How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads 285
First time accepted submitter Gamoid writes This past school year, the Coachella Valley Unified School District gave out iPads to every single student. The good news is that kids love them, and only 6 of them got stolen or went missing. The bad news is, these iPads are sucking so much bandwidth that it's keeping neighboring school districts from getting online. Here's why the CVUSD is considering becoming its own ISP.
Yeah, students will use bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)
You would have gotten the same results giving them each their own smartphone or computer.
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Would have provided more benefit to provide them textbooks not influenced from Texas educational cult and a updated computer lab. I love technology but this is a complete waste of money. How about we raise teacher wages and bring in some that actually give a crap? How about we spend this money on educational campaigns so that parents make education a priority in their homes?
Giving kids something to play Angry Birds / crappy facebook games isn't going to improve grades.
Maybe 35,000 in 1980. (Score:3)
Lets inflate that 2% per year over 34 years. ( x 1.96)
Merely adjusted for inflation, that should be:
~$59,000 (from $30,000) to ~$69,000 (from $35,000)
$5/hr was also the median minimum wage for student-like jobs in 1980-85 (~10,500/yr). Over three decades later most States don't even have a minimum wage at $10 or above.
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I would contend that it depends on the subject. I'd seriously consider teaching math or science but given that my friend is making $42,000 with a masters in Industrial Engineering to teach stats and CS, why bother? I can make twice that or more in industry when I finish my doctorate. I'd bet if you were offering $70,000 to math and science teachers, you'd get plenty of talented folks.
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It's a matter of perspective. For some people, money is the last factor considered.
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While your point is valid, unfortunately, it is not amenable to the capitalist way of thinking in which value is determined by demand and supply, rather than based on the social good brought about. So unless teachers refuse to pay at current wage rates en mass, the system isn't going to give them raises.
If so, then the only way to make that happen is to appeal to the better judgement of CEOs and entertainers and ask them to write a check every year to the institution that helped them get where they are.
Fort
Re:Yeah, students will use bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)
yet the most important people in society -- teachers barely make a decent salary??
I went to public school and had some great teachers who were worth their weight in gold. I also had other teachers who weren't worth a nickel and did a great amount of harm to their students.
If teachers' unions ever agree to let teachers be paid based on how good they are - rather than just by seniority - you might actually see more attractive salaries for good teachers. You might also see more bright people interested in taking up the profession if they knew they could make a better living doing so.
With that being said, my only experience in this is with US public schools and their teachers' unions. I'm curious if anyone else knows of examples where teachers are paid purely on merit and the effect (or lack thereof) it has had on educational outcomes.
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How do you measure "good"? (Score:3)
If teachers' unions ever agree to let teachers be paid based on how good they are - rather than just by seniority - you might actually see more attractive salaries for good teachers. You might also see more bright people interested in taking up the profession if they knew they could make a better living doing so.
The problem is in the measuring of "good" - this is realistically best measured in terms of outcomes - i.e., the better a student does a the end of their scholastic engagement, the teachers involved should be rewarded. Problem: this takes long-term thinking and doesn't profit private interests.
Some teachers had a profound impact on my education. I spend the majority of my educational years in US schools, after immigrating here. The impact could not likely have been measured within the year. You would hav
Re:Yeah, students will use bandwidth (Score:4, Interesting)
Two things:
- Teachers (at least around these parts where they are all unionized) have a ridiculously steep slope to their salary curve. They make a pittance in the beginning, and are paid quite handsomely just before retirement. They have no one to blame for their crappy starting salary then their senior teachers - they negotiate this in. I would much rather flatten the curve.
- I'll get massacred for this, but the teachers aren't all that important. The kids in good districts would do fine even with mediocre teachers and the kids in horrid districts are pretty much doomed no matter how good the teachers are. You can see this in action right now. They have this absurd "everyday math" thing happening in the schools, and every parent that I know here in the burbs is re-teaching their kids math when they get home. That is not happening in a household where the single parent works 3 jobs. There is a reason teachers in those districts say things like "if I can get through to just one child..." They have realistic goals and they know that most of the classroom is doomed.
