Please don't buy your students iPads

I thought this was going to be a really fun post to write. It started with a little back-and-forth with my buddy Bill Chamberlain on Twitter. I think the iPad would be a total waste of money for schools (not to mention the precedent it sets) and he thinks it would be a good purchase. I'm paraphrasing him.

The more I've thought about it and the more I've read the opinions of others, the less fun this is turning into, though. I really don't like the idea of schools spending money on iPads.

Here's the gist: the iPad is a big iPod Touch. Yes, it's the slam du jour, but it's true. It runs the iPod Touch OS. There have been no functional updates to the OS. It still doesn't multitask. It still doesn't run Flash on the internet. The only hardware updates are held back by those software limitations. The faster processor adds little to the experience as the iPad still only runs one 3rd-part app at a time. The big screen is great for surfing the "internet." Engadget has coined a term for what you'll get used to seeing on your iPad: The Blue Lego Block of Ambiguity™.

This isn't a post about the downfalls of the iPad, though. It's about why schools in particular would be foolish to spend their precious dollars on iPads.

.....

The iPad looks sweet. I'm still a gadget geek. I have a first-generation iPhone plugged into a first-generation MacBook right now. I'm a sucker for shiny Apple products. I'd be happy to have an iPad around, but that's because I already have those other gadgets I just listed.

The problem for schools starts there: the iPad is so marginally better than an iPod Touch and so much worse than a netbook that schools would be foolish to buy iPads. While I already have an iPhone and a MacBook, schools don't. Do I really have to write about why schools that are already 1:1 with laptops or iPod Touches shouldn't buy iPads?

.....

So here's my context. I'll go with two scenarios.

1. A school has funds enough to go 1:1 with iPads.
2. A school has funds enough to buy 1 classroom set of 30 iPads.

1. It's a pretty simple argument from here. If you can afford to go 1:1 with iPads ($500), do your students a favor and buy them each a $300 netbook and a $200 iPod Touch. The netbook has a real OS (I'd go with Linux, personally) and a webcam (important for networking with the world). The iPod Touch is their instant-on, ubiquitous access to content.

2. If a school can afford a set of 30 iPads, that means they can afford 75 iPod Touches. Outfitting 2.5 times more students with iPod Touches is....it's 2.5 times more students!

.....

Now, Bill hasn't written his post yet, but I can anticipate some of his possible arguments. One is that students can't just be creators of content, they also need to consume. Agreed. But I can get students a creation tool (netbook) and a consumption tool (iPod Touch) for the same price as an iPad. Another is that the next version of the iPad might have a webcam. The next iPad OS might have multitasking. Apple might allow Flash in Mobile Safari at some point. These things might come true, but they aren't true yet. 

Schools cannot be beta testers for Apple's newest projects. Not when there are better alternatives already out there.

Different (blogging) tools for different purposes

Joel asked how I decide when to use posterous and when to use this blog. Here goes:

Much of the method I use to share something depends on the conversation I'm hoping comes from what's shared. 

Take the last few things I've shared on each of the blogging platforms I use: Twitter, posterous, and Blogger.

The last link I shared on Twitter was a link to a YouTube video of miniature ninjas unboxing the new Google Nexus One. It was just a fun link to share. I wasn't really hoping to have a conversation about it. There's already a conversation about the video on YouTube.

When I share a link to someone else's blog on Twitter -- as opposed to posterous -- I'm also trying to direct conversation to that person's blog. Of course, there could be a conversation on Twitter, but if I share it on posterous, I open up the chance that I'll be the one hosting the conversation instead of the person who wrote the post. There are times when I share something from someone's blog on posterous, but it doesn't happen very often.

With posterous, the most recent item I shared was a picture I took with my iPhone. That's my favorite use for posterous, sharing photos and videos. It's too easy not to. I take a picture, send it to post@posterous.com and it goes to posterous, Twitter, Facebook, and Picasaweb. Posterous also does a nice job of sending comments written in posterous to other networks.

