Lukáš Gondek In the first part, we convinced, how much Apple is used by Americans in their private lives. Now I would like to share my experience with Apple products in American education. However, the school system there is very diverse, so my observations will most likely be greatly distorted by the school and the environment in which I studied.
High school Key School in seaside Annapolis is a very small and private school with fifty years of tradition. It is a school known for its innovative teaching styles that encourage creativity of the mind and openness to difference. The school provides all teachers with a working MacBook Pro as well as a third generation iPad. Teachers use them not only for their own needs, but also properly involve them in teaching.
Using an Apple TV and a projector, which each class has, they project all their materials, which they have prepared for the lesson on an iPad or MacBook, onto a so-called smart board. During a statistics class, for example, the teacher created graphs on his iPad and the students watched the process on the blackboard.
In literature, for example, an application is used in an interesting way Socrative. The teacher used this app to survey opinions about the piece being discussed at the time. He created several questions that the students then answered using their own smart devices. Finally, everyone saw the results and answers to the questions on the board, all anonymously. Students continue to work with the results and discuss them. Teachers are still getting used to connecting their Apple devices to the classroom; this year was the first time the school provided them with such funds. For a little longer, iPads have been used by teachers and students in the kindergarten, which also falls under this school.
“The challenge and reward system that comes with these devices motivates children to continually strive to improve understanding and achieve goals,” says Marilyn Meyerson, Head of Library and Technology. The school approaches the inclusion of iPads in preschool education with the idea that if the ways in which technology is integrated into learning are carefully considered, then their contribution to the curriculum is truly valuable. Teacher Nancy Leventhal is pleased with the inclusion of iPads in the classroom: "Educational games and drawing programs allow students a completely new way of learning."
Even though the school is excited about the minor technological revolution, the director of the kindergarten, Dr. Susan Rosendahl assures parents that these devices and apps are not in school to replace active interaction between student and teacher. "We use tablets to develop children's curiosity and thinking," adds Rosendahlová.
The faculty has been discussing the inclusion of the iPad in high school teaching since 2010. At the beginning of the last school year, the idea was presented to students as a tool "to search for information and facts during class discussions, view audiovisual resources, record and analyze data, and create original content lessons with applications like iMovie, Explain Everything or nearpod. "
In addition to saving students on expensive textbooks and backpack space thanks to iPads, teachers also argued for their plan that their work should best prepare students for jobs that don't exist yet. Therefore, it is necessary to keep one eye on the future, which is rapidly changing to a place where the correct handling of technology is the way to success. But to most students, this idea seemed like a violation of the principles and ideology of the school.
At Key School, they are taught to think independently and for students to develop their own opinion, the lessons that are based on discussion with classmates are important for students. Students have noted that if someone brings their own device to class today, they seem to be mentally elsewhere and more engaged in watching their laptop rather than in class discussion. Most of them also think that they would not be able to handle the responsibility that comes with iPads in class. They are afraid that they would not be able to concentrate in class with them.
In their arguments, they also did not forget to mention the details they noticed in preschool children who use iPads every day in kindergarten. "The children did not pay attention to their surroundings or other classmates. They only cooperated with their tablet," two students note in the school newspaper. "We've watched as children who, if it weren't for their iPads, would have created their own worlds using their imaginations, now become dependent on the technology provided by the school," they complain. Students have an important voice at Key School, so the school management decided to cancel the program of including iPads in the classroom. However, the school continues to encourage students to bring their own devices to school to help them learn - laptops and smartphones.
Thus, secondary school students will continue to learn without iPads as a mandatory school aid. However, they are not completely immune to Apple products. They have several iMacs in the art building that they use to edit photos, design the school newspaper, or create a design. They can also borrow an iPad from the library. All they have to do is register and they can use the tablet for any need during one lesson. The same system also works with Chromebooks from Google, which clearly beat the iPad in popularity among students, most often due to the presence of a physical keyboard, which makes it easier to take notes in class.
The student Teresa Bilanová, unlike me, studied at a school in neighboring Baltimore, where teaching with iPads is already fully established. Teresa evaluates the program very positively. "This program suited me and everyone else had a positive attitude towards it. We used iPads in class mainly for taking notes and reading PDF files. They didn't have to be printed that way, and therefore no paper was wasted," he recalls of the advantages of the new tablets. “The iPads also helped with the availability of resources because we could look anything up at any time, then take a picture of it and put it in the notebooks, for example.” While Teresa was excited about the system, she admits there were some downsides. "I kind of missed plain paper and a pencil, because I find that if you write something on paper, you remember it better."
However, it is probably only a matter of time before the majority of American schools switch to iPads to a greater or lesser extent - progress is inevitable. What do you think about the iPad as a school tool? Would you welcome such a system in Czech schools as well?
The article was written based on the experience of a one-year stay in the capital of the state of Maryland (Annapolis) in the United States of America.
Did the students have to buy these expensive (for us in SR) devices, or did someone sponsor them? Who pays if the device breaks?
Isn't it both? You either have your own, or they lend you a school one, but maybe I'm wrong...
How are you, Lukas? I would expect that when you post an article on the net, you also read the reactions and comment on them. Perhaps a month is enough time to express.
Or should I understand it as half-truths of a kid that should not be noticed?
I personally think that the use of such devices in kindergartens is absolutely unnecessary and a bit degenerative. As for other levels of schooling, today's child who does not have any tablet or smartphone is out. So again unnecessary for elementary schools because most children have these conveniences of their own. For high schools and universities, I would definitely lean towards using it, especially in technical fields. I study such a field myself and it helps.
Overall, if I were to summarize it, it has some progress and significance, but for children and students to reject textbooks and scripts from literature, for example, is a terrible idea. The word literature itself has a broader meaning as a collection of WRITTEN texts. So I hope that in 50 years we will still be able to use classic writing and not only printing.
But the books are not written :) But otherwise yes - I am also studying a technical field, but I would definitely not write technology everywhere.
I have no doubt at all that computers will gradually gain ground as a basic tool in schools. But I don't think it will be tablets in the form we know today, and that it will be Apple's SW and HW as we know it today. Tablets and Apple in their current form are completely unsuitable for widespread use in education. Which I write as a satisfied user of a number of Apple products.
I agree with Pizlo. Tablets are in their infancy and I think that the idea that Microsoft is creating with Surface is good, it just needs to be cured of childhood diseases.
I note that I also have Apple products.
The article is interesting, as a PedF student I am interested in tablets in teaching. I would just like to clarify: Do only the teachers own the tablets or do the students also get them during the lessons?