In today’s world, technology seems to dominate many aspects of life.  Because of this, schools including LZHS are feeling pressure to incorporate technology into the classroom.  Although technology such as iPads has the potential to help students learn, the administration must plan better to ease the transition of iPads into curriculum.

            The school administration’s plan to increase the student-to-iPad ratio to one-to-one promises to increase student engagement, achievement, and collaboration, according to its proposal. However, before any real changes can occur, the District must focus on educating teachers and students about how to maximize technology. 

            Admittedly, putting iPads into District 95 classrooms could aid some students’ learning.  For quieter students, using iPads to hold class discussions could give them an opportunity to be more involved in class discussions.

            Applications such as iAnnotate could also allow students to take notes directly on a teacher’s presentation, which could facilitate note-taking, especially in math courses where a student has to draw diagrams or graphs.

“[Having iPads] makes it very interactive,” Julie Gyarmaty, AP Enviornmental Science teacher, said.  “It speeds up the process of notetaking because you don’t have to wait for the students to write down everything, but it still makes it interactive because, while the Power Point is already there for them, they’re not just sitting and watching.  They’re still actively working on their notes to make them more useful for them.”

While implementing iPads promises benefits like making note-taking more efficient, these benefits cannot be realized unless teachers learn how to use iPads to improve their current methods of teaching.  The approved plan indicates that teachers will receive their iPads in January of the calendar year they will begin using iPads in their classroom, and they will attend instructional days during PSAE testing and three days over the summer, 

“We’ll train teachers on things as basic as how to turn the iPad on to as advanced as flipping your classroom, where kids are watching lectures online at home, to blogging,” Eric Hamilton, Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Instruction, said.  “It really will depend on the familiarity of the teacher; not everyone has iDevices.”

Giving teachers time to familiarize themselves with iPads will help prepare them to use iPads in class, however, the administration cannot simply give teachers an iPad and expect them to rewrite their curriculum to accommodate the new changes without more guidance and collaboration.   

Also, some teachers may struggle to find ways to use the new technology in their classroom. Matt Feo, senior in AP Environmental Science, who piloted iPads this year, feels that iPads are “unnecessary,” and that the class depends on the iPads too heavily.

“[The administration] should not try as hard to incorporate [iPads] because the more they try, they’re just using them for the sake of having them, instead of using them for actual purposes,” Feo said.

In some cases, Feo says, activities would be easier without using iPads.  He prefers having tangible notes to study from, and teachers must be conscious of these concerns when flipping their classrooms.  

Increasing technology use could prove beneficial to some students’ learning, but the administration must closely monitor the progress of iPad implementation to ensure that the emphasis remains on curriculum, not technology.