iPads: iCant Stand Them

By Ashley Bowden, ’14

     I’m not quite sure what the school department was thinking when they decided to get rid of our laptops in favor of getting iPads for the students instead. I thought we wanted to better the education of the students, not give them a better distraction.

    Most students have their iPhones or iPods or some other Apple product and have their own Apple accounts so they are downloading their favorite apps or buying ones they want and there isn’t really anything stopping them from doing it, either. We gave them something they know how to use and get around things and they are taking advantage of that fact.

    With the laptops, yes, students would play online games and not do work, but with the iPads I feel it’s going to increase the screwing around and not doing what they should be doing. I’ll even admit that there are times I will hop over to a random game or social media in the middle of work and, when the teacher comes around, hop back over. Granted I still get my work done, but that’s not the point.

    I will admit that they are not as hard to type on as I thought they would be. However, I am into technology and I’ve been writing a lot on different devices for several years now, but not everyone is like that. I will pause in the middle of a paper because I don’t like not being able to feel the actual keyboard. It’s also harder to sometimes click on the spot you want in order to fix a sentence and I find myself deleting more than needed just to get to that one spot. I know we have the option to buy our own keyboards, but come on. Students aren’t or can’t just go out and buy a $50 to $100 keyboard.

    In a few of my classes, there are assignments they have had to change because of the fact that the iPads won’t run that site or complete that download. In my psychology class we have PsychSims as one of our assignments every night. The iPads don’t run that site.  Now, students in the class are scrambling to get to a computer or something else just to do their homework. In my Physics class, there is a lab download to practice things on but the iPads won’t download it, therefore, we have lost a simulation to practice with.

    Students are having trouble and there are so many issues at the moment. I hate the fact that we have switched to the iPads and if I can avoid using them, I do. I think the school department made a bad decision when they decided to switch from the old laptops.

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