I’ve been hearing recently about some K-12 schools that are prohibiting electronic devices of any kind on campuses. No cell phones. No PDAs. No laptops. And, you got it, no Tablet PCs. What a shame.
This is in sharp contrast to schools like Bishop Hartley.
The concern is primarily about cheating. IM seems to be a key enabler. Makes me wonder about some technological solutions to this predicament, but the key issue really seems to be one of comfort with the tradeoffs the technology provides.
What would you tell a school that bans all Tablets?
Heuristix is part of Backpack.net in Singapore, under an initiative to have all students using Tablet PCs. They offer a classroom management product, and when the students enter the classroom chat programs are blocked and so is internet surfing, except what is controlled by the teacher. They have their own ink chat and whiteboarding app integrated for the classroom. Now the question becomes: how do we apply this to U.S. classrooms?