Moving from Textbooks to Tech-Books

Earlier this year Georgia State Senator Tommie Williams proposed that middle school students ditch those heavy backpacks stuffed with textbooks and that they be issued iPads as replacements.  This would provide for a better learning experience and could also lead to a cost savings as well.  School systems across the state adopt textbooks now on a 7 year adoption cycle. This adoption cycle is done for every academic subject that is covered in our schools. These adoptions can often cost millions of dollars per subject area and quickly become out of date once major events or discoveries happen throughout the world. There is a better more engaging solution and that is moving towards innovation and incorporating technology into our classrooms. The cost of the iPads would be a significant expense initially but after the purchase the savings begin on not having the future textbook adoptions.  The cost of the Apps would be much cheaper in the long run and many of the best apps for students can be found for free.

The iPad would offer a number of opportunities for students and teachers to learn in different ways. There are critics who point out that this technology would be difficult to control and students would venture out to social media or other none academic websites.  Teachers around the country are already incorporating Twitter and Facebook into instruction because of the number of students who bring web enabled devices to school currently.  One place that school systems see money disappear right now is the cost to replace lost or damaged text books. During my time on the school board in Cartersville I saw this figure range from $30,000-$100,000 in certain years.  There would be loss and damage to the iPads as well but students would take better care of these devices because they would value them more.  The cost to replace these devices would in the end probably be a wash.

I currently use an iPad for my business and I have been amazed at the speed at which my employer can update the apps that we use day in and day out.  Scaling this to student use would allow our kids to be using cutting edge technology everyday and never haver to use information that is years out of date and irrelevant.  These devices can also be used as student response systems or "clickers" that many school systems are currently investing thousands of dollars in per classroom. In this season of difficult budgetary times we must start looking to technology to increase rigor and save taxpayer resources.

Technology alone will never be the answer but it will increase the engagement rate of our students and that may be more than more than half the battle. Public schools are under attack and our leaders must continue to innovate so that we are preparing students to lead in a rapidly changing technology driven world.  Through targeted innovation like iPads in the classroom we can begin to transform ALL public schools into centers of advancement & discovery...not just the chosen elite with "special" charters.