iPads and Preschool: Tired of the Rote

This fall, we implemented a single class set of iPads that are shared between our Preschools, Kindergarten and our First Grade. I'm thrilled to say that our first graders are really working those machines. They use apps to create books and slideshows and multimedia artwork. The Kindergarteners are working on it, sometimes approaching some creative tasks but I'll admit they do a lot more of what we're calling "reinforcement." The preschoolers, I'm sad to say, are strictly playing apps that reinforce skills like letter recognition, number recognition, size and shapes, and so on. That is valuable in many ways, of course, because we need practical applications for those skills. The iPad is a high-interest tool that itself generates enough focus to practice those skills that preschoolers might not otherwise want to practice.

However, I have not yet figured out a way to get to the next step. We're stuck on the very bottom of Bloom's and the substitution or augmentation level of the SAMR model. I follow a host of Pinterest boards for preschool technology and have a whole column on the TweetDeck set aside for #preschoolapps. However, I  have yet to see a creative, innovative use for iPads in Preschool. Maybe the problem is that I want them to be doing something that they are not yet ready to do, developmentally. Maybe the way preschoolers innovate is through Pretend Play--not on the iPad.