Don't get me wrong, when my kids have a good teacher it is really satisfying and makes the whole parenting thing much easier. But you know what? I don't fall into despair when they get the mediocre ones because my kids will be just fine. You could triple the pay and it wouldn't substantially improve the low-performing districts - there are systemic issues far deeper than the quality of the teachers.
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That is not happening in a household where the single parent works 3 jobs.
The way to fix that is after school clubs and activities. Then the parent just has to make the easy decision to keep their kid at school for a few more hours, and the school can give them a good meal and help with homework. It all needs extra staff and money of course, but it does work.
Re:Yeah, students will use bandwidth (Score:5, Funny)
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Who modded this troll? The Ipad is a consumption device. The last thing kids need in an educational environment. Horrible.
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A book is a 'consumption device' too - much more so than an i pad. But no-one would argue that they shouldn't be in schools - although arguments like this have been made in the past. And anyway, why wouldn't we teach people how to use these devices?
Mission creep. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the kids love them and yes, they probably do have educational value... but look at the mission creep. The district becoming its own ISP next? Can of worms.
Public funding for education going into internet bandwidth for widgets... well, it takes a bridging argument to say that's a good thing.
Re:Mission creep. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's less mission creep and more the school district not foreseeing what they'd need to do to make their iPad initiative work. I don't know California very well, but the article makes it sound like it's in a pretty low-wealth district: the article itself mentions that many of the parents do not own personal computers or have an internet connection, and the Wikipedia page for the district states that it's 80% Hispanic. The iPads don't seem to be useful if they're not connected, at least not for what the school wants them for (kids being able to do school assignments, parents staying involved in their child's education). The school probably thought they had enough bandwidth to serve all of their students and their families, probably never called in a network admin to see if they could support connecting anyone who lives near the school, and went through with it anyway.
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if you aren't on Android which does everything it can to keep you tethered to Google.
-1 flamebait.
I have several Android devices. Every one of them works just fine without a connection to Google. Even for Play Books, I've pinned each of them onto the device (translation: downloaded) so there is no issue with being connected.
The only connection issue I've come across is for the "free app of the day" apps from Amazon, where many of them want to check in with Amazon for authorization every month or so. That's created a situation where I needed an app "offline" and couldn't use it. I've lear
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if you aren't on Android which does everything it can to keep you tethered to Google.
What are you talking about, specifically? On every Android device I own, connection to Google services is optional (if you're willing to flash the OS), and an internet connection is no more necessary to use the functions of the device than it is on iOS devices.
Re:Mission creep... ONLY pencils! (Score:2)
School districts should be limited to pencils only... and, er, maybe paper... and, er, chalk... and, er, ... OMG!! Where does it end!!!
Re:Mission creep. (Score:5, Insightful)
but look at the mission creep. The district becoming its own ISP next? Can of worms.
On the other hand, it's a can of worms that probably wouldn't have needed to be opened if we had some kind of a plan to develop public internet infrastructure that was free/cheap for people without a lot of money.
I only bring this up because I would imagine some people looking at this and saying, "A public school system should not be intruding into the area of being an ISP, which has traditionally been an area for private business." I would respond by pointing out that the Internet really should be considered public telecommunications infrastructure.
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Beyond that, I have to question the intelligence of buying iPads. We are not i
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Beyond that, I have to question the intelligence of buying iPads. We are not in 2010 anymore. There are plenty of perfectly capable tablets available at under $100.
There are more things to consider than simply the cost of the hardware. Do the iPads have any specific features that are required for their plans? Are there specific apps that they want to use? What platforms are those applications available for? What kind of administrative tools are available for each platform, and have they already invested in any of those tools? Is their IT staff more familiar and skilled in managing a specific platform? What kinds of price cuts and support are offered by the manuf
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There is free internet everywhere for those of us that want it. Becoming an ISP would only be to try and capture those kids and parents where the parents find getting near a Starbucks, Lowes, Safeway, Home Depot, McDonalds, etc. to be more trouble than it's worth.
So your solution for providing poor people with the Internet is to suggest that they go to Starbucks and McDonalds?
I guess that's a solution. I guess we could also say that poor people don't need indoor plumbing because they can just use the toilet at their local gas station. It seems to me like it's a silly, inefficient solution that will be unpleasant for everyone involved, so I'd need more of a justification before I would agree.
