Education

How tablets are changing the classroom

As reported on The Verge.

By Russell Brandom

FLICKR OLPC classroom students

As part of their education issue, The New York Times Magazine takes a long look at the rise of tablet tech in education, including News Corp’s Amplify project. The programs look to improve education by producing more lessons that adapt to an individual student’s pace and style of learning, also taking advantage of children’s general enthusiasm for gadgetry. It’s a thriving market, given the $17 billion that K-12 schools spend on instructional materials and technology each year — but there’s also reason to be skeptical. Many in the article worry about the effect so much screen time will have on children, and how teachers will adapt to the new digital classroom. “The used to have too little data from students,” one analyst says, “and now they’re going to get too much, and they need to be ready.”