Oh how technology has advanced in my 16 years on this planet. I remember my first computer. It was all my own. My dad got it from his work, and it was a 1995, big, chunky computer bigger than me. The dial-up modem to forever to work before I could play online games on the PBS kids website. The year was 2000, and that amount of technology was intense, primarily just to four-year-old me.

Now, I have a hand me down Macbook Pro, small than the surface area of my stomach, that can load any website in a single second, and I can use it anywhere in the house, thanks to wifi.

Technology when it comes to school has definitely changed as well. As opposed to your average, every day textbook, we’ve been assigned iPad’s for our journalism class. Oooooh, ahhhh. iPad’s, technology.

I recently got an iPhone after spending 8 months texting away on a 2004 Motorola Razor. I’ve had my iPhone for less than a week, and as much as I love being able to stalk everyone on Facebook without leaving the comfort of my own bed, I’ve noticed something very important.

My iPhone is actually not that great.

Sure, I can take tons of pictures and Instagram and tweet them and access the internet from wherever I am, but do I really need it? Nope. And although I can access my email and look at my calendar anytime, I’m perfectly capable of functioning just fine without it.

This is not to say I want to go back to my 2004 Motorola Razor. Believe me, that thing was a pain in the butt to end all pains in the butt. But, I did just fine on it.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPad project has a lot of benefits. Students can take their iPad with their textbooks anywhere, they don’t have to lug around heavy backpacks, and they’re less intimidating and more user-friendly than a blocky, colorless Algebra 2 textbook.

But iPads are crazy expensive, man. The money it takes to buy a single iPad could feed me Pancheros for every meal for at least a month.

Buying all of the iPads for the journalists cost our school 20,000 dollars. Money we could have given to the special ed programs, money that could have financed summer school programs, purchased new books, new computers that all students could use. But instead we bought iPads that one class will use for the next month.

I think this was more so a waste of money than the flat screen TV in the hallways.

Not only are iPads expensive, but they’re also distracting. If presented with an iPad, what do you think a 15 year old boy would do? Math homework or Angry Birds?

iPads could be really helpful for education, but they’re definitely not my cup of tea.

#2

Another week of the iPads, oh boy. As you may have noticed from my last blog post, I’m still not a huge fan of this whole project.

But, nonetheless, I have used it wisely. I’m sharing an iPad with the artist, Juliette Enloe. She uses it most of the time, but I use it a few times a week. At school, I can use it during my open hour so I don’t have to go all the way to a computer. I pretty much use it only as a Google Doc machine for now.

But now, we’re starting to Instagram and Twitter and other assorted social networking apps. Heading downtown and I have my iPad? Maybe I’ll take a picture of some City kids getting Yotopia. Have the iPad for an evening? Check out Juliette’s art that she makes and put it on instagram.

Sharing an iPad gives me a lot less to do with it, but I am using it wisely. The lesser amounts of time makes me want to use it more efficiently, which I try to do.

I still think we could have spent that 20,000 dollars on something more important and useful, but hey, it’s helped!

#3

ERMAHGERD IPADZZZ.

No but seriously. It’s a big deal, man. Friends are jealous, saying, “Man I wish I was on Newspaper!” Because they want a free iPad to derp around on for six weeks: But it’s not all that fun.

Besides browsing Instagram and Twitter; it’s all journalism things. Apps from major publications around the world, Google Drive, Dictionary, you know. Those kinds of things. It’s work. Or something.

The Little Hawk has started using Instagram, which is a good way to advertise and report pictures of things happening; a picture of the band kids at their last marching band practice, a picture of some teens downtown painting a bench. It’s a good way to report something in an instant, and show students at City High what’s going on elsewhere, without them having to do anything more than scroll through their Instagram news feed.

I’ve really liked seeing (and using) Instagram tweets from the Little Hawk.