It's going to really depend more on the individual teacher, and how they use it.
It could be worse, it could be better, it could be a wash.
Definately. Technology is no pancea. A crap teacher is a crap teacher no many how many bells and whistles you put on them.
------------------------------------
Here is a post I put in another forum, but I think it's relevant here. THOUGHTS?
We need to look at the system in place. I look at a model of public education looking like k-6, 7-9, 10-12, and the post secondary.
Personally, I don’t remember learning stuff from a textbook, but from my teacher. I feel the first place that tablets should be is in the hands of the teacher to enhance the learning experience. The textbook doesn’t teach, the TEACHER teaches .
So looking at a textbook from my viewpoint (in k-12), it is just a set of questions. But to the parent who is helping their kids with their homework, it can act as a learning tool or a refresher
The north American education system is based mainly in linguistics and mathematics. The simple fact is that if you cannot read well, word problems in chemistry, math, physics and others, are going to haunt you. We need to start incorporating Multiple Intelligences.
Howard Gardner (PhD) has shown that there are 8 kinds of intelligences (a ninth, spirituality, is in the works). These eight are: mathematical/logic, linguistic, intrapersonal/self-smartl, interpersonal/people smart, nature, musical, kinesthetic and one other. Tablets will finally allow students to bring the association back to learning.
For example, what is the difference between someone writing an essay on Alexander the great and another making a ballad song in Garageband singing about alexander’s rise and fall? Nothing. As long as the rubric used to mark the students is clear, the marking can be the same. Btw, a rubric on alexander might look like:
- student demonstrates knowledge in the period of alexander
- student explains one major war that alexander fought in
- student lists contributions the romans gave to the modern era during the great peace.
Tablets shouldn’t be in the hands of the students full time until roughly 16 years old. They need to develop proper reading and writing skills if they hope to succeed in their other classes and areas of life. If just used for textbook purposes, I can see potential, but why can’t the teacher show these videos to the class?
A basic kindle on the other hand, should be in every kids bag. The ability to carry a book everywhere has been a blessing to me with the iphone4 retina display. I am reading more than ever now.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned here that gets me excited is the prospect of school districts or regional governments (heck, even just teachers doing it on their own) creating their own textbooks. FTW and boil down the information that is concise. Don’t buy the text books at all. This possible move to a peer reviewed but open source education system could be the change that Jobs was talking about. I want to be clear; I am not talking about plagiarism, but content created by teachers and peers. The concept is rough, but I think it has potential. There could even be classes in school that have kids create the multimedia content for the new iBook’s.
As far as post secondary (PSE), I honestly believe it is CRIMINAL how much students are charged for text books. Professors should be required as part of their “research” to create ebooks with peers for distribution to the school. There are 50lbs of books that I will NEVER use again.
For PSE, it should be iPads and iBooks, FTW.
