Minnesota School Issues iPad 2 To Every Student 456
tripleevenfall writes "Thanks to a federally-funded grant for magnet schools, every student at Heritage Middle School in West Saint Paul, Minnesota, now has an iPad 2." Why in my day, we had to buy our own graphing calculators — in the snow, both ways, uphill!
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Maybe it works better at middle schools than research has shown it doesn't work in higher education.
http://chronicle.com/article/iPads-for-College-Classrooms-/126681/ [chronicle.com]
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1) "Professors Say" != "Research", specially when you are talking about a handful of professors.
2) The article you link goes on a lot about typing seed and taking speedy notes. The thing has a microphone, who takes notes when you have a microphone?!!! Add some recording app with One-Touch bookmarks and you need no notes, you just tap the screen for highlights.
3) "because of concerns that the Apple tablet might not save their material." Back in the day, i saw students refuse to use computers because of con
Re:level (Score:4, Interesting)
re:2:
You describe a terrible way of learning. Sure, audio notes and bookmarks might help you to pass a course, but you're sure as hell not going to get as much out of it as reprocessing the material to write it down (in your own way, too).
Re:level (Score:5, Insightful)
Listening to a guy talking and taking notes is a terrible way of learning in of itself. It is much more efficient sitting with a book on the subject and practicing. Over the years I also have found most topic forums to be way more helpful than every professor I had through my degree when the point comes where you must have questions answered.
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I had a good deal of all types. The arrogant type that get annoyed when you ask questions, the helpful type that would do their best to aid, the one that would just lecture but have no clue to answer, the ones that set as a goal to fail the whole class and hated that I always managed to perfect out their tests in 10 minutes, etc.
Now,not to brag, I am no genius, I horribly failed many subjects (you may already notice English was one of them) but the subjects I was there to learn I was so interested in that
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I disagree with this, though this is the internet... and so therefore, all statements of opinion are meant to be 100% fact that apply to all.
The vast majority of my learning has been through participation in discussion. I found books too dry for learning, nor did I retain much from them. I also didn't handle lecture well, because things go in one ear and out the other. When allowed to interact, however, or witness interactions, there wasn't anyone who could score higher than me on anything. It didn't r
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The vast majority of my learning has been through participation in discussion. I found books too dry for learning, nor did I retain much from them. I also didn't handle lecture well, because things go in one ear and out the other.
I don't think you actually disagree with me. You note you didn't handle lecture well, and thats what I criticized (a guy talking and you just taking notes.) I agree with discussion being a powerful learning tool. It's one of the most powerful tools for learning, but one thats hard to afford (you need extremely small student group for each teacher to implement effectively in the classroom, or have direct conversations with a mentor.) It's also the reason why study groups are effective.
Lectures work best if you take notes, especially by hand. Note-taking prevents information from going "in one ear and out the other" because, like discussion, you activate more areas of your brain as you take notes; think of it as having a discussion with your notebook; I don't know anyone who can write as fast as a lecturer talks, so you have to be constantly deciding what to write down instead of letting your mind drift around. This doesn't just work at school. When I go to a baseball game (for pleasu
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Your personal anecdote makes me think you studied in a small institution with very few students per professor. Not saying that it dismisses your point, but a lot of institutions have huge auditoriums full of students with just one guy lecturing in front. There is next to no way such a classroom can produce the dynamic results you describe.
That being told, I still feel textbook + personal experimentation is the best approach for anything but medicine, and that only because you cant legally find a steady su
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For you.
For you.
For you.
This is going to come as a *huge* shock to you, I'm sure, but what works/worked for you may not for others There's a whole planet out there, with billions of people, and few, if any, are identical to you.
Now, I know that that
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I'm also pretty sure I do am a human being and not an alien. I am also sure my brain is no superior to the average human being. It may come to a huge shock to you, but there are other people out there that, just like me, can think and learn by simply having the information in front of them to consume in any way it is provided, be it a book, a web site, a recording, or a babbling old man in front of a crowded room. The speed of all but the babbling old man can be adjusted to the needs of the individual stude
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Listening to a guy talking and taking notes is a terrible way of learning in of itself.
For you.
The studies show that it's true for the vast majority. Even aural learners don't deal well with some talking head at the front of a class talking for an hour then everyone gets up and walks out. So it's not just him. It's everyone. That's why there are overheads, chalkboards, homework, out of class readings, and everything else to supplement the talking head.
