Superintendent takes iPads away from administrators and gives them to kids

[proud2BlibKansan]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -
Duval County's pre-kindergarteners will be the first in the district to get their hands on iPads in the classroom.

The tablets were once ordered for administration staff but are now being redirected to the kids.

Spring Park Elementary School student Jamarcus Harden knows what an iPad is.

"It's like a touch screen and it's like a big phone that you can do lots of things on," the fourth-grader said.

The thought of having one in school gets him more excited than the playground.

"You can learn stuff that you don't know, and you can get information so you can do like biographies," Harden said.

Duval County Superintendent Nikolai Vitti says that's exactly why he's focusing on getting more technology into schools.

"Our children are digital natives," he said. "They are growing up in a technological environment and the think technology, so we have to give them the tools to enhance their learning because that's how they're starting to think and that's how they're starting to learn."

When Vitti found out the district previously spent $261,000 on iPads on 350 iPads for administration, he took the iPads back to give to pre-K students, and they will be used in the classroom.

more . . . http://www.news4jax.com/news/education/Duval-County-pre-K-students-to-get-iPads/-/1877054/18472044/-/wmkmy2/-/index.html

[Starry Messenger]

1. A great way to start the weekend, with a smile.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Let's hope this is contagious.

[Starry Messenger]

3. I hope so too!

I'm a little teary thinking of how excited the kids seem!

[mokawanis]

4. Applause, applause!

Great decision by the super!

[liberal_at_heart]

5. that is so cool! Way to go Superintendent!

[oberliner]

6. Way to piss off your adminstrators

"Our children are digital natives" sounds pretty creepy.

Pre-K students using iPads? This is a good thing?

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Yes, it's a great thing.

There are literally hundreds of apps for kids, especially kids learning how to read. And they are fabulous learning tools.

A friend who is raising her autistic granddaughter (she is 3) is seeing great progress since she got her an iPad and loaded it up with apps recommended by her therapist.

Yes, this is a good thing. And especially good to see a superintendent think of kids first. That's the best thing about this article.

[oberliner]

9. Sounds like an ad for Apple

"iPad is a magical window where nothing comes between you and what you love."

That's from their website.

Let's not buy into the hype.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. I'm reporting my personal experience

I teach primary grades. It would be nice if Apple would pay me. Do you know who I should contact?

[oberliner]

15. I hear ya

I understand where you are coming from. Maybe they will put you in a commercial! No snark intended.

[liberal_at_heart]

13. Administrators would gain a lot from getting back in the trenches

They are too far removed from the kids. They don't see how the decisions they make on paper affect children, and quite frankly I think they make too much money. Our teachers are spending their own money to supplement their classrooms, and they make way less than the administators. I'd like to see some administrators do the same thing.

[oberliner]

14. Fair enough

But if you distribute something to them and then take it away - I would imagine that would lead to some irritation.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. Who cares if they are irritated?

Good grief. Most of them make well over $100K a year and could afford to buy their own damn iPad.

[oberliner]

20. Where do you get that salary statistic from?

Well over $100K a year? In Jacksonville? Really?

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Wouldn't surprise me.

I'm in the midwest where the cost of living is much lower and our admins earn at least $100K a year.

[oberliner]

25. Elementary school administrators earn at least $100K where you are?

If true, that is one heck of an anomaly.

Sources online indicate much lower figures, even for the top administrators (especially in the midwest)

And of course, assistant principals and other lower-level administrators drop down even further.

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. Yes they do

Building level principals earn $100K and district level admins earn at least $120K. Our superintendent makes $250K.

So yes, they can afford to buy their own iPads.

[liberal_at_heart]

19. I know we liberals don't really like corporations. I know I don't.

Apple is no angel. They need to be called out on their horrible business practices, but they do a lot of good not only for autistic people but for legally blind people as well. My husband has an iphone and plans on getting an iPad. They help him tremendously. I'm hoping we can get one for our autistic son as well. My husband can get one for free through the Department for the Services for the Blind. If we get one for my son we'll have to pay for it. I'm not sure I've heard of any agencies that help autistic people get ipads. That would be great though.

