iPads In The Classroom

With Meghna Chakrabarti in for Tom Ashbrook

Tablets computers—iPads and the rest—are moving into children’s classrooms and backpacks. How is that changing learning? Homework time?

Apple’s unveiled the new iPad mini. Amazon’s upped its services for Kindle, too. Suddenly it seems tablet computers are everywhere. Including classrooms. School districts large and small are paying big money to put tablets in students’ backpacks.

The technology could be a powerful new teaching tool. Or, could they be a distraction from the focused work of real learning. Steve Jobs once said, “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want.” But do we want tablets in schools?

This hour, On Point: iPads, Kindles, and the challenges of the 21^st century classroom.
-Meghna Chakrabarti

Shayne Evans, director of the four campuses of the University of Chicago Charter School.

Daniel Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.

Janet Frazier, mother and candidate for school board in Lexington, South Carolina.

Bloomberg "For districts around the country, though, it’s the price as much as the cool quotient that could draw them to a new, smaller version of the iPad that Apple will unveil tomorrow at an event in San Jose, California. Apple has long been a leader in education, and schools began embracing the iPad soon after its 2010 debut. Yet as fiscal budget shortfalls crimp spending all the more, schools in growing numbers are warming to the handheld devices as an alternative to more expensive laptops."

New York Times "A growing number of schools across the nation are embracing the iPad as the latest tool to teach Kafka in multimedia, history through “Jeopardy”-like games and math with step-by-step animation of complex problems."

Ed Week "As you may have heard today, Apple announced their E-Textbook Initiative to enter and revolutionize the textbook market, specifically centering these initiatives to highlight the potential of the iPad in education."

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Notability
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CoWriter
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Math Magic
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