Scottish school switches solely to iPad
The kids are our future, and the future is the iPad. Or something like that.
The iPad is a great product. I wasn’t sure when Apple first unveiled its long-gestating tablet but I now am. That’s not to say there won’t be a better tablet emerging soon – there are certainly enough contenders on the way – but for now the iPad is the best mobile computing device on the market. And that’s from someone who has never particularly been a fan of Apple.
The iPad is so good because of its versatility. It’s being used by many different people for many different activities, including politicians running their country by it. But now comes a new use for the iPad – educating school-age children.
According to The Daily Record, the Cedars School of Excellence, in Greenock, Scotland has become the first ‘iSchool’ in the world. This title is fitting because every one of the 105 pupils at the private school has been given an iPad to work on.
All of the lessons are conducted on the iPad, with blackboards and whiteboards being removed from the equation. All homework will also be completed on the iPads.
IT teacher Fraser Speirs, the brainchild behind the idea, explained:
We wanted to give each of the pupils an opportunity to use the best equipment available. We began exploring the different options earlier this year and when the iPad was released we decided that this solved all of the problems we had. Each of the children will have their own iPad, which is hooked into the school’s wireless network and from there they will use the computers for learning in different subjects.
They will obviously be able to use the Internet for research but we’ve found that it solves major problems for us – especially in science subjects as now they can watch experiments that would be too dangerous to do in class on YouTube. They will also be able to look at pre-approved websites for lessons in English, maths, languages and history.
Before we had the solution, the children were only able to get around 45 minutes a week on computing studies as they were sharing the existing laptops. But now they’ll be some of the most technologically advanced in the world.
The school previously used Macs anyway, so I’m guessing the IT department is full of Apple fanboys. However, this is an intriguing idea that could be repeated by other schools around the world if it proves successful.
Let’s just hope none of the websites that need to be visited use Adobe Flash or the decision to solely go with the iPad would suddenly look very stupid.
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September 2nd, 2010
In no time ipad will be used in all the schools globally