Tales from a 1:1 iPad pilot.

After an afternoon of researching on the iPads, a veteran educator in the room commented to me that she worried the kids weren’t interacting with physical books. Getting ready for a digital product, and taking digital notes, wasn’t the same as if they had to plan out something like a physical poster.

I wanted to defend the iPads, but I couldn’t help but acknowledge some truth in what she was saying. Though it wasn’t that they weren’t interacting with the content, it was just a different interaction. iPads are “mistake tolerant” (Beth Holland mentioned this a lot at the EdTechTeacher iPad Summit), so interacting with them is different.

Designing content for a paper product meant lots of planning and a single shot at the finished product. If it doesn’t go the way you want it to, that might necessitate starting over (or living with a product you weren’t 100% happy with). The mistake tolerance of the iPad (and other digital media) makes for a different interaction. You can jump in haphazardly and make changes as you go.

Are these two approaches different? Absolutely! Is one better than the other? I don’t know. iPads are a different kind of tool, and thus allow for different approaches. If we are going to leverage the full power of them with students we need to recognize that. With mistake tolerant devices our planning phases look very different. I’m not advocating for abolishing planning, but with a different tool the approach needs to be different too.

photo credit: Mr. T in DC via photopin cc