[oberliner]

22. I support free iPads for the blind and autistic

What I am saying is problematic is giving away iPads to a group of employees and then take them away.

I also don't particular agree that there would necessarily be a greater benefit to the school by giving pre-K students iPads rather than administrators.

I don't even know that I would say it is a positive development to introduce this consumer product into schools - a product that only a few years ago, no one knew they needed.

Even if this product has "learning tools" - there could be some negative side-effects to mandating their use for all pre-K children at a particular school, couldn't there?

But this is just an opinion and I am open to considering other points of view.

[liberal_at_heart]

23. no one knew they would need a personal desktop computer back in the 70's and 80's but

they would come to need one. I remember learning math, data base management, and some computer programming on a PC in school. The programming was a blast. I really got to learn how a person makes a piece of software do what it does. It was cool. Introducing technology is different, but not necessarily bad. It's just the direction we are going.

[oberliner]

27. Pre-K though?

Seems like kids can wait a tiny bit longer before entering the digital/consumer world. No?

[Starry Messenger]

34. Baby iPod cases are a thing. :)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e8ef/?rkgid=275668648&cpg=ogpla&source=google_pla&gclid=CN--kuSmqLUCFSHZQgodRicAcA

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. I have a co-worker who complains about her grandson playing games on her phone.

I don't have any grandchildren yet but when I do they won't be touching my phone. That's pretty much a no-brainer.

[Starry Messenger]

45. Mine's like another hand.

I'm posting from it right now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. I bought myself a mini iPad at Christmas.

LOVE IT!! Fits in my purse and goes everywhere I go.

Not posting from it now cause it's on the charger.

Today I turned on the personal hotspot on my mini so we could get online with our iPads at school. We have wifi but only admins have the password. That was awesome. I was running a whole network of iPads in my classroom

[Starry Messenger]

49. Ooo, I've been looking at those too!

Next year maybe, I had to replace my transmission this year, boo!

[VenusRising]

8. The iPad has done wonders for my 3 year old nephew.

I take him to speech therapy once a week since both of his parents work. It helps him so much. He gets excited when he gets to work on the iPad. The educational apps they have are amazing. Good for these kids and good for that Superintendent!

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. My friend who has an autistic granddaughter called me to ask about getting her an iPad.

Her therapists recommended it and she was skeptical. I told her there were so many great apps, I didn't think it would hurt if she could afford it. So she got one and said within a week they saw growth they hadn't seen in 6 months. She loves it and says her granddaughter sleeps with her iPad under her pillow.

[VenusRising]

16. Awww!

That's so great! I hope it continues to help her.

[ReRe]

26. Ha!

I definitely rec this thread, p2BlK. And your friend's granddaughter reminds me of myself many many years ago.... I slept with a little transistor radio under my pillow. I would go to sleep with it on and then had to beg my mom for money to buy more batteries. I think it's great that children are LEARNING with ipads. This really is a great idea for rural children out there in the hinterlands in the midwest. And Heck, right up there in NYC where only 25% of HS Seniors are college ready. This is what Bloomberg could do if he wants to get that percentage rate up. Get ipads for all the students! What a better way to get kids to read!

[William769]

12. Good!

[ancianita]

18. Now there's a superintendent the public should get behind.

See this, Arne and Rahm? This here is called Proper Spending Priorities. This is why one of the most important unspoken goals of education 'reform' is to chop the top. Redirect that bloated administrative waste toward the classroom.

[xtraxritical]

24. Books are for learning, Ipads are just toys and mind numbing/dumbing.

[ReRe]

31. Yes, but what if.....

...kids get to where they won't read books? What if they are having trouble reading, and no one at home reads to them nor encourages them to read? Looks like ipads are a very useful tool for some children to get excited about reading and learning. It just might give them a jump-start into education and even be able to wean themselves off of them after a few years.

[EastKYLiberal]

32. Yes, let's teach our kids to be technophobes. nt

[Starry Messenger]

35. I had a speak and spell when I was little.

I learned more words to read in older kid books. I was four grade levels ahead in reading by fourth grade.

