This document summarizes a professional development project that provided five science teachers with iPads and monthly training sessions over four months. The sessions were teacher-driven and focused on exploring educational apps and integrating single iPads into lessons. Interviews found that teachers saw benefits like visual richness and more flexible classrooms, but also challenges like limited WiFi and a lack of suitable free apps. Observations found that teachers used iPads for lesson planning, instruction, and assessments, having students also use their own devices during a lesson.

1. iPads For Teachers? The Challenges
Of Integrating Technology In The
Classroom
Michael K. Barbour, Sacred Heart University
Tamme Quinn Grzebyk, Wayne State University

3. Abstract
This MACUL grant is focused on a
professional development project designed
to support teachers using iPads in the
classroom. The PD was teacher-centric and
on-going, and emphasized specific apps
teachers recommended. This presentation
will explore that PD model and how
teachers used their iPads as a personal and
classroom tool.

4. Project
• Five science teachers provided with iPads
• Monthly professional development sessions
– topics decided on by the teachers themselves
– focused on pedagogical issues and app show & tell
• Occurred December 2010 to March 2011

5. Professional Development
• Driven by the teachers
• Examined ways in which teachers could use a single
iPad in the classroom
• Focused solely on free apps
• Balanced between apps that could be used with
students and apps for teacher personal & professional
development
• Occurred monthly over a four month period

6. Research Questions
1. How do teachers perceive potential uses of
iPads in their own teaching?
2. How do teachers perceive potential uses of
iPads in their own professional development?

7. Data Collection
• Recordings of the PD sessions
• Interviews with each of the teachers at the
conclusion of the project
• Observation of single iPad integration lesson
with one teacher

8. Results
Affordances
• offered a visual richness that teachers found
particularly intriguing
• allowed for more fluid classroom
environments, where teachers could also
move about the room more freely
• seen as a replacement to current textbooks, in
large part, due to their enhanced features

9. Results
Challenges/Limitations
• use of technological devices in the classroom can
be limited when there is not an appropriate level
of integration with necessary school
resources, particularly wireless Internet access
(WIFI) and school administrative software
• there simply weren’t the kinds of free apps
available that could be useful in some subjects
• concern about the device’s overall value vs.
different solutions like a netbook or laptop

10. Results
Professional Development
• mostly for discovery/brainstorming and lesson
planning
• discovery activity taken on by the teachers
also led them to apply what they found during
actual lesson preparation
• potential ability to use iPads for class
administration

11. Observation
• Teacher collected devices from a number of his colleagues &
encouraged the students to bring along their own devices
– Gave them a list of free apps to download beforehand
• Began by having students complete a pre-test using the multiple-
choice question function in Mobl21 (a mobile learning management
system)
• Provided some direct instruction by displaying a 99¢ app on the
iPad using the classroom document camera
• Followed by the students exploring the topic using two different
apps on their own devices
• Finished the class by having the students complete the same
multiple-choice quiz as a post-test

12. Your
Questions
and
Comments

13. Director of Doctoral Studies
Sacred Heart University, USA
mkbarbour@gmail.com
http://www.michaelbarbour.com
http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com