The story just drips with irony, but beyond the small bit of humor is a view into the shifting trend avalanche of educational institutions and school districts that are deploying fleets of iPads across their teacher and student populations. If you look past the irony (some might say hilarity, if you read the court case that ended up handing the school district $80 million), though, you can see that this is simply one district among hundreds that are seeing the potential efficiency boosts from a tablet tool in the hands of educators. The real exciting part of this article is that it highlights the excitement of students in their learning on this “cool” iPad. We’ll be watching this one for sure.
One thing that the news does fail to address is how the district intends to deal with lost or stolen iPads; iPads in the hands of teachers containing personal student information; or just a simple dashboard to see where their devices are, what they’re being used for, or what applications students and teachers are using (Angry Birds, Pages for that report or otherwise?). In all this excitement over iPads for Education, it’s easy to forget how important a management tool is to the security of your organization … be it education or corporate.
