Five Smart Ways to Deploy Tablets: Harvard Education Letter

The overarching goal was to increase students’ and teachers’ productivity and efficiency. “What we were looking for was portability, communication, and transfer of written material back and forth in a pretty seamless and easy way,” says Roslyn Superintendent Daniel Brenner. “Our vision of tablets is as a utility tool.” — via Harvard Education Letter.

Interesting read. I especially agree with the final two points in the article, “Prepare and Empower Teachers” and “Focus on Changing Classroom Practices” … what I find compelling is that I had this very conversation at today’s our University SteerCo. meeting when the question of if deploying tablets to students is a good idea.

My response was, “it depends.” If you can provide layers of pedagogical support, align curricular tasks, and provide solid faculty development you can be measurably successful. I also feel it is easier to go all the way with deployments like this — if you could outfit a campus, I feel it would be easier to challenge the status quo and truly move the needle. If everyone is in the same boat, the goal has to include finding real value in issuing the devices — faculty creating and offering digital texts, tablets being used as active tools during class, specialized apps selected to provide access to content, simulations, and collaboration, and so more. The only way, IMHO, to do something like this well is to take a systems approach and address all parts of the value chain. At the end of the day, this has to be part of the goal …

Successful tablet deployments are connected to broader efforts and motivate concrete changes in classroom instruction, educators note. Helping teachers change the way they teach is crucial, and won’t happen quickly or on its own.

2 thoughts on “Five Smart Ways to Deploy Tablets: Harvard Education Letter

  • March 16, 2014 at 11:58 pm
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    Cole, I completely agree with the “it depends” notion. All too often the mistake seems to be made that technology is a solution you can purchase rather than the tool to use that helps education. The hardware and software pieces are definitely moving into place, and while training might be available to use some of the software, the hardest part will be inspiring the embrace of such a move.

    A few years ago, Andy Read from Duke came up and gave a seminar at SoMAS about Cachalot http://www.cachalot.me/cachalot/a-textbook-re-imagined/ an iPad app that is a textbook for marine megafauna. The app provides a textbook for a topic that lacks textbooks, but the software provides a great template for possible future textbook apps as well. I keep asking if an Android app is on the way but that may no longer be a priority.

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  • March 17, 2014 at 12:25 pm
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    Hi Mark … yes, throwing technology at a problem typically gets the attention of the press, but doesn’t always solve the issue. I’ve seen some of the digital texts (actually produced a solid one while at Penn State) and if you can make it work in a systematic fashion they can be great solutions. It requires getting faculty and student buy-in, often requiring a very different approach from a curricular perspective.

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