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How is this labelled "Informative"? You may as well be saying, "We should cut educational expenses by only allowing smart people to have children, and only allowing well-behaved children to attend school." It completely misses the point. We, as a society, need to anticipate that lots of people will have children whether or not we individually believe it to be a wise move. Once those children exist, we need to deal with them, and the best thing we can do is to make sure they're educated, and that they ha
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Yes, the kids love them and yes, they probably do have educational value... but look at the mission creep. The district becoming its own ISP next? Can of worms.
Public funding for education going into internet bandwidth for widgets... well, it takes a bridging argument to say that's a good thing.
How would you feel if the school district made money off this venture thereby lowering tax burden or removing the need for "school foundation" donation culture? I, for one, would love that.
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Yes, the kids love them and yes, they probably do have educational value...
Actually, the question of educational value is the big elephant in the room. It is completely questionable and absolutely not obvious that these tablets have educational value. Do the kids learn more, faster, or in different ways? Can this be quantified or even vaguely estimated? There are huge IT capital and operational costs involved, and such large expenditures must be justified in terms of return.
It's telling that the article and even the discussion on Slashdot centers on technical questions because
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Considering the whole iBooks is designed to allow for text book replacement thing, this is also good for the backs of students that can potentially not have to carry 20 pounds of text books with them every day.
Just because you've not bothered to understand all the ways having a tablet is a great advance doesn't mean its a 'probably'.
Schools run their own internal phone systems already? Mission creep? Just like businesses who run their own phone systems? At a certain scale its cheaper to pay a guy to do
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Mission Creep is when the mission changes to something new. That is a bad thing.
But people use that term whenever a government program expands.
Often missions start small and grow big. That is because 1) The scope of the problem was not realized when the program started.
2) The program's scope was realized and they correctly decided to start small (which they may or may not have informed everyone ) and make sure they got it right before then went big. Often people doing this
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I think they should collect some statistics on network usage. They might suddenly start using a lot less bandwidth if restrict access to a few sites.
Re:Mission creep. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in school I was always excited to go to my science class because we did experiments.... unfortunately my kids never got to experience that due to, possible danger, funding, and insurance considerations all they did was read about it. {but they still have football}
I would rather they bring back science to science classes...
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These games do make the rote part of learning a LOT more fun and it does capture one's attention
You make it sound like the "rote part of learning" is an inevitability, when it often is not; our education system is simply horrible. 99% of the time, rote memorization is not the right way to go about things, especially when it comes to math.
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Once the student understands the conceptual basis behind a particular mathematical operation
But they never do get that understanding.
there is often immense value in gaining fluency by memorization.
I disagree. It only seeks to waste people's time on useless busywork. I couldn't stand doing 40 problems telling me to find the missing side of a triangle, so I simply didn't. It was a waste of my time, and so was school in general.
By coming to understand how and why something works, you usually memorize it naturally, anyway. This is what rote memorization drones just don't understand; drill and kill is extremely inefficient, harmful to education, and unnecessary 99%
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Beyond that, I'd agree; generally, rote memorization is harmful, and when you get into real mathematics, those facts aren
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Actually, rote memorization has its place
99.999% of the time, it simply doesn't.
especially in math.
I disagree. [uottawa.ca]
There was a paper a while back
There's a random paper for everything, including for me. The fact that some papers exist that come to some conclusion means nothing, since they're likely just coming to arbitrary conclusions based on flawed tests. Our way of measuring proficiency is flawed to begin with, which is why I reject current tests.
that found that kids you memorized things like their multiplication tables performed better at higher level tasks.
Solving 40 multiplication problems that all ask you to do the same thing does nothing but waste your time on useless repetition. It won't magically make
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Yes, because learning and memorizing the formula to calculate the volume of a cylinder or a sphere or a cone was completely useless before I had learned the multi-dimensional calculus required to actually derive and understand what those formulas really meant.
You're confusing mindlessly reciting proofs with actually having an intuitive understanding of why these things work.
I notice that you don't even respond to the fact that the GP specifically mentions multiplication tables in respect to memorization.
