Mercer Island to Give All 10th/11th Graders iPads
From the Stranger Slog:
The Mercer Island School District will kick off its "One to One" iPad initiative next month by distributing free iPads to all 10th and 11th graders. The iPads will be used by students for the remainder of the year, returned for the summer, and then redistributed in September.
Say what you want about the economic disparity that allows districts like Mercer Island to hand out iPads while other districts struggle to pay for more basic needs, but I'm guessing that this technology will be the norm in schools, not the exception, by the end of the decade. The advantages over traditional textbooks are too obvious and numerous to list. This is the future.
But there's one huge advantage that might not be so obvious about this inevitable shift away from print and toward digital: It breaks the power of the Texas Board of Education to dictate what is and is not in our nation's textbooks. Because Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the English-speaking world, publishers would tailor their texts to the state's demands, making textbook approval a highly politicized process in the conservative state. And the economies of scale of printing, warehousing, and distributing meant that the rest of the nation would get these Texas-approved textbooks too.
Goldy is right about the power of the state of Texas over what textbooks get selected by many districts throughout the country. (I was in the textbook publishing business years back and it was "so goes Texas, so goes the nation" for textbooks. California was also important but Texas dominated).
The funding for this comes via their Technology levy.
Some of what is in the iPad agreement sent home to parents (and it's a fair degree of oversight):
established by the district.
•Students must not leave the iPad unattended at any time while at school. If a student needs to store his/her iPad during the school day, he/she must follow all school procedures for securing unattended iPads when necessary (athletic events, etc.).
- The cost of a loss/theft of an iPad due tonegligence of the studentwill be charged to the parent/
studentand recovered as authorized under Policy and Procedures 3520 (StudentFeesFines,Charges)
.The iPad is meant for student use only. It is not meant to be a family computer or to be used by siblings in any way.
- Parents are responsible for supervising student Internet use while at home; the filtering services we implement on the district network do not transfer to home use. More restrictive settings can be installed upon parent request to limit access to the Internet orother nonacademic uses of the iPad.
-Parents should monitor the use of the iPad at home to ensure that its primary function is
academic and that students are completing assigned school work rather than excessive
gaming, chatting, etc.
One commenter noted that while Mercer Island doesn't want to have to pay the toll for I-90, they can afford iPads for all their high school kids.
The Mercer Island School District will kick off its "One to One" iPad initiative next month by distributing free iPads to all 10th and 11th graders. The iPads will be used by students for the remainder of the year, returned for the summer, and then redistributed in September.
Say what you want about the economic disparity that allows districts like Mercer Island to hand out iPads while other districts struggle to pay for more basic needs, but I'm guessing that this technology will be the norm in schools, not the exception, by the end of the decade. The advantages over traditional textbooks are too obvious and numerous to list. This is the future.
But there's one huge advantage that might not be so obvious about this inevitable shift away from print and toward digital: It breaks the power of the Texas Board of Education to dictate what is and is not in our nation's textbooks. Because Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the English-speaking world, publishers would tailor their texts to the state's demands, making textbook approval a highly politicized process in the conservative state. And the economies of scale of printing, warehousing, and distributing meant that the rest of the nation would get these Texas-approved textbooks too.
Goldy is right about the power of the state of Texas over what textbooks get selected by many districts throughout the country. (I was in the textbook publishing business years back and it was "so goes Texas, so goes the nation" for textbooks. California was also important but Texas dominated).
The funding for this comes via their Technology levy.
Some of what is in the iPad agreement sent home to parents (and it's a fair degree of oversight):
- Students will bring the iPad to school each day unless otherwise instructed with a full battery charge
established by the district.
•Students must not leave the iPad unattended at any time while at school. If a student needs to store his/her iPad during the school day, he/she must follow all school procedures for securing unattended iPads when necessary (athletic events, etc.).
- The cost of a loss/theft of an iPad due tonegligence of the studentwill be charged to the parent/
studentand recovered as authorized under Policy and Procedures 3520 (StudentFeesFines,Charges)
.The iPad is meant for student use only. It is not meant to be a family computer or to be used by siblings in any way.
- Parents are responsible for supervising student Internet use while at home; the filtering services we implement on the district network do not transfer to home use. More restrictive settings can be installed upon parent request to limit access to the Internet orother nonacademic uses of the iPad.
-Parents should monitor the use of the iPad at home to ensure that its primary function is
academic and that students are completing assigned school work rather than excessive
gaming, chatting, etc.
One commenter noted that while Mercer Island doesn't want to have to pay the toll for I-90, they can afford iPads for all their high school kids.
Comments
HP
Philadelphia High School Takes Pictures of Students at Home via District-Issued Laptops
The problem with using any device that's controlled by someone else is that you have no way of knowing what is being monitored and sent back to administrators (or elsewhere). With MacBooks (HP's comment above) or any Windows laptop, there are tools to monitor this behavior, but not so with iPads.
On the other hand, iPad are BY FAR the safest mobile devices around. The latest from CNN:
Android attracts 112 times more malware than Apple's iOS.
Yes, that's 11,200 % ! When looking specifically at new threats, it's 96% Android, 4% Symbian and sub 1% fractions for the others, including iPhone/iOS.
I hope the Mercer Island School District (and the parents) have a good handle on this stuff.
- Show Me The Data
It is definitely the future, but I think expecting teens to comply with all these rules is a bit naive. Their frontal lobes would not always be able to stop them from flipping over to facebook, etc.
Solvay Girl
HP
We've read about the problems with administering MAP in buildings - computer access (what little there is) severely curtailed - SB tests will do the same dang thing (but less often...maybe...
Speaking of which, here is a good read on CCSS, and testing generally, from the Washington Post:
Principal: ‘I was naïve about Common Core’
Many families in our city don't even have a computer at home, so typing papers adds a special burden to kids that don't need that. Coupled with the MAP test taking computer labs and libraries at school offline for weeks at a time, limited hours at some public libraries, and you have a very strong case.
We dealt with a vaguely similar problem last year and the principal took care of it very quickly -- and tactfully without disclosing who lodged the complaint. It depends on how competent your principal is, of course.
Technology devices for all students should allow them to become producers of content, not just consumers of it.
Providing laptops directly helps families who don't have computers at home. For Patrick's typed paper example above, the teacher needs to provide time for the students to print.
If the student doesn't have a computer at home, then the student should have computer lab time. If none of the above is true, then the teacher should not be able to deduct points for untyped assignments.