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Carrying on from our discussion on OLPC

In recent years there has been a major push to equip classrooms with technology, including laptops, overhead projectors, interactive white boards and tablets. It has become big business. But there are questions about whether the investment is paying off. This series explores the push to digitize the American classroom and whether the promises are being fulfilled.

This comment from a reader on one of the articles (Inflating the Software Report Card) sums it up rather nicely: "Data-driven, individualized instruction aimed at identifying a student's strengths and weaknesses, is not perfect, nor can it replace great teachers. But it can and does allow gifted students to zoom ahead, average students to keep up, and struggling students to catch up. If we really want math education to become part of the fabric of our kids' lives, not just raising their scores on a standardized test, but helping them become more competent and effective adults, we need to take advantage of all of the technology available".

Over the most recent few weeks I've seen similar articles touting the iPod Touch (as opposed to iPads or other tablets). More similar to use of phones as computing devices.

A good snapshot of the conversation at the school board level. How informed are the high-stakes decision makers.

The amount of money they are spekaing about to scale their schools into the 21st century is the reason the BYOD option is so attractive. If schools focus on wireless infrastructure then families might be able to forgo soem back to school supplies and video games to get a tablet.

This was also shared in UDL by my teaching fellow. Again, it is not just about the TECH, it is about the TEACHer!! Clearly there is a lot of buzz around iPads in schools at the moment. You can't log on to the Web without reading about another school or entire district or department investing massive coin in a sparkling set of the Wonder Tablets, excited that they will cure all the ills of the current education systems around the world.

This is a very interesting use of tablets in the classroom. Students are using iPads to create 'Screencasts' that allow the them to create a kind of 'tutorial' using a mixture of elements (audio, images, drawing and text) to showcase what they have learned.

I had a chance to do some research on these guys this past summer and it's pretty cool stuff. The TECHbooks (see what they did there...) are basically super intuitive tablets filled over 160,000 leveled lessons - all of which are aligned to Common Core State Standards (if you're in to that, as 45/50 states are). Combine them with a Discovery Streaming license and you get over 100,000 multimedia assets which are downloadable & accessible from anywhere. I wouldn't necessarily call it "transformative" just yet, but it presents a compelling case for digital in the print vs. digital debate.

Quality education for children in families earning less than $2/day is a huge challenge in developing countries. If tech can help...definitely transformative.

I wonder what the basis for this distribution is and wether the plan has been thought through to ensure it meets the goals it set out in the first place or if it is a gimmick for the forthcoming elections. This s a lot of money for a country like India.

Manit, I believe you answered your own question. I bet it is about the forthcoming elections.

This is a classic example of making a bad situation worse with a stupid response

Xu and I discussed this article in class/section. We had similar thoughts ;unfortunate as it is, this is a case of eliminating the effect and not the real cause. Perhaps this article does not fully reveal details but hopefully a real solution is being put into place...quickly.

Since not all kids can afford a smart phone, I don't like giving those who can the advantage ... but ... what I am excited about are the low cost tablets, such as Marvell's Moby ($99 !) coming down the pike ...

ipad roll out in schools

Interesting video and snarky article.  Complex technology with a dead simple UI used for learning--or amusement?  Or Both?

Article about how I-Pads will make electronic patient records easier to use, less expensive, and eventually transform health care. Interesting to read after our online discussion about AI in informal learning- health communication and medical training.

With the privacy concerns surrounding medical records, HIPPA legislation and the password security that is now required of personnel in hospitals to access medical records with ever changing password authentication tokens, I wonder if iPad wireless communication poses any risk to data being hijacked.

Cherie- I actually discussed this issue with a relative who is a doctor and he said that while his office is trying to switch to digital records, he is also concerned about privacy, increased government/insurance company regulation, and a disconnect in patient care/communication (looking down instead of talking to the patient). He also is concerned about time management with so many patients- the time it will take to record information on a tablet instead of the time he takes verbally recording patient information in just a few seconds.

Brief article about how efficiency of e-books and tablets will make physical books obsolete, particularly in developing countries.

Jonah Lehrer on surprising effects of tech on cognition