Education and learning have acquired a new face since the advent of the tablet PC’s, such as iPads and other tablets. There has been a sea change in the manner of teaching, and students have been the biggest beneficiaries in this new scenario.
The benefits of tablets as a leisure or work-related device have been evident from the day they hit the market. However, teachers and educationists have also now begun to use them as excellent teaching aids.
The popularity of these machines can be judged from the fact that over 172.4 million units will be shipped in the year 2013, and it is estimated that by the year 2016, 282 million units will be sold. The prices are lowering, the technology is getting simpler, and the ease of use and easy accessibility has made them one of the world’s most used computing devices.
The global impact of tablet devices in the classroom
The impact on the learning sector is being felt not only in the classroom, but also in homes. From grandparents to small children, everyone is using tablet devices to gain knowledge and to improve their understanding of the world around them. Whether it is downloading podcasts or free online courses, or whether it is for playing games that help improve one’s concentration, the world of learning has come much closer to them and easy to reach out to. With these tablet devices, it is also now quite easy to be part of online classrooms.
[Read also: Computer Game Focused Learning – Benefits and Risks]
What are the advantages to using tablet devices for education?
There are many advantages to using tablet devices in a classroom-like environment. Each child has something in his or her hands that provides access to a large volume of knowledge and expertise. Every child is able work at his own pace and the teacher is able to give special attention to those who are slower than the others.
The world of tablets has managed to make it simpler for children with special needs to catch up with the rest of the class, as the teacher is now watching and dealing with each child individually. The students are able to go back to the previous lessons and correlate with the new lessons, since all classroom material is saved on the tablets. In projects where the impact of tablets was assessed, there was a significant increase in the ability of students to imbibe their lessons and learn new subjects when they worked with tablets and other computing devices.
Teachers are also benefiting immensely from these technologies, since they are able to make their subjects much more interesting using 3D images, and they have to spend less effort developing slides and visual aids to help them teach better. Introducing web cams to the classroom. Cameras on tablet devices are an added bonus. As stated earlier, each child has the world at his fingertips and the worth of this kind of knowledge cannot be quantified. Tablets have not only changed how children are taught, they have also changed the pace of learning for each child. Fewer teachers can teach a greater number of students, and fewer resources need to be spent by the schools to provide the best teaching tools for their teachers.
What is the hardware platform of choice for education?
iPads are the most popular tablet devices on the market. Developed with the cutting-edge technology that Apple is famous for, they are way ahead of their competitors in both the kind of apps available for their devices, and also due to their ability to stay ahead with newer and better adaptations to their iPads. A school in Switzerland even buying iPads for its students and teachers. However, Apple technology is expensive, and this is one of the main reasons why many schools have decided to opt for alternative hardware platforms such as Android devices.
Android devices are cheaper, and they are also beginning to adapt to the changing environment with better technology and greater features. Many countries, like India, are producing cheaper and simpler tablets, so that the poorer groups of society can also have easier access to this new method of teaching.
[Read more: New Tech Being Tested in Schools]
Can schools justify investing in tablet hardware?
The initial cost of tablets is high. Each tablet is expensive and the overall cost of providing tablets to all the students can be a major drain on the budget of the school, not just in terms of purchasing hardware, but also deployment and ongoing maintenance. Most School IT Support Services are usually in-house, but sometimes an additional skill-set is required to deploy tablet devices campus-wide. In the long term, the cost can be realized due to the savings in the cost of purchasing videos and eBooks.
Good hardware needs good software
Tablet technology is very impressive, but it would be useless without a strong catalog of quality software applications.
There are thousands of tablet applications available for the Education Sector. Foreign language apps are very convenient and simple to use, and they are a great way to teach new languages using both visual and audio systems. The 3D Brain App shows and describes all parts of the brain in vivid colors and with excellent imaging. History Maps of the World is one of the most used apps by teachers and students alike. It makes a prosaic subject, such as history, come alive and makes the ancient worlds easier to understand and learn.
Garage Band is used not only by music students, but also by children and adults who would just like to make their own music without having to go through hours of classroom teaching. The world of music is literally at their fingertips now, and they can construct musical pieces with tremendous ease. Music can be heard and discussed by all, and the students can also write and play their own music by using some simple apps.
Science students have used some amazing applications to understand the complexities of their subjects. The students can chat with other students all over the world, and can also be in touch with some of the best speakers and teachers in their field.
Apps for teachers such as the Teacher’s Assistant Pro help the teachers keep track of their children and organize their own documents and projects. Access to an app such as Free Books brings the world of books closer to the children and gives them a chance to download some amazing books without spending a penny.
[Read also: Top 3 Math Apps for iPhone or iPad]
Will tablet devices eventually replace pen and paper?
The tablets are not only starting to replace pen and paper in a few instances, but they are also acting as replacements for books. There are numerous ways in which teachers use these devices in their classrooms. Complex math problems are made simpler with the use of videos to explain how they can be understood. Classroom projects can be conceptualized first and drawn out in 3D before being completed in actual form.
Conclusions
Tablet devices are here to stay in the classroom. The US government is investing millions in deploying Amplify Devices nationwide and the UK government is following suit with their own selected hardware. With hardware costs continuously dropping, it will only be a matter of time before pen and paper is permanently replaced by the touch screen display.
