Melbourne College May Give iPad To Every Student 350
daria42 writes "It looks like Apple's hyped iPad tablet may find a functional use beyond the early technology adopter set. In Australia, a Melbourne University college recently completed a trial where a limited number of students were given an iPad to aid in their studies. The outcome? The college has now recommended every student be given one of the Apple devices, following in the footsteps of the University of Adelaide, which is handing out iPads to every first year science student. Sure beats lugging around the old textbooks!"
"Giving"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you mean "Adding to tuition costs"?
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Yes, exactly this. "Giving" means "force to buy", even if they don't need. FTFA, 80% of students recommended this, meaning 20% of those who were given the thing to use don't want it.
Re:"Giving"? (Score:5, Insightful)
80% attachment is extremely high for services at a college, at least where I'm from. Students here pay for a gym whether or not they use it (about 35% do), they pay for the student center (don't have numbers on this, but I'd guess that most students don't set foot in it more than once or twice a semester). They pay for organizations that they never join and sometimes never gain any benefit from whatsoever. They pay for upkeep on buildings they never enter. They pay for "free printing" that they probably never use to the fullest (and that they'd likely have gotten cheaper going to Kinko's.) They pay for phone service at outrageously marked up prices, for lab computers they never use because they all have laptops, and for parking lots when fully 25% live on campus and another 15% commute by bicycle or walking.
People pay a lot for things that they didn't want. The same can be said for taxes in any country with any social services to speak of. 80% is great, and frankly a no-brainer except that you have to wonder how many of that 80% just thought it was cool to get an iPad.
Re:"80% attachment is extremely high" (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a shiny gadget*, of course they'll say yes. The fact that 20% said "no" really means that more like 90% would have said no if they were paying for it themselves (and of the 10% who say "yes", 90% of them will be getting a big allowance from rich parents).
{*} Too shiny in fact. Is it really just me who can't see anything but reflected lights on iPod screens?
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"Too shiny in fact. Is it really just me who can't see anything but reflected lights on iPod screens?"
It seems like only yesterday people were complaining about the "low contrast matte" screens that Macs used to sport. For some people it does not matter what Apple does, they will always have an emotional reaction against it.
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"Too shiny in fact. Is it really just me who can't see anything but reflected lights on iPod screens?"
It seems like only yesterday people were complaining about the "low contrast matte" screens that Macs used to sport. For some people it does not matter what Apple does, they will always have an emotional reaction against it.
How is not being able to see the fucking screen properly an "emotional reaction"?
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It's a shiny gadget*, of course they'll say yes. The fact that 20% said "no" really means that more like 90% would have said no if they were paying for it themselves (and of the 10% who say "yes", 90% of them will be getting a big allowance from rich parents).
I think it depends upon how much of the difference would be made up by the cost of textbooks. Most textbooks are somewhat cheaper in electronic form. Over the course of four years, I bet at least half of the cost could be made up.
Moreover, I think your estimates are a bit low. Given the number of macs I see on campus every day, there are plenty of people with money to burn.
There's also convenience--which wouldn't be realized by most of the students if the program were voluntary, but which will likely ben
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Are you kidding? I would have said yes even if I had to pay a subsidised cost for it, assuming textbooks are available on it - which I have to assume is the primary reason they are giving them to science students.
My copy of Warren is well over a thousand pages and is a pain in the arse to carry around with me, and the index is pretty poor for a texbook (1%, and poorly written) - having an electronic version of it, along with electronic versions of Atkins, and a couple of other inorganic texts I use all the
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Is anti-apple zealotry to the point of outright refuting facts and supplanting them with fantasy?
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I appreciate the compliment. The post is also likely controversial, as would be any discussion about a social program (which this plan mimics in many ways.)
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You know, in the rest of society they would hold a vote for that. But fuck students anyway, right? Because a university is one sacred place in society where The Smart People really are in charge, and where their enlightened wisdom and superior education can make a difference.