This is going to come as a *huge* shock to you, I'm sure, but what works/worked for you may not for others There's a whole planet out there, with billions of people, and few, if any, are identical to you.
Aside from the fact you are factually wrong, you actually didn't assert a single thing that contradicted him. Your inane "For you" response was no
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1. They gathered data, even if it was subjective data. Some would call that research.
2. You're suggesting that as the professor/teacher is talking, every student should be simultaneously talking into their microphones. I think you should research that.
3. I've had an iPhone for a little over two years. I very rarely sync it, but still I've had 3 instances where iTunes said it didn't recognize my phone and wiped it. There went my data. If you were going to use a tablet for notes/work, I'd recommend instant sa
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1. If the opinionated data gathering they did can count as research, then I can count my post as the result of my own research too. Research is done based off other's behaviors and experiences actually working with the device, not the opinion of skeptics that didn't even use the device.
2. I suggest they record the teacher and add audio-bookmarks to the parts they consider note-worthy. Added bonus: the ipad recording audio wont fall asleep or loose attention span.
3.a Learn to use the device you own, and it
Re:Record the Teacher (Score:2)
See, this is all still so Old School, pun intended.
Not counting the courses with hands on and special equipment, consider all these lecture courses. Hello PodCast!
Education needs to be $500 per course including both books and lectures and say 5 hours total personal questions/office hours/emails/etc.
Then you can buy a course and ponder it no matter how long it takes you, rather than "start a clock" and risk un-erasable F's. Then when you think you're ready you sit for the test.
$40,000 Ivy fees are all smoke
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You're just trolling now saying the known fucking sync issue (that every single one of my coworkers has had as well, as well as my wife) is my fault for being incompetent.
Not very productive to any reasonable conversation.
You can't just drop an iPad on your desk and record a teacher at distance. Again, I suspect you research the iPad microphone.
I'm not complaining about the weight of a keyboard. I'm saying it is silly to carry two devices to replicate the functionality of one, that does more and costs less.
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Carrying a keyboard around with you in addition to a tablet doesn't make much sense. Take a $500-$800 tablet and add a $99 accessory that now has less functionality, is more cumbersome, and is considerably more expensive than a $400 notebook. How does that make sense?
An iPad that a person will actually bring with them and use is infinitely more functional than a $400 notebook that they will leave behind, run out of power, or leave shut on their desk or in their bag.
Specifically for note taking, the apps for the iPad are more capable then you'll find in standard Windows or Mac software. Audio recording with annotation, stylus input, etc.
And an iPad, even with a keyboard case, is not more cumbersome than a notebook. It's not even more cumbersome than a netbook. But I real
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Specifically for note taking, the apps for the iPad are more capable then you'll find in standard Windows or Mac software. Audio recording with annotation, stylus input, etc.
No.... not at all. Microsoft one note is pretty much the gold standard for note taking apps. I used it on a tablet PC for my undergraduate degrees, and it was, and still is leagues ahead of anything available on my iPad. The iPad in particular will (at least with only a touch display) will never be able to compete against the hardware I used back in 2001. Capacitive styluses just cannot compare to the accuracy of a digitizer. And trust me, you need that accuracy if you want your notes to be searchable... an
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I actually R'd the F'ing A you linked... and it doesn't support your statement.
I am not an apple fan by any means, but the iPad is a good tool for students. It's not a drop-in replacement for books and paper -or even laptops, but it is a very useful tool in teaching/learning. Other than it being an Apple product, my biggest issue with it is the price -which is largely a function of it being an Apple product...
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If it's not a replacement for books, paper or laptops, then how exactly is it a "very useful tool in teaching/learning"?
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I just argued above that it isn't the choice I'd make as a school administrator. It does less than a laptop, is difficult to take notes on, and is more expensive.
That being said, I can see two reasons why schools might go this route.
1 - They assume a shiny, popular toy will get used more by students than a netbook/notebook.
2 - This is the same as the Pennsylvania school that issued Mac laptops and used them to spy on students. If the school has MobileMe accounts on the iPads, they can track the physical loc
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The unfortunate thing is that apart from science, classes to teach basic computing skills and the computer lab, there's little reason to believe that technology is going to solve any problem that most students are likely to have. Giving them iPads is basically a great way of ensuring that whatever the teacher is doing right won't be noticed because the students will be screwing around on facebook or playing angry birds.
