Does your dc's school use iPads?

[Noitsnotteatimeyet]

If so, are they individual devices taken home by pupils or are they a set of iPads used for specific lessons? If they're individual iPads, how are they paid for (and how much?). And are they adding value to lessons in a way which things like interactive whiteboards can't?. My dc's school wants to introduce them and there's been a bit of a parental revolt... so interested to hear experiences from other schools

OECD evidence suggests that heavy investment in technology is not associated with improved results:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34174796

Also, schools mostly force parents to pay for the kit, in schemes that works out way more expensive than if they bought it themselves:
www.theguardian.com/education/2016/aug/09/back-to-school-bill-ipad-technology-parents

On top of that, schools often buy equipment but then teachers aren't trained to use it effectively meaning the iPad is simply used as a worksheet replacement.

I get my students to make movies on them to demonstrate understanding of difficult topics.

Ah yes, I remember those - they would waste a whole day at the weekend to create a movie to "learn" something that my son could have learned within half an hour by traditional methods. (Not to mention the pain of finding/downloading a suitable movie maker software that we didn't have to pay for). Horrible time.

Thank goodness, DS is now in year 10 and they've given up on those trendy faddish learning activities. Now they just learn stuff properly, far more quickly, by more traditional methods and make much faster progress.

Sorry to the trendies on here, but movie making, powerpoints etc just suck up a lot of time and effort for no real benefit. Yes, they may be helpful for "some" pupils who have trouble learning traditional methods, but for the majority who can learn from books, worksheets, etc., they're just a time consuming distraction.

Mine have them and tbh I'd rather they didn't. My 12 yo is upstairs "doing homework" but is also on facetime with friends and watching stuff on BBC iPlayer. It's really hard to police as she has to have the ipad for homework (they do do written work; it's more that the homework tasks and various school apps are online) and she can't do it downstairs in the kitchen else WW3 would break out with her siblings. The school gives them out even for the young ones - the KS1 children have just got theirs although at least they only come home some nights.

Sec. school (state) does not have them. Our parents would revolt if it were suggested.

I am thinking of a family who are in debt merely to send their son to the school (out of catchment bus fares). That's why folk would rebel.

However the kids are often invited to use their mobiles in class, to browse or calculate, etc. You can buy a refurb'd iPad2 for £90 now, so similar price to a new mobile.... only less robust/easier to bash.

Private secondary, and yes, IPad for each student, take them home included in the fees. They use them in class, mostly specially selected apps by school, school email, planner, etc.

Honestly? I hate it. It's an added weight in his bag which is already back bending without it and has brought into his life imessaging from his mates which did not use to be a distraction during homework.

SheBlackhawk doesn't it replace textbooks and lots of paper? I thought it would make the bag much lighter.

badbadbunny you might enjoy this article by Tom Bennett who this week was torn apart on Twitter for publicly suggesting that lessons taught on Minecraft might not be the best way of teaching stuff.

behaviourguru.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/blocked-minecraft-and-taboos-in.html

But the gist is "And I said that. I think there are a lot of activities we use in classrooms that share this problem. Superficially they seem to interest pupils, but it’s more because they act as a seductive distraction rather than a supplement to the lesson, like turning the Gettysburg address into a Manga strip or something. Kids might spend happy hours (or not) drawing Abe Lincoln as a Japanese hero, but that’s a long road indeed to learn about the 16th President.

I have no issue with hooks; I use hooks all the time- culturally relevant landmarks that act as seasoning for the meat of what we’re covering. In my philosophy class I used to show 30 seconds from X-factor or similar, then use it as way to discuss Virtue Ethics or Kant. But that was a heartbeat. Activities that invite students to think for an extended period about something other than what is being learned- and I mean something trivial, like the workings of a computer game- is time wasted.

This matters. This really matters. Because I’m used to teaching students who don’t get a second chance at education; who (whether they know it or not) rely on education as their lifeline into alternate futures. Into literacy, jobs, opportunities. I take that seriously. Anything that wastes that opportunity is a crime against a child, against their options. And theft from the already poor is a felony. Many of them can’t afford tutors or catch-up classes, or bags of cultural capital. For them, education is their life boat."

Our secondary doesn't.
Nearby one does. Both state schools. One that does very middle class. Not sure if that is the pattern with secondary Ipad insistence/ purchase?

