Tablets in Education Tech 5/11

Tablets in Education

For the first portion of this assignment, I followed Jennifer LaGarde's "Our Nook Adventure."  This series follows her experiences with her school choosing the Nook tablet to utilize in the classroom.  In this series we see four posts that detail that process and the changing opinions that Jennifer had along the way.

Part One:  http://www.librarygirl.net/2010/11/our-ereader-adventure-part-i.html

This post gives a lot of information on the reasons for choosing Nook over Kindle, or iPad.  The major reason that Jennifer chose the Nook over those other brands was that Barnes and Noble offered much more support than anyone else would.  She believed the support would be a necessity in the transition time.  On top of that, the main reason for the tablets was for textbooks and Nook has exclusive rights to certain textbook companies.

The rest of this article explains the exact process they took to activate each Nook.  This process was a lot more tedious than I thought it would be but this blog offers valuable advice in how to perform each step of that process.

Part Two:  http://www.librarygirl.net/2010/11/our-nook-adventure-part-ii.html

This part is basically an update on what Jennifer has learned about the Nooks.  In this part, she describes five things that she has learned so far in the "Adventure."  Judging by this post, it seems that there is still a lot to learn about Nooks and that the services provided by Barnes and Noble were not enough for Jennifer to be 100% confident in her ability to operate the tablets.  This might be a strike against the Nook, but it seems like Jennifer was not terribly phased by the continual learning process.

Part Three:  http://www.librarygirl.net/2010/12/our-nook-adventure-part-iii.html

This was a cool look at how the Nook can change the textbook experience for the students.  Jennifer utilized it in such a way that the students could select which books they were going to read.  They would be provided a list of books that they could select and after they had turned in their selection the teachers would put those books on the student's assigned tablet.  So when the kids came in the next time they had all of the books on their device.

Their was a section after this one that talked about the negative parts of the technology and Jennifer only discussed one negative, the purchasing process was not very practical for them.  They had to put their credit card information into each Nook before they could purchase anything and then they had to delete that info and put it in again on another one.  If there was some way to purchase all of the books on a computer that was connected to the Nooks, it'd be a much less time consuming process.

Part Four:  http://www.librarygirl.net/2011/03/our-ereader-adventure-taking-plunge.html

At this part of the process, Jennifer expressed having a great experience with the Nooks.  But the major issue she had with the process was simply that a classroom was not the target consumer for Nook at this time.  They were not going to bend on policy or change the ordering system for the classroom.  I do not know if this has changed with the eReader market but it seems that iPad has made a focused effort on the classroom.  The next three responses are to articles on iPads in the classroom.

iPad Only Classroom:  http://www.eclassroomnews.com/2011/06/02/new-jersey-district-plans-ipad-only-algebra-course/?

This article is about a school district in New Jersey that has implemented an iPad only classroom for Algebra I students.  They are the first school district in New Jersey to have a classroom like this and they are having great success.  90.5% of students this school district are proficient in Algebra compared to just 60% in non-iPad classes.  The success comes from the extra instruction given through the iPad, which gives the students step by step guidance on problems and offers video instruction.  If that is not enough to surpass paper, the math app that they have is the equivalent of a 950 page textbook.  The iPad is being used with very impressive results in this school district.

Bring Your Own Technology:  http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/04/29/bring-your-own-device-catching-on-in-schools/?

This article begins by talking about the benefits of a 1:1 computer to student ratio in a classroom, indicating that the school provides the devices.  There are clear benefits to the technology, but the cost is very high.  It seems unlikely that school districts across the country will provide technology for their students.  But research shows that 75% of student already own a cell phone or smart phone, which makes the possibility of implementing a BYOT rule more reasonable.  This is a major issue today in education and eventually it will reach a tipping point, probably in favor of 1:1 through BYOT.  The benefits of the technology and the increasing number of students with smart phones seems to indicate that.

iPad Academy:  http://ipadacademy.com/about/

This website provides helpful guidance in the technology of the iPad.  It is created and led by teacher who has plenty of experience in the technological world.  It is set up almost like an online school and the cost for entry into a class is pretty steep (cost for the first class is $39).  What I can learn from seeing this website is that there really is a need out there for people to learn this technology.  People see that the work and social worlds are changing and they are willing to pay that much for a class on something that they could probably get the hang of if they read the owner's manual or went to an apple store.  So what I have learned from this website is that I should make sure I do what I can to learn about this technology (hopefully through a free source).