Multiplication tables are garbage, and I never wasted my time with them. Again, math is *not* about memorization and speed. Humans are tool-using creatures, so make use of tools for the repetitive stuff. Plus, you'll likely memorize much of the multiplication table on your own without making a specific effort to memorize it, like I did. If you don't? Well, you obviously don't need it all that
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20,000 students with 6 text books will go roughly $12,000,000 for the books. And a lot higher percentage of these go missing, broken or damaged. As the kids are forced to lug around a bunch of books.
Re:We shall see. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't actually think digital text books are free, do you?
ISP = can't filter? (Score:2)
If they be come an ISP will they be forced to drop any web filters? Must drop them on request?
No forcing software lock downs or patch levels / OS limits to get on line?
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I doubt it - it will be treated a lot like a corporate network does now viz. remote/VPN/BYOD connectivity; you sign a consent form, and if you use their bandwidth, you agree to their terms.
What about the married students? (Score:3, Funny)
Do they not get iPads?
School district ISP (Score:2)
>> why the CVUSD is considering becoming its own ISP
Because they are in Palm Springs and money falls like leaves there?
>> Metrics are hard to come by after only a single school year
Don't they already have standardized tests? (http://www.gamutonline.net/district/coachellavalley/displayPolicy/244798/6)
Expensive? (Score:2, Insightful)
iPads may seem expensive to some people but when you consider the price of traditional books, an iPad could be a bargain. When I was in school some twenty years ago, textbooks were $50-100+ a piece. They would get replaced every 2-3 years. A iPad plus some sort of open courseware could be a cheaper solution and it would be easier on the backs of the students.
All this being said, the public school I went to would replace books every couple of years. I actually spend my first six years in private school and t
Re:Expensive? (Score:4, Insightful)
>textbooks were $50-100+ a piece
They cost that because the publishers are in a nice corruption loop with the school boards.
The school boards bless particular books from particular publishers and the publishers update the books each year so they have to be re-purchased. Unknown benefits flow from the publishers to the school board members.
Obviously it would be cheaper for education districts to band together and commission their own textbooks that cost $0 to distribute once written. But the school boards are strangely disinterested in this option.
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Obviously it would be cheaper for education districts to band together and commission their own textbooks that cost $0 to distribute once written.
That is an oversimplification, to say the least. Even if you have a collection of districts who paid for the development of a textbook, it still has a non-zero distribution cost once it is complete. It still needs to be printed and delivered. If you want to go without actually printing it, you have to pay for the bandwidth to host it so that people can read the electronic copy (and then come up with a solution for kids who aren't connected to the internet at home or are disabled in a way that makes comp
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This is not a small thing you are asking for, here.
No, it's not a small thing, but neither is the millions of taxpayer dollars wasting paying for crappy overpriced books that should be in the public domain anyway. Even if they had to pay someone to replace all the books, that would still end up being cheaper in the long run.
Primarily because the school boards aren't in the business of writing textbooks or funding the creation of the same.
But apparently they are in the business of wasting taxpayer money by giving slimy publishers lots and lots of it.
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Just put the PDFs on a website for parents and school children to download.
Also put the source files up so that people can enhance the texts.
All US schools seem to have a web site, so the incremental cost of distribution is close to $0.
>Your proposal then requires the school boards to fund such productions
Minus the cost of paying huge sums to the publishers. The savings will accrue pretty darn quickly.
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>> Your proposal then requires the school boards to fund such productions for every topic of every grade - in some cases multiple levels of one subject for each grade.
No it doesn't. It requires them (the thousands of them) to fund one topic at one level in one grade, then see what happens after that. Maybe don't start with social studies which might be obsolete in five years, and instead start with fourth grade multiplication which won't change in the next 50. Then go from there at an affordable pa
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> Primarily because the school boards aren't in the business of
> writing textbooks or funding the creation of the same.
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They are talking about becoming an ISP to support this $20 million investment in iPads. Writing textbooks comes WAY before becoming ISP when it comes to a school and school board's business. Write me a $20 million d
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You've got this exactly correct. Educate. Don't waste our money, time, and most importantly, our students' childhood on a "device."