On the surface, that looks like a really good point. But there's a really big flaw in the argument--undergraduate students are in school for 4-5 years. By the time their vote would actually matter for most large projects, they've moved on. Budgets are planned a couple of years in advance. Budgets for large projects (a gym, for example, or building renovation) are planned even further ahead. At any given time, 25-50% of the student population shouldn't have a vote, because they won't be affected by the
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And they did. From TFA, they ran a six month pilot program with faculty and students, and at the end of it, 70+% of faculty and 80% of students said that iPads would be useful for students. You might say that the representatives of the staff & students both agreed, and agreed overwhelmingly, and so, everybody gets an iPad.
I know I spent several thousand dollars over the course of college on textbooks, ref
Re:"Giving"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tuition is nominal in Australia, so no, it doesn't. It means most likely that they'll allocate money from something else and/or request more from the government.
Re:"Giving"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Giving"? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes I feel that the meaning of the article is getting 'lost in translation' by many Americans reading it. Americans use the word 'college' to refer to the ~entire university~. They say 'I went to college' to indicate that they went to university. This has resulted in many confusing conversations about tertiary education between Americans and other English speakers in my experience (which is extensive as I'm a dual US-Australian citizen and spend a lot of time in both countries).
In Australia (and the UK and other Commonwealth countries), a 'college' is a ~residential~ institution, typically situated on campus (but perhaps also elsewhere in the city). That is, where the students go to eat and sleep at the end of the day. Many also offer out of hours tuition services and other extra-curricular stuff. They may be indirectly owned by the university itself, or they may be completely private institutions. But they are not 'the university' (i.e. the entity you pay your tuition to). They are separate entities who you pay for food and lodging.
American students often live in 'the dorms', which fills the same need as colleges but in reality is quite a different experience. As mentioned, colleges are often private, completely separate institutions from the universities themselves. They have various levels of prestige in their own right (Trinity, mentioned in TFA, is a pretty high end one and doesn't come cheap). They aren't merely a place to sleep but are a big part of your university life and experience.
Re:"Giving"? (Score:4, Informative)
A further complication is that the trial involved Foundation Studies students, who are international students who do a ~10 month bridging program taught by Trinity College before attending university, and who don't actually live at Trinity.
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In the UK 'a college' most commonly refers to an educational establishment that sits roughly between secondary education and university - its not required before you go to university, but it offers courses at levels that usually neither a secondary school nor a university offers (diplomas, HNCs etc). You typically go to college in support of vocational training, apprenticeships and the like, as well as to retake GCSE or A-Level ce
Re:"Giving"? (Score:5, Informative)
Trinity College is a private institution and receives no government funding. But in the case of the trial, the students were indeed given the iPads, but they returned them at the end of the program, and they paid nothing extra in their fees.
(I may work for Trinity College, but I don't speak for them.)
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I love your mentality. It is, unfortunately, being adopted by those on the left in the US. Has been adopted, I should say.
"Money from the government is free! Yay!"
It is if you get out more than you paid in. Isn't that really what your problem is, all the poor people making you slightly less rich with their greedy health concerns and ugly children? If we don't let money flow like water in a shallow pan, zomg teh economy will stop!
Re:"Giving"? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are comparing free iPads with free health care?
Sounds good to me.
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I realize that conservatives think that, but what about all that DoD spending, farm subsidies and tax breaks for the rich? You don't honestly think that the money is free do you? And perhaps if businesses would pay a living wage to workers there wouldn't be so much reliance on government to make up the difference.
But no, you're right, gubmint money is free money.
Re:"Giving"? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Tax breaks for the rich"
You mean like how the rich pay more in taxes than anyone else? (both in percentage of income and in total amount). "Taking less than before" is NOT the same as giving the rich money. Which, by the way, are the same people who create jobs.
Re:"Giving"? (Score:5, Insightful)
And, frankly, trickle-down has been proven wrong over and over.
The rich, if less is taken in the form of taxes, are *not* going to use it to create jobs. They are more than likely going to put it into savings/investments, whereas taking less from a middle-class family means that a higher proportion of the money "saved" will be put back into the immediate economy.
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Really? Trickle down proven wrong over and over? Source on that?
Oh, that's right, there are way too many externalities for us to have any idea what actually happens.
