Digital Tablets for School Children

Convert textbooks, blackboard and student notes, exercises and related learning aids to digital tablet format; national program to coordinate tablet computer adoption in school districts across Canada — buying power, shared learning tool development, lessons learned, library resource conversion, digital science lab.

Comments

dsanden — 2010–05–13 10:03:40 EDT wrote

Myopia — I read once myopia (nearsightedness) is caused primarily by reading: focussing at book reading distances. Suggestion: compensate with tablet lens or protective eyewear.

dsanden — 2010–05–13 10:09:32 EDT wrote

Avoid arbitrage into commercial applications — if tablets are general purpose they may be stolen or sold by cash strapped parents. Solution: use buying power to make single purpose "for education" and worthless elsewhere.

Nscafe — 2010–05–16 09:57:21 EDT wrote

One Tablet Per Child — In the sense that if literally all the kids have one the incentive to steal them usually evaporates.

I'm not sure on concept execution in a classroom setting. Perhaps re–organizing how children, young adults and teenagers work their way through an education system might be in order.

Test bed a couple of new schools with Federal and Provincial monies with a curriculum designed to use (not integrated) whatever technologies are available. We didn't integrate the pencil and chalk piece, we just started using them and found it very adaptable to intellectual problem–solving ("I made a mistake" // "Erase is and start over").

This would also mean having teachers/instructors who are also fluent in technology use. This, I admit, is a long term strategy that needs a lot more thought going into it.

All I know is that giving kids pencils and cellphones at the same time leads to the pencil being ignored (and then useless as a tool).

ETMalaty — 2010–05–18 09:05:56 EDT wrote

Technology is definitely a powerful enabler to achieving important objectives, whether in private or public sector. However, I feel that this idea focuses more on technology than on the underlying issue of educating, inspiring and coaching children on how to be successful in the digital age. I'm sure over time, this idea will come to pass. It's just not where I would start. Not a priority. We should avoid jumping into tools and gadgets before addressing the fundamentals of how children learn and get inspired about science and technology.

JustinB — 2010–05–18 12:02:42 EDT wrote

Digital classrooms seem like the most likely way to embed technology at the early stages of learning however it does raise some questions such as: should every child receive one? What is an appropriate age to deliver? Will students keep their digital readers and notebooks throughout their education and if so, what is a reasonable storage capacity? What if they break?

More importantly, what are the environmental repercussions of having millions of digital readers and such? Would this enhance skills or simply root the adoption of technology at early ages?

R — 2010–05–19 00:50:18 EDT wrote

This would be nice if:

• It was developed publicly with free and open standards.
• A parallel initiative was also developed encouraging the development of public books for every subject up to the undergraduate levels.
• We can understand why having technology in class rooms can be a good thing but also how much of a distraction it can quickly become.
  Computer education early, yes! Computer education absolutely and everywhere, I don't know?
• As other have pointed out, we need technically literate teachers and that is an chicken or egg problem but while we need to work on it, we need to really find where these new tools will benefit the kids the most.

dsanden — 2010–05–24 10:50:49 EDT wrote

College in–class use of laptops
How Laptops Can Enhance Learning in College Classrooms

xaero — 2010–05–25 14:04:33 EDT wrote

I would agree with ETMalaty. In the short term it's just a fancy replacement for pencils and paper. I don't think pencil and paper should ever be replaced as writing by hand is a basic and fundamental skill. Even if a tablet and digital pen can replicate the same movement, it creates a detachment to physical objects.

I do however see some advantages if students were given a streamlined device for learning. This could include being able to keep a long term record of academic files and educational material; and this should be stored online on reliable servers so in the event that someone loses there device they can retrieve it online, and they can download additional content for school. So this device would be more a hub to access information and do work.

The device would also have to be restricted, kids can't get anything done if they're secretly on Facebook during class.

xaero — 2010–05–25 14:13:01 EDT wrote

Also, I don't think these devices should be introduced until High School. Could be costly to allow younger children to handle a device which can price anywhere from $200–$500 each.

Large interactive tablets for teachers to use can provide visual advantages for teaching, as well as being able to dynamically display information and images to the class.

dsanden — 2010–06–01 19:37:16 EDT wrote

OLPC — One Laptop Per Child