A private school in Knoxville, TN will require it’s 12th grade class to carry iPads.  Students will be able to either provide their own or rent one for $20 a month.  It seems this is the latest in a series of experiments to see whether the tablet can replace the traditional textbook in the classroom.

While I understand that schools and teachers are doing more and more to keep students interested and engaged, I just don’t see this as being a realistic solution.  Here are some pros… and some cons.

Pros

• Lightweight - No more heavy book bags, no more lockers, no more back aches.
• Connected - Question got you stumped?  With the internet at your fingers it’s wikipedia and wolfram-alpha to the rescue.
• Interactive - In theory, this could keep students entertained, provide tactile learning (in addition to visual and auditory) and beats the hell out of overheads and whiteboards.

Cons

• Connected - Question got you stumped?  Why do the work when you can probably have a computer just tell you the answer?
• Distraction - Why would anyone want to do work when  you could be watching youtube, listening to music, surfing for porn, or playing games?  Of course some of this could be locked down if the school controlled the device, but for BYO - I don’t think so.  Remember what the TI-82 could do?  This will be worse.
• Expensive - At $500 a pop, you’re talking $15,000 for an average sized class and $750,000 to furnish a school with a population similar to where I taught.  Don’t even think of saying “What about the money you’ll save on physical textbooks?” because there’s no way those publishers are going to give away that new interactive content for free.  Add software, security, maintenance… cha-ching!

I think that iPads are pretty sweet, don’t get me wrong, but they aren’t the solution for our horribly broken education system.  Perhaps down the road we’ll all be enlightened enough to augment our learning with a spiffy tablet, but Steve Jobs will have to make do with fanboys until then.

What do you think?