Handheld Devices

With a budget of $10,000 I would purchase 10 I-Pads and 10 HP Tablets - $499 each. 

I would purchase the I-pads for their apps and creativity.  There is an abundance of gaming apps that teach language art skills, math practice, and other drill activities to reinforce learning.  Apple products also have creative suites that can help the students use their creativity to create engaging presentations in video or audio projects.  They can gather information using the camera and voice recorders then put their information into the creative apps and manipulate the apps to share their creativity. 

I would use the rest of the money to purchase HP Tablets.  I want to include the tablets because the OS system is what we use as a district on our computers.  Students need to be able to gather information in the field and be able to transfer it to other computers in their classrooms/library to complete their research and collaborative projects.  I would encourage students to use this portable computers to take pictures of their projects, to record their thoughts and analysis as they do their projects and work together as teams. 

Students can use all the above devices to record video and voice throughout their projects and share them when they are finished.  They are all portable with word processors, video, camera, voice recorders and cables to transfer their hard work to share with others.  When students can take the technology with them, their possibilities are endless.

Resources:

Dell, (2011). I-Pad. Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

HP, (2011). Tablet. Retrieved from http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/store_access.do?template_type=storefronts&landing=rts_tablet&category=rts_tablet