The iPad in Education and the Questions

[New related post - The iPad in Edu­ca­tion: The Apps & Deploy­ment - 9/24/2011]

Since the release of the iPad,  there have been a lot of ques­tions about its use in the edu­ca­tion space.   As some­one who spent the last five years of his life plan­ning a 1to1 Ini­tia­tive at their school (deployed Sep­tem­ber 2010), the ques­tion of whether the iPad could be used as a pri­mary device for stu­dents and teach­ers has been weigh­ing heav­ily on my mind.

Recently there have been arti­cles in the New York Times - Math That Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad — and in the Huff­in­g­ton Post - Hor­ri­fied by Schools That Give Every Stu­dent an iPad — out­lin­ing the pros and cons of the device in an edu­ca­tional setting.

As I read both of the arti­cles there was one point made in the Hufff­in­g­ton piece with which I couldn’t agree more:

But the iPad will leave stu­dents between a com­puter and a hard place. Indeed, it is a third device. And one that I’m quite fond of. But it’s a poor sub­sti­tute for com­puter learning.

The fact that the iPad is not a stand-alone device, that it requires a com­puter to be bound to for man­age­ment, is one of the biggest fac­tors keep­ing me from look­ing at it as a replace­ment for a lap­top in a 1to1 environment.

In an arti­cle that came out today (1/10/2011) in Mac­World — “An iPad for every child” —  Fraser Speirs (@fraserspeirs) talks about the way he was able to trans­form his school by giv­ing every stu­dent an iPad.  But if you read into the com­ments on the post you can see that this ques­tion of man­age­ment, of own­er­ship comes up again.

The Col­le­giate School in New York City has a great blog — Col­le­giate iPad Users Group — where they are detail­ing their expe­ri­ences of how they can use the iPad in an edu­ca­tional set­ting.  It is excit­ing to see what they are doing and how they are answer­ing many of the ques­tions we all have.  They are talk­ing the time to engage with their own stu­dents and fac­ulty, but by open­ing the process up and doc­u­ment­ing it with in their blog they are also ask­ing us all to be part of the process.

I am look­ing to sites like Collegiate’s to help me answer some of my questions:

• If you want to allow peo­ple to install an app how do you do that?
• Who’s account is on the iPad?
• Who owns the device if only from a data perspective?

Recently I pur­chased two books, Enter­prise iPhone and iPad Administrator’s Guide and iPad & iPhone Admin­is­tra­tors Guide:Enterprise Deploy­ment Strate­gies and Secu­rity Solu­tions to help answer these ques­tions but I am look­ing for more.  I am try­ing to involve myself in as many con­ver­sa­tions as I can on Twit­ter, list­servs, blogs, email exchanges and within my own com­mu­nity.  Please join this dis­cus­sion and share you thoughts, ideas, ques­tions and con­cerns here.

Other Resources: (updated — 1/11/11)

• iPads and Learn­ing - A col­lec­tion of recent arti­cles & blog posts around the idea of using iPads in learn­ing contexts.
• Nji­pads Wiki — designed to be a place to share best prac­tices for the deploy­ment of iPads in an edu­ca­tional envi­ron­ment and to offer reviews on soft­ware and accessories.