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Alright, let's say that their aren't any sources either way because, as you noted, there are many external factors (when discussing economics, please avoid the word "externality" as it means something different in economics). So, what, then, is your rational basis for giving the rich tax cuts?
It is a well-noted observation that the MPS for the rich is significantly higher; that is, less of each additional dollar they get goes into the economy. Based even solely on that, if you want to actually stimulate t
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Really? Trickle down proven wrong over and over? Source on that?
Google is your friend. Here's one of very many.
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/TrickleDown.html [faireconomy.org]
LOL, "savings and investment" (Score:3)
I guess it's much better when the government "stimulates" (more like sedates) the economy by stealing from the private sector and sending out one-time checks. It's like giving yourself a transfusion from your right arm to your left
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Most of that ended up in the hands of those who were already wealthy, while wages remained largely flat. Seems it didn't trickle very far.
Re:LOL, "savings and investment" (Score:5, Informative)
And what do you think happens when people save money (they don't put it under their mattresses)? It goes in the bank.
No it doesn't. Not "rich money" anyway (which is the kind that "gets saved" in this case).
Poor(er) people keep their savings in the bank. Rich "invest" in tax shelters.
And since "money has no nationality" it often goes outside the economy that you were trying to boost.
Poor money can't afford to get itself spent on real-estate projects in Dubai.
How anyone can look at the Reagan era and say "trickle down" didn't work is laughable. 19 straight years of Dow growth (1981-1999), after 20 flat years.
Quite easily actually... [findarticles.com]
The tax cuts of 1981 and 1986 were followed by significant, though not huge, upswings in the economy.
However, as William Gale of the Brookings Institution has pointed out, "The simple fact is that business and household saving did not rise in the 1980s...." There was increased investment due to "an inflow of foreign capital. But by the mid- 1980s, net investment had receded to its earlier levels."
Economic growth in the 1980s was real, but it came from the normal upswing of the business cycle, made more forceful by huge deficits that bolstered economy-wide purchasing power (or "aggregate demand"). Moreover, the growth of those years provided a lot of feed for the horses but didn't do much for the sparrows. After-tax corporate profits rose by close to 60% between 1980 and 1989, while average hourly earnings in 1989 were slightly below their 1980 level and 10% below their 1973 peak. (All this is after adjustment for inflation.)
Throughout the decade, income distribution worsened: In 1980, the top 5% of households were obtaining 3.7 times as much total income as the bottom 20%, but by 1989 this elite group was receiving five times as much as that (much larger) bottom group. So much for any "trickle down" from the tax changes of the 1980s.
Also, considering that people often conflate it with supply-side economics - it should be noted that SSE also mostly fails to fulfill its promises.
Cause, when you take this [wikipedia.org] in account, and have an open mind to this [wikipedia.org], you come to this conclusion. [wikipedia.org]
In 2003, the Wall Street Journal declared the debate over supply-side economics to have ended "with a whimper" after extensive modeling performed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) failed to support the most extreme claims of supply-side policies.[2] ...
This research undermines the claim that tax cuts can completely compensate for the initial loss of revenue due to the cut, but does acknowledge that resulting growth from the tax cut does replace some of the lost revenue, and the CBO has come under fire for using low estimates.
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Or is there a fixed number of jobs in the world, and they're passed down like heirlooms?
No, there is a variable amount of jobs in the world, that depend on consumers being wealthy and willing to spend.
Because as far as I can see, investing money in the stock market - which gives other businesses capital to grow - is *exactly* how jobs are created in the real world.
That is where your insight fails to hit the target. You are so close, but yet completely wrong. Jobs are created because
* Someone wants something and is able to pay for it.
* Someone else is willing and able to provide it.
From that, investment and production comes naturally as long as you don't have too much interference. Trying to create supply without demand always fails in the long run. And tha
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"Tax breaks for the rich"
You mean like how the rich pay more in taxes than anyone else? (both in percentage of income and in total amount)
To be honest, rich people do pay more taxes than anyone else, but those bigger taxes represent a smaller portion of their overall income and overall wealth than for poorer individuals. I think that is what irks most of the people that complain about that point.
