Being a big apple fan myself and the proud owner of an Iphone and Ipad, I would love to see more apple products being used in the classroom.
As you can see from the apple website, the Ipad goes way beyond any learning experience given from a simple textbook. With audio, videos, interactive activities and more, it can bring learning to life!
In his book, The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley describes how the Ipad will transfrom teaching and learning in the classroom:
1. Larger learning communities. The Internet is an almost limitless space for the creation of communities with common interests. Learners, teachers, schools and universities, and just plain entrepreneurs, are exchanging course content, ideas, learning systems, and other resources using a variety of media. A search for “French verbs” on google finds 653,000 pages.
2. Differentiation. The web is not only large, but it enables people of different cultures, with different perspectives, different skills, and different ideas, to interact. This creates a dynamic market place where people can learn from from each other and influence each other. This exchange of differences is at the core of the unplanned and spontaneous development that the world has experienced over thousands of years.
3. Accessibility. With handheld devices like the iPhone/iPad or Android, learning communities are more accessible. This will bring in more participants. People are now able to connect anytime and anywhere, while waiting for the doctor, reclining on a sofa, or lying in bed. Traditional concepts of time and space related to learning are being turned upside down.
4. Rich content. The distinctions between radio, TV, Internet, telephone, school, university, entertainment, education, are becoming blurred. Education is the acquisition of information, and the variety of ways in which information can be presented is constantly being expanded. All of this rich information content is accessible from an iPad. Entrepreneurs are creating applications for the iPhone and iPad, 1,000 two years ago, and 200,000 today, many of them of educational value. Only the best survive.
5. Cost and speed. India plans to produce a $35 iPad equivalent. In many countries, companies are competing to develop faster and more powerful processors and higher speed wireless connectivity. This will further accelerate the pace of interaction and change, and bring in more participants with more diverse perspectives.
6. Customization. All learning depends on the motivation of the learner. Our brains learn all the time, on their own timetable. Traditional learning has been top-down, one size fits all, seeking to impose a curriculum. The Roman school child had a wax tablet to write down the lessons dictated by the master. Nothing much changed for 2,000 years. Now with the iPad, the learner can be in control, choosing what to do, where, and when. The teacher’s role will increasingly be to coach, helping learners find what they need and what suits their interests.
I feel that apple technology is the way forward and I would love to use it in my future classroom!
References
Ridley, M. cited by Kaufmann, S. (undated) How the Ipad Will Change Education. Available online at:
[Accessed 27.02.12]
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