July 7th reading- Touching the virtual, touching the real: iPads and enabling literacy for students experiencing disability

"Touching the virtual, touching the real: iPads and enabling literacy for students experiencing disability" by Rosie Flewitt, Natalia Kucirkova and David Messer make a valid showing of support for using ipads as the gestural and sensory experience of touch can enable young learners. Ipad use is fun, independent and inclusive.

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I understand the argument for ipads. As the authors cite, young learners with moderate to complex physical and/or cognitive disabilities can engage in fun, independent and inclusive classroom-based literacy activities. Further, ipads are lightweight, affordable, mobile, independent and flexible use; pair, small group, individual use. Everything about ipads seems so positive, I decided to dig into what students think of ipads in the classroom. There’s been a push to have full ipad schools, and I wanted to hear the students perspective.

In The iPad Goes to School by Devin Leonard, the author talks about how 30,000 students in kindergarten through grade twelve were given ipads that were loaded up with software from the Pearson (PSO) educational group which were also locked down so that students couldn’t wander around the Internet unchaperoned. In a few days, the filters were bypassed by students so facebook and Pandora could be accessed. The ipads were then taken away. I think we need to better train students how to be considerate technology users, we need to teach the balance of education and entertainment when using ipads to engage and allow access to all learners. We also tend to assume that ipad use is a good thing.

A sampling of students were asked what they thought of ipads in the classroom and their answers were audio recorded on the website, What Students Think About Using iPads in School.

Some students found it helpful to have extension activities they could do at home, and to explore math concepts using different apps but some of the feedback was negative: teachers found good software but needed the tech guy to approve and install it and technology also created ongoing glitches, thus one student stated that he preferred pen and paper activities.

Overall it seems like the push for ipads in the classroom is a good thing, we're just navigating new territory regarding the best practices of ipads in the classroom. We need to make sure it's not a push to have them in class because they're new and shiny- they need to be useful and purposeful.

On a positive note- this video attests that we're starting to figure out how ipads are useful in class, and that when expectations and guidelines surrounding ipad use are set, ipads can be successfully used to supplement traditional classroom activities.