IPads may be falling out of favour at public school board

The iPad may lose its favoured status as the Hamilton public school board prepares to finalize a five-year rollout of the Apple tablet in grades 4 to 12 this September.

Following nearly two hours of discussion, trustees on the board’s program committee gave staff the go-ahead to seek budgetary approval to add Grade 12s to the initiative, known as Transforming Learning Everywhere.

But they didn’t specify iPads as the standard digital tool and altered a staff recommendation by removing a commitment to issue a device to every high school student, opening the door to use of personal laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Trustee Dawn Danko said the change gives staff the flexibility to provide secondary students individual devices as necessary while potentially allowing those wishing to use their own to do so.

The new approach could free up existing iPads left “at home on a shelf ” for use in other areas of need, including in the elementary grades, where students share classroom kits, she said.

“While I understand the challenges that giving students the choice to bring their own device to school would pose to our system, to security, to privacy, it’s already happening,” Danko said.

“I get that it might be a logistical nightmare but think fiscally that’s a responsible thing to do.”

The board’s own survey of students last year showed 97 per cent were critical of iPads, complaining they’re too slow, hard to type on and run out of power too quickly.

Student trustee Cameron Prosic told the committee most students view iPads as a waste of money because they use their own devices for classroom work and to access online resources from teachers.

He said students should be able to indicate on option sheets whether they want a board device for the following year.

“My entire four-year English class was filled with laptops. None of us used the iPads, and same with the rest of my classes,” the Grade 11 Sir John A. Macdonald student said.

Associate director Peter Sovran said staff is open to allowing more choice but may stick with iPads for the coming school year because any change requires wider consultation and teacher training.

He said it’s important to at least make digital devices available to all high school students because not everyone can afford their own.

Sovran said the goal is to make students “future ready” for a world that is both physical and digital.