Glasgow spunks 300 million quid on ipads for schools

[noblegiraffe]

www.tes.com/news/rollout-52000-ipads-begins-glasgow-schools

I hope they’re insured, have they never looked at the screens of the kids’ mobile phones?

What a total waste of money.

There are plenty of maths packages that do that.
They are no substitute for proper teaching and actually writing down your working out.

IPads are definitely fantastic for many kids with SEN, I think that goes without saying.

For general learning, they can be useful - but are they more useful than employing £300 million worth of teachers? Or investing £300 million in school equipment? Or any of the other things that £300 million could be spent on? Particularly when a lot of the support and training is patchy, apps haven't really caught up with demands, and teachers are incredibly busy just keeping things going.

I'm fairly sure that if my teacher friends were given £1 million to spend in their school, iPads wouldn't be the top priority.

I've yet to find a programme that can assess English Language essays or compositions. Machines can't detect nuance or appreciate every person has a unique style like a finger print. Long hand must be kept up as a skill along side the use of iPads etc. I've seen a lot of 'must haves' come and go but we still use ink pens in my classroom... And (unscientific fact alert) children who use fountain pens get the best GCSE and ALevel results for English in my school. I'm willing to bet History find the same! 😉