Allow me to oversimplify: Take "rich" person A that makes 100K and pays 50% of income taxes. That's 50K in taxes. Then take "poor" person B that makes 50K and pays only 25% income tax; B is taking home 37.5K. A pays half of her income in taxes and st
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You also forgot that (...)
Nope, that's why I said I was going to oversimplify. Besides taxes may work differently were you're at than where I am, however the point I was making wasn't about the tax system but the attitudes of people towards wealth differences. I repeat: "some people dislike that those making more money than them pay a smaller part of their overall income than them". I honestly don't know enough to put forth a more detailed example anyway and I bet you're right that the more money people make the more ways they find
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That is false. There is a tax rate increase at $174,400.
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You mean like how the rich pay more in taxes than anyone else? (both in percentage of income and in total amount).
If only that were true.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
The rich know full well they pay proportionally less tax. That you don't know it indicates you're not rich. You're just a wannabe.
Farm subsidies? (Score:3)
As for DoD, well that's what the Constitution actually says Congress is supposed to spend money on. I'd prefer not to imagine the world without 11 Nimitz-class carriers floating about.
And tax breaks for the rich? They pay all the taxes (the top-5% pays almost 68% of the taxes! [ntu.org]), so they are likely candidates for tax breaks.
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Don't you mean "Adding to tuition costs"?
No. Almost all universities in Australia are public and the cost of tuition is heavily government subsidised and is uniform between universities all over the country.
That's right Americans, we're clearly a bunch of education and sun loving socialists!
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And this is a perfect example of something that is horribly wrong with your system. Now all of the tax payers get to pay for these iPads, even though many of them won't get used.
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No they don't. Firstly, the school would get a set amount from the government. If it wants to spend some of this on iPads, then sure ... but they will have to make savings elsewhere to compensate. They don't just get this unlimited bucket of money from the government. Taxpayers wouldn't pay any more. But this is a moot point regardless, because...
Secondly the TFA mentions that this university is for FOREIGN students, not Australian residents. I.e. the students are not Australian taxpayers and are paying ful
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Slight correction. From TFA:
"recommended that iPads be rolled out in 2011 to all staff involved in Trinity’s Foundation Studies course, which prepares overseas students for undergraduate university entry.
In addition, the quartet recommended iPads be rolled out to all staff and students at the college in time for the August 2011 student entry"
So the initial rollout is just to foreign students, followed by a wider rollout. My bad. Point #1 above still applies though: the university won't be getting any
Re:"Giving"? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, TFA badly summarises the original report, which was written for an internal audience, and therefore made assumptions about the understanding of Trinity's course structures.
The trial was for a small group of international students, the Foundation Studies "August Entry 2010" intake. Staff involved in Foundation Studies (and not staff in the rest of the College) will get iPads in 2011. And starting with the "August Entry 2011" intake, all Foundation Studies students (who are international students) will get iPads. There's no government funding involved in any of this.
There's been no discussion of the mandated use of iPads in the Residential College or Theological School, which are the other two main educational units of Trinity College.
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Ignoring what's actually happening and focusing on the arguments being presented by people in this thread (since really we are talking about something broader than what's going on at this school):
About how money will be moved around for this: there will still be money spent on these iPads. If they are able to get rid of other things, why don't they *just* get rid of those things and save a ton of money? That is, unless, they truly honestly believe that these iPads will compensate for what those other things
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The same applies to nuclear weapons etc. Don't worry. The iPads will eventually be sold. In the mean time the college retains ownership and will probably use them for several years.
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I'd rather not waste any tax money at all. I know that will never happen, but iPads? They are nowhere near as useful as netbooks, and yet they cost more. Is there really some type of program that will only run on iPads?
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I'd rather not waste any tax money at all. I know that will never happen, but iPads? They are nowhere near as useful as netbooks, and yet they cost more. Is there really some type of program that will only run on iPads?
