Photo by Brad Flickinger

Photo by Brad Flickinger

Every bit the effectiveness of technology in the classroom comes nether increasing scrutiny, one California commune encourages extensive utilise of iPads and other such digital readers, and says the benefits are articulate and compelling.

A series of recent articles in the New York Times said inquiry on the academic payoff of technological innovation in the grade is slim to nonexistent. But Riverside Unified says some teens are studying more because they're never without their east-readers. And their exam scores are benefiting.

Riverside was i of the start school districts in California to implement the use of digital textbooks after then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched the Free Digital Textbook Initiative in May 2009. Riverside is also an innovator in how it is using this technology to put students in control of their own learning, said Jay McPhail, managing director of instructional technology at Riverside.

Students personalize their commune-issued iPad, Android or other netbook with photos, videos and music. Or they can bring their own devices from home and download the assigned digital textbooks.

"Our kids are carrying this engineering in pockets and purses," McPhail said. "We used to confiscate it. At present nosotros want them to use information technology."

As a consequence, students are more fastened to their due east-readers than in other districts, which has helped boost academic operation at Riverside, he said. Some students told McPhail they had read their algebra text 2 or three times during the school year because they carried it with them always.

Addressing Road Blocks to Innovation

In an interview with EdSource, McPhail and his colleagues addressed v common misconceptions well-nigh challenges educators might confront every bit they go down the digital route.

ane. It's too expensive to implement.

McPhail admits his district has received numerous grants, including an Enhancing Educational activity Through Technology federal grant of $500,000 this fall to create a student information dashboard  (which collects grades, omnipresence, test scores and such) and provide 7-inch Android tablets at a price of $165 each to every student at Ramona High Schoolhouse. The district has also taken advantage of grants from private companies such every bit Verizon and Target.

Riverside also saves money past only providing e-readers to students who don't already have them. In lower-income neighborhoods, the district has found threescore percent of students have such devices, when you include smart phones. In college-income neighborhoods, 90 pct do.

And electronic textbooks are much cheaper than paper textbooks, so the district spends less subsequently its initial investment. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Fuse Algebra I textbook for the iPad costs $49 compared with the newspaper price of about $120, McPhail said.

two. Schoolhouse districts would be unable to provide technical support.

Riverside plant it didn't need to hire tech troubleshooters, McPhail says, considering students can mostly practise information technology themselves. The district also supplied a newspaper textbook in each classroom in example there were technical glitches, said Monica Ward, who teaches folklore and also works as an academic bus at Ramona High School.

iii. It's difficult and expensive to provide teachers with technical training

The district thought the professional development needed to bring teachers upwards to the students' level of technical expertise would take also long and be too plush, McPhail said. Instead, the district offers only ii-to-4 hours of training on uploading assignments, PowerPoint slides or flip charts.

"One of the nearly interesting 'aha' moments is when teachers realize they don't need to know how to use the device," Ward, the academic coach, said. "They just need to teach. The children effigy it out."

Teachers are too discovering students are more willing and likely to do their homework because of tablets' interactivity, said Ramona High principal Susan Mills. Teachers give students practice tests, and the tablet tells them if they are right.

When information technology comes time to take in-course tests, students apply a website that doesn't allow them to leave until the test is completed to forbid cheating.

Teachers at Ramona High as well appreciate the school's student data dashboard, which provides each student's grades, attendance, test scores, and classes needed to come across course requirements for California's public universities. When it'due south time for the parent-teacher conference, teachers "don't accept to rifle through papers," Ward said. "It'southward right at that place on the device. Information technology's the starting time thing the students see when they turn on their tablet."

Chief Mills emphasizes that her school prepared for a yr or so before implementing the digital programme this fall. "We've been using prison cell phone engineering and piloted other devices to go where we are," she said. "Yous jump in, only you lot spring in with a piffling scrap of planning."

four. Students might lose or sell their school-supplied electronic devices.

McPhail says the district'south loss rate with textbooks was 25 percent. With digital devices it is 5 percent or less. Students who didn't already have a digital device treasured it and weren't tempted to sell it, he said.

Ward agrees. "When they get in their ain, they take improve intendance of it, they don't lose information technology, they bring information technology to school, they make sure it is charged," she said. "We do good from the fact that they have ownership of information technology."

Middle and high school students, in particular, as well appreciate no longer having to lug effectually five textbooks in their backpacks, Ward added.

5. Students volition be distracted playing games instead of listening to their teachers.

"At that place is a lot of appointment; kids are on task," Ward said. "They aren't doing Facebook or games. Does it happen once in a while? Sure, only it'due south non an epidemic."

Students, McPhail says, understand that school officials will confiscate their device if they don't act responsibly.

Riverside as a Model

Riverside is the only commune in California employing technology at this level, McPhail believes. Two years ago information technology was not-digital and today it has 10,000 district-provided e-readers — about a quarter are Android tablets, a quarter are iPads and iPod Touches, and the rest are netbooks. Those e-readers plus ones provided by students means the program has reached near three-quarters of the district's more than twoscore,000 students, from pre-kindergarten through loftier school.

McPhail said far about 70 California school districts have toured Riverside to look at  the program.

He as well carried out a controlled report on the bear upon of the iPad on Algebra I students who were taught by one of 2 teachers. Of the x classes these teachers taught, they used paper textbooks in viii and digital devices in two, which were randomly selected. Based on California Standards Test (CST) scores, 3 to 4 per centum more than students tested proficient or avant-garde in math compared with the prior year in the classes using paper textbooks; in the classes with digital textbooks, 19 percent improved to that level.

The commune also has to devote some staff time explaining to parents the expanded learning opportunities offered digitally, such as access to libraries and videos that explain algebra issues. And they also talk without parents nearly how to protect students from inappropriate Internet content .

Teachers have volunteered to talk to parents in meetings that can concluding from 2 to half dozen hours, says McPhail, because many teachers have been excited nearly the educational resource bachelor to students online. However, teachers who exercise non desire to utilize the devices tin can reject to be part of the program, he added.

The teacher'south role has evolved into ane of helping students make sense of available information, every bit well as pedagogy on how to determine if information technology's authentic, McPhail said, something teachers using traditional textbooks also have to do.

"It's about digital citizenship," he said. "How practise you use it every bit a tool to learn?"

KQED recently wrote a story on a Motion Math study about learning fractions on an e-reader.

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