In Kirkwood: School Board Unanimously Approves iPad Minis for Students
More than 600 Kirkwood students will receive the tablets in about a month. The school district is the first in St. Louis County to implement such an initiative.
The Kirkwood School Board unanimously approved the purchase of 625 iPad Minis for selected students in kindergarten through grade 12 this week.
The board voted in favor of the first phase of an iPad roll out at its meeting Tuesday.
"I'm excited about the personalization of education, the one-to-one relationships," Board President Scott Stream told Patch. "It is the latest technology that's going to allow us to do a lot of things."
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NotaNativetoWebster
10:04 am on Friday, January 25, 2013
Can anyone explain to me what Scott Stream means by "the personalization of education, the one-to-one relationships" in connection to this story? A computer instructing kids makes it more personal?
BT
3:50 pm on Friday, January 25, 2013
I believe this is part of Kirkwood School District's Project Lead-the-Way (PLTW) initiative. As part of this initiative, over the summer last year KSD purchased iPads for many teachers. The purpose of which was to determine how teachers could use the device in a classroom where each student had their own device.
I'm not sure what Mr. Stream meant by "one-to-one relationships", I assume it's just a catchy phrase/sound bite. The same phrase was quoted in the story covering the distribution of iPads to teachers last summer. I take it the one-to-one relationship refers to some connection between the teacher and student's devices, possibly with the teacher providing lesson plans tailored to each individual student.
I agree with the sentiment that a "one-to-one relationship" cannot take the place of one-on-one interaction; to be fair though, I don't think that is the goal of PLTW.