Scotland is now busy introducing iPads into its classrooms.
Scotland lags most in europe in improving educational outcomes for its children. It consistently underperforms the average performers, in the Pisa league tables. So, maybe a desperate situation requires desperate remedies? But, robust evidence that this move might be a good idea , and will assuredly improve outcomes , is very difficult indeed to find. At best, evidence is mixed. What evidence there is that’s positive, is hardly compelling. Clock this cri de Coeur below, on twitter, from a serving teacher, and deputy head of Michaela school, in London, Katie Ashford, wrestling with the practicalities of education technology. Its supposed to support teaching and learning , and not to be an end in itself. Though slightly tongue in cheek ,it holds a strong message. (IT evangelists were telling schools back in the days of the national literacy and numeracy strategies how computers in the classroom were essential to accelerate learning and improve outcomes in numeracy and literacy. It transpired that they were not. Nonetheless suppliers managed to lock schools into long term contracts that were costly and failed to deliver on the fulsome promises. Have the snake oil salesmen returned one wonders ? )
Twitter feed 28 August Katie Ashford @katie_s_ashford
Issues with using iPads or tablets in lessons:
A THREAD. 1. “Miss, mine isn’t charged up”. Spend 10 mins emailing everyone in the building to see whether anyone can bring you a charger/ charged tablet.
2. “Miss, what’s my login?” Dash to the computer to find the list of log in names and codes. Return to discover kid has spelled own name incorrectly.
3. “Miss. It’s locked me out because I forgot my password”. Reset password to Password1. Kid mistypes and gets locked out again. Repeat process at least thrice.
4. “Miss. What’s the website we have to go on?” It is an unhelpfully long URL with a bizarre sequence of characters after ‘.com/‘. It’s written on the board. Every kid has entered it incorrectly. Stop entire class and read our letter by letter. 10 still enter it wrong.
5. “Miss. It won’t connect to the WiFi.” Call IT guy. IT arrives about 20 minutes later, by which time you have already defenestrated tablet and almost done same to child, who reminds you every 30 seconds that WiFi not connected.
6. “Miss. Which activity are we doing?” Child has successfully logged in to website but did not listen to latter part of explanation in which activity was specified and repeated 152 times. Give up and do activity for them.
7. “Miss. The screen has frozen.” IT guy still nowhere to be seen. Tell kid to sit and wait.
8. “Miss. Someone has changed the wallpaper to a picture of Keith Chegwin.” Tell child to get on with it and ignore Cheggers. Grin admirably at the previous user’s humour and ingenuity. Contemplate how on Earth to change wallpaper back to standard “mopey blue”.
9. *Beep beep. Buzz buzz* child has turned on volume. Other kids distracted by keyboard clicks. “Miss can you get him to turn that off? It’s well annoying.”
10. Lesson nearly over (thank the Lord). Ask everyone to hand in tablets. Three are missing. One is missing a cover. One has a cracked screen. You have no idea who had which tablet. Hide box in IT room and hope nobody notices.
Ashton’ To all those people working in tech companies flogging schools stuff, and to all those politicians thinking tech will cure all ills, I urge you to spend 50 minutes with 32 kids and 32 tablets, and then come back to me if you still think they are a good idea.’
Note
Note- Interestingly Los Angeles has approached Apple seeking a refund, on its iPad programme in schools , citing crippling technical issues with the Pearson platform and incomplete curriculum that made it nearly impossible for teachers to teach.
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