pointcounterpoint
Can iPads Replace Laptops?
YES
Iam a technol- ogy integrator at an all-girls’
school where we
are finishing our
first year with
one-to-one iPads
in grades 6–12. We have found that
the iPads are smaller, lighter, and
more able to multitask than laptops.
In fact, the iPad has been a dream
in terms of mobility. Students work
everywhere—traveling to and from
school, waiting in the bus line, at
lunch, and in classes. It is easy to
move classes outside for fieldwork at
the stream behind our school, down at
the bridge that was damaged in recent
flooding, and in the local museums
we visit. Students can easily hold their
iPads and navigate to websites or the
programs they want to use without
having to juggle a laptop. And the
iPads respond more quickly than
laptops, allowing crucial additional
minutes for teaching.
The iPads have also allowed our
girls to move to cloud-based student
ownership of their data. They are
learning how to be responsible and
how to regularly back up their data,
which is advancing their digital lit-
eracy. Students organize their notes,
some textbooks, flash cards, and
tutorials on their iPads. They have be-
come incredibly active in their learn-
ing, often finding great apps to help
themselves and others learn. I have
watched as their technology loyalty
has switched to the iPad. They use
it for everything, from the basics of
sending messages and writing reports
to creating videos and animations.
NO
Ifeel terrible confessing this: I realized about
halfway through
last school year
that I wasn’t using
my interactive
whiteboard. Sure, I was navigating the
internet with it, showing presenta-
tions, and sketching notes over writing
samples, but I really wasn’t using it for
anything more than what a projector
aimed at a regular whiteboard could
achieve. Yes, students would occasion-
ally play interactive games, but they
could play the same games on their own
devices with more individual feedback.
Integrating technology is now one
of the top priorities in education.
School districts left and right boast
about having interactive whiteboards
and document readers in classrooms,
one-to-one and BYOD programs, and
classroom sets of iPads. We are all
missing the point. Technology integration is not about the technology. It
is not about finding the newest piece
of equipment and throwing it into a
classroom. It is about finding the most
effective tools to enhance learning and
productivity. For schools that want to
move toward project-based and in-quiry-driven learning environments,
those tools are not interactive whiteboards. They are also not iPads.
At first glance, iPads seem like they
would be a reasonable purchase. They
are often less expensive than laptops,
they have a variety of educational
apps, and they are light and portable.
But those reasons are not strong
enough to support the purchase of
iPads, as long as products like the
lightweight and inexpensive Chrome-
book are on the market. Even teachers
who use technology for simple inter-
net searches and word processing are
better served with a netbook or laptop
simply because of keyboard size and
integration issues with cloud-based
tools like Google Apps. For more ro-
bust users, the iOS platform is limiting
because it does not natively support
Flash or Java—so say goodbye to ad-
vanced video editing, website design,
and 3D design software. Yes, iPads
often have “an app for that,” but just as
