The introduction of the iPad, with its touch screen technology, has allowed even very young children to take advantage of a computer. So what if all children in a school were given an iPad to use in class and take home with them?
Anne Laure Bazin works in a school where every child, teacher and teaching assistant is given a free iPad to use in and out of lessons. For her, the main advantage of everyone having an iPad has been the improvement in communication. Documents can be emailed straight over to workmates during a meeting. Children submit their homework by email, or through the school's learning environment. Teachers now take the register using their iPad, which means that there is a centralized record of which children are in school, and which classroom they are in.
The use of iPads has encouraged greater sharing of resources among teachers. All communication with parents is now done by email. Working as a group in class is much easier as children can share documents. The whole class can look at one child's work by attaching the iPad to the whiteboard. If a child has forgotten the textbook, the teacher can take a photograph of the relevant (相关的)page and send it to the student in class.
While the use of the iPad in schools has revolutionized (变革) the way children are taught, it hasn't completely replaced more traditional methods of teaching. Worksheets are still used in class as some children prefer the contact with paper. The children all have a textbook and exercise books. In Anne Laure's school, parents feared that the iPads would replace exercise books and children would lose handwriting skills. Anne Laure says," The teachers are not ready to let go of the traditional style of teaching. We have welcomed the iPads in so much as they help communication and widen the resources available but we are not ready to let go of paper yet. The children themselves still value their exercise books and depend on them for revision."