Good luck and all that, but, Bob must be mean.
Smiley Smiley.
I do not think iPads belong in the first grade. If, I say if, you want each kid to have an iPad. If this is what you intend, I disagree with the idea that a room filled with little kids cannot be taught old school. So clarify . . . what specifically are you looking for? I think teachers want iPads because they are cool. Apple wants schools to have iPads because they think revenue is cool. I do not want it because I am a cranky old fart. I learnt my ACFs and my mathemeticals and me spelling and grummer the old ways. No fancy new fangled learnin' things for me and I turned out quite average.
My concern is they will be expected and not every school can afford the technology. Budgets will increase and we will still be stuck with poorly educate young'uns. With school budgets being what they are these days, I do not want my tax dollars shelled out for useless technology. Did I say useless? Hate me yet?
I will not be surprized to one day read where my poorly funded school will suddenly find thousands of dollars for iPads. They will find money they could not seem to find the last time the school budgets were drafted and teachers needed new typewriter ribbons, number 2 lead pencils, and floppy disks.
Not sure anyone will agree with me, so recognizing that, I'll continue my rant.
Smiley, Smiley.
Here is where it gets really bad and I overstep a tad. My fear is when a school adopts iPads, their test scores will go up, thus proving iPads in the school do work. Then I'll discover the test scores were fudged just to justify this unneeded tech and millions of hours were logged playing 'Angry Birds Learning Edition.' I see kids cheating. Unless the iPads are setup to eliminate access to things like Facebook, Twitter, Google. It is easy to find the answers to any question the teacher puts into his or her test. So with iPads comes the need to lock them down.
If it works, I'll recant the rant. I suspect I could be either right, wrong, or my jaded view of everything is shining through.
Bob