I guarantee you that if I were educating students with a chalkboard I could do better than a moron with the latest iPad. Or google tablet or whatever.
Let's get better teachers and better materials, not more technology.
"Oh, but our kids won't learn how to use Office XYZ and Windows F" Big deal. They can pick that up pretty quick any time. Let's get them THINKING and LEARNING firs
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It would be even less expensive if the government just paid someone to write books in the public domain when necessary. Hell, some great books already are in the public domain, and yet we're too busy funneling taxpayer money to scumbag corporations to care.
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Ipad or not, you still have to pay for the text books in electronic form. Prices are dictated by the publisher, only a fraction of the price is related to the media they are delivered on.
also battery life after 2-3 years will start to go (Score:2)
also battery life after 2-3 years will start to go down as well.
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Mi original iPad is having his 4th birthday in 4 weeks.
The bad:
- It's not compatible with iOS 6 or 7.
- It has problems with very JS-heavy websites (mostly those filled with Facebook and Twitter buttons that run in their own iframe and display number of likes and that kind of thing) which make it crash due to lack of RAM. Saner sites (such as Slashdot) work perfectly.
The good:
- It still works perfectly for reading books and comics, which I bought it for, music apps, playing videos, Facebook and Twitter etc.
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Except that the iPads will inevitably fall behind on the technology curve and need to be replaced [...]
Depends on what you're using it for. If you've got your standard courseware, why would you need to upgrade the iPad? So it's running iOS 5 instead of iOS 8, that doesn't affect your courseware.
I'd also point out that an iPad 2 from 2011 is compatible with iOS 8 from 2015. So there's four years right there.
File with the FCC (Score:2)
Not really much of an important step, get some fiber back to the nearest colo/carrier hotel/etc, one or more 10ge, a bgp ASN and some IPv6 addresses along with some IPv4 for legacy stuff and 6 to 4 NAT.
Did anything improve? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The number-1 predictor of student achievement is "how much they like school". If students hate school, they hate learning, and grow into dumb adults for whom everything is "hard". But students that like school, even if they don't learn much in any particular year, will associate learning with fun, and will continue to do so long after school is done.
Re:Did anything improve? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most children are naturally curious. Feed that curiosity in a fun way gets much better results than desks, "teaching" (that's really lecturing) and worksheets. Even if the rote memorization and stiffling environment will raise performance the next quarter. When the schools follow the corporate model of "next quarter" results, then the schools will fail. 6th grade is for making the best 25 year old possible, not the best 7th grader possible.
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Well, it was blackjack and hookers in my case. Then again, I was a precocious little scamp.
-- Bender
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How do you plan to measure this, exactly? I get your point that the end goal is competent adults, not test performance per se, but I've firsthand seen how my own kids can fail to get a concept well enough, and that leads to not getting the next concept, and so on. If you're not good at addition, you won't be good at multiplication, and so on through high school and you're just HOSED when you need to be good at trigonometry.
Come on, people. Science works. Things that work are...testable. If you're advoc
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How do you plan to measure this, exactly?
You don't measure it "exactly".
What are you demanding be measured? You measure enjoyment of the subject, and some general (low pressure, and non binding) tests on subject matter.
Come on, people. Science works. Things that work are...testable. If you're advocating some educational strategy, but reject the notion that it's testable, you're rejecting basic science.
I think you are confusing things. What are you wanting to test? The end of the year, high-pressure tests to measure "understanding" of the material, even if it crushes the spirit of the students?
You'd happily harm the education of the students, so long as it gives you a number that makes you feel better?
If that describes you, kindly keep your hands off education policy.
I think you are the one
I still can't for the life of me (Score:5, Interesting)
figure out why they are doing this in schools... everywhere...
Why do educators and parents think that just *having* these devices will be some sort of educational silver bullet?
It is much more important to figure out where they have the best value educationally and how to then integrate those benefits into the curriculum.
They always seem to have the cart before the horse.
Re:I still can't for the life of me (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw an online request for help (money) to put iPads into a school (It was via Stephen Colbert's twitter). ... got a reply that they come back with a reply, and then nothing.
