Saturday, February 19, 2011

IPADS Replacing School Text Books

The other day our neighbor was telling us that next year their son's school is switching to IPADS for all their text books. They will charge the families $30 a month for this. Their son is in a private school. I believe that sooner rather than later public schools will take this idea too. It makes sense in the long run... Technology is evolving and moving forward.... Going "Green" is what it seems to be all about... Using *IPADs (*or any other down loadable book device) will save money for the schools... Save paper... In the long run *IPADS would be cost effective for the schools and the students in public schools would not have to pay for them. For those of you that don't agree.... Think of this..

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would EVER own a cell phone... Do you remember when "car" phones came out? Only the rich had the luxury of having a phone in the car.. Then the pricing went down and you could see funky looking antennas stuck to the back window of many cars... Then the phone came out of the car in the form of a huge battery unit that had a phone attached.. This too evolved to a smaller phone device (still much bigger than today's standards) - The cost to use the phone was extremely high... do you remember roaming rates? The technology has improved considerably and the costs have gone done so much that now every member in my household owns a "cell" phone... Times have changed... And not only does my phone make calls - I have unlimited "texting"- I can take pictures - search the Internet - hold my phone up to the car radio and it will tell me what artist is singing.. "Car phones" have come a long way...

Not only has cell phones evolved - think about the VCR or DVD player... Bluray players... I just purchased a new Bluray player the other day - Not only does my Bluray play movies - I can login to Facebook, Check the weather, Play movies from Netflix and Blockbuster, and there were many other applications... I paid a little over $100... I remember our first VCR player was almost $200 in the late 1980's....

Think about how computers have changed???? I remember when I was in junior high school and one friend had a computer (this was in the late 1970's).. I think his "computer" was more of a data processor - The Internet was not invented yet... He brought a report to school and the "type" was a bunch of little dots.. Do you remember the dot matrix?

Today - we own several computers - I work from home on mine. My oldest does her school on hers. My husband at this moment is answering work emails... My youngest is on "skype" with her best friend... Schools expect every home to have access to the Internet.. My business (mortgage industry) requires computers - my industry has gone paper less... Two years ago I was making "copy" packages for the lenders using over 500 pages of paper.. Now that is a thing of the past....

Technology is evolving... Saving the Planet is key... Paper-less work... books.. school will soon be the way... What do you think? Please take my poll at the top right of this blog....


  1. I think you are right, but I don't think it always saves much paper. We use computers at work, but are frequently running off so many sheets of paper!

  2. I remember the old cell phone bricks and the dot matrix printers, and DOS operating systems, and a lot more old school stuff. IPADs seem like a reasonable innovation to me. Surely all schools will be moving that direction soon.

  3. I think we should embrace this new technology. It is the future, and it will help the environment, so it's a win/win!

  4. I agree that technology is changing how things are done in school. My son can buy the ebook version of some of his college textbooks. The problem with this is you can't sell the ebook when you are finish with the class, and yes, we have sold a many textbooks and made a profit off of them too.
    I had a student look at me strange when I told him he could look something up in an encylopedia, looked around the room and realized there wasn't any to be had because there were at least 8 computers instead. We teach keyboarding as young as preschool. Some of the older students can type as quickly as I can, some even faster.
    Here's where it gets a little blurry. I still have students who don't have a computer in the home let alone internet. An internet that has a tendency to go down at least a few times a week making it impossible to do 'paperwork' because it has to done on the computer.
    Some students who have parents that would sell the IPAD just because it could be a quick buck for their addiction, never mind what consequences there would be for their child. Or the older student who would do the same thing because the only recourse the school has is to withold their grades.
    And then there is the student who would have it broken in the first day.
    Yes it's a great idea but for now, there needs to be some kinks worked out first.

  5. I haven't read all of your post yet, but had to come here to the comments and say I agreed with this as soon as I read the headline. My reason?
    The enormous weight carried by our kids, especially high school kids with all the text books they cart to and from school. Yes, there's kinks to be worked out....

  6. My husband teaches at one of the most difficult schools in the country. Most of the kids at his school are either involved in the drug trade or have a close family member that is. It is pretty sad. They are actually writing grants to pioneer this with this type of demographic in his school next year. It has less to do with saving paper and money and more to do with adapting to the kids in his classroom. We haven't changed the way we are teaching our children in a very long time, even though we aren't teaching the same type of child anymore. We are teaching children that have grown up with technology, that expect technology and often don't pay attention without it. The kids we are teaching have changed, the classroom needs to change now too.

  7. I heard an interview once and I don't remember who the speakers were. There comments were something to where technology is increasing and yet there's a certain part in the brain that is decreasing for lack of use. I don't recall all the details but I'm sure there's something to that. I am somewhat guarded by some aspects of technology. It only increased when I saw how a country could literally shut down when they no longer had access to the internet or Facebook.

  8. I was reading this post to my techy husband and he was nodding his head the whole time. I think you make so many valid points. Kids today are technology hounds. They do seem to digest information much better through technology means. The world has changed in countless ways due to technology. I fear that kids have forgotten about taking their time to research and plan out projects. Everything seems to be just a click away. I wonder about the impatience of kids today because of the immediacy of information.

  9. I can see an issue with these expensive devices getting broken if they're going home with the students...

    It's good though as opposed to carrying around all those books. Our school district has no lockers after 8th grade...the high school did away with them, so they issue two textbooks for each class, one for home and one for school. Which is nuts since they still have to carry it around in their backpacks, sometimes lugging 40lbs of textbooks all day long.

    I'd be all for it!

  10. I was just asking my daughter today about the future of books. As far as reading for pleasure goes, we find it hard to imagine that reading from a kindle (or whatever) could be as satisfying as holding a book in your hands. (But, maybe that's just us!) As far as schools go, I suppose it's just a matter of time.

  11. It bugs me when the teacher expects every report to be written and printed by computer. What if we don't have one? What if we do, but I don't think the kids should be on it? If the school expects all student work to be done on computer, provide the technology. Otherwise, let's learn how to handwrite properly.

  12. Technology is the future of the world and if education doesn't keep up with it, what type of education are we really giving our children? Businesses say they want employees who are critical thinkers and who are prepared for the workforce. Well, as great as it is to know all the dates in history, it's more practical and valuable to know how to effectively use computers. I'm a middle school science teacher. I am making the transition to being completely paperless in my classroom and I teach at an extremely disadvantaged school with students from very poor families. We're making it work. Yes, we're having to write grants and we're having to scrounge computers and other electronic devices where we can get them, but it's happening. I'm not so concerned about the saving the planet aspect (though it's an added bonus); I want my students to have valuable skills by the time they leave middle school. Some people might look down on technology in the classroom, but my students have been more engaged and focused since I started using technology and they are retaining the information better. Only half of my students have computers at home, and only half of those have internet access. Big deal. There are computer labs at school that students can access before school, during lunch or after school. Yes, it may mean a little work, but isn't that a great lesson to teach our students? If something is worthwhile, you should work for it. Technology is our future and if we're not keeping up with it for our children, they're going to be left behind.



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