First Graders With iPads?

Hey all fellow bloggers!

This weeks blog is all about First grade students, by Sara Getting and Karin Swainey, learning in the classroom with the help of iPads. "Find out how two teachers took on the challenge of improving elementary reading, achieved surprising success with their youngest at-risk readers, and learned some things along the way" (Getting, Swainey). At first, they were not sure of exactly how they were going to utilize iPads, or even if the students would be able to handle such technology. But, with a lot of faith and perserverance, these strong teachers began what is now a technology trend in schools. Because of their delicate nature, the iPads would first be brought to the students whom are already sitting down. This was to ensure the safety of the technology to avoid breaking them. Teachers seemed surpised at how quickly their students were able to absorb the material and how much they loved using this technology.

I love the idea of using iPads in classrooms, or any technology for that matter, because it gives the students a sense of fun and something different rather than daily lectures or homework. I believe this 'trend' is a great idea, and one I would like to test in my future classes as well. 

Areas in which these teachers wanted to use the iPads for help were subjects such as: sight words, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and literacy. "Although we understood the need for Apple’s volume purchasing plan, it increased the cost of our project. We received U.S. stimulus funding, which allowed our district to shift money to its capital fund for iPad purchases" (Getting, Swainey). I understand the cost of such technology, I recently bought an iPad of my own, and they are very expensive. I would hope the initial cost of purchasing enough iPads for an entire class would be able to last multiple years and be reused every year until they were no longer working. 

The results were recorded and measured various ways, I feel the most accurate was that of their variable data taken when looking at each group of children. These groups were divided up by their levels/abilities in subjects. Examples were group five and six versus group one and two, both of which were on opposite sides of their learning outcome spectrum. After the integration of iPads, the teachers went back and reviewed their placement scoring tests/data again and noticed large improvements in all subjects where the technology was used.

The integration of iPads into not only first grade, but all grade levels, is a wonderful idea and I hope to see more of this in the future.

I hope you enjoyed this week's blog!
Thank you,

Brianna Adair


Getting, S. & Swainey, K. (August 2012). First Graders with iPads? Learning & Leading with Technology. 40(1): 24-27. Retrieved from ISTE website, October 10, 2013.