Hi nocampinghere that's the thing, it doesn't. Every subject has a textbook and a heavy folder or notebook. Sometimes things don't even fit in the bag. It doesn't replace anything, just offer apps and extra tools for class.

noblegiraffe thanks for article.

oh. i thought the text book replacement was the main point of them!

Funny enough I went to a display of my granddaughters last unit of work today. They started it in September. One of the tables had things she could show me they'd done using the iPad. One of the things was a daily blog. It was very interesting. Each child in the school that goes from aged 3.5 to 18 has an IPAD to use.

Badbad. I am very far from a trendy, however i am very keen on making sure my students learn well and effectively, and if that means surrendering 15 minutes of a lesson to make playdoh movies of mitosis, then so be it. It also acts as an immensely useful assessment tool, as while i am circulating round the class i can see immediately who understands and who needs a clarifying chat, much more effectively than trying to read nearly 30 written answers.
All our students have the apps they need anyway, that is what the monthly sub covers along with insurance, gorilla case etc. The guardian article linked to above was rather scathing about that, but they need all of these in order to make it work.
Noble, a really rare event, a British teacher that is not part of SLT raving about korean and chinese schools. The bbc link is a brute comparsion, so many things are totally different about the education system that trying to pull out computer access is not valid, the extended school day and other factors are almost certainly the main drivers in the success of those students.
They should be replcaing text books so the school bag should be lighter.
I make no apologies about being an advocate of their use in schools, and their ability to help prepare our students for life in the future, and our results back up my schools choices. ( They have improved year on year for the past five years since we introduced iPads, and we are now consistently the best performing local school, having year on year outperformed the 2 schools whose results were previously better than ours and who do not have personal devices. )

I don't think you can conclude that your results back up your choices based on a selection of 3 schools.

No, it was merely am example, but the fact that we are now in top 5% of schools nationally ( as mentioned above) for progress 8 does

They have improved year on year for the past five years since we introduced iPads

There is the possibility that your policy is a form of wealth-selection.

But aside from that, my school's results have also improved steadily over the last 5 years, best in the county etc and we don't use iPads.

Wealth selection, school is in middle class area but % of pp and fsm kids has increased over past five years

More or less than the other schools?

More

I hate this sort of thing they just serve as a distraction.
Am sure they are OK in some circumstances with some kids but I doubt they are useful to all.

Ds's school uses them. (it could even be the school that Rosie teaches at.)
Pros are:

• some teachers use them really well to create engaging fun lessons and games
• massively improved 'comms' between teacher and students (homework put on the homework app thingy /handing in/ meetings/ timetables/ emails to teachers all there instantly)
• every dc has the same access to all resources all the time

Cons are:

• Expense. we paid a monthly fee that included insurance, all the packages the school wanted and maintenance
• distraction. if you are a student in an ipad school you have an ongoing conversation day and night with several hundred friends who also have ipads. Not easy to switch off the chat if it's popping up on your homework screen.

Overall I think my dcs have probably benefitted academically a little but the ipads have improved their general school experience a lot.

Cons

Well it's good that the poor kids aren't being put off from applying.

My school looked into a scheme like this a few years ago, we were all set to do it, then the criticisms started to come out about how expensive and poor value it was to parents, and how little value was added.

I'm a big fan of tech, btw, but I don't even take my kids into computer rooms any more. They see it as a doss lesson and never learn as effectively as they do with a pen and paper (maths).

They see it as a doss lesson and never learn as effectively as they do with a pen and paper (maths).

There is enormous pressure on maths/theoretical science at university to "get with the times" and incorporate more technology into lectures, make use of flipped classrooms etc.

And yet all the evidence (plus our collective experience) demonstrates that traditional learning methods - whiteboard classes, problem sessions, problems solved on pen and paper - are actually the most effective for learning and understanding high level maths.

The school near us that has Ipads would make the same claims as Rosy's school- top 5 % etc. Their PP below Nat av with some year groups only 8%.
This school puts out a 'message' to parents all round- Ipads do put some parents off [expense], fancy trips and I smirk at the use of photos of children with orchestral instruments used at every opportunity in their publicity photos/ website. They want a certain sort of pupil..
I digress....
I would add more but would out the schools I am talking about...

It still only proves that if all or most of the other schools in the top 5% are using iPads too. And the ones near the bottom of the progress measures aren't.

Is there nothing else at all in the school policies that has changed either?