Students need iPads like dehydrated people need seawater: it might seem like a good idea, but the devices are likely to create more problems than they solve. But that’s not going to stop Apple from giving away more than $100 million worth of its products to students in 29 states in an effort to “make a difference for students and communities” as part of President Obama’s ConnectED Initiative.
I have noticed that everybody wants to do something nice and helpful for students but nobody is in a hurry to ask them what they want to be done for them. So I decided to do something as radical and shocking as actually asking students a question about their needs.
The administration’s plan to ban textbook and give every student a tablet was greeted with eye-rolls and frustrated sighs.
“Why doesn’t anybody just give us books, real books?” one student asked. “That would actually be helpful.”
“So true!” another student said. “Having one more screen to stare at is not a pleasing prospect.”
In a fairly large room, I detected no excitement whatsoever at the prospect of substituting books with e-readers.
For some reason, everybody seems to believe that students can’t make decisions that will benefit them but it isn’t true. Maybe it makes sense to run these costly “reform” ideas by the supposed beneficiaries and see what they think.
P.S. Feel free to read the linked article but I warn you that, after the initial great sentence, everything else in it is utter garbage.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment