STOP THE MADNESS: Interactive white boards, student response systems (of the physical clicker variety), document cameras, graphing calculators, GPS, and labs. That's Doug Johnson's short list of technologies that schools should stop buying immediately. He argues, in part, that a digital tablet (iPad, Nexus, Kindle, take your pick...) is a perfectly suitable "Swiss Army knife" and can substitute for fleets of more expensive, dedicated tools. "For a few dollars more, [students or schools] can purchase a tablet* that not only takes pictures and video, but edits them and serves a multitude of other functions as well? Really, just how many megapixels does that fifth grader need?" he asks.
Johnson speaks from experience -- he's authored six books, published countless articles in periodicals, and held leadership positions at ISTE. Though we tend to agree with his sentiments, the "access" argument seems a bit incomplete. We bet that schools that can afford to put SmartBoards and document cameras in each classroom aren't light-years away from offering every student and teacher individual (1:1) laptops.
Pushing out some of these product could force their makers to evolve or exit the market--and create opportunities for tablets and a host of yet-to-be-imagined technologies for learning.
What are your thoughts? Is your school wasting funds on dedicated equipment? Tech-strapped? Are tablets the answer? What do you need and what would you discard in your classroom?