Before the image, I shared an excerpt from a book I'm reading, They Still Can't Spell? I think this is the use Joel was asking about. The reason I chose posterous instead of my blog at RussGoerend.com was because I was sharing someone else's work, without any summary or reflection by me. I try to keep my RussGoerend.com blog for things I've at least somewhat thought through. When I finish reading this book, I'll probably write a blog post about it. I posted an excerpt from the book on posterous today to test the water, so to speak. 

Another example of this is when I shared an excerpt from a recent Seth Godin blog post. Sharing with posterous's bookmarklet gives readers a selection of what I think is interesting about the post, while also providing a link back to Seth's original post. 

I share on this blog when I've got something I've come up with. I don't mean "come up with" as in "on my own" because I'm a believer that all knowledge is socially constructed. Everything I think is influenced by someone else. Conversations, media, etc. That's material for another post, though.

One other thing that plays a role, but is totally based on my gut, is length. When I started writing this, I was going to post it to posterous, but at some point I realized it just felt more natural on my blog.

The point is that there are different uses for different tools -- shocker, I know. 

I'm interested in how you see yourselves using these different tools. 

Letting students communicate

I get an email every time anyone leaves a comment on our blog. It's interesting watching the conversations develop that way.

I can whitelist users so their comments are posted instantly, which I do if teachers leave comments. I've also whitelisted two students. One reason is because they've earned that whitelist with both their quality and quantity of comments. The other reason is because they have their own email addresses they use when commenting, so I can whitelist them.

My two whitelisted students have been going back and forth in one of the comment threads on our classroom blog for going on a couple of weeks. The comments are threaded so it's actually a bit hard to read. Basically, Ian and Molly started off talking about Molly's Historical Interview "The Life Changing Terrorist Attack." Their back-and-forth revolved around 9/11 for a while, but the conversation ground to a halt.

At that point, Ian wrote:

So yeah... Where should our conversation go next?

 To which Molly replied:

 I don't know......you decide!

Don't forget: these are 6th graders. Getting nervous, parents and teachers??

Ian: "Let's talk about the Christmas Day bomber. Does that sound okay?"

Molly: "yes...that sounds great! You mean the guy that got on the plane with bombs in his pockets????"

Ian: "He actually put them in his underwear I think."

Remember, I saw this all happening in email Inbox. I thought to myself, This is getting off the original topic. I might push them a bit. So I left a comment:

Why don't you guys find some links to news articles or reactions to the Christmas Day bomber story?

You're welcome to create a new blog *post* about it if you'd rather discuss it under a new thread.

The next two comments are from Ian:

"So could we title it Christmas Day Bomber and make it like an open thread?"

"Molly,
Lets move the conversation to open thread #7.

Thanks!!"

Here's Open Thread #7 if you'd like to join their conversation.

What's been keeping me busy

I want to take this post to share with you some of the projects I've been working on around the Internet with the hope that some may interest you.

These would not be possible without teachers who are always looking to learn.

First up is #Comments4Kids. This is a project started by a few dedicated teachers on Twitter: Wm Chamberlain, Carey Pohanka, Derek Smith, and Jarrod Lamshed. Here's how it works: students write blog posts and teachers tweet out links to the posts and tag those tweets with the hashtag  #comments4kids. The hashtag makes it easier to search for all links about a specific topic.

Piggybacking off of #Comments4Kids is my classroom blog. Our blog would have floundered this year if it wasn't for #Comments4Kids. That sounds dramatic, but it's true. As I've told my kids from the start of the year, the purpose for them posting their essays on our blog is to get their writing out to an authentic audience. Without #Comments4Kids and all of the generous people who have left comments we would not have had an audience. As of today, we have two comments from members of my students families. (I know because I authorize every comment that gets posted.) That is 2 out of more than 500. I'd estimate that around a quarter of the 500 are from my students commenting to their classmates. The other 350+ are from other students, teachers, and college students who only know us from our blog! If you have time, my kids love getting comments.

I've also started podcasting with my brother-in-law and fellow edublogger Matt Townsley. We call our podcast With Students In Mind. We've only published one podcast so far, but the we plan on having a specific structure for each ~30 minute adventure. We'll start by discussing one thing you can learn. The first podcast we talked about URL shorteners. Next time it's Diigo. Then, we'll take one a topic in education from two perspectives. We're still working the kinks out on that segment. We'll be looking at the issue of student responsibility and at what age do we up the ante on autonomy. We end each podcast with three minute gut checks. Matt and I each get three minutes to answer a previously unknown question from the other person. We have fun, and we hope you'll take a listen.

The last project is something I'm doing on my own, but it was inspired by a bunch of other learners in my PLN. Dean Shareski wrote a blog post titled "The year in Photography." Dean is one of many teachers who do some spin on a "365" project. Dean showcases one picture each day of the year of the many he takes. I've always wanted to do something to push my creativity, but I don't have a camera that I trust. Luckily, my parents just bought us a Kodak Zi8 pocket camcorder for our baby that's coming in a few weeks. I decided to do my own spin on the 365 project: 365vids. I'm taking 1 video each day. The creative part is that the length of the video (in seconds) will match up with the date of the month. The first day of the month, the video will be one second long and so on. You can find those on my posterous blog under the tag 365vids.

I hope you've been inspired to join in or start up a project of your own. It can be as easy as leaving some #comments4kids or as challenging as a 365 project.

I had to take away a cell phone in class today.

I realize my titles are getting less creative. I'm in a title-writing funk. I won't let it stop me from writing, though.


My kids were buzzing as they came into the classroom today.

"Were we supposed to bring our cell phones today?"

"Do we get to use our iPods today?"

I told them on Monday about the go-ahead teachers had received from our principal to begin allowing non-laptop wifi devices on the school's networks. We were also encouraged -- at least I took it that way -- to use cell phones in class. The wording in our handbook hasn't changed. It reads something like, "Cell phones are to be used only for educational purposes in school." I'm deciding to take that as a challenge.

"What else do we do here?" I asked. "We learn. That's the educational purpose for being in this classroom. So from now on, when you're in this room, your phones are with you."

I thought all weekend about rules or norms or whatever you want to call them regarding our new digital learning devices. I'm trying to push DLD in class as the acronym for all this stuff. It quickly turned into a running joke with the kids, because of course if it was my idea it will never catch on. Back to the rules. I decided I didn't want to make the rule-making a bigger show than it needed to be, so I came up with two rules that I would give.

1. DLDs are to be used for learning.
2. DLDs are to be used out in the open and not hidden.

I told the kids, "Look. If you're following rule number one, you have nothing to hide." I want to quickly break them of the habit -- unlearn, perhaps -- of texting under the chair, or using their phone without looking to pretend like they're still paying attention. That's a habit that old people have given them. That's what we get for treating cell phones like something more than communication devices.

Today, we were doing an activity where kids voted on a PollEverywhere poll to choose between two answers. We were learning about apostrophes -- possessives, plural possessives, and contractions. I leveled with them and explained that what we were doing with phones was just replacing raising hands. I explained it would have been easier if I had just said, "Raise your hand if you think this one is correct. Raise your hand if you think this one is correct. But this is more......"

"Fun!" yelled one student.

It's true. It is more fun. And the kids were really into it. I mean big time. Not all the students had their own phones, so the ones who did started sharing. Naturally. They wanted the other kids to be able to participate.

I know I wasn't doing anything transformative with the technology today, but they had to learn how to use it. My goal is to get good at creating Likert scale questions to use with PollEverywhere and their phones. Today we were just learning to use the technology.

-----

So, I had to take away a cell phone in class today. It hurt me to have to do it, but I'll do it again. It's part of a battle I'm fighting.

What happened? Easy. A student broke rule number two.

Was he texting? Nope.

Was he doing anything nefarious? Nope.

In fact, he was right in line with rule number one. Which is why I knew I had to follow through on the consequence for breaking rule number two. I have to break them of that habit.

He had borrowed the phone of a student in his group. He had never seen her phone before and he wanted to play with it, wanted to learn about it. And instead of doing that -- learning -- above the desk, out in the open, he hid it.

We don't hide our learning in our room.

UPDATE:
I realized a huge mistake I was making! I put so much effort into not treating the DLDs any differently from other tools that I was treating them differently!


As part of the agenda I write on my whiteboard each day, I write a "you will need" list. The list usually consists of writing utensil, journal, free reading book, 2 sheets of paper, etc. The tools they will need.


