Chicago school gives free iPads to students
According to network world, the Chicago school district is giving free ipads to its freshman students instead of books.
Keith Bockwoldt, director of technology, says
“For the most part the students love using the iPad,” he says. “There’s no more lost papers or heavy books to carry around. And teachers love the fact that they can use Google Calendar to share assignments and deadlines with the students.”
This is a clear signal of change taking place in the educational system as we know it today. Personally, I believe iPads are much more efficient than text books from a publishing perspective because will no longer need to be printed in large volumes for students. In addition, teachers can deliver assignments and other dynamic instructions to their students on the fly.
Kieths last statement is directly to publishers and speaks to why publishing business are not fairing to well in todays digital space.
“We have been creating a lot of our own digital curriculum in English and in math,” he says. “If [text book publishers] don’t hurry up, we’re going to create all our own content and they’ll be out of business.”
