Tampa Preparatory School, which serves grades six to 12, announced on its official site tampaprep.org that starting this past August, every student in all grades is required to have the latest version of the Apple iPad with at least 64 gigabytes of memory. On the site, Tampa Prep states that “students will utilize multimedia and interactive textbook content that the school will blend into its curriculum and students will be required to create, produce and store multimedia projects. Device memory will be critical in storing all of this curricular content.” The school also refers to factors such as portability, battery life, digital resources and operating syste bm as reasons why iPads are effective. They enable teachers to create assignments that support different learning styles. Now, students at Tampa Prep use iPads in class to create presentations and ebooks. It is undeniable that using iPads in classes is helpful to the students’ learning experience, but I don’t believe that their use should be mandatory.
Suzy Lassacher, Student technology support coordinator at Tampa prep, explained why the school came up with the new policy: “Tampa Prep used to be a ‘bring your own device’ school. In order to stay current we wanted to provide [students] with these skills for them to use in the near future, for example in college and the work force, by going digital. Despite upfront expenses, it would save parents in the long run. E-reader, calculator, camera, iPads contain all this.” She also says iPads are a more economical and more portable option.
While it is great to increase the use of technology and technological knowledge in schools and reduce the use of paper, I think Tampa Prep is taking it too far by making it mandatory. For one, it should not be mandatory considering some parents cannot afford buying an iPad for each of their children, especially if they have several children who go to middle or high school. For example, the iPad with retina display costs $499, according to apple.com. If you compare that price to the accumulative cost of all the school supplies students need to buy in middle through high school, the iPad might be cheaper. But while iPads save more money in the long run, they are much less economical in the short run.
The school is also trying to promote a “paperless classroom ecosystem.” According to the school’s website, the new iPad 1:1 policy introduced 80 percent of textbooks in digital format. Also, students use applications to take notes in class and Google forms to take quizzes in place of their conventional paper forms.
Some parents are happy with the school’s new policy. Edesa Scarborough, Director of the First Year Baccalaureate Experience at UT, has a daughter named Carly who attends Tampa Prep. “So far, she loves it,” Scarborough said. “It seems all her [eighth grade] classmates love it,” she continued. “They took to it very easily. I was surprised.”
Scarborough commented on the iPad’s benefits: “It is much more interactive. Not only is [it] loaded with books, but it also has videos, podcasts, a mountain of information in all types of formats so she can pick and choose how she wants to learn the material. It doesn’t have to be the same for every class or even every lesson.” Most homes now have at least one computer. The mentioned benefits of iPads are mostly included in computers as well. While computers can replace iPads and do everything an iPad is capable of, an iPad can’t replace a computer. So a student does not really need to own his or her iPad to be able to use such capabilities.
Another advantage of having the iPad, according to Scarborough, is that it is “good for several years, maybe until she graduates and loading books to it each year is much less expensive and we save trees… win win for everyone. Additionally she has all her books and material saved… like her own library. No more selling back books at the end of the year.”
Unlike some parents who had to but their children iPads specifically for school, Scarborough says she and her husband had bought their daughter the iPad; it is hers. “I did not feel forced,” Scarborough said. “We had to buy books every year and they were just as expensive and heavy to carry in her backpack.”
Since the iPads are the students’ property and will be used both at home and in school, monitoring students’ iPad usage would be very difficult. Of course, students would not only have scholar and academic applications on their iPads, but would most likely have games too. Lassacher explained that there is currently no iPad management in place to block any games or apps on the students’ iPads, however, all students are required to fill out an “honor code” when they enroll to promise academic integrity.
Still, this makes it fairly easy for students to get distracted and tempted to use such applications. How many students would rather learn about fractions than play candy crush or angry birds? My guess is not many. According to Scarborough, the school has an in-house IT department that did a one-week orientation for students and parents on the change and how they would monitor everything.
However, this might prove to be difficult. It is almost impossible for a teacher to monitor every single student in class and make sure they are not using any other application than what they are supposed to.
The school’s website states that the “iPads will be the property and responsibility of the student and his/her family” and that the school will not be responsible for broken or stolen iPads.“We require that parents send the iPads to school in protected cases,” Lassacher said. “We also recommended getting insurance or extended warranty.” This makes sense as the school should not be expected to have the responsibility of taking care of each student’s iPad.
However, 11 to 14-year-old middle school students should not be expected to take care of such objects either. iPads are fragile; if you drop an iPad face first and it hits the screen, it will probably break. So it makes sense that you should not trust a child with an object that is mainly glass, especially considering that they will have to carry it around all day to school and back.
While I find typing easier and faster than writing, writing is proven to be more effective when it comes to study-related habits. According to huffingtonpost.com, evidence from studies have shown that the skill of writing is a process that needs an integration of visual, motor, as well as cognitive or perceptive parts. The perception allows one to remember the shape of the letters that is written, while sight and motor skills of the hand enable the writing. Consequently, writing notes is more effective than typing. So maybe the school’s decision to let students use typing instead of writing for taking notes in class was not the best method after all.
Also, the regular use of typing as an alternative to writing diminishes spelling and grammar skills. When people are typing, they depend on spell check to detect their spelling and grammatical errors and fix them rather than using their own skills and memory. This means that as time passes, the students’ regular use of typing would cause an unwanted effect on their learning experience. Instead of strengthening their grammar and spelling skills, it might decline them.
While I am for the constant development of methods used in schools and the introduction of technology in education systems, I believe that such policies like using iPads in schools should not be mandatory. It’s a great idea in theory, but maybe it should start with high school, considering that high school students would be more receptive with using and taking care of iPads better than middle school students.
Rawan Elzayat can be reached at rawan.elzayat@spartans.ut.edu