Spend the money on teacher training, paraprofessionals and improved curriculum, possibly even better resources, at least that has a reasonable connection to the outcome they're presumably looking for.
That being said, things like document cameras, projectors and good A/V equipment do have value, just not necessarily enough to justify much outlay at this time.
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Other than it being an Apple product, my biggest issue with it is the price -which is largely a function of it being an Apple product...
There is cheaper no tablet out there. Full Stop. After a year of existence, the iPad is still the cheapest tablet selling*
This "Apple is always more expensive" trope needs to be killed, because the facts don't agree.
*e-readers like the Nook and Kindle don't count.
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Viewsonic gTablet?
Velocity Cruz?
Superpad?
Archos 7?
There's four with minimal searching.
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Asus Eee Pad Transformer. $399 for full model, $150 for optional add-in keyboard and second battery transforming the tablet into a Honeycomb netbook with 15 hours of run time.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4277/asus-eee-pad-transformer-review [anandtech.com]
And that's just one example. They could get the XO-3 when/if it comes out for a rumored $75 (they're in education, not cutting edge technology, they can afford to wait a year or two if it costs them 6x less).
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Other than it being an Apple product, my biggest issue with it is the price -which is largely a function of it being an Apple product...
I find that statement absolutely hysterical. People expected the iPad to launch with a just-below-$1000 price tag. It came out at half that yet people are still saying "too expensive"? Sorry, but I'm going to have to view that statement as bogus and write it off to your admitted dislike of Apple. Until I see viable, serious, comparable products at a lower price (which I most certainly have not yet seen...), I'll consider their price to be pretty damn good for what they're selling. Expensive, yes, but most
Re:Interesting article. Thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, why decline when you can accept their offer and flip them on eBay legally and make money on the deal?
For a better deal, say that they can have their required materials sold in electronic format for half the cost, but they're only tied to the registered account of the device? (Skipping for a moment the whole thought of broken hardware). At least then, the students would actually have to use the devices.
Becuase... (Score:3)
Used to be that teachers got apples.
Unfortunate for all those non-magnetic kids though.
I for one welcome.. (Score:3)
Hypothetical... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just wondering out loud.
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If they're the 3G models, someone still would have to pay for the contract. Besides that, I really doubt they are, since that would mean that they would have unfettered and uncontrolled Internet access during class, which I can't imagine any school board or principal thinking is a good idea.
iPads are cool and all (Score:5, Insightful)
I know you can get a keyboard for them but all things considered I think a netbook would be more suited to classwork and homework. You can do an essay on an iPad but I don't think they are optimal for that.
Completely unrelated to the question of which technology should/does support education is the proximity of Minnesota to Wisconsin.
Re:iPads are cool and all (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, first, Netbooks==Smallish Notebooks. They're nothing different. They are not particularly good for school. No one writes essays during class 99% of the time. I can see instances where a tablet may work but not convinced.
Most of my ideas how education should be reformed don't run along electronic gadgets anyway. I think the textbook racket should be abolished. I think the teachers of a nation or state can come together and make their own thing that would be distributed for free. Just do a wikibooks for arithmetic, trig, history, whatever. How often do these fundamental subjects change? Not that much. Then when they get printed up, go for the Japanese model, where they are split up into 80-120 page booklets so they're good for 6-8 weeks. Make them into disposable so the kids actually own and can write and draw in since they keep in.
I alway despised these huge textbooks, where on average, only 1/3 of it, at best, was used throughout the year. Initimidating, heavy, expensive, and a waste of every year wrapping them in some stupid cover.
Frankly, the future of education will be something like Khan academy, with students learning at their own pace, with the understanding that they have to meet milestones to pass tests or work in groups on projects. An iPad or similiar MAY be useful towards this, but it require planning/coordination on the part of the school and its administration and teachers and not just buying the tablet as the answer in itself.
(I'm also wary of such a relatively expensive item and would wait until it or something like it can be driven down to $100 per student. Yes, yes, OLPC.)
