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Orlando Sentinel Friday, October 11, 2013
Opinion SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND?
Howard Greenberg Publisher Paul Owens Opinions Editor
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THE FRONT BURNER
Should tablets replace textbooks? Schools can’t be wallflowers at digital education dance
By Roberto Joseph |
Today’s moderator
Devices are role player, not star, in digital ed lineup By Matt Burr |
Guest columnist
Should tablets replace textbooks in K-12 schools? The quick answer to this question is a resounding yes. Rather than refuting arguments against tablets, I’ll outline several ways I believe tablets can change the way students interact with text to learn. I’ll stipulate that we don’t yet know what effects tablet technology will have on children’s learning. However, research has shown that there is a positive link between reading at home and children’s literacy development. We don’t know whether that link corresponds to reading on a tablet. A recent survey from the Pew Research Center indicated that the number of adults who own tablets is rising every month. If this trend continues like mobile phones, we can expect increasing numbers of kids will have access to tablets at home. On the other hand, there is a digital revolution transforming all aspects of social activity; yet schools seem to be a step behind with tablet technology. With any new technology we expect families will line up on both sides of the digital divide. However schools must be the bridge for children whose families can’t afford new technologies. Dictionaries define “textbook” as “a book used in schools or colleges for the formal study of a subject.” Traditional textbooks share characteristics that defined the Internet before blogs, wikis and other social media — social media tools now dubbed Web 2.0 — existed. Like the original Internet, textbook pages are static. What makes tablet technology, and more specifically electronic textbooks, so appealing is distinctive features of e-textbooks provide additional pathways for students to interact with text and content in ways they could never do with the traditional textbooks. Here are seven key tablet-technology features that when embedded in e-textbooks may have a powerful effect on student learning: 1. Audio — While reading about the civil-rights movement, students can tap on a play button embedded within the text to listen to speeches and interviews with prominent people of that time. 2. Interactive images — Students can tap on an image or map within the text and watch it enlarge full screen. The student can then pan, zoom, flip and rotate the image to gain a better perspective from different angles. 3. Video — A student can watch engaging videos that are embedded within the text for additional contextual information. For example, if a student is having trouble understanding how a problem is solved, he or she can not only watch a video providing step-by-step instructions, the student can also view how to apply what he or she is learning to solving real problems in the world. 4. Interact with 3-D objects — If students want a better look at a DNA strand, for example, by touching the object, the student can control the rotation of the DNA strand and view the object from every angle. 5. Embedded slide presentations — Students can view a full embedded presentation that might include more sophisticated animations to help them learn the process of how, for instance, photosynthesis works. 6. Quizzes — Students can take small quizzes that are embedded at the end of each chapter or section in the text. These quizzes provide immediate feedback to the students and the teacher. The quizzes can include images, audio or video as part of the questions or the answers. 7. Call-outs — These allow users to tap an image or text that then reveals a small window with additional information such as images, audio and other text to give the student more context. These are just a few of the key features of tablet technology, that when combined within a textbook have the potential to effect student learning in a positive way.
There is a digital revolution transforming all aspects of social activity; yet schools seem to be a step behind with tablet technology.
Roberto Joseph is director of Hofstra University’s new graduate program in educational technology.
Darryl E. Owens Editorial Writer
This year, students at seven Orange County public schools were ushered into the digital age with new technology, including iPads. But the devices weren’t for playing Angry Birds. Each was equipped with curriculum materials supporting students’ core subjects — and limiting the need for traditional textbooks. Not that the septet of Orange public schools is alone in enlisting in the advancing digital revolution, here in Central Florida, or across the nation, shifting from textbooks to tablets. A study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project noted that better than 40 percent of students or teachers use tablets of some sort in their Advanced Placement and National Writing Project classes. But does digital mean better? Advocates, such as today’s Front Burner columnist Roberto Joseph, say the growing ubiquity owes to the fact that tablets allow students to interact with content in ways textbooks never could. Critics, meanwhile, point to potential health risks of technology use, distractions, and costs. Others, like today’s other Front Burner columnist, Matt Burr, argue that, like a Corvette with an empty gas tank, tablets absent rigorous, engaging curricular content, take learning nowhere. BY THE NUMBERS
■ Orange County Public Schools is spending $13.8 million on laptops and iPads, infrastructure upgrades, training and insurance for a seven-school digital-technology pilot. ■ Students who used an interactive, digital version of an Algebra 1 textbook for Apple’s iPad in California’s Riverside Unified School District in 2012 scored 20 percent higher on standardized tests versus students who learned with print textbooks. ■ According to a Public Broadcasting Service survey, 77 percent of K-12 teachers believed technology helped “increase student motivation to learn.”
Guest columnist
The running headline in digital education for the past year has been all about the tablet, as K-12 school districts around the country arm themselves with shiny new gadgets. Yet while tablets grab the headlines, educators know that no digital device alone will save education. Tablets are just one part of a complex ecosystem that needs to be in place to create effective digital learning. And they’re far from being the most important piece. Much more important are the things that go in and around the tablet — native digital educational content and creative new teaching resources. These are the true make-or-break components in digital education. Today’s learners live in a media-rich world. They are bombarded with high-quality images, sounds and stories all day, every day. To get and keep students’ attention in this context, educational content has to meet and surpass the quality of media to which they’re exposed in the rest of their lives — while staying rigorous and relevant. Finding that kind of content is one of the hardest challenges facing today’s educational leaders at all levels. While they make for excellent platforms to convey content, tablets do not solve that problem. But finding great content is only half the battle. The other half is figuring out how that digital content can be leveraged to create powerful classroom learning. This is where teachers come in. The best digital learning solutions are transforming classrooms by giving teachers powerful insights into student performance outside of class and allowing them to truly “flip” the classroom so that face-time is reserved for the transformational learning that can only happen in person. Getting this right requires a delicate combination of savvy instructional guides; intuitive, easyto-use analytics; and a relentless commitment to professional development. Note that none of these elements requires tablets. These elements can be accomplished on any number of different digital devices. If these elements aren’t in place, however, the most advanced tablet in the world won’t begin to shift the needle on outcomes. There is evidence from across Florida and the country that the best digital learning is focused on creating the right ecosystem, not finding the right device. Most notably, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools — one of the poorest districts in the country and a model for aggressive digital adoption — has reduced its number of F-rated schools from 13 to zero. More than 70 percent of Miami-Dade’s schools are now receiving A grades. And students have achieved a 7 percent increase in their science comprehensive-assessment tests. And they have done this without a tablet. In 2012, schools bought 8.5 million laptops, tablets and other electronic devices — a 15.3 percent jump over the previous year. Because the average tablet ranges from $300 to $500, making the switch from textbook to tablet can cost school districts between $1 million for a smaller district like the Eanes Independent School District in Austin, Texas, to $500 million for a district like the Los Angeles Unified School District. That cost, combined with some problems with implementation and malfunctions of the highly publicized Amplify tablet, could be enough for some to want to pull the plug on the whole experiment. And no doubt there have been failures in digital adoption, as we hear stories of schools investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in devices, only to have them sit unused in closets. But those failures happen only when schools make the same mistakes as the skeptics: They see the tablet not as part of the solution but as the solution in and of itself.
Tablets are just one part of a complex ecosystem that needs to be in place to create effective digital learning.
Matt Burr is the co-founder and CEO of Nomadic Learning, which creates digital curricula and content for both the corporate world and institutions of higher learning.
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The Needle
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