According to a new report, the iPad is gaining some major ground in the area of education. Several schools (both K-12 and college-level) are already equipping students and/or staff with iPads, and the trend is only growing with time.
It’s no secret that the iPad is a brilliant educational device, service as a vast information resource, a personal organizer, and an eBook and text book reader, not to mention the swarms of incredible educational apps available on the App Store, but according to a report from Kent Online UK, the trend is rapidly gaining ground.
The Longfield Academy has become the first school in the UK to provide all their students with iPads, and while some other schools have already given iPads to some of their students, Longfield will be the first to offer them to all 1,400 students in attendance when their new academy opens in September.
Add to this the fact that North Carolina’s Montlieu Elementary Academy of Technology just announced that every student and teacher at their institution would be getting an iPad to use as well, complete with Smart Cover.
The Park County School District in the US is also getting equipped with iPads, as the school district recently approved the project, in the form of 30 carts of 30 iPads which would be used as classroom sets for students to use.
There’s even a local elementary school in Utah near where I live that will soon be implementing iPads in their science classrooms. This type of movement is about way more than iPads – it’s about getting students involved in the technology world, it’s about using technology to improve the way we educate the youth, it’s about embracing an ever-growing part of our culture as an important educational tool, and not merely a music player or a toy.
Quite frankly, I’m not surprised – the iPad has proven useful to every age group from toddlers, to kindergarteners, to elementary students, to college attendees. This is just one more way in which new technology is changing the world around us, and I, for one, and thrilled to see it move forward so well.
