When it comes to tablets and technology in the classroom, teachers are constantly trying to find ways to effectively implement tablets in the classroom. 

"We have heard stories of failed tablet implementations in other schools, and were determined to avoid similar mistakes in our own rollout," said Amanda Jelen, fourth-grade teacher at Holy Redeemer School in Minnesota. In this article, Jelen shares her school's approach to "a successful tablet infrastructure."

One of her recommendations is to maintain control in the classroom, the article said. Each student should have their own tablet, and that means "teachers can feel they are losing control of the learning, as they can’t see what each child is working on."

"Teachers should have an easy way to supervise and control student devices," she said. "An appropriate management portal should enable the teacher to see a thumbnail sketch on his or her own computer, showing what the children are doing on their tablets."

Jelen said if students aren't doing class work, there needs to be an "ability to freeze the tablet."

"Likewise, when a student does something impressive, we should be able to push their screen image to a display or interactive whiteboard for whole-class discussion," she said.

Jelen recommends that schools avoid handing out tablets to everyone without any trial runs or guidelines.

"Select one class as the pilot site," she said. "In our school, that was my class. We made it clear to students and other teachers that technology can be unpredictable, so we would all learn together. I recommend that schools adopting a tablet program roll out the technology slowly, class by class. Any lessons learned from one class can be shared with teachers in other classes, until the implementation is seamless."

Read the full story. 

Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor