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I asked the teachers who did a full day with the iPads to fill out a survey. The results are pretty encouraging.

On the personal side, they all rated my technology instruction throughout the day to be excellent, which, I’ll admit, feels awesome. I can’t completely trust the results since they know that I know who’s taking it, but I figure if I keep telling people to let me know when I screw up, sooner or later somebody will.

The more useful data for me really comes from questions about engagement, activities, and overall feelings about the iPad, and potential future use. So here’s a bunch of graphs! In all graphs, 1 is poor, and 5 is excellent

Quality of engagement:

I’ll freely admit there’s some shiny-new bias in here. But the kids were overall super-engaged throughout the day, including students who otherwise frequently struggle in our pretty traditional classrooms.

Quality of activities:

I sat with each teacher for 20-30 minutes to plan the major bones of the iPad day, with each of us taking our individual pieces and coming up with additional materials or instructional plans. Whenever possible, my goal was to make plans that fit in with their general routine or current curriculum whenever possible. I’m glad to see they were overall highly pleased with the results.

Feelings about the iPad:

I’ll be frank that this surprised me. Some of the teachers did bring up the limitations of the iPad (lack of flash, google docs not working flawlessly), but even with that in mind, they see a lot of potential for iPads in the classroom. A big part of the reason why I did this pilot in the first place was to see if it could actually work as an elementary 1:1 device or not.

Future use:

We’re really in a bit of budget flux right now, so it’s honestly possible we won’t end up with many iPads next year. There’s not a lot of money, and if there is enough to get some devices, knowing whether teachers would actually use them is pretty high on the list for spending priorities. By the beginning of next year, every classroom is supposed to be equipped with a teacher laptop, Interactive White Board, and a computer that runs 4 stations. We have a set of 10 netbooks, but they were often sitting unused, which means they probably weren’t the best use of funds.

iPads on the other hand, look like they would be used a lot more frequently.

In a comment on a previous post, Jim Gates, a man I greatly admire, expressed a lot of doubt about the use of iPads for schools. I’ve seen him more than once on Twitter and now in my comments talk about how people are buying an interface.

I agree with him, but disagree with his conclusion that this is a negative thing. When it comes to using computers, interface isn’t just the only thing, it’s everything. I had the chance a couple of months ago to play with a competitor tablet that a company was trying to sell our district on, and the interface was terrible. Easy tasks felt complex, whereas on the iPad or iPhone, it’s frequently the opposite.

There are legitimate questions to be asked in regards to whether the iPad is a robust enough platform for everyday use in a classroom. Any device is going to have its positive aspects and negative aspects. The iPad is still so new that we’re trying to get a real feel for those tradeoffs, and different people are going to come to different conclusions about whether or not those tradeoffs are worth it.

I take my role of Technology Integration Specialist as a unique opportunity to expose teachers and students to more progressive ways of operating their classrooms. For many teachers, the very concept of students having constant access to a device that provides them full access to the world’s knowledge is a daunting idea. If the teachers and students are more comfortable with this new interface, then I’m willing to work around the rough edges of using this new device to help them see the potential of networked learning.

For the most part, 1:1 computing isn’t really on the radar of teachers in my building. Which is why this last graph is honestly so gratifying:

In just one day of teaching in a 1:1 environment, three out of the five teachers want a device for every student in the school. While I know for sure that one of them would have said that before the trial, I’m pleasantly surprised to gain some additional people who think that 1:1 computing is a god idea, no matter the device.

In my next and last post in this series, I’ll do my best to sum up my own feelings on the iPad and wrestle with how it does and does not fit into where my school is and where I think it’s going.

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