Report: Some students spending 75% of school day on iPads

MINEOLA, N.Y. – Students at Jackson Avenue School in Mineola, New York now learn the vast majority of their lesson on iPads.

The Hechinger Report featured about two dozen third-graders in teacher Morgan Mercaldi’s class that use iPads for about 75 percent of their school day as part of a district-wide iPads-for-all initiative.
All 417 district students in grades three through nine are issued an assigned device and spend their day learning through education apps like eSpark, Edmodo and MobyMax. The effort, now in its fifth year, has helped to keep kids engaged and provide teachers with regular student progress toward meeting national Common Core standards, the news site reports.
Mercaldi said she initially limited students’ use of the devices, but is now all in.
“Putting them away serves no purpose,” she said. “We use them constantly.”
Students still use some traditional school supplies, however.
During a recent assignment students researched frogs both online and in books and organized their materials on their iPads before putting their findings down on paper.
Mercaldi said part of the reason for moving to iPads was to keep track of the numerous Common Core standards.
“The old way wasn’t going to help us to progress,” she said. “We had no way to asses and organize” so many standards.
Jackson Avenue School principal Janet Gonzalez told the site the technology benefits some students by allowing them to move ahead when they grasp a concept, and helps teachers understand where others are struggling.
“It does allow students to have success at whatever their level is, and eventually we hope to close that gap and they can catch up,” she said.

School officials are now working with a company called School 4 One to develop an app that will allow them to track more detailed progress toward Common Core standards, Gonzalez said.
The news site reports there’s little data available on the effectiveness of digital learning, but the companies that provide the software claim it’s great at engaging students. Some parents have voiced concerns about students spending so much time on their iPads, so Mercaldi sends them videos about how they can use the technology to better help their child with homework.
She also sends them regular progress reports.
The district apparently took the transition slowly, vetted their software providers, and had the infrastructure in place to support the increased demand for bandwidth. They also trained teachers and offered continuing support.
Other school districts haven’t fared as well when dolling out iPads to all students.
The Los Angeles Unified School district is perhaps the best example of how some have totally bungled integrating new technology into the classroom. Officials there provided little guidance to teachers when they began an ambitious plan to give away iPads to the district’s 600,000 students.
The trouble started as soon as the first wave of iPads went out, with students circumventing the firewall to surf social media and play games, teachers unprepared to incorporate the technology, bandwidth issues, and numerous other complications.
The focus in L.A. seemed to be more on the “civil rights” of poor students to own an iPad than on actually using the devices to improve learning. The district has since pulled the plug on its contract with Apple and software provider Pearson, and are trying to get a refund, as federal investigators look into the $1.3 billion failure.
http://eagnews.org/some-students-spending-75-of-school-day-on-ipads/