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

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.

Fully agree. My son (who's doing further maths GCSE) finds mymaths a truly horrid resource. He can spend 2 or 3 hours on a single topic to hit the 100% target but then still get poor marks on a written test on the same topic the following week. However, when he sits down with the exercise book, pen and paper, he can master a new topic in an hour and get full marks in the test. I really "don't get" mymaths at all - seems completely counter intuitive to just type in an answer when the actual exam papers require full workings to be shown and marked upon. Also, the way you have to do all the questions in a section again even if you just got one wrong is crazy and time-wasting. It's a prime example of how being trendy and techy can actually be worse than the traditional teaching/learning methods. But I suppose the teachers will love it as they don't have to do any homework planning nor marking.

It's the kinaesthetic aspect to learning (not to be confused with learning styles). If it's bad in maths, it's worse in spelling.

IIRC it's one of the reasons why it's no longer recommended that children with dyslexia aren't given computers as a writing aid early on. It just ends up increasing the gap between them and other children, rather than narrowing it.

I call it muscle memory. I'm sure it's like learning an instrument and your fingers remember how to solve an equation before your brain has to think about it.

Dds school has one per class and they don't come home. As far as I can tell the teachers mostly just use them for taking photos

The PTA paid for them.

Ds's independent school use them. Each child provides their own. It can be any tablet, not just an iPad.

They have online planners & all homework is set on it. Their textbooks are available via a Kaboodle link & worksheets are uploaded.

In addition DS is allowed to use his to do all his writing on as he has diagnosed asd/slow processing speed/dysfluent writing.

Rafals
I never used the word prove, as a scientist it would be something i would be very careful about.
I said our results back up our schools choices, they do, it certainly doesn't prove anything, and i do not have time to trawl through the progress 8 tables and check on the top and bottom 5%, interesting though that might be.