Unfortunately this stuff is rarely thought through (Score:5, Interesting)
Having sat on a couple committees for primary (meaning K-12) schools back when my mom was a teacher I can tell you that many of them have a shitty technology process. They don't hire a competent IT department or anything to oversee it, it is just kinda whatever teacher or administrator likes to play with tech gets promoted in to it.
So what happened here is the school tech person is an Apple head. They love their shiny Apple toys and think they are just great. The school gets a grant, and the grant probably specifies it has to be used on something like "Technology directly supporting the education of students." So the district goes to their tech person, who is in fact just an administrator who likes Apple toys and says "We got this grant, what should we get?" and the person says "iPads for everyone!"
Sadly, it really is how it often works. Even more often when you deal with people who are fanboys of a particular technology, as Apple people are known to be.
We've actually seen that at the university where I work. Our department charges differential tuition, meaning you pay more for our major so we can use the money to support your education better. The only real restrictions on it is it has to be spent on things for the students. So we can't go and buy office furniture with it or something.
Well, we have a few Mac zealot type professors and they were pushing to use it to give "free" Macbooks to the honors students. We don't charge enough to give it to everyone and of course it isn't really free since they pay more tuition but they thought it would be a great idea. They claimed it would attract better students and help with education. I claim they just like Macs and haven't though it through (like for example the fact that much of our software is Windows only).
In our case wisdom prevailed and it has been used for things like upgrading computers in a lab, that ALL students can use and that can run all our software (not all software is licensed for personal laptops, unfortunately) and for new measurement and test equipment (oscilloscopes and such) however the push was there to go for the toys for students and it was a knee-jerk "This is nifty," thing rather than a well reasoned "This is what would be the most effective use of the money," thing.
Re:iPads are cool and all (Score:5, Insightful)
iPads are way closer to an appliance than netbooks, with far fewer moving parts to boot. Between OS-rot, cheaply made components,and the dumb things kids will install on these things, I'd be surprised if at the end of the school year even half of the $400 netbooks were still operational.
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Why wouldn't an iPad be "optimal" for an essay compared to a netbook? The soft keyboard, in landscape mode, is actually much easier to use than the typical netbook keyboard, for me at least, and my job requires a lot more typing than the typical grade-school essay.
I was somewhat leery as I find phone-sized soft-keyboards to be a pain in the ass to use, but I find I can touch type easily on the iPad keyboard and daily write several documents substantially longer than the typical elementary/high-school term p
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Grr, hit submit before I addressed the grant issue:
Personally, I think things like this are excellent uses of grant funds. It tests out an extremely flexible platform that could (might not be, but could) be incredibly useful in the classroom for a very reasonable (relatively speaking) price.
Heck, just from the textbook replacement angle, this is pretty huge - and not just replacement, but enhancement. For $500 a head + whatever maintenance costs, they test this out. Cheap.
Full disclosure: I work at a univer
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Precisely how are iPads better for education than a similarly priced laptop? Or a somewhat cheaper laptop combined with a Nook or Kindle?
I'm not much of a luddite, I love my Nook, but this is a complete waste of money. Even in small batches you can find ebook readers for under $150 each, and getting a laptop for $300 can be a bit of a challenge if you want a good one, but between the two you'd be setting the students up much better for classes.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/4070984/School-trialling-portable-devices-to-augment-students-learning [stuff.co.nz]
When trials were over, the iPad had absolutely destroyed any "competitors", the students loved them, they are "cool", they are CHEAP, they have MUCH better battery life, far better educational software custom designed for each device, often free, or 1.29 NZD.... , great quality screens, thin... did I m
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Do you want creators or consumers? (Score:2)
A Kindle with wifi and 3G is only $189 and is a much better tool for....
Consumption.
That's what the Kindle is better at.
Meanwhile the iPad has probably a thousand different note taking apps, garage band, and a slew of drawing applications.
WHat are you trying to do to the kids anyway? We should be giving them tools they can use for creative expression, whatever form that might take. The iPad is at this point, by far, the single best tool we could give them because of the flexibility - yes even for writing
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Is the whole point of the iPad. It's good for creation, with the absolute exception being if you are a computer geek or interested in writing software. There Apple throws up paywalls and DRM.
How about we give them real things, like actual instruments, pads of paper, and real art supplies? $500 can buy a lot of those, multiplied by several thousand children and you can buy even more.
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I've got no patience for people with such unfaltering adoration of a single company's products, especially when it comes off as fawning idol worship. Never mind the utter and total fucking waste of money this article is covering.
