Five Ways to Waste the Potential of Classroom iPads

In this helpful article in Edudemic, tech consultant and former high-school history teacher Tom Daccord lists mistakes he’s seen schools making with iPads in classrooms and points the way to more-effective use:

• Focusing only on content apps – Some teachers think iPads are useless if apps in their subject area aren’t available. But a Latin class, for example, could use apps like VoiceThread to record students speaking Latin or having a collaborative discussion about Cicero. Students could use Animoto for a lively student presentation on Latin vocabulary, or the Socrative app for a Latin quiz, or Explain Everything to create a grammar tutorial. Daccord says there are limitless possibilities across subject areas using four basic types of apps: annotation, screencasting, audio creation, and video creation.

• Unprepared teachers – To ensure that tablet computers are used effectively, teachers need some serious PD, says Daccord: “Decades of research has shown that when teachers have access to new technologies, their instinct is to use new technologies to extend existing practices. Without guidance, iPads become expensive notebooks used by students in very traditionally structured stand-and-deliver classrooms.” And giving teachers their own iPads to play with outside school is poor preparation for effective classroom use. They need training on workflow issues like cloud computing, the interaction of different apps and file types, file format compatibility, file conversion tools, all-in-one management solutions, and translating these concepts so students can use them.

• Treating iPads like computers or laptops – “iPads are devices meant to complement computers, not replace them,” says Daccord. iPads simply don’t have equivalent functionality. They are best for helping students (especially young students) kinesthetically connect with their work by zooming, rotating, pinching, or swiping. iPads can also be used to take pictures, record audio, and shoot video. Students can use them to tell multimedia stories, screencast the solution to math problems, create public service announcements, and simulate tours of ancient cities. “Active consumption, curation, and creativity suit the device,” says Daccord. “Stand-and-deliver teaching does not.” 

• Having multiple students use an iPad at the same time – “Carts that rotate through several classrooms force teachers to take time away from learning, create a nightmare of student accounts, and often focus attention on workflow systems rather than learning,” says Daccord. If funding shortages make one-on-one iPad allocation impossible, he recommends putting full class sets into a few pilot classrooms for an entire year – and pick classrooms whose teachers will use the iPads to their fullest extent.

• Not explaining why we bought all those iPads – “Letting the purchase speak for itself isn’t enough,” says Daccord. “Districts need to explain why they’ve invested in these devices.” Their use has to be in service of teaching students essential skills, taking advantage of “the incredibly immersive and active learning environment the iPad engenders and the unprecedented opportunities to develop personalized, student-centered learning.” School leaders should make the case that with these devices, students literally have the world at their fingertips – “and the only limitation to what students might do in this vast space is the vision of educators.” 

“5 Critical Mistakes Schools Make With iPads (and How to Correct Them)” by Tom Daccord in Edudemic, Sept. 27, 2012; Daccord can be reached at tom@edtechteacher.org; the article is at http://edudemic.com/2012/09/5-critical-mistakes-schools-ipads-and-correct-them/

From the Marshall Memo #463