Schools Adopting iPad

 

There was an interesting story in the New York Times a couple days ago. It seems that with every new technology Apple creates, schools are always major focus of their sales and marketing strategy. The high school I work at owns over 1,900 MacBooks, while iPod Touch labs are also becoming a familiar sight in schools. It isn't surprising that we are now seeing Apple's newest product, the iPad, infiltrate our classrooms, too. The article does a great job of analyzing the academic benefits of iPads versus the costs of iPads. Sure iPads are beautiful, engaging, and probably a great classroom resources, but they're also expensive. The school in the article payed $750 for each new device. It's an expensive hobby, but is it worth it?

 

The NYTimes speaks to everyone from parents to a professor of engineering. Opinions vary from seeing the iPad as a necessary element for a child's technological literacy development to another example of frivolous government spending. My opinion is that it's probably a little of both. When taken at face value, $750 seems like a lot of money to spend on a new supplemental toy. If a strong integration plan is enacted, iPads may actually be able to save schools money. iPads would eliminate the need for additional computers, classroom performance systems, interactive white boards and even textbooks. Publishers like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are already on board, producing academic texts and supplemental material for the iPad and other iOS devices. The other benefit of digital texts is the ability for realtime updates so students are no longer dependent upon outdated resources.

Frivolous or essential, I'm sure we will see more and more of the iPad across schools nationwide. I personally welcome the addition of any new technology, and am thankful for (and a little envious of) the schools that are willing to be the leaders in adopting new academic technologies.