Los Angeles made nationwide headlines recently for signing a $30 million contract to supply every student in the city with an iPad tablet. It was a controversial move for the nearly bankrupt city to spend so much money on a new technology, but that’s just how promising tablet-driven learning seems to be.
Personally, I’m a big believer in tablets for kids. But an alarmist headline in the U.K.’s Daily Mail suggests that there may be a downside to tablets we haven't considered.
The piece, entitled “iPad generation 'will learn fewer words' as oral tradition of passing on knowledge is dying out,” focuses on a study done by the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. In it, the argument is presented that children who learn from tablets, a primarily visual medium, will have a harder time memorizing words than those who learn by repeating audio speech.
“The brain is wired to learn sound through auditory processes, not visual,” explains Dr. Mario Catani, a researcher at the Institute. “That is why we have oral traditions, with knowledge passed from generation to generation.”
With all due respect to Mr. Catani, I’m not sure he has a solid creative vision of the future of tablet education. It’s a visual medium, sure, but it’s also an audio one. And it’s not just a one-way audio communication anymore. We’re speaking in plain language to Siri for directions, just as kids in classrooms across the country will soon be interacting with virtual teachers to supplement their real ones.
If you think Mr. Catani's concerns are valid, I'd love to hear from you in the comment section below. If instead you think tablets are an intriguing way of advancing your child's education at home, then I offer you this: Techlicious's list of the best kid-friendly tablets and the best apps for kids. And just in case Mr. Catani is right, it wouldn't hurt to check out this vocabulary-boosting app too.