Are Tablets Ready for K-12 Education? Discussion

**Amber Riippa** · 03-20-2011, 08:17 AM

Student chants of "no more pencils, no more books!" could soon change to "no more iPads no more active pens!" Pilot programs across the nation are incorporating tablets into the classroom, because many believe tablets can aid learning, and make it fun for all students.

Read the full content of this Article: Are Tablets Ready for K-12 Education?

Related Articles:

**LoneWolf15** · 03-21-2011, 12:40 PM

One of the things I find that K-12 articles fail to address, time and time again, is management of IT resources. This article, unfortunately, continues that trend.

Let us say I buy thirty tablets for use in a mobile cart for a classroom of students.

How do I ensure that every user gets a standardized home screen every time they pick one up?
How do I ensure some bundled applications are hidden or disabled if I do not wish for them to be used?
How do I make sure a student cannot attempt to purchase or download applications to the unit that are not school-approved?
How do I create a standardized "deployment" so that instead of going through 20-30 configuration steps with each new tablet I remove from the box, I can create a configuration on the first one and transfer it to the others?

These are just a few of the issues I can immediately think of. Like any technology tool for learning, implementation and maintenance of that tool is every bit as essential. No school district just pulls twenty tablets/computers/etc) out of boxes, hands them out to students, and tells them to run with it (nor should they). At the K-12 level, we need a way of implementing technology in an organized fashion that benefits our users and avoids any confusion in the learning process. This is even more of an issue in school districts with declining budgets and limited technology staff.