Tweeted back the question as to why it had to be iPads, if there are notably cheaper Android tablets out there
So far I'm mostly curious as to why it has to be this specific brand, as opposed to 100 EUR off-brand Androids, and I've yet to see anyone answer that, beyond, "but...iPad!"
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I presume they want something with better educational software support and higher hardware reliability. As is pointed out just a few Slashdot articles below, low-end Android stuff is crap.
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I saw an online request for help (money) to put iPads into a school (It was via Stephen Colbert's twitter). ... got a reply that they come back with a reply, and then nothing.
Tweeted back the question as to why it had to be iPads, if there are notably cheaper Android tablets out there
So far I'm mostly curious as to why it has to be this specific brand, as opposed to 100 EUR off-brand Androids, and I've yet to see anyone answer that, beyond, "but...iPad!"
I'm not Stephen Colbert, therefore I'm not an authority on the matter, but here are a few reasons:
iPad is perceived to have higher quality educational apps because all the big players in educational software initially targeted the iPad (although, that part won't be true for much longer since the iPad marketshare is shrinking vs. all the other Android tablets).
Stephen Colbert has received free iPhones and free iPads. In fact, he has made a couple of satirical jokes on his show about not wanting to be blackli
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Why does it have to be a tablet? How about hiring a scientist or an engineer to come to each class room for a few hours a week. Guarantee you'd get your mileage there.
Given how these will be used, I doubt there will be much difference except for the cost. Either way it is a complete waste.
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You can "enterprise-deploy" iOS devices and then sign your own apps. That's what large institutions do.
The real question, android fanboys, is, WHY A FREAKING TABLET AT ALL?
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Parents being more involved in their kids' education is the educational silver bullet. If this is what it takes to make that possible in this district, so be it.
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No one's saying it's going to be *the* silver bullet, it's going to be *a* part of several overall solutions to various problems.
Parental engagement(Read the article, even the parents are using the kids' iPads to get feedback and know what's going on), access to the internet, etc. etc. etc.
Shockingly, when kids are given the things they need to adapt, they adapt.
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Well, just sayin', maybe kids would be naturally curious about other things too?
Like, I dunno, science and math? Reading interesting books? Dropping eggs off the side of a building in various contraptions? Shooting rubber bands in a contest? Observing the weather each day? Planting stuff? Estimating quantities of items? Playing musical instruments? Drawing? Making things out of scraps of material? Exploring mathematics without a calculator and a test?
Oh, right, this stuff isn't digital, doesn't cost enough
roll out ipads? (Score:2)
Roll out Ipads... this is all I could think of:
http://vimeo.com/11480457 [vimeo.com]
cloud based systems suck bandwidth big time (Score:2)
cloud based systems suck bandwidth big time.
Schools with laptops / desktops don't seem to have this much of a bandwidth issue?
Completly Blindsided. (Score:3, Funny)
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From the article, it sounds like CVUSD isn't an independent organization. The school districts where you live might be structured differently, so this might not be apparent to you.
In Texas, school districts are independent entities (ISDs) with their own taxing authority. The ISD owns the land and runs the schools. Board members are elected.
In Louisiana, where I lived for a while a long time ago, the parishes run the schools. There's a school board, whose members are IIRC appointed by the county commissi
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From the article, it sounds like CVUSD isn't an independent organization.
CVUSD is an independent organization. It put "Measure X" [smartvoter.org] on the ballot in 2012 to raise $41 million for iPads. 66% voted "Yes".
CVUSD board members are elected, including [desertsun.com] Juanita Duarte, a three-term board member who is facing trial on charges of embezzlement, and Anna Lisa Vargas, a soft-spoken freshman board member who was targeted by a recall effort last year.
CVUSD is also laying off 147 workers [desertsun.com] including pre-school teachers to av
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And now they want to become an ISP? Hmm...
Teach kids stuff: fail ...
Deploy iPads: fail
Become ISP? FAIL
Turned down on religious grounds? (Score:2)
"The only students at the school sans iPad, Dr. Adams says, are a very small number who turned it down on religious grounds."
Who would turn down a free iPad?
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I would, because it's proprietary junk.
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Amish?