[proud2BlibKansan]

39. Now you know we can do the same thing with slate and chalk.

Good heavens. Technology?!?!? That's too scary for some folks.

[Starry Messenger]

41. Don't we usually get called Luddites here on DU?

LOL.

[proud2BlibKansan]

44. And thugs

Luddite thugs. LOL

[liberal_at_heart]

46. I loved speak and spell!

[proud2BlibKansan]

48. So did I

I was a young parent when those were popular. What wonderful devices!

[Starry Messenger]

50. It was great!

Kids today would laugh at the electronics we had, but we thought we were cutting edge!

[liberal_at_heart]

51. I remember when I was little we got a Commador 64

Which for our family was like getting a porche because we were very poor. But I had such a blast on that thing.

[Starry Messenger]

52. We must be close in age, we had one too I think?

Was that with the tape drive?

My dad had high hopes I'd go into tech, but I was not good in math. Art was my thing.

If I'd had an iPad when I was little I would have been over the moon!

[liberal_at_heart]

53. Yeah, there was a tape drive and also floppy disks.

I remember playing monopoly and also some driving game. I loved the programming book. I would sit there and write a program and then some picture would flash across the screen. I just thought that was so cool. I also took a programming class in high school. That was fun too. It never lead to a career but I did learn a lot and it was fun.

[Starry Messenger]

54. I remember doing some programs too.

It was fun, very accessible.

[Robb]

28. Hopefully there will be training and support for the teachers as well.

[Gore1FL]

29. This Educational IT guy thinks this will be a disaster.

I don't mind making technology available to kids. (It's my freaking job to do so.) I don't know if the place to start is primary education. From what I gather from the article, my generational equivalence would be spending time each day teaching students how to work television knobs. It was fine we had an used TV's on occasion, but the point wasn't to teach specific technology

I'd like to know if there was thought put into the infrastructure and curriculum, or is this an ill-conceived and poorly executed move? All I read boils down to "the kids are excited to use these to learn." That's great, assuming they can find useful apps for the device, develop curriculum around those apps, and have a way to manage the software on them, get them network access. (350 devices is a lot of wireless capacity, not to mention consideration of IP ranges to support that many.)

I have yet to see anyone come up with a useful classroom activity where everyone has an iPad. One might exist somewhere. I am unaware of it. I have been to conventions (as recently as last November, with lectures on BYOD situations with iPads in a educational environment. The best idea I heard was using them as terminal to launch remote apps. That's another layer of infrastructure.

A grant to buy more is a horrendous waste of money if all they have is "This is exciting" for curriculum, and "Why can't I connect to the internet?" as infrastructure. Speaking of waste of money, why did the iPads cost $745 ($261,000/350) each? That seems pricey unless they got really high-end devices. I know that's the sort of thing I'd want in the hands of a 5-year-old!

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. By the time you buy cases and external keyboards and pay for shipping, yes they are that expensive.

We just ordered 50 for our school and also had to pay techs to do something (not sure what exactly) and the cost is well over $700 each.

[Gore1FL]

40. Keyboards. OK. That wasn't mentioned in the article. It makes sense, though. Thanks! n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

43. We got ours via a grant and the grant said we had to buy external keyboards

Not sure why and I think it's kind of silly, especially since they added so much to the cost.

[Zax2me]

30. Why do children this young need an Ipad?!

Pre-K?
Third grade?
Hell, I wan't one but can't afford it.

How about returning the 260K to the taxpayers?
That is the true noble gesture.

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. To help them learn, that's why.

It's the 21st century. We use technology every day now.

[EastKYLiberal]

33. Awesome. A lot of children dream about holding an iPad in their hands...

We can moan and groan about the good ole days when kids were forced to read the overrated bore that is classical literature by candlelight... but I hear these fancy schmancy iPads have backlights and can store thousands of books...

WITCHCRAFT, I say... WITCHCRAFT!

[bluestateguy]

55. There are too many administrators and paper pushers in the schools anyway

Many of them are overpaid and I don't know what it is that they do all day.