The Netherlands is one of the countries where technology plays a very important role in the education of pupils and students, and in this idea the state she's getting ready to open 11 "Steve Jobs schools" in August of this year. Developed based on a principle of his Steve Jobs which said that the tablets iPad must occupy an essential role in the education of students, schools will allow them to learn using only tablets. More precisely, the students will each have an iPad tablet and will have at their disposal applications with the help of which they will be able to learn by themselves whatever they want, with the teachers having the role of coaches to help them become self-taught.
Some 1,000 children aged four to 12 will attend the schools, without notebooks, books or backpacks. Each of them, however, will have his or her own iPad. There will be no blackboards, chalk or classrooms, homeroom teachers, formal classes, lesson plans, seating charts, pens, teachers teaching from the front of the room, schedules, parent-teacher meetings, grades, recess bells, fixed school days and school vacations. If a child would rather play on his or her iPad instead of learning, it'll be okay. And the children will choose what they wish to learn based on what they happen to be curious about.
The 11 schools will allow a number of 1000 children between the ages of 4 and 12 to use the tablets that are made available to them, they being open every day, except legal holidays. The concept is unique for the educational system in the Netherlands, and probably the global one, as these will be the only schools that will be equipped only with iPad tablets and no other kind of educational material. For now, the parents and the authorities are discussing how these schools will operate, but if they are successful, then the whole project could be expanded to a much larger scale.
As such, the school day never really ends. Pupils are welcome to keep working on their iPads at home, on weekends or on vacation. But as much as the program offers freedom and continuity, it also comes with a substantial monitoring component. The iPad keeps teachers and parents constantly informed about what children are doing, what they have learned and how they are progressing.
