The Atlantic article "Why Some Schools Are Selling All Their iPads" is a pretty interesting read. I don't have enough experience with (or interest in) tablets yet to judge the issues involved with choosing a platform that handles tablet apps well, but I do desperately wish my students had more universal access to the web and to word processing and other apps at school.
The district in the article did a pilot comparing the experiences of students (apparently middle and high school students) on Chromebooks vs. IPads, and their conclusions, described in the article, could be summarized like this (look at me doing a list!!):
- Chromebooks are cheaper ($280 vs. $400)
- Chromebooks were perceived by students as more for work and IPads for fun
- Chromebooks have keyboards (which are also required for Common Core testing)
- It was easier for tech support to support a large group of Chromebooks, partly because students can easily switch from one to another, and new apps are easy to push out
- Google apps for education, which are widely used, work slightly better on Chromebooks
From my point of view, these reasons are compelling, and I'm excited Portland is leaning toward Chromebooks. But as I have this post open, a PPS elementary teacher has just made the excellent point that it's frustrating to have a one-size-fits-all model for students of widely differing ages, educational needs, and keyboard/writing capabilities. (On the other hand, another elementary teacher says IPads are designed as individual machines and are a pain for whole-classroom use, two PPS science teachers say it's extremely frustrating IPads can't run Flash, and one adds he favors a district-wide acceptable use policy that lets students use the devices they already own and use.)
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