As Schools Jump to Tablets, Questions Linger Over Impact on Writing and Reading Skills
By Jesse Kirsch
A group of students in English class sits arranged in a horseshoe. Two signs on opposite sides of the room read “strongly agree” and “strongly disagree.” Colorful posters fill the walls.
Teacher Daniel Lawler’s desk rests front and center. No notebooks, pens or even Sticky Notes are visible. All that can be seen is a remote control, a laptop computer, and an iPad.
Welcome to a discussion of Cormac McCarthy’sThe Road at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill. The school has decided to utilize iPads school-wide. Next year, every student will be given one. Lawler teaches a senior class in which students are reading books, such as The Road, in print and on iPads.
Still, Lawler expresses reservations over the pervasiveness of tablets and digital technology in the classrooms.
“I’m always wary of any justification for… new technology, for instance, where the benefit is expediency, or efficiency, or speed,” says Lawler. “I want my kids to slow down as thinkers.”
Yet his students make digital annotations, define complicated words with one touch, and relate their annotations to broad themes by clicking to the Internet. During the discussion about The Road, however, some of the students do seem slightly distracted by their tablets.
“I think the concern at this point… really has to do with student attention. There’s a lot of anxiety around tha