iPad in Education

[profenglish]

I am a teacher of English in Italy and am interested knowing anyone who is using the iPad in the classroom. I'm mostly curious if using an iPad in the classroom is worth the investment... I'd be interested hearing some of your opinions as I have only seen the January 19th presentation in New York on YouTube...

 

[Eddie Bombay]

I'd be too worried about my student scratching my screens or jacking my iPads. I'd be one stressed teacher lol. Would most likely end up smoking again.

iTunes U sounds pretty cool though here is a link to check it out if you havent yet:

http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

 

[JesseW6889]

I am a teacher of English in Italy and am interested in knowing anyone who is using the iPad in the classroom. I'm mostly curious if using an iPad in the classroom is worth the investment... I'd be interested in hearing some of your opinions as I have only seen the January 19th presentation in New York on YouTube...

Look into:
iTunes U (iTunes Univeristy)
iBooks Textbooks
iBooks Author

You can create courses or use others courses with iTunes U. iBooks Author allows you to make your own textbooks. iBooks Textbooks are textbooks created by the textbook manufactures and include interactive content and cost $15 each. There are a few titles out now and more will be following.

I am a college student and use my iPad for education almost exclusively. Especially the new one with the sharper screen makes reading much more tolerable. I attend community college and I get FAR more out of the courses that I take on iTunes U (for free). For an education medium, the iPad's only limitation is how many students can afford them, but once in their hands, there is no limit to what these things can do!

 

[dukeblue91]

I am a teacher of English in Italy and am interested in knowing anyone who is using the iPad in the classroom. I'm mostly curious if using an iPad in the classroom is worth the investment... I'd be interested in hearing some of your opinions as I have only seen the January 19th presentation in New York on YouTube...

I'm not a teacher but here in the US quite a few school districts are going to iPads as learning and teaching tools.
There where some studies done but I can't find them at the moment, try to google it and see what you come up with.

Just today I was debating on an iPad or a laptop for my 11 yo son for school.
He is doing more and more work on the computer as he is getting older and advancing in school.
And there are pro and cons for both devices.

 

[profenglish]

First of all thank you for the quick replies... I have searched the iTunes, I have downloaded iBooks Author and browsed through iBooks Textbooks. I will probably publish an iBook of English as a Second Language to be used in Italy where it is desperately needed. I teach in a private language school where they must pay fees to learn English. So I am not so concerned with the students destroying the iPad or even thinking that they can "jack it" as said by Eddie Bombay in his reply. I would supply the iPad to the students to use exclusively in class to do grammar and listening exercises, especially pronunciation @ dukeblue91 I teach middle school kids from 11 to 13 years old and to engage them to learn needs to be what they are most interested in, and use to in todays world...technology is the key not the standard textbook that has been used, thank you for your input. @ JessieW6889 I hope that Apple in time will be able to reduce the price of an iPad so that it can be affordable to all students. Lets see what happens in the future. Thanks again.

 

[mac.junkie]

I heard an interview on NPR not too long ago about a high school using iPads. I'll search later and see if I can find a link.

Edit: Here's the link to a Boston school that's abandoned textbooks for iPads: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/03/23/schools-textbooks-ipad

 

[profenglish]

thanks...for the link.

 

[stephg]

I am a teacher, and I recently won a grant to get iPads in my classroom. My students are 4th and 5th graders, and they are great with the iPads. We did go through a discussion about how to treat them, carry them, etc. So far they have been very careful, and they love using them. We will be doing a project with them starting in about a week which will involve researching, writing a report, and creating a video connected to our Social Studies curriculum (this is the project that I got the grant for). They have been using them for educational apps, internet, and word processing. I think it is very motivating for the students to use them. So, my experience is that if you can find a way to fund getting some iPads for your classroom, you will use them a lot and the students will be excited to use them! I suggest looking for grants related to technology use if you need funding.

 

[ecschwarz]

Fraser Spiers (http://speirs.org/) has written a lot on the subject, but he's been more along the lines of deployment and management. I know in the US, a number of schools (especially higher ed) have been picking up sets of iPads to replace aging laptop carts, or experiment with specific apps and "new media" - it really depends what you want to do with them.

 

[profenglish]

@ Stephg

Here in Italy the government has cut back most funding for schools, especially state public schools... The politicians are too busy taking large salaries and wanting to keep the general population ignorant. Unfortunately this is the lay of the land in most of Italy. But I would be very curious to know your outcome regarding your project. If you find the time please let me know about the success level of your students. Engaging the students to fully participate in studies these days is getting more and more difficult. Thanks for your imput as I wish you all the success in the coming months.

 

[kds786]

I'm the academic dean at a small private school here in the U.S. and we integrated iPads into the curriculum last year. We worked with Apple and we lease the iPads with a fair market value buy out at the end of 3 years, allowing each student to buy the iPad for $1 when they graduate. I also teach the class over the iPads and have worked with other schools to help implement them in classrooms. They are very beneficial, especially for our learning disabled kids or ESL kids. We use a variety of apps and hope to get textbooks in the fall for them. Feel free to PM me with any questions! I highly support integrating iPads if you can!