And this won't happen in the real world? Some of the children who will be given these iPads will have little to no parental supervision at times. Who will be held responsible when one of these children's rights is violated by some cyber pervert? And the Cost! Will the children/parents be held financially responsible for whatever could go wrong with these bad boys? This is a very bad idea IMO.
What you've done with your children is your choice and, I am assuming, is under strict control and reasonably mature usage. But what this school district wants to do is an irresponsible use of tax payer dollars and possibly an endangerment to the children who are not supervised or monitored in the use of the iPad they will be given.
There are ways to restrict internet access, deleting of programs locks, etc. built into the ipad. “Perverts” won’t be a problem. Look, I’m not talking about using this tool as a replacement for teachers, etc. I think it will work miracles in the “drill and grill” skills, such as multiplication, letter recognition, basic science skills, etc. For example, my daughter has always been interested in the stars, and we found a very neat astronomy app. It has a built in compass, and we can take the ipad out back at night, and line up the star chart with the stars in the sky (even shows what is below the horizon!) and learn the names of the various stars, constellations...my daughter loves this app and is learning things that
truthfully she wouldn’t if she just sat down at a PC or read from a book (as wonderful as books are!) As I said, the possibilities are endless to help students, especially failing students to be motivated and successful learners.