Wrong headline (Score:2)
"How one school district threw millions of dollars down the drain"
Ooh, shiny.... must be useful for educational purposes....
meh. (Score:3, Interesting)
The school my 9 year old son is at is pushing for parents to donate so they can buy iPads too.
Given iPads are like $400-500 each and a good Android tablet is maybe $150 (and also has access to a lot more useful free software than iPads do), this kind of crap makes it obvious that the education sector is at least very badly managed and more likely very corrupt. I'll bet that someone high up in the education department is getting a very nice fat kickback from Apple.
Just because of this locked-in pro-Apple money wasting mentality I refuse to donate or vote for the very populist local props in my area that want to raise our taxes to give more money to supposedly underfunded schools. Its already very clear that all they are all planning to do with any extra money is blow it on yet more overpriced Apple products.
I'm also having a hard time understanding why a 9 year old kid needs an ipad at school in the first place at all. After talking to the principal and class teachers at my sons school its very clear that they think that ipads in the classroom are somehow a self-evidently good thing, and have no solid justification other than "because tech===future". They are clearly just throwing iPads at kids and hoping something good will come of it, rather than the iPad actually being a necessary tool and part of a larger well-considered strategy with already tested/proven benefits.
I'm sure most kids would say they need an iPad too but if my 9 year old son is anything to go by, at least 99% of them secretly just want it only for gaming or as some kind of trendy fashion accessory.
See I've been there myself. I remember back in the 70's when I was a kid, the excuse/lie that a PC would help with homework was the standard and accepted way by me and all my friends.of getting a new gaming machine.
As such I believe that the onus still lies with the schools to show that iPads in the classroom are not actually just another distraction that comes between the student and the teacher. Assuming they can do that, then they still need to show some real justification why 3x $150 Android pads is worse than 1 $450 iPad with respect to actual benefit in the classroom.
Re: (Score:2)
Given iPads are like $400-500 each
A used iPad1 can be had for $100-$150.
Of course, I'd be more up for purchasing these if the particular school district did a randomized test of their effectiveness.
Re: (Score:3)
The school my 9 year old son is at is pushing for parents to donate so they can buy iPads too.
Given iPads are like $400-500 each and a good Android tablet is maybe $150 (and also has access to a lot more useful free software than iPads do), this kind of crap makes it obvious that the education sector is at least very badly managed and more likely very corrupt. I'll bet that someone high up in the education department is getting a very nice fat kickback from Apple.
Just because of this locked-in pro-Apple money wasting mentality I refuse to donate or vote for the very populist local props in my area that want to raise our taxes to give more money to supposedly underfunded schools. Its already very clear that all they are all planning to do with any extra money is blow it on yet more overpriced Apple products.
This reminds me of the 80's when a lot of Elementary and Middle schools bought Apple II and III computers and the obligatory 2 to 3 Macs. Apple had a big push to capture the educational market. After about 3 years, most of the Apple computers ended up in closets collecting dust. Universities and High Schools went with PCs and the education software market followed. In my opinion, history is about to repeat itself....
9" Nook (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think it's corruption, necessarily. Some people are just rabidly pro-Apple. Some people don't (yet) get that technology isn't an education silver bullet. When you get people who think technology is a silver bullet AND love Apple products, you get things like this.
Re:meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not an argument pro or anti Apple per se, but standardising on a device means less time spent working out how to set up each device and worrying about app compatibility, and more time spent actually teaching. And a 'good' Android device that's robust enough to handle kids pugging in the USB charger (for instance...) isn't all that much cheaper than an iPad. In actual fact, I don't even know of one that's as solid as the iPad is.
Now, the role of eduction is the debate that's worth having here - Apple v.s Google is a distraction - is having these types of devices in schools a good thing? And if it is, exactly how ought it to be used? Hard questions - and ones that we're only now starting to look at. Ubiquitous tablet computing is very new - but it's not going away and we do need to teach our children how to use it well.
Re:meh. (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it's fun to hate on Apple but in this particular situation I actually believe they made the right choice going with Apple. Just to give my background, I'm an educator at university level but help manage the IT for a local high school so I appreciate the educational effects of the technology but also the management behind the scenes.
