A recent National Survey on Mobile Technology for K-12 Education, conducted in April by IESD, asked 214 educators about their plans for implementing mobile technology. Here are the key findings:
Adoption of mobile technology:
Approximately half (53.8%) of the survey respondents reported that mobile technology had been adopted in about 25% or more of the schools in their district. An additional 36% reported that their districts were somewhat or very likely to adopt mobile technology in the next 1-2 years.
− Common methods of making mobile devices available included having multiple classrooms share a cart with a class set of mobile devices and providing a classroom with a small set of mobile devices that students share.
− Very few districts reported that classrooms have 1 to 1 ratio of mobile devices to students.
− iPad was by far the most common type of mobile technology that districts had already adopted or planned to adopt.
Benefits from mobile technology for student instruction:
The most commonly expected and sought after benefits from adopting mobile technology for student instruction included their potential to be engaging for students, to enable interactive learning, and to support personalization of instruction to meet the needs of different students.
- Types of apps desired. Categories of apps most often identified as beneficial to student instruction were digital textbooks, creation tools (e.g., documents, images, video), and student productivity tools (e.g., storage for student files, note taking, scheduling). In their suggestions for apps for education, respondents frequently mentioned apps for Pre-K to grade 5 and for several subject areas: math, reading/English language arts, science/STEM, and foreign languages.
- Pricing for apps. Respondents expected to Pricing for apps. Respondents expected to pay more for essential apps than for supplemental apps. 61.4% expected to pay $4.00 or more for an essential app, but only 31.0% expected pay that much for a supplemental app. About one-half expected to pay $2.00 or more for a supplemental app.
- Significant hurdles to mobile technology adoption. Respondents from low-level adopting and non-adopting districts most often identified cost and concern about security/theft as among the most significant hurdles to getting mobile devices used for student instruction.
A full copy of the report may be purchased at www.stemreports.com