So, first, I'm changing the name of that list from "you will need" to "Today's Tools" and "DLD" will now be one of the tools that will end up on the list if it will be used and left off if not. I'll expect kids to bring their DLDs to class and keep them in their binders if they're not on the list -- just like all the other tools they bring to class. And like any other tools (say an extra sheet of paper I didn't expect us to need) if they end up needing to use them, they can just grab them out of their binders quickly.

Here's where I got ahead of myself: these are still 6th graders. For 90% of the ones who have cell phones, they've had them for less than a year. Add to that the feeling they bring to my room that they're "getting away with something" by having their phones out. Sure, some day I'd like them to be mature enough to just have them out all the time, but at this point that just does not make sense. If they're just another tool -- like a pencil -- why do they have a special place on their desk?


I am out of control excited about this. I really think this tiny change will make a huge difference. It falls right in line with the other expectations and structures that are in place. No special structures for DLDs.

I gave a test today

We read the book Night Journeys in book clubs over the past 4 weeks. The kids finished reading the book over Christmas break. Yesterday they had their final book club discussion. Today they took the test. Let me first say that if I were a better teacher, I would have written my own test. Next time. Well, if I were the teacher I wish I was, there wouldn't have been a test, at least not a traditional one.

Strangely enough, this test turned into my victory flag for a couple of battles.

Yesterday, when I told one of my classes that we were going to have a test the next day, a student raised his hand and asked, "Is it going to be graded?"  

Of course it's going to be graded, I thought. Why would he ask if a test is going to be graded?

Four days shy of the end of the first semester, the assumption that everything -- even tests! -- goes into the grade book has been unlearned!

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When it came time to take the test today, one of the first few questions asked students to compare two of the characters by choosing a word that suited both of them. One of the words was "reserved." A student raised her hand and I walked over. "What does 'reserved' mean?" she whispered. Somehow I bit my tongue on my initial, teachery reaction, "That's the point of the test." I didn't say that. Instead I thought: Is that the point of this question? Am I looking to this question to see if they know the vocabulary or if they can apply the definitions to characters from this book?

"You can use the dictionary to look it up," I sad. "Everyone! You can use a dictionary if you need it."

And to my amazement, all but two students stood up, walked to the cupboard, and grabbed a dictionary.

We have to model failure

I played Rock Band for about an hour last night at some friends' house. The friends have an eleven-year-old daughter who is in 6th grade at the school I teach. Although I teach in a school with seven 6th grade teams and almost 600 students in 6th grade, it just so happens that she is on the team that is in the same hallways as mine. I see her multiple times every day. I also see her often at church and when we hang out with our friends. She's comfortable enough to call me Russ outside of school, and mature enough to keep it to Mr. G in school.


I tell you that to give you the background knowledge needed to trust me when I say that she is comfortable around me.


Now, if she's that comfortable around me, why wasn't she comfortable enough to fail in front of me last night?

If you're not familiar with Rock Band, it's a video game where people have fake musical instruments and play along with the music on the screen. I was playing the guitar and she was playing the drums. There are four difficulty levels on the game: easy, medium, hard, and expert. 

We played a couple of songs together with me playing guitar on hard and her playing drums on easy. Neither of these difficulty levels were proving to be much of a challenge to us -- let's just say I enjoy video games and leave it at that -- so I suggested we bump it up a notch. I moved up to expert and she moved up to medium. The first game we were both terrible. The (fake) venue we were playing at in the game actually shut the lights out on us.

"You go back to hard and I'll go back to easy," she reasoned.

"I'm going to keep working on extreme," I said. "I think I can get it after a couple more songs. Why don't you keep trying on medium?"

"No way," she said. "That was waaaay too hard (it wasn't)."

This is just an example of what I see fairly often with my students. 

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I watched a TED Talk shared by Mark Stock a few minutes ago that put the bug in my head for this post. The TED Talk is titled "Gever Tulley on 5 dangerous things for kids." It's nine minutes long and worth the watch.

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We have to model failure for our children.  



We cannot short change this vital piece of the learning process.


It has to be seen as better than OK to fail.