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I've got no patience for people with such unfaltering adoration of a single company's products
The trouble you Apple haters have, and has always have, is distinguishing between adoration and insight.
People who use apple products and like them are quick to point out flaws. People who do not use Apple products and hate them, are quick to say EVERYTHING is a flaw, regardless of how good it really is.
The simple truth is if you think back you'll not find one time in your life when you thought Apple did something
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Like the core flaw of Apple demanding total control over the device?
I'm more annoyed at the above posters attitude, which can be summed up in his first post in the thread where he posted the false dichotomy of "spend the money on lots of bad things" or "buy ipads for kids." If you had talked to me in 2006 and 2
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People who do not use Apple products and hate them, are quick to say EVERYTHING is a flaw, regardless of how good it really is.
Apple has two big flaws. First, the company falls short on ethics. Witness the sweatshop manufacturing and unconscionable attacks on journalists. Have you heard about Apple's in-company "lockdown" events? Horrible.
Second, Apple means to control its users as much as it can. Sony, Apple, cut from the same cloth. We users do not need such abuse.
So, products from an abusive, controlling, unethical company, tell me why I should have anything to do with them? Never mind that Apple products leave me cold as produc
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The trouble you Apple haters have, and has always have, is distinguishing between adoration and insight.
the trouble with apple lovers is that they have trouble telling the difference between feelings/beliefs, and factual objectivity. this doesn't surprise me since apple's marketing specifically targets those whose brainmatter prioritizes the former over the latter. in contrast, microsoft attempts this and usually fails (the seinfeld ad for ex). the 'to the cloud' ads are almost as annoying and insulting.
People who use apple products and like them are quick to point out flaws.
I'm sure there are some who do. The stereotypes as well as my personal experience suggest the opposite. A
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When have schools been about giving students what they love? Should we get them iPhones with unlimited texting plans? Or how about buckets of candy for the little ones, and booze for the older ones?
And, they are *cheap*? I don't know how much money schools in NZ have, but they are not cheap over here. I see from another post of yours that anecdotal evidence was enough to convince you that netbooks are crap, but I can guarantee you that netbooks more powerful than iPads, while also being cheaper, do exist.
Fi
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This post is currently being written on a netbook that costs approximately 1/3rd of what an iPad 2 costs, and also happens to have actual development tools.
The iPad 2 might be faster and have a more obvious availability of "edutainment" software, but you can do actual coding on netbooks for around 1/3rd of the cost.
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$800 is not cheap, even when you factor in for the fact that they're presumably referring to New Zealand Dollars and not US Dollars.
Around here's it's not hard at all to find netbooks selling for less than half that, throw in a Nook or Kindle and you're still paying less than for the iPad. I'm not sure how exactly you're coming up with the notion that the iPads are cheap.
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Perhaps the problem is looking for tablets in the first place.
Maybe the money would be better spent on other things, and not the idiotic false dichotomy you paint this decision as.
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Find a comparable device for a lower price.
Is it okay if I find a better device at a lower price?
Check out the Asus Eee Pad Transformer -- Better specs (I know, you think they don't matter.) 16GB version is $399, the 32GB is $499. Even adding the optional $149 keyboard doc keeps it under the iPad 2's price if you include a BT keyboard. As a bonus, the keyboard dock also extends the battery life.
Did I mention that it also includes an SD card slot and two USB ports?
You know you're in trouble when Apple not only has the most powerful
Not by a long shot.
, "sexiest", "magical" device on the market,
Have you seen the Playbook? Even with it's early flaws, it's st
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And what would you rather that money go to? Wars overseas? Feeling up the few American kids who visit other countries? Keeping corrupt leaders in power?
"our taxes" have to go somewhere, do you want them being spent on your children, in the schools you attended as a child, or do you want it going elsewhere?
Lets face it, iPads are cheap, they are amazing, I've seen very young children using mine, its "magical" to them, they understand its technology, they learn how computers work from an early age, they use them to communicate with friends, the apps for education are MARVELLOUS and only getting better... and they are CHEAP!
If a school decides to spend money on living in 2011 rather than 1911, I'm all for it.
I am the Marketron 7000.
