At Richland-Bean Blossom Community School Corporation, every student has an iPad issued to them by their school.
That has led some parents to question whether or not the technology would be more of a distraction than a learning aid. These parents cited students texting and emailing each other or playing games while in the classroom as potential problem areas.
“Every time you’ve introduced anything to schools, there’s going to be issues that you’re going to have to resolve,” Edgewood High School Principal Dick Ackerman said.
RBBCSC Assistant Superintendent Carol Gardiner stated that the school district is still learning what issues can arise from the use of tablets in the classroom. While students are currently allowed to play games on their iPads during lunch, they are not allowed to play them in the classroom.
“We are learning a tremendous amount about what we need to have in place,” Gardiner said. “It is our job as teachers and educators to facilitate the learning so that does mean managing the behaviors, which does mean on-task in class, which does mean if kids are playing games, it’s our job to make them stop.”
She added that there is “a real issue with games” at Edgewood Junior High School and EHS. At EJHS, staff deal with that through the use of a three-strike policy, wherein students receive a strike when they are caught using the iPads in class for something other than class.
“When you get to three strikes, your iPad is reset,” Gardiner said, meaning that the data is reset to its original state with only the school’s software on it.
She remains dubious about the school corporation’s prospects of ever getting the situation completely under control but noted administrators and faculties are doing the best they can to manage students and adapt to rapidly changing technology.
“We kind of say that when we were kids, we wrote love notes, now they have email,” Ackerman said, then added that distractions, such as games, in the classroom began with smartphones, not the iPads, which were introduced to EJHS and EHS as a whole this year, following a pilot program that used the eighth grade class at EJHS last year.
The move was part of the Indiana Department of Education’s move to one-to-one, an idea that has two main parts: first, students must have access to the most up-to-date information, and second, students must be engaged. With those goals in mind, IDOE began suggesting three years ago that schools consider using their textbook adoption money to purchase technological alternatives, such as e-textbooks, software programs, netbooks or tablet computers.
As the school corporation investigated possible alternatives, RBBCSC math and science teachers reported to them that online textbooks and software programs were insufficient because they did not provide more than the teacher could provide without them.
Given the feedback of teachers, the pilot program proceeded by testing netbooks, iPads and other tablets in the classroom. At the end of the pilot, it was concluded that iPads were best suited for the program.
“The rationale for the iPad is to give students access to real-time information, because textbooks are kept for seven years and are out of date once they’re published,” said Linda May, digital learning coach at EHS.
Real-time information is not the only benefit, though. Students use the tablet computers made by Apple to watch video lectures ahead of new units in their classes, conduct research, turn in assignments, receive grades, collaborate on projects and more.
“There’s just all kinds of creative ways that the iPad is being used in the classroom,” Ackerman said.
In particular, there is a technique known as the “flipped classroom,” through which students are exposed to information before it is presented in class.
“The ‘flipped classroom’ design is that almost any lesson, any subject you want to teach right now, you can find a lesson,” Ackerman said, referring to the plethora of recorded lectures available for free to students, and anyone else, online. “(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has these lessons, and there’s these different websites.”
Linda May added that they had talked about the method.
“The ‘flipped classroom’ model allows students to work at their own pace, of course given guidelines, and they can go as far as they would like,” she said.
According to May, only one teacher at EHS has flipped his classroom. Chad Musselwhite, a math teacher, told her that he has not seen much difference in grades, but he believes the access to course materials is better.
“Flipped classrooms” are just one of the ways RBBCSC administrators and teachers are using iPads as a classroom tool.
“Google Drive gives students the ability to be able to work on a document at the same time or to work on a spreadsheet at the same time, to go out and do research,” Ackerman said. “Really, as a research tool is one of the big ways (we use iPads).”
Perhaps the fact that it is easier than ever for students to collaborate on larger projects is one reason the school is thinking of moving to more long-term, complex project-based learning that would require students to apply the things they learn in class into a larger project.
“That’s really engaging for kids, much more so than a teacher lecturing in front of a classroom,” Ackerman said.
Teachers and administrators are in the beginning stages of implementing the projects, some of which may be cross-curricular. The first step in doing that will be to make sure standards match up well enough that they can be combined into a single project.
Administrators and faculty, as well as parents, have expressed that students may not be able to access wireless internet, which is required to do the schoolwork, at home.
With that in mind, the school corporation has proceeded by allowing students to come in early and download necessary materials at the library, use their lunch break to do so or to stay after class to do it. Alternatively, they are welcome to access the school’s wireless internet from the parking lot after school or use free wireless at one of the several businesses in the community that offer it, such as the Ellettsville branch of the Monroe County Public Library or McDonald’s.
Further, May has conducted a survey of EHS students. The results of her survey of 736 students were as follows:
- Fifty-six percent of students responded to the survey, which asked do you have Wi-Fi at home?
- Ninety-five percent have Wi-Fi at home, and 6% do not.
Gardiner added that if access was an issue, they have not heard about it.
As for how iPads have affected students’ grades, both Gardiner and Ackerman said that remains to be seen.
“We really can’t answer the idea of the grades because it would be too early to tell one way or the other,” Gardiner said but later added, “I do think we need to do a longitudinal study on grades, on how it’s affecting student learning.”
The first report, a joint effort of the school corporation and the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, that will analyze the introduction of iPads to RBBCSC schools will be given to the school board and the public at the February school board meeting.
Originally published in Ellettsville Journal, 2012. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.