Manitou Springs School District 14 is the first public school in the country to give iPads to every one of its students. However, all of the teachers in the high school aren’t in agreement on the usefulness of the new technology.
Brian Brown was one of three teachers to use iPads last year. “I find [iPads] to be very helpful to myself and my students,” said Brown. “We spend about sixty percent of class time on the them.”
Students in Brown’s world history class will find themselves blogging, taking quizzes, and even taking notes on their iPads.
“I don’t know if I’m overusing them. It’s really an experiment at this point,” said Brown.
Timothy Hilt has a very different iPad policy in his American literature and English I Honors classes. Students in those classes must check their phones and iPads at the door and put them in their respective cubbies.
“I’m not using them too much,” said Hilt. “Everything I need is in the textbook.”
Despite spending the majority of class without technology, during study time Hilt allows his students to go back and use their iPads.
Hilt does plan to increase his implementation of the iPads, however. His English I Honors class will read an entire novel on them.
“I see [iPads] as a tool for success, but they can also be tool for distraction. They’re not a magic bullet,” said Hilt.
By Keegan Bockhorst
Grace • Oct 5, 2012 at 3:19 pm
I think they can be useful for taking notes and researching online, but I think they’re very distracting as well; people could get lost in them.
Luke Ganger • Oct 5, 2012 at 3:16 pm
After reading this, I have all new viewpoints on the iPads, and I believe both make sense and i can see where they are coming from, however; the iPads are certainly in more use in classes like Science or English, whereas in a Math class there is not as big of of a use for them.
charles • Oct 5, 2012 at 2:58 pm
I can agree with Mr. Hilt saying iPads are a distraction because most of the kids just play games on them during class so I think it’s a good thing that he has students put their iPads and phones in a cubbie. But then there also comes a time where iPads come in handy. Teachers should start putting tests and quiz’s online so they can enter the right answer as they are setting it up so that way when students take the test or quiz then submit the answers, it automatically grades it. It would make things a lot easier for teachers and they would have extra time.