There are thousands of "apps" for that :P
Having said that I agree with you, I have a netbook and not a tablet because I can do stuff with it that tablet's can't do (particularly iPads, I can't install python or visual basic or LibreOffice on them, for example). And in fact TFA sort-of-agrees too, as they mention in the caveats section that these things are more of a complement or companion than a substitute for laptops or PCs.
People tend to like iPads because of their instant-on, instant-load response times
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... electronic text books are cheaper than hard copy text books.
Sure...until eBook sales really take off and the book publishers notice their profits aren't as big as they used to be.
Reasons? (Score:4, Insightful)
“iPads are effective, durable, reliable and achieve their educational aims of going further, faster and with more fun,” the college wrote.
Now there's a line straight from marketing that manages to mean jack shit. Might be this is an Apple subsidized push akin to Microsoft's educational license deals; Get em hooked before they enter the workforce.
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I would have thought a kindle would be much better/cheaper/more useful, but what do I know. I obviously don't like shiny screens and brushed metal as much as I ought to.
Well of course (Score:2)
I guarantee this whole thing was spearheaded by an Apple fanboy, or more than one of them. Stuff like this, particularly when it involves a company like Apple that is expensive, happens because of fanboys. A person in the position to make the decision in the university likes the shiny technology and buys in to the hype, and thus pushes it, regardless of actual utility. Since they don't have actual reasons for it, marketing terms are used. It is a case of "I think these are cool and so we should use them eve
Wow... Yet more Apple bashing. (Score:5, Insightful)
"It looks like Apple's hyped iPad tablet may find a functional use beyond the early technology adopter set."
Is it possible to mention Apple or Apple devices on Slashdot without gratuitous and misguided denigration, even if implied?
The iPad is a perfectly workable tablet device. In fact, it is the cheapest tablet device in its class (quality level, feature set) and also the first to market, and also the one with the largest number of applications and the largest installed user base.
It clearly has uses beyond the early technology adopter set given the anecdotal array of adoptions in vertically integrative environments/scenarios.
In my own case, I use it for teaching. The iPad offers a minimal, lightweight platform on which to track attendance, grades, lesson plans, and so on and to connect them to projection devices for showing media of various kinds, from outlines and presentation slides to YouTube videos that supplement the lecture.
Come on. This is supposed to be a technology blog. Instead, it's a bunch of why teenagers with strong, if ill-informed, political-affective poses.
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And of course, more modding down for any post that even offers the whiff of a suggestion that an Apple device might be useful for the slightest waif of a task.
Wow.
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Apple isn't being singled out here, precious little macboi. This is just as wrong as universities using closed, Microsoft-owned "standards," something I am sure you have complained about at times. Funneling government/student money into Apple's pocket should be criticized, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with suggesting that Appl
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"Apple isn't being singled out here, precious little macboi"
Wow. You complain about the GPs tone of voice and then you post that? Fail.
Thank you. I realize that I've become a bit (Score:2)
shrill, but it's not like I just got here. And despite the decline in quality, I've continued to try to like Slashdot.
But now this dynamic has emerged by which the editors post a slanted Apple story and the crowd responds by rabidly tearing Apple and Apple products to bits... once again... often in factually incorrect ways.
It all reeks of the propaganda and mob response, turned toward profit. Apple-bait from eds, Apple-decry en masse from posters and mods. Two stories later, Apple-bait from eds, immediate A
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Please explain how an iPad makes a better text book than, say, a Kindle...
The iPad costs three or four times as much and has a worse screen and battery life. I assume there must be a really big reason why it's better.
iPad and Kindle DX, which are both (Score:2)
textbook form factors, are actually not so differently priced (Kindle DX ~$300, iPad WiFi ~$500) when you consider the differences in capabilities.
And are you seriously suggesting that the /. crowd of today would behave any differently if the story were about Kindle purchases for students?
I would be just as critical of the Slashdot response to Kindle, which—if you go back and look—has been very similar to the Slashdot response to iPad, despite both devices' obvious utility and popularity. In fac
Re:Wow... Yet more Apple bashing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Interactivity? I have heard great things (not specifically about iPads) about the benefits of increased of student-teacher interactivity and feedback using computer devices. Traditionally in a class a teacher asks a question and one person answers. If everyone has a wireless device then everyone can submit an answer and the teacher can get a much better idea of how well the subject matter is understood and what they need to put more work into.
