A couple of years ago, there was agreement at my campus that we needed to be smarter by infusing technology into the classroom. We dove into Web 2.0 tools and found great ways to use them in the classroom. In addition, we found that kids would even use them on their own over the weekend and during the summer! But, technology use still felt like a chore for most teachers. I felt that it should not be that way. While we were learning to use Web 2.0 in the classroom, I began to notice that our laptops would take a long time to boot up, the battery would die quickly, the class sets were very heavy and hard to roll to the class, it was a chore to log kids in, and teachers would be worn out after using technology with kids.
It was not easy.
It was not invisible.
It was cumbersome and slow.
The next thing I noticed is that we needed more access to Web 2.0 tools. In other words, kids would only be able to access their work a few at a time while at school. We had no way for them to all access it at the same time in class. Web 2.0 allowed us to enhance good teaching and this was great, but we needed more kids to access it at one time in a way that seemed more natural. After some thought and many conversations, we decided to buy iPads and blend it with "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD). Why iPads? Well...they seemed to be the complete opposite of our current hardware and this was good. In other words, they boot up fast, the battery lasts 10 hours, they are light, there is no log in, and people love to use them.
In short, they are easy.
Thus began our next step to venture out into the unknown in the name of kids. What an exciting time!
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