Anonymous wrote: They're good questions, but I assume (and I'm not naive and don't think school administrators never make mistakes) that they had enough information about how kids and teachers used them to make an informed decision.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We were told (at the Gunston parents middle school orientation) that one sixth grade class in each middle school was piloted with iPads last year. Had no reason to doubt this.

I had heard it was just Swanson, but maybe Gunston, too?

I don't see how this works as a pilot. When they say "one class," do they mean "one homeroom class"? (STAR class, whatever.)

So 20 kids have access to an iPad, and this affects instruction how, exactly? They go to their core classes, where their classmates won't have iPads, so it can't be an essential, or even important, part of instruction. What does it prove?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were a child free taxpayer, would you feel the same way?

If you are a child-free taxpayer, don't you have better things to do than hang out here?

Anonymous wrote:

We were told (at the Gunston parents middle school orientation) that one sixth grade class in each middle school was piloted with iPads last year. Had no reason to doubt this.

I had heard it was just Swanson, but maybe Gunston, too?

We were told (at the Gunston parents middle school orientation) that one sixth grade class in each middle school was piloted with iPads last year. Had no reason to doubt this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

At least in the case of the 6th grade iPads, they piloted this last year in one class in every APS middle school.

Who on earth told you this? They certainly didn't do this at my child's middle school last year.

Nor mine.

Anonymous wrote:If you were a child free taxpayer, would you feel the same way?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I see them being everyday as a place to stick anchor charts.

A teacher wrote this sentence? I sure hope you're not an English teacher.

This sentence? Try the entire paragraph.

Anonymous wrote:

I see them being everyday as a place to stick anchor charts.

A teacher wrote this sentence? I sure hope you're not an English teacher.

I see them being everyday as a place to stick anchor charts.

The data comes from the classes in which they piloted classes last year. The data is probably experiential data, rather than a lot of numbers and figures. In the greater scheme of things, I don't think that this is worth a lot of parental energy. The complaints about this remind me of a story conveyed by neighbors about our neighborhood school's extended day program: Some parents one year were up in arms because the apples being served in Extended Day were not organic and the staff had not removed the stickers from them.

Maybe this is a boondoggle but unless you teach, have educational administration expertise, and/or want to run for school board, I think the negative reaction is overblown.


+1 this is one very sensible post. technology is here to stay, and there were similar initial complaints about smart boards too. so the question is how best to utilize the technology to achieve better student learning outcomes, not should technology be used or not.

but then again, almost every one on DCUM is an arm chair quarterback when it comes to education policy

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

At least in the case of the 6th grade iPads, they piloted this last year in one class in every APS middle school. The results were obviously - from their perspective

And the analysis of the data collected is available where?

- good enough to justify giving every 6th grader an iPad. As the parent of one such 6th grader this year in an APS middle school, I think that this can be very useful - especially for kids whose families cannot afford such technology themselves. A lot of content supposedly is going to be pushed to the iPads for the kids to work on at home (WiFi won't be necessary). It also supposedly will help with differentiation. I was surprised myself to hear that this was moving forward but I'm really not upset -- it won't be perfect (we've heard rollout at our son's middle school may take a bit longer than planned) but kids today use technology and this has the potential to be helpful to student learning. The level of vitriol from some people over this seems a bit much.

We can agree at least that we have different standards when it comes to rigor and cost-benefit analysis.


And transparency.

The data comes from the classes in which they piloted classes last year. The data is probably experiential data, rather than a lot of numbers and figures. In the greater scheme of things, I don't think that this is worth a lot of parental energy. The complaints about this remind me of a story conveyed by neighbors about our neighborhood school's extended day program: Some parents one year were up in arms because the apples being served in Extended Day were not organic and the staff had not removed the stickers from them.

Maybe this is a boondoggle but unless you teach, have educational administration expertise, and/or want to run for school board, I think the negative reaction is overblown.