[Image 1 credit: Katy Joe DeSantis, Flickr] / [Image 2 credit: Brad Flickinger, Flickr]
Good informative post………. 🙂
Really? Why is it so Karan? I normally don’t approve unconstructive comments such as yours. But since I kind of know you on Google+ so I think I should give you a chance. Please leave comments that are worthwhile next time OK? Anyway, thanks for stopping by!
hey peter. visiting your site after a long time so i missed some articles. well talking about this one. this is the reallity tablets have changed eveything. i see my classmates carrying tablets in college. but i personally dont like it much. as they are big, i prefer a smartphone of 4 inch. but yes they are good if you are at home
I think tablets are more suitable than smartphones for use in classrooms as teaching tools, Prabhat.
I think that tablets around the size of 7 inches are going to become the most popular in the years to come. Have you seen the new HP tablet? They ditched Windows and went with the Android platform and decided to keep it at 7 inch display. I expect to see more of this.
I don’t think that it will be long before we see the end of pen and paper in the classroom. The idea of recording information anything other than an electronic device will be primitive in 50 years time. Handwriting will become a specialist art.
In my country, students need to drag a luggage bag to school as there are too many text books to bring to school everyday that it’s just too heavy for them to carry in a normal school bag. It’ll be a big relief for the students if all these text books could one day be replaced by tablets.
Wow! I had never thought about it the same way you did David!
Nice post. Really enjoyed reading the connection between tablets and our education…
So what was your thought on tablets and education actually prior to reading this article, Mahaveer? Mind telling us? 😉
My thought was just related to use of computers or tablets for the purpose of teaching how to operate them 😉
I think that they will eventually end up saving schools a lot of money in labor. Simple things like inventory of books and receiving shipments and tracking paper to tracking who is responsible for lost devices. Also, it will be easier to retrieve material through license keys.
Less paper used, more environmental friendly too! 🙂
Most of the schools/colleges today are running smart classes for its students. Tablets can be revolutionary for those schools & college as they are easier to carry than that of a normal laptop/notebook computer & has a reasonable display than that of a typical smartphone. but I have a doubt whether they really are environment friendly as they emit high radiation which is slowly becoming one of the biggest problem world is going to face in coming time.
Yeah you mentioned a very good point about radiation, Rajneesh. Also, light emitted by these tablets does affect health especially our sleep patterns. Users might find themselves getting harder to sleep, hence putting health at risk. Might not be so good for school children here.
That is a good point. I wonder if things like Kindle Fire might end up being the preferred method. I know that most of the school children that I’m around prefer this over the iPad that they use in school. Of course, there are apps that take out blue light.
Any tablets work fine I guess. Kindle Fire? Well, there’s always a possibility.
The use of tablets in education has made education so easy for the students that they can easily manage their all home works and assignments. Most of the students are using tablets to study for online courses from their homes. The schools or institutes that are not allowing tablets for study will allow tablets to use in near future. But the tablets will never replace the pen and paper.
I think tablets have a great impact in education and in my opinion, it’s more on the positive side. Students will have more access to ebooks, interactive apps, and other educational media. They no longer have to carry loads of books too. For schools, updating of ebooks will be cheaper and easier compared to printing books. Cheap android tablets also gives kids in developing countries an opportunity to have access to educational media since the price of laptops and desktop pc are still too prohibitive for the low income families.
I really pity seeing kids in my country carrying heavy load of books to school. The idea of replacing books with tablets will certainly overcome this problem. Technology these days are fast advancing but ironically, text books and papers are still being used heavily in education. Sigh…
Like laptops back in my college days, tablets are making their way in schools. They are indeed tools that take the education not just for students but for teachers as well a notch higher. When I was in college, laptops were good for students to bring to class and for teachers to use in lectures. But since not all of us in the class had a laptop, we were able to employ the ease of learning through this technology still because the department where I belong to invested on projectors and other equipment that made it easy for those who have (especially the teachers) employ the benefits of such technology to everyone in class. As for tablets, they now seem like staple tools in libraries in place of bulky desktop sets. Maybe schools can come up with something to accommodate this very potential educational tool to benefit everyone as well. The trick in employing such technology in application at schools is to come up with something that will make it useful for students and lecturers.
Ruth,
Thank you for stopping by to read this article. I’m so happy that it is still bringing traffic to this blog. It’s a really great blog. I wish there were more blogs out there like this one.
I hate to admit this, but I finally got my degree at the age of 33 in 2009, and I never really brought a laptop to class. Gosh, the kids must have thought I was a dinosaur. LOL!
My first computer was a Commodore 64. Now I don’t know what I would do without my MacAir on hand and my dual screens at home. My kids have Kindles as tablets and I strongly support the use of a tablet in schools and on school buses instead of carrying around books. Heck, I’m even thinking about taking everything to the cloud with receipts scanned and DVDs transferred over to Vudu.
Your feedback is so right on target. Thank you!
Erin
Hi Erin, let’s not forget how switching to tablets and pads from bulky books and desktops free up a lot of load in the kid’s backpacks. That will be posture help as well. Also, encyclopedias and dictionaries also come in app form so that means we’ll be able to free up space in the house for those sets of huge books! LOL
I may not know what a Commodore 64 is BUT I feel we’re on the same team when it comes to tablets and the employment of such technology in education Yay!
Tablet has become a conducive device for education sector. It helps students to learn lots of things in classroom from online. Thanks for this valuable information.
No problem Alson! I’m glad that you liked the article. Thanks for reading it. I hope to see the education sector make a switch to it for textbooks and papers.
This is an interesting post to read since I recently bought my wife an ASUS 7″ tablet to take on a two-week training course. She says she doesn’t know how she ever lived without one! The texts were downloadable, so she always had access to them and any other information, online or offline.
I think they are a good fit between the smartphone and a laptop, replacing neither, but filling a niche, certainly.