  Surely parents are chasing down apps with the "educational" tag.  Wouldn't this help them too?  They genuinely want to provide their child with educational apps but don't have a university degree helping them to decide what's a worthwhile app and what's not?

Again we see consumerism taking over.  The "Educational" tag is being used because it generates sales and there's not actually any vetting process done by anyone with any sort of teaching degree.  The app stores just let it go on too.  It's going to cost money to both set up this sort of section as well as reduce sales and hit the ol' hip pocket again.  Should the tag of "educational" really be left up to people who have a vested interest in actually obscuring what's educational or not supporting education clearly and transparently?

Engagement.

At the moment iPads are engaging for two main reasons, one with quite a serious implication.  One I believe in and the others I see as ultimately being a problem.  

Apps are "games" and anyone who has listened to me ramble on or been to one of my PDs is aware that I'm a huge fan of games in education.  Education shouldn't be a hard slog for students, it should be a fun experience that instills them with a thirst for knowledge.  iPads are certainly doing this and allowing a bridge between video games and education on an unprecedented level that is working.  Some apps are better than others of course but it's working.

This is also it's achilles heel.  iPads are currently engaging because of the novelty value. Modern students are so innundated by technolgy, both at home and at school, that sooner or later this novelty will wear off.  Where will we be left then, when students understand that the iPad is there but they are still just doing their sums or learning their colours?  Students aren't kids who can be easily bamboozled, they are miniature people with all of the implications that entails.  Sooner or later they'll realize what's being done and the engagement will vanish in a puff of logic that sees them become categorized the same as their loose-leaf folders and other workbooks.

There's also the issue that there's so much technology at home, with computers and gaming consoles being used as "babysitters", is it really wise for teachers to contribute to this?

Classroom video gaming and responsibility.

Sooner or later there's also a serious issue that's going to raise it's ugly head.  Video games are known to be addictive.  Destructively addictive.  Is it right that we as teachers should be feeding this addiction and how long is it until a school gets sued over it?  This is an issue that educational video gaming is going to have to face sooner or later.  What exactly do we do about it anyway?  Are we going to see a new brand of schools for these addicts that operate without technology?  After all, education is a right of all children and it needs to be given in a safe environment.  What happens when the environment becomes unsafe because of this addicition?

Who's going to be respoinsible?  The schools that force their usage on their students?  The parents for letting their children play video games at home?  The companies that flooded the market with this technology and portrayed their value to schools without also portraying the risks?  I can see that one being tied up in the courts for decades.

In my personal opinion tablet PCs, like iPads, in education is still in it's infancy.  It's driving tablets like the iPad to be a toy more often than a valuable tool for education because that's currently where the money is.  All too often it's being treated like a gaming console that can be taken into a classroom rather than explored to find it's true educational potential.

Why am I saying this now?

I've been thinking about this topic off and on since we had that discussion as a group of CRTs but what instigated the writing of this post was an email I recieved the other day.  It was from a qualified individial offering an online subscription to a web service that tests and evaluates iPad apps.  I'm not as alone as I thought I was in my way of thinking.

The question here is why aren't government educational departments throwing money at this qualified individual, hand over fist I might add, to assemble a qualified team to do this on behalf of all students under their care?

I can really only come to only one conclusion;  Hype and public opinion is driving iPads into our schools, not educational potential.  Surely if it was education then more research would be done into not only whether iPads are useful in education but also the correct way to go about using them, the correct proportions of class time they should consume and all those other factors that explore the maximum volume of iPads, and other tablets in general, as an educational tool.

Time and time again I just keep running into problems created by iPads in the classroom.  They are a preferred activity.  A preferred activity that ends up rewarding students for poor behaviour choices when they are used as a calming tool.  A preferred activity that takes away from writing skills if not deployed in the correct manner.  A preferred activity that's used as a carrot on a stick rather than an educational tool in it's own right.  A preferred activity that's often only offering "educational apps" with educational values included only up to the point where it's enough to be called "educational".  A preferred activity that's taken on so blindly that a stylus, where the benefits should be very obvious, isn't even considered a necessity.

Don't get me wrong!  I mostly say bad things about iPads but I think they hold some great potential for the education of our children.  I have one and I let my children use it.  We also have an Android tablet in our house which gives my children access to a wider range of good educational apps and they get to use that too.  I love that I have access to these tools which are going to help my children learn while they play.

I just don't think we're where we need to be for schools yet and perhaps we should consider, as teachers and administrators,  whether buying into the hype about them is helping our student's education as much as we think it is.  Perhaps we should be putting our collective foot down and demanding a much better service structure if companies like Apple expect us to keep pushing their products into schools as valuable tools for education.

I also think they are getting a bit big for their britches when they compare the value of iPads to the value of Teachers.  But that's another story ;).

Regards,

Mel.