iPad Security, iBooks

From a listserv (once we get some iPads in student hands):

iPad Security -- "it is really not that hard to prevent kids from getting apps, you just set up account passwords and lock the ability to change accounts, and lock down access to the app store and they won't be able to open it (in fact the icon won't even show up without the correct passcode). You can turn off the browser entirely if you want, as well as Youtube, the iTunes store app, and many others. Also of note: you can install the "Where's My iPad" app and lock it down, this offers a layer of anti-theft security (though a savvy kid will know to simply connect with a cable and reset it to factory)."

iBooks -- "If you are writing iBooks, you can add all sorts of great additional content to your books, including videos, images, assessments, and really informative internet links and the like, to allow students to explore the content. I think they are incredibly engaging and allow a level of flexibility that you simply cannot get from a traditional text."

Teachers must make learning meaningful in the digital age

Apple is the leading promoter of replacing traditional textbooks with e-books and electronic devices, according to Michael Hiltzik, L.A. Times columnist ("Hyping Tech Will Not Help Students," Feb. 5, 20212). Consequently, the value of "fancy educational electronics" in the classroom is "commercially processed claptrap," Hiltzik says. Digital classrooms are just another fad, Hiltzik adds, and pushing technology in schools is not driven by pedagogical concerns, but pure corporate profitability. Additionally, wannabe tech educators and innovators make no effort to integrate groundbreaking technology in the classroom, Hiltzik maintains. Drives for digital classrooms are as effective, he claims, as "snake oil."

 Snake oil? Technology has transformed the world more over the past fifty years than all prior historical eras combined, with more people collaborating, competing in real time across global borders than any time in history. Tech-savvy students today are not only the first global, digital generation, but have never known life without the Internet. Yet many old-fashioned public schools still teach to a world of the past. Curricula developed fifty to one hundred years ago fails to suffice, or entice the largest, most diverse, digital demographic of students ever enrolled in high schools and colleges.

 More than ever, teachers have the crucial task of making learning meaningful in the digital age.

Welcome

Welcome to the PVHS technology blog.  The purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for PVHS teachers to share technology practices in their classrooms with their colleagues in order to promote best practices.  The hope is that the discussion expands beyond the use of iPads and document cameras and evolves into a library of exemplary practices and lessons across a wide range of subjects and ability levels.