It's Been a While

OK, so it's been a while since I've blogged about the administrative side of the iPad program. Have we given up on the program? Have we moved on to tackle other things? No way.

Here are a couple of interesting things that have happened in our iPad world recently that are of interest. First (and most sad) would be that I lost my iPad. The most likely scenario is that it was stolen out of my car, but I can't be sure. Either way, I had to drop $600 to replace it. Ouch. Why do I bring this up? Because it stirred up questions that I'm not sure we have easy answers to. If we do an iPad program, what happens when something like this occurs? With a high deductible business insurance (or homeowners, for that matter) it doesn't pay to file a claim. And who would be responsible for something like this? The student or parents? The school? Would it make a difference if it was off-campus or on? We'll be exploring these questions as we move forward so that we're prepared.

Second, we got to meet with Fraser Speirs (speirs.org) in Washington, DC and talk about his iPad 1:1 program at Cedars School in Scotland. Fraser was very personable and talked easily about the program, both the good and the bad. However, it was clear early on that the good was far outweighing the bad in his mind. He brought up a million interesting points, but here are some that stuck:

• The fact that the iPad is not a content creation device is nonsense. He showed me things that his kids were creating and I was blown away.
• The Cedars School is not using any other computers. This is sort of goes with the previous point. Intriguing...
• When asked about printing, he said "We don't." I love it. I'm still blown away by how much printing happens at a school. The other day I had to help clear a job in a computer lab here that was a printout of a PDF that resembled a book. It wasn't even an original work. Shouldn't happen.
• The learning curve was very minimal on the iPad. If you read the blog, they rolled out the iPad in the summer and kids and teachers came back to them. They rolled into the new year with a completely new device in everyone's hands. How many devices do you know of that would be successful in that scenario?

And finally, we are moving forward with designing an iPad pilot phase II. We hope to include students in this version. I can't give any details yet, but hopefully we can keep the ball rolling towards an eventual 1:1 program. I am excited!

Mike Schmelder