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Uh, he said what he'd prefer it to be spent on right there in the middle of his post. You would have seen it if you weren't so busy trying to inject politics into the debate, or engage in vendor proselytization.
Netbooks.
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netbooks
Are those things still around? I've certainly never seen them deployed in New Zealand schools. And good luck getting any kind of designated educational software for them, it would be a bloody mess! "well, the program is made for a netbook with a screen size of .....ok, now click this button, oh, that key has broken off?...."
The iPad is *cheap*, its slim, it has ten hour battery life, people of all ages LOVE them, its hard to break physically (the ones I've seen at schools have cases, a netbook would
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Stop sucking Jobs' cock, please. Your whorishness, it is showing. Not a single one of those is justification for blowing $500 a pop on something. A total waste of goddamn taxpayer dollars.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Debt_Clock [wikipedia.org]
You know how we could really run that sucker down? How about we cut ALL spending, eff education, healthcare for citizens, HA! Just bloody well pay up, or you'll end up in our *essential* services, like Gitmo!
In The Morning
http://www.noagendashow.com/ [noagendashow.com]
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Ah, you meant software? No more "locked in" than any
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Man you fanboys are terrible!
Where do you think this money comes from? It could have been used to buy all sorts of things rather than a trendy toy that will depreciate to 10% of its purchase value within two years. And if it was so helpful and so cheap, then why don't the parents pay for them directly?
I came to Slashdot thinking there would be some reasoned arguments, but it's just fanboys saying how the iPad will make kids learn, about 100 shitty jokes about walking "uphill both ways" (is this especial
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I'd be fine with "parents paying", the school could get a very large order, and pass the savings on to the parents, who'd each pay for their childs unit.
I was the only "fanboy" I saw, its not particularly interesting to continue posting during my time off, I only thought to stop by as someone who loves the device in ques
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ahh..love the propaganda
They already learn that when they stand and pledge their lives to a flag each morning, right?
start with a nice red herring.
RE "Vendor lock in", were you really wanting to take each childs tablet down to the local computer store, "yeah, I'd like it to be pimped out please, double the RAM, check the CPU's thermal paste, add a liquid cooling system..." ? :-)
another red herring. the post was not referring to the hw itself nor modifying it, but the software lockin it crfeates.
Ah, you meant software? No more "locked in" than any of the other educational suites used, actually, a much LARGER array of software vendors, feel free to count how many large makers already have iOS software designed for students of all levels, and all designed for the exact resolution and device the students are using, not cobbled together, like the Windows NT and then Windows 2000 computers we had to put up with, where each and every day MORE ten year old machines would crap out, necessitating "computer sharing", one senior student looking over the shoulder of another.
what?! this paragraph doesn't even make sense.
1. desktop os's have a limitless supply of applications compared with consumption devices like the ipad.
2. if an education suite in place means that extra software becomes unavailable, why tell us about all the apparently 'amazing' options ios devices have ?
3. exact resolution? are you even
Bad counterarguments (Score:2)
1. desktop os's have a limitless supply of applications compared with consumption devices like the ipad.
A) We aren't talking about desktops, but the iPad vs. a netbook. The Netbook does not have a limitless base of software that runs well.
B) There is more usable education software for the iPad now than the PC. Really.
. if an education suite in place means that extra software becomes unavailable, why tell us about all the apparently 'amazing' options ios devices have ?
If that made any sense I'd respond.
3.
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RE my joke that fell on "deaf ears" - "hey man, I actually READ it, with my EYES dude, and I'm not deaf!"
RE "software lockin", by all means, if you want to teach children on the OLPC [wikipedia.org], be our guest! Imagine that thing next to an iPad...
Nothing is "limitless", but
Creation is easier on an iPad (Score:2)
You know a real, portable, computer that's not only for consumption but also for creation.
I can draw a lot better on an iPad than any laptop.
I can create music easier on an iPad alone than with a laptop.
I can even creation movies a lot easier on an iPad than any netbook, or almost I daresay a normal laptop.
The only thing that is somewhat slower is writing, but I can touch type pretty fast on the screen keyboard (since it's rather large) or just use any old bluetooth keyboard if I must have a keyboard (or co
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Good thing school doesn't involve a lot of typing up papers and reports, then.
