If you Give a Kid an iPad....

There’s an interesting blog on the internet that frequently covers Arizona issues, including Common Core State Standards (cosmetically renamed "Arizona’s College and Career Ready Standards" in Arizona).

The blog is S.H.I.E.L.D.

For some reason, the educational leaders in Arizona, and across the nation, believe that if adult teachers don’t have computers in every classroom and iPads for every child, America’s children won’t learn how to use them. The reality is that children often teach adults how to use computers. What children really need to learn is to think. Yet, Technology is King, according to Bill Gates of Microsoft. And Bill Gates knows everything there is to know about K-12 education.

Here in Payson, Arizona, conventional wisdom states that every young child should have an iPad. All of us who have computers know that they are wonderful when they work, and we resist the urge to throw them out the window when they don’t. Schools need lots of taxpayer money to obtain technology, keep it working, keep it updated, and keep kids using it.

I have nothing against technology, because I use it every day. It’s a tool. Students are already equipped with a more important tool: brains. Brains are handy, reliable, adaptable, consistent, portable, inventive, creative, and free. They hold endless amounts of data. They can even solve complex problems with a little stretching. They rarely break down or require an expert to trouble-shoot. They don’t require constant updating, and with minimal care, they never crash.

Back to S.H.I.E.L.D., where I found this on the Home Page:

"If you give a kid an iPad, he’ll have to have an Internet connection. And if he has an internet connection at school, he can have one at home, too. If you have an Internet connection at school and home, you can implement digital textbooks. If you use digital textbooks, you can easily create digital exams which everyone can take. If you create digital exams for everyone, you will need to teach a common curriculum. If you teach a common curriculum, he can pull out his free iPad from his backback to create an advertising brochure for a green energy company in 7th grade math class. If he creates green energy brochures in math class, he will be completely unprepared for the real world. But, at least he has a free iPad."