Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Readers: Seven ways to make the iPad better for education

“I want to monitor students’ reading comprehension, math skills, and problem solving progress,” said one reader.

iPad adoption in schools is growing at a phenomenal rate, as we reported last year, and some educators call the devices a game-changer.

But besides its sleek style, portability, and access to apps and the internet, is the iPad efficient for teacher and student work—more so, say, than other tablets or mobile devices? At the current cost of the iPad, one would hope so.

We recently asked readers: “If there was one feature/app/design spec you’d like to see on the iPad (or any other mobile device) to help you teach in the classroom or make your job more efficient, what would it be and why?”…Read More

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Opinion: What the iPad (and other technology) can’t replace in education

A recent article in the New York Times explains how after investing $33 million in technology, a school district in Arizona has seen almost no improvement in test scores. Duh, says Karim Kai Ani, founder of Mathalicious, which is rewriting the middle school math curriculum around real-world topics, for the Washington Post. It’s no surprise that we as a society have a kind of blind faith that technology is able to solve all of our problems. Yet while the iPad can and should replace textbooks, it can’t replace common sense. Unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening in education reform…

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Math that moves: Schools embrace the iPad

As students returned to class this week, some were carrying brand-new Apple iPads in their backpacks, given not by their parents but by their schools, reports the New York Times. A growing number of schools across the nation 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. As part of a pilot program, Roslyn High School on Long Island handed out 47 iPads on Dec. 20 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students…

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Virginia using iPads to teach social studies

 

Pearson's new Social Studies app for Virginia schools.
Pearson's new social studies app for Virginia schools

 

In a huge step forward for K-12 education’s move toward an all-digital curriculum, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), in collaboration with education publishing giant Pearson, is implementing a pilot program that puts fourth, seventh, and ninth grade social studies curriculum on an iPad.…Read More

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How the iPad is changing med school

First-year medical students at Stanford University are finding a bunch of ways to use the iPad to help them learn, Cult of Mac reports. The 91-first-year students who started three weeks ago were the first crop of pre-meds to be handed iPads. Here’s how they’re using it: (1) To look closer. A slide presentation or textbook might offer a tiny diagram of a molecular structure that students need to memorize. “You can’t even see that,” noted student Steven Sloan. “But on the iPad, you can just touch the screen to enlarge it.” (2) In place of paper and pencils. Student Christine Nguyen said she uses the iPad about 20 percent of the time, especially for anatomy. “Look at this,” Nguyen said, pointing to the rainbow of colors in an iPad program used for annotating documents. “It’s so useful for drawing in anatomy class.” (3) To lighten the textbook load. Instead of a two-foot-high pile of textbooks for just one class, the lightweight iPad can store course material, school administrators explained to students during orientation hoping to convince them to go as paperless as possible…

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