What is it that causes technology to stick?
The New York Times recently described the many schools now starting to run pilot projects with iPads. Will they stick? Won’t these go the same way as laptops?
‘School leaders say the iPad is not just a cool new toy but rather a powerful and versatile tool with a multitude of applications,’ the article says, citing the speed of development of user-created applications.
‘I think this could very well be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector,’ a principal is quoted.
Couldn’t it be bigger – couldn’t it change schools?
See this post, about Apple’s one-to-one program. Shortly after running lecture-style trainings in their stores, Apple executives realized that people found it more efficient to wait until the end and ask their questions after class. So they changed the format completely.
January 17, 2011 - 2:58pm
Basically the use of most technology in schools is to convince the students that they need to purchase the instrument. This is the same effect car people determined by providing drivers ed programs with "new" cars. If drivers ed was doing such a fantastic job, why do drivers of ages 16 to 25 pay the highest insurance premiums.
Computers in school should be used for accounting purposes alone (get the grades calculated and to the parents). The students should learn to communicate with each other in the classroom. When asking teachers question, the teacher should in tern ask the student and fellow students questions. This would allow the students to learn to communicate with each other and see if they agree on the thoughts provided by the reading material and how that material is to be used to solve the problem.
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