iPad In the Classroom

iPads in schools are spreading like an Arizona wildfire. According to this story by Winnie Hu in The New York Times, all across the country universities, high schools, middle schools, elementary schools and even kindergartens “are embracing the iPad as the latest tool to teach Kafka in multimedia, history through “Jeopardy”-like games and math with step-by-step animation of complex problems.”

“It has brought individual technology into the classroom without changing the classroom atmosphere,” said Alex Curtis, headmaster of the private Morristown-Beard School in New Jersey, which bought 60 iPads for $36,000 and is considering providing iPads to all students next fall." 

While there are also many who question the educational benefit of Apples latest hot product, those who have used them seem very enthusiastic. Scott Wolfe, a principal at an elementary school in New Jersey proclaimed the iPad to “be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector.”

Closer to home, the Prince Georges County public school system is rolling out a pilot program with four middle schools. In this article by Liz Skalski in The Gazette interviewed James Richardson, the principal of one of the participating schools, Buck Lodge Middle. Richardson expects each  of his 775 students “to have an iPad to use next year.”

In HoCo, a Columbia company, Ease Technologies, is benefitting from integrating the iPad into a number of area school systems. The company already had an established business in working with Apple to set up computers in the schools and quickly seized the iPad initiative as well. They recently established a new 12,000 square foot systems integration center in HoCo to handle the new business.

All I know is that I want one.