The iPad in Education: Uses, Benefits, and Challenges

A survey of 6,057 students and 302 teachers in Quebec has produced an interesting preliminary report.* Karsenti and Fievez asked important questions, but I found myself frustrated reading the results. While questions addressed the use of iPads (or touch pads) by students and teachers, benefits were attributed using a traditional classroom setting and did not allow for the potential of such mobile technologies in a different and emerging learning environment. The questions shouldn't be, "Can we do all the same things better with an iPad?"– but rather, "How can we transform learning with these devices?"
A student may not write better on an iPad, but imagine what would happen to his/her writing after a Skype session with an actual "Lost Boy of Sudan", or a curator at the Charles Dickens Museum, or a graphic novelist. Or perhaps the student's content would improve after following a twitter discussion on a novel, gaining the perspective of readers on a global scale.
Recommendations made in the report wisely include professional development for teachers, but we must be careful to move past mere adaptation and recognize the paradigm has shifted.

* Karsenti, T., & Fievez, A. (2013). The iPad in education: uses, benefits, and challenges – A survey of 6,057 students and 302 teachers in Quebec, Canada. Montreal, QC: CRIFPE.