First off, students (and teachers) don't look after technology. Especially when it is not theirs personally (ie bought with their own cash). Our experience has shown the Apple products hold up much better to abuse over time than the $150 Android tablets you mention. There is also a larger (and in our opinion, better) selection of rugged cases available to further protect them. After a few years of abuse the iPad is still working (though covered in scratches), the Androids are largely broken messes.
Apple devices also have a good history of recieving OS updates. Sure they slow down over time but you don't have to apply the updates if you don't want. We find that applying updates for the first 2 years after purchase is beneficial but after that we test before deciding to update or not. With Android you have no idea how long (if at all) the vendor will support with updates.
So from a monetary point of view the total cost of owership (and experience) is actually better (for us in our opinion and situation) over many abused devices over a 3 year lifespan. We are keeping an eye on things though and Android/ Android vendors are definitely improving and closing the gap. If our opinion changes down the track we'll happily switch over.
In terms of software/ apps. Couldn't care less which has the largest app store etc. Only care which has the most useful apps/ software for our purposes and again Apple wins here (in our opinion).
In terms of educational value, again I believe this is a big picture, long term proposition. Like any technology, the value is not in it itself, it's in how it's used. And like any other technology, it's going to take a while for our understanding of it's best use to evolve and mature. Of course it's not going to have immediate and obvious benefits straight away but you have to go through this learning stage to get there. You can't just magically jump straight to the benefits stage. The normal teachers are just using them as glorified text books right now but they are also getting used to them and how they work and how to manage a class with them. The innovative teachers (and students) are experimenting and learning and doing fantastic things with them. Over time that will filter down to the rest.
Also, I hate it when people judge the value of something based on if it improves exam marks of not. Exam marks are worth didly squat once you get out into the real world and we're focusing way too much on them as opposed to the the skills you really need out in the real world. Technology, applied thoughtfully, can help students develop many skills such as problem solving and creativity and team work and understanding how and why to be socially responsible etc and these are skills which are hard to measure and we largely ignore as a result.
Love computers but where is the strategy? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
computers in school are the same thing as they always have been, a showpiece, not to be touched, sitting there rotting, mostly unused. So bring in the tablets every kid gets to interact with a magical computer ... which is so simplified at this point someone who has never seen a computer could operate it, and the result, they use the shit out of them, but not for school.
its youtube,facebook,twitter, snapchat, video chatting, and porn, everything but learing, clap clap, not only have you made them stupider,
I crashed a Marriott's network with 150 iPads (Score:4, Informative)
I deployed 150 iPads to a group at a business conference at a large Marriott hotel. We crashed the entire hotel network about 5 times. Right before we ran a video conference out of the country, we had to disable the wireless access points to make sure it didn't crash again during the video conference. They do suck bandwidth. I believe many were running Netflix and YouTube and goofing off during the meetings sucking up tremendous bandwidth. They were supposed to be running WebEx which was plenty heavy on the bandwidth. I can imagine the school is sharing bandwidth with other schools and they didn't consider how much bandwidth they needed. We knew we were going to pound the hotels network but they were unwilling for us to have Verizon install a network for our use. We had to use the hotel network which was outsourced to a rink dink vendor.
Forget about it (Score:2)
Title should be.... (Score:2)
"how one school district wasted millions of dollars of your money to let kids fuck around on facebook."
Apple has platform for content development (Score:2)
Didn't Apple create an app for schools / educators / kids that would allow them to create content for the iPad ON the iPad? Samsung and Amazon treat their devices as content consumption only, and that's a weakness of the Android platform.
Re:Apple has platform for content development (Score:5, Insightful)
So on top of the price of the device, there is also the artificial ebook prices?
Care to cite some examples of people actually creating content on the iPad in the real world? Most of the people i see with them are playing games or watching video's (consumption).
Locking them into the Walled Garden early! (Score:2)
Yeah, iPads are something like $300-$400 new (I don't know exactly, but hectobucks for sure). Handing thousands of them out seems generous and all, even if they are sold at a discount.
Apple (and other companies) are smart to try to be the first one to have their technology put in front of young people. Once the kids get hooked on the brand, many will stick with the brand for life.
Take the OP summary and replace the word "iPad" with "pack of Marlboro cigarettes" and see how this all hits you. It really is th