Of particular importance is exactly what you consider "pretty fast". I know people who have iPads, and who have advised against buying them if your desire is to do anything but passively absorb information from the device, specifically because the keyboard is such utter garbage. This echos my own personal experience with all touch-screen keyboards -- I would consider myself a fairly accomplished typist, normally being able to ba
waste of money (Score:3, Insightful)
yet another distraction.
You want kids to learn mathematics, proper grammar, etc., then assign the homework. For those students who falter because of too busy / too uncaring parents, offer after school support with the money wasted on subsidizing Apple Inc.
Spend wisely (Score:4, Insightful)
Heritage is distributing 685 iPads to students this school year, with plans to boost that figure to 730 by next school year. It is installing more than 100 educational apps on the iPads, and tying the devices to facility-wide Wi-Fi and Google-branded Internet services such as Gmail.
More consumers for Apple and Google I suppose. Would not the money spent on 685 iPads be more productively spent by hiring teachers, even if it were just one additional teacher? One good teacher can make a world of difference to child's education. A difference that I feel confident eclipses anything that either Apple or Google have to offer.
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Teaching aids and various paraprofessionals are a good use of money. But there are few ways that are more direct in effect than paying for a full time librarian and a librarian's assistant.
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Would not the money spent on 685 iPads be more productively spent by hiring teachers, even if it were just one additional teacher?
How much do you think teachers are paid (even at magnet schools)? Ipads start at $500 each - we can probably assume that the educational discount is negated by the support costs, so we'll say the school still pays $500 each in the end if they're doing base iPads. $500 times 685 iPads is $342,500. Teachers start at around $30k or less per year; hence you could likely hire one new additional teacher for each grade taught at that school for that amount of money and still have money left over to spend on su
Bad idea (Score:3)
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And the best part? Even if Mum and Dad, or t
Does anyone have any firsthand experience (Score:5, Interesting)
With public school issued ipads? Are these bone stock ipads? Or are they loaded with some sort of locked down ios that prevents 12 year olds from using the thing to play Angry Birds when they're in class?
If they're somehow locked down to make them only useful for the curriculum, I get it. If they're just off the shelf ipads, I don't get it. They're just giving out toys with our tax dollars.
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As far as using them in the classroom? I actually have a student who owns one and uses it around school I think more than the netbook that she was issued. I don't honestly believe they are any better/or worse
The schools could gotten laptops for less with (Score:5, Insightful)
The schools could gotten laptops for less with a bigger screen, more ram , more hdd space and more software.
iPad isn't a substitute for a parent (Score:5, Insightful)
If we just throw more money at the problem we can fix it. Giving an iPad 2 to every student is just that kind of a "solution". Until our culture and our parenting change, we will continue to produce kids who aren't interested in school and learning.
Successful immigrants show us what is really important. I can think of 2 Chinese women who I know very well. They came to New York City at age 7 and age 12. Parents were dirt poor, didn't speak English, could only afford the rent in the worst part of town or a housing project. Never had a computer or a fancy graphing calculator. Parents worked upwards of 100 hours a week to put food on the table. But what these parents did was fairly simple, they actually looked at their children's homework every night and made them correct their mistakes. And if the essay had sloppy penmanship, it was torn up and they had to re-write it. The parents kept track of when tests were and made sure their kids studied for them. They were involved, they cared, and their kids both made it into the Ivy League and eventually graduate school.
I know this is a bit of rambling post, but I hope you get my point. No magic gadget is going to fix the problems our culture faces. No bag of money is either.
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Isn't the reading & writing.... (Score:2)
The important lesson to be imparted is the student's increased sense of entitlement and acceptance of redistribution.
This is just what we need for education. (Score:3)
With the speed in which ebooks are taking off [slashdot.org], it's perfect. To quote Rage Against The Machine, "They don't gotta burn the books [slashdot.org], they just remove'em [teleread.com]!"
Do this at tax time? Adding insult to injury... (Score:2)
More insanity from the public school system... (Score:3)
Yes. Shiny new ipads are obviously going to increase test scores. Much more than hiring competent teachers, or funding academic programs that foster learning.
No, They got a government budget surplus, and they blew it on something shiny that makes them look technologically savvy. Kinda like useless people in suits blow money on a shiny sports cars and other status symbols. "Look at our school! We have all this awesome technology! [of course, none of our staff knows how to properly manage it anyway, and we will sue you when your children demonstrate superior control over our shiny status symbols than we