A teacher gave her 8-year-old students iPads and discovered one huge drawback

[n2doc]

When Launa Hall, a teacher in northern Virginia, gave each of her third graders an iPad, they were psyched. Many of them had never had a tablet, and the appeal, was immediate and powerful, she writes in the Washington Post.

Hall didn’t choose to give her students iPads. Her school received money—more than $100,000 per grade—to roll out the one-to-one classroom where there is one computing device per child. She and others wondered whether there was enough research to prove that such a strategy would enhance her students’ learning.

A lot of good things happened with the devices. Her students “made faux commercials that aired on our school’s morning news; they recorded themselves explaining math problems; they produced movies about explorers, complete with soundtracks. I recorded mini-lessons for my students to watch at home, so we could ‘flip our classroom’ and discuss the information in small groups the next day.”

But there was a cost.

Kids stopped conversing with each other as much. Sure, maybe they didn’t argue, or hurt each other’s feelings as much—something that happens a lot on third grade—but that’s because they weren’t engaging with each other as often. She recalls one rainy day when her students came into the classroom after lunch and she pulled out a box of LEGOs, which only a weeks earlier had been cause for celebration. No one wanted to play with them. They wanted their iPads. The classroom went silent.

more

http://qz.com/567534/a-teacher-gave-her-8-year-old-students-ipads-and-found-one-huge-drawback/