Monday, 6 February 2012

IPad Education

Now more than ever, schools are using technology and tablets to teach students. A study was preformed by   publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt alongside Apple using an Algebra textbook for the IPad. Students who used the IPad were 20% more like to score a mark of "Proficient" or "Advanced" compared to students who used paper texts. Programs that use technologies like this are for the most part in the private sector, but over 600 public schools in the United States have a 1:1 IPad program. 
Another study with 5th graders found that those who played the IPad game Motion Math for 20 minutes a day improved test scores by 15%. Though the IPad has shown to be a rather successful tool for learning, textbooks for ipad have not seen the same success as app based learning. Apple hopes to change this with their new 'iBooks 2' and 'iBookstore'. E-textbooks will be available to purchase on the IPad for a price of approximately $15, a mere fraction of what paper text books can cost.

I connected with this story because we use so much technology here at SAC that I could not imaging going to a school where I didn't have a laptop or a projector in each room. I have experienced first hand that technology greatly improves the learning environment and an IPad is just another tool that can be used to teach new concepts to students of all ages. Now that we have tablets at SAC, I use virtually no paper and I have all my notes in one section. An IPad and things of its nature is very intuitive and in my mind, will help educate people for the foreseeable future.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/tech/innovation/ipad-solid-education-tool/index.html
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2 comments:

  1. George Ciuciureanu1 March 2012 at 10:53

    I fully agree with your point of view. If iPads replaced textbooks, we would not only save thousands of trees, but students will also save hundreds of dollars over the span of their school career. Furthermore, iPads will make learning more engaging, intuitive, and will provide a better overall result for the student. St. Andrew's College is thinking about replacing textbooks with iPads, and I believe it would be a great implementation along with out tablets.

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  2. Bowlin5 March 2012 at 14:57

    Of course George would support this, personally I think iPads are some of the most useless devices. There is no reason to replace 40$-$100 textbooks with 500 dollar iPads. iPads would be no different then textbooks except the information would be virtual rather than be on a piece of paper. Also seeing the condition that our laptops are in iPads wouldn't last a week at this school and would cost the school and our parents twice as much than if we stayed with textbooks.

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