An iPad might not exactly be open but there is much more room for innovative and useful education techniques to emerge than with a kindle.
Wrong. (Score:2)
The eee tablet line includes multiple products.
The capacitive touch product that is in the same class as the iPad runs Android. Fewer apps.
The Windows product that has more apps has a Wacom digitizer, not capacitive touch. Different product class. Not comparable.
You are, in short, wrong.
I didn't move any goalposts. (Score:2)
You seem to think (unlike nearly everyone else) that the primary competitor to iOS isn't Android on touchscreen but Windows on Wacom. I presume the primary competitor to Android, therefore, is OSX-on-iMac?
Meanwhile, your link points to a device with a 5 hour battery life. Enough said.
hrmmm. (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope there is an opt out and get a tuition discount option.
Does apple give kickbacks or bulk rate on things like this? Perhaps an apple holy warrior happens to be in charge.
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I don't have a problem with the school saying we're only doing e-text books. That's fine.
But they should let people use them how they will. Full blown laptop, ipod, kindle, or go and get them printed off at kinkos, etc.
I don't like the forced single supplier thing. What if the only way to file taxes next year was with an ipad? Don't worry, the govn't already bought you one. They even appended the $400 for the ipad to your tax form for this year, so you don't have to. Wasn't that nice of them.
Ah yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
The professors will probably adore the levels of class participation and attention enabled by everyone having a school-approved internet browsing/PMP device...
My criticism of this scheme isn't iPad specific(though the education sector often does leap on Apple-related tech crazes); but more general:
We still don't have something that can replace a notepad and a mechanical pencil when it comes to ease and unobtrusiveness of taking notes(keyboards are faster for straight text, and produce better final copy; but are a bit clicky for class and, unless you are a LaTeX god, slower for equations, diagrams, and similar). Somewhat similarly, your basic dead tree actually works pretty well for textbook-style distribution. Durable, can be marked according to personal preference, can be held onto or resold at will, printing them doesn't actually cost all that much.
Ebooks have some compelling convenience advantages, particularly for light reading(casually pick up a novel over whispernet, etc.) or for technical reference(grep obscure_command_foo...); but they aren't going to do much about the central complaints with textbooks: Absurd prices and constant version churn(in fact, with DRM, they likely make those worse). Unless this "Hooray! Tablets!!!!" scheme is integrated into some way of actually re-making how the course is taught, I predict no savings, major distraction, and people accustomed to scribbling in marginal notes learning exactly why UI elements in capacitive touchscreen systems are as large as they are...
On the plus side, Melbourne College's Angry Birds team will be a Division 1 powerhouse....
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At the college level there's a lot they can do. Mandate that any textbooks have an ebook equivalent and that the ebook be available without DRM. The larger the number of books being sold, the more pull a school has.
Also it isn't useful if the books aren't digital (Score:2)
I love the idea of ebooks for university. I think it is an idea who's time has not only come but we are now late on. Have a device (my suggestion would be something more like a Kindle) that automatically can get all the books, all the course notes, etc. Does mean you can't take notes on them, but then nobody is stopping you from using a normal pen and paper, or for that matter smart pens can be used to tie the notes to context, like what page you are on.
Regardless if done right it would be much easier for s
On the bright side (Score:2)
On the bright side this isn't like what Idaho is facing where some unqualified idiot was mistakenly elected and then turns around and drops a plan that his republican cronies support but the rest of the population doesn't that involves firing teachers and replacing them with laptops and online classes.
Yeah, they want to give the laptops to 9th graders and expect them to survive 4 years.
And the businesses who would directly benefit by supplying the online classes gave donations to help him get elected.
Actually replacing textbooks (Score:2)
In reality though, I doubt it would work that way. Because ebooks are easily pirated, textbook publishers would have a hard time sustaining their racket if universities started switching ove
Needs wide integration (Score:2)
I own an iPad and think it's great, but in order to use one effectively in an environment like a large institution, it needs to be integrated. Textbooks on an iPad? Great... do they have them yet? Does the College have apps written that take the place of, say, campus info guides etc. Until things like that can be addressed, it's not really going to add anything.
Oh well (Score:2)
When I was in Uni (not too long ago) I was swept up by the promise posted on many a form (Linux ones mostly) that in the not-too-distant-future, we'd be living in a technological paradise where open source, open platforms reigned supreme, where proprietary standards and closed systems were the minority. This was going to occur because people wanted and were eventually going to DEMAND openness in their technology, and hence anyone who didn't capitulate would find themselves without market share.
Goddamnit. We
The days of"Shut up and copy from the board!" over (Score:2)
Surely with internal networks, Applications, podcasts, classes can move past "right, write down all this to kill time"? I hated it when I was in high school, who wants to write for 30 minutes+ straight?
Why not allow students to copy/save/download/whatever resources to their tablet computers (iPad first of course, but with provisions for any standard format to work), and then
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University is a long time ago for me, but I learned by writing my notes, rewriting them, condensing them, further condensing them, until eventually I got down to 3-4 sheets of paper for a semester's worth of info. It was the very act of thinking about the notes and rewriting them that taught me the material.
I've no doubt my grades would have suffered if I had been able to get copies of the lecture notes at the push of a button.
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Whats the point in just taking up the required time, when students could be *learning* in class? Hence more tests etc, applications could easily handle this, and for all age groups on the same hardware. Multiple choice, answers to be typed in and marked by teachers. Imagine how fast teachers could grade each individual answer if all they needed to do was say "turn in your papers", if necessary
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For people of all ages, its hard to beat learning on an iPad. Yes, its most noticeable with younger children, who can fall in love with touching their fingers to a screen that reacts, and engages their mind. But its "cool" for teenagers, and very capable.
I completely disagree. It's easy to wast a bunch of time scrolling around on an iPad, but learning? Sure, it's probably OK for reading and
I teach engineering. The only real way to learn is by doing. That means doing hard problems on paper. It means doing tr
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You've got it all wrong. They're going with style (easy, sexy, and makes for good admissions brochures) over substance (tedious, frustrating, difficult to market).
Yeap. Being a college that prepares overseas students for undergraduate university entry (TFA) and given that the number of international students studying in Australia is dropping [theaustralian.com.au], the competition is heating up: anything to lure them students is welcomed, they are paying higher tuition fees anyway.
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I'd be suing, if I attended there.
What for? Let me guess: overexerting and possible spine damages. TFA
Trinity found through its trial that iPads were not a replacement for desktop or laptop computers — or even other educational technologies — but were an “enhancement”.
So, not a replacement for textbooks, desktop/laptop. Dam'!!! Will they at least let the students use it during an exam?
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Because these students probably already own laptops, and at any rate does this school not have any computer labs? If you're just wanting text books, there are much cheaper options available. I'm not sure why one ought to own an iPad and a laptop, or more specifically why one ought to be required to get an iPad when a laptop is a more general tool. I just can't imagine typing up a ten page report on an iPad.
Moreover there are better products for just reading ebooks, albeit mostly in black and white.
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Yep. Wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to copy/paste bits of text from your book to your computer?
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Especially if it provided the necessary citations in a convenient manner. I was just looking at Barnes & Noble's etextbook software. Seems to do quite a bit. I'm not likely to consider it as my netbook is somewhat anemic and I doubt the prices are reasonable, but it's far more reasonable to buy a $500 laptop than a similarly priced iPad. You just get so much more, and you end up with a device that you can actually write papers on. $500 for a laptop these days gets you quite a bit.
Sometime mid-decade (Score:2)
as Linux slid into obsolescence and/or irrelevance alongside the Windows-vs-Linux debate. Basically, it's one more community that time has left behind and that doesn't realize it, a network of enthusiasts-of-the-anachronistic.
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It's not that we're Luddites, it's that we've been around this particular block before and it takes more than something shiny to turn our heads. When I was in college (not THAT long ago) there was the mandatory "buy our laptop" program which thankfully hit the class after me. It was a terribly stupid idea for me because I already has 24/7 use of a work provided laptop that was pretty much the best money could buy.
This isn't that different. I have a laptop. I have several desktops with various OSes. I h
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There are quite a few luddites, but I think there's an equal measure of people who are simply more cautious. I'm far from a luddite, and I think my posting history will attest to that -- the sheer number of posts I've made will attest to that -- but I don't have a Facebook account. Not because I'm afraid of technology -- on the contrary, I know enough about technology to really, really hate what Facebook is doing to the Internet.
So, take these iPads. Sure, etexts are a hell of a lot better than forcing stud
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I'm not sure about Australia, but up here in the US, a lot of that gets written off to scholarships, assuming you're lucky enough to get one. So, the prices of education keep going up and the politicians keep assuming that it's only the rich that can't get scholarships.
But if you can't get a scholarship what you end up with is a massive amount of loans and probably a hard time actually paying them back since a bachelor's degree is mostly about making a bit over minimum wage.
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Not really. University tuition fees (for Australian residents) are heavily subsidised by the government (to the tune of 75%+ of the real fee) and regulated/standardised across the country. So what the students pay is predictable and set in stone by legislation for several years into the future. They can't be arbitrarily adjusted.
Having said this, TFA mentions that this particular university is mostly for foreign students, not Australian residents. These students are unsubsidised. They are referred to as 'fu
Precisely. (Score:2)
Meanwhile, Slashdot continues to brush the neckbeard hairs out of their $350 Linux netbooks.
Spot on.
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But even according to the article, this is supplementary. Meaning that it doesn't replace the laptop that the student probably already owns and likely won't do much for the cost of text books. Additionally, if you're looking for savings, the only savings that I see is the savings on chiropractic visits when your back gets bent out of shape from carrying books around.
At this stage, I don't personally see any reason why a school should go out and buy the iPads for the students. Seems to me to be a waste of st
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There is a long history of these "school decides to standardize all pupils on $TECH_TOY because it is The Future of Education(tm)" stories. They generally starkly underperform expectations.
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We've got a similar problem here in Seattle. The school system is broken, but rather than look to fix the parts that are broken, the board and superintendent will almost certainly choose to go to the other extreme. If we were doing a lot of integrative fuzzy stuff, soon we'll be doing rote memorization, and back and forth. This sounds a bit like that, trying to use technology to fill a whole which might better be filled spending the same amount of money on tutors or resources to help the students learn the
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If the university was giving the Motorola Xoom instead, I'd be very impressed, considering they are essentially vapourware in this country (and virtually everywhere else outside the US). I've heard all kinds of hype about them ... but has anyone actually ever seen one? At least the iPad is a real, shipping product in Australia :)
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And yet their products still can't view Youtube. Cognitive dissonant... it comes with every Apple product.
Can't view YouTube? (Score:2)
Uhm, methinks you're talking out your ass, and it shows.
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What on earth are you talking about?
Notwithstanding the fact that every iOS device ever sold ships with the YouTube app, and has from day one, the YouTube ~site~ itself has allowed you to view stuff using HTML5 rather than Flash for quite a while now, which works just fine on standard iOS browsers.
Yes there are plenty of Flash-based sites out there that you CAN'T use with an Apple product, and yes that sucks. But you picked a terrible example to make your point, considering YouTube is one of the few sites t
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If you think the people who criticize apple are using Windows CE, Palm or Symbian devices then you're not paying attention. At all.
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if i had been one of the suckers to buy an iPad i would be at the nearest apple store raising hell until they gave me either a full refund on the ipad which was sabotaged by apple in violation of the law, or a free upgrade to an iPad 2 to replace the features that were removed without my consent.
$200 textbook are better then $160 locked down e-b (Score:2)
$200 textbook are better then $160 locked down e-books that some times have a Expiration date.
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"but not substantially lighter than a laptop."
Perhaps you have a different definition of "substantially" than I do. The iPad2 will weigh in at 1.3 pounds. That seems quite a bit lighter than most laptops.
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