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This post doesn’t really explain what is so great about iPads for small children, and as far as I can tell doesn’t link to much external explanation about it. M

This post doesn’t really explain what is so great about iPads for small children, and as far as I can tell doesn’t link to much external explanation about it. Maybe the author had some previous posts explaining this that regular blog readers know about as context? Is there some report [anecdotal, peer-reviewed, whatever] comparing kids’ trying to learn using an iPad vs. physical materials? What specific ideas or subjects are effectively learned on the iPad? Is the iPad being used as a substitute for television? As a way to scale teacher time better when there are many students per teacher? As a tool which a teacher and student will use together? ... My personal bias would be to generally occupy small children with something tangible (sand toys, climbing equipment, blocks, balls, toy cars, marbles, chalk, scissors and paper, pattern blocks, dice, index cards, yarn, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, gears, pulleys, springs, ..., and lots of paper books) until they are a bit older. If there are many students per teacher and the teacher’s attention is limited, students can often entertain themselves while learning a great deal by working/playing in groups using physical materials.

kickscondor 8y ago
I do cite one paper (and there are more) - I will flesh these ideas out in the blog over the next little while. You are understandably skeptical.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  Okay. I guess the quotation wasn’t that exciting to me. > Children as young as 24 months can complete items requiring cognitive engagement on a touch screen device, with no verbal instruction and minimal child–administrator interaction. This paves the way for using touch screen technology for language and administrator independent developmental assessment in toddlers. This sounds like a way of handing a child off to a device so that adults can otherwise ignore them. (Which, to be fair, will unfortunately happen a lot anyway in schools.) And the focus is on “assessment” rather than teaching/learning. Did you find that there were ideas or subjects that could be taught better on an iPad than using alternative materials (with a teacher standing by to explain in either case)?
vertline3 8y ago
I agree in that I worry about how technology may impact our ability to concentrate deeply. I get this view from the book by Nicholas Carr called "the shallows" I did however talk to an elementary teacher, she said the kids do the reading assignment on a tablet and she has a monitor where she can see at her desk what each individual is struggling with. I'm not sure more about how this works. Lots of enthusiasm from a long time teacher though.
etatoby 8y ago
I will add another couple of points. In kindergarten (many decades ago) sometimes we were given individual assignments, such as sticking figures in the right place, coloring things, basic counting... But other times we were forced to interact with our peers and "play together." As someone who has always struggled to interact with other people, and who had not met any other kids before/except in kindergarten, I think those times were very formative. Hard, but formative. I still struggle with people as an adult, but I think I would be worse off had I spent that time in front of a screen, whether touch or not, instead of interacting with other kids, including hard times like being excluded from the group with they best toys and stuff like that. Also, I was using a keyboard (Model M!) as young as 3 years old, and the Microsoft Mouse not much older. I remember watching my dad add the mouse ISA card inside the computer, and learning to use three 5" floppies in the right order: first the DOS one, then the mouse driver one, type MOUSE.COM or something similar, then the Windows 1.0 floppy, and finally I could use Paint or Othello :-) I think early computers increased my ability for concentration. That's interesting, considering modern devices are said to decrease it.
- kickscondor 8y ago
  > I still struggle with people as an adult, but I think I would be worse off had I spent that time in front of a screen. I will say that one of the things that makes a tablet so great is the potential for group activities. I do a ton of whole-class activities with lots of interaction - and it is possible on a tablet because it is small enough to be easy to look past. This is an issue with desktops (esp. in a lab) and, to some degree, with laptops. Just today we did an activity where all the kids 'drew' a visualization of a certain math problem and then we passed the tablets around and added on top off them and then I showed the results on the projector. There was laughter, story-telling, kids helping each other, moving around the classroom, you name it. The fact that you can get up and walk around with a tablet is a point I hadn't mentioned. Thank you for the stimulus!
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    > activity where all the kids 'drew' a visualization of a certain math problem What was different about their drawings vs. using paper?

kickscondor 8y ago

I do cite one paper (and there are more) - I will flesh these ideas out in the blog over the next little while. You are understandably skeptical.

jacobolus 8y ago
Okay. I guess the quotation wasn’t that exciting to me. > Children as young as 24 months can complete items requiring cognitive engagement on a touch screen device, with no verbal instruction and minimal child–administrator interaction. This paves the way for using touch screen technology for language and administrator independent developmental assessment in toddlers. This sounds like a way of handing a child off to a device so that adults can otherwise ignore them. (Which, to be fair, will unfortunately happen a lot anyway in schools.) And the focus is on “assessment” rather than teaching/learning. Did you find that there were ideas or subjects that could be taught better on an iPad than using alternative materials (with a teacher standing by to explain in either case)?

vertline3 8y ago

I agree in that I worry about how technology may impact our ability to concentrate deeply. I get this view from the book by Nicholas Carr called "the shallows" I did however talk to an elementary teacher, she said the kids do the reading assignment on a tablet and she has a monitor where she can see at her desk what each individual is struggling with. I'm not sure more about how this works. Lots of enthusiasm from a long time teacher though.

etatoby 8y ago

I will add another couple of points. In kindergarten (many decades ago) sometimes we were given individual assignments, such as sticking figures in the right place, coloring things, basic counting... But other times we were forced to interact with our peers and "play together." As someone who has always struggled to interact with other people, and who had not met any other kids before/except in kindergarten, I think those times were very formative. Hard, but formative. I still struggle with people as an adult, but I think I would be worse off had I spent that time in front of a screen, whether touch or not, instead of interacting with other kids, including hard times like being excluded from the group with they best toys and stuff like that. Also, I was using a keyboard (Model M!) as young as 3 years old, and the Microsoft Mouse not much older. I remember watching my dad add the mouse ISA card inside the computer, and learning to use three 5" floppies in the right order: first the DOS one, then the mouse driver one, type MOUSE.COM or something similar, then the Windows 1.0 floppy, and finally I could use Paint or Othello :-) I think early computers increased my ability for concentration. That's interesting, considering modern devices are said to decrease it.

kickscondor 8y ago
> I still struggle with people as an adult, but I think I would be worse off had I spent that time in front of a screen. I will say that one of the things that makes a tablet so great is the potential for group activities. I do a ton of whole-class activities with lots of interaction - and it is possible on a tablet because it is small enough to be easy to look past. This is an issue with desktops (esp. in a lab) and, to some degree, with laptops. Just today we did an activity where all the kids 'drew' a visualization of a certain math problem and then we passed the tablets around and added on top off them and then I showed the results on the projector. There was laughter, story-telling, kids helping each other, moving around the classroom, you name it. The fact that you can get up and walk around with a tablet is a point I hadn't mentioned. Thank you for the stimulus!
- jacobolus 8y ago
  > activity where all the kids 'drew' a visualization of a certain math problem What was different about their drawings vs. using paper?