Mobile devices in the classroom - what and why?

[pooley]

The HT has asked me to look into mobile devices, ipads, dslites etc.

So my question is who has what, how/what's it used for and has it turned into a big White elephant?

Cheers

Si

[turnew]

Not sure what South Wales School or Authority you're in but the use of these devices are getting talked about at most schools. The intention is to engage those pupils, predominantly in Primary schools, who are not interested in traditional methods of learning e.g. reading books, internet etc These types of devices can engage the learner as they end up learning through play. The main issue is that schools have to assess the pupils progress and how do you store the data from these devices back onto your fileserver so that you have a complete picture of the students progress. The fileserver may contain Word documents, Presentations, Spreadhseets etc that the pupil has worked on but how do you get their data/progress off an IPad, IPod Touch, Nintendo DS etc so all their progress is saved in one place ? Very difficult when Apple "bubble" the data in with the Application. If the data on these devices can be copied to a fileserver then I think there'll be a future for them, however, if this can't be overcome I think their use may be limiting. Early days with this type of technology but watch this space there's huge potential with these devices (just not yet)

[pooley]

Thanks for this, makes sense, going to try and blag an ipad/tablet for R&D though

[sted]

the schools i go to with ds lites seem to make a lot of use of them for brain training kids seem to like them and it does seem to of brought up their maths scores a bit

ipads i dont see the point may as well buy a netbook for less that can do more.

[Sylv3r]

We are currently considering the positives and negatives of using student owned mobile phones in lessons.

I recently sat in and wrote up a report on the initial trial cohort class - a Year 10 middle set MFL class.

Student feedback was positive with all students engaged on task which was to use built in voice recorder apps on the devices. Student feedback was really positive.

Whether it will work in a lower ability - dis-interested class is another question - we are looking to identify a lower ability class to carry out the same exercise to investigate our findings.

[GrumbleDook]

The projects we are running with local schools might be of help to you http://toolkit.bltnorthants.net/ and don't forget the work done by Fraser Speirs Fraser Speirs - Blog

[PiqueABoo]

The intention is to engage those pupils, predominantly in Primary schools

In the Primary world I see, which may or may not be similar to anyone else's (but if it's different I'd love to know how?) looming budget pressures appear to have kicked a lot of non-core "cute" engaging ICT stuff into touch. However there now seems to be a increasing trend towards netbooks where they once would have bought laptops. Netbooks of course can be integrated into their system and take advantage of their existing s/w investment - and if the screen size isn't so good for [whatever] they'll put up with it for the cheaper price. The sums don't work out quite so well if they don't have existing wireless infrastructure though.

Anyway my main concern in this area is longevity/sustainability, as in how often do netbooks or any other "mobile" devices have to be replaced?