Last year, when SG and Thomas Cooper Library announced their $10,000 initiative to buy 20 iPads for students, staff or faculty to borrow for a few days at a time, we shook our heads.
First of all, the iPad is designed to be personal, to be customized with apps tailored to its user’s needs. By the time someone checks out a tablet and downloads his or her favorite apps, they have to return it, to be wiped clean for the next user.
Then consider the fact that 20 iPads isn’t nearly enough to satisfy demand for a student population of more than 30,000 — and adding 10 more is little more than a drop in the bucket. But that’s a $5,000 drop.
And while SG insists the surveys say students are using them for academic purposes, we strongly doubt that students are checking them out as much to take notes as they are to FaceTime with friends.
But there’s demand, they argue. Of course there’s demand. They’re cool; no one’s denying that. But what happens when iPads are no longer the hot item? The technology will soon be outdated, and the library will have spent thousands on 30 tablets left to gather dust on shelves.
The bottom line: We don’t see this as a long-term investment in education. The funds could have expanded our library collection or made Thomas Cooper a better place for students to learn and study. Instead, they’re being put toward a short-sighted, $15,000 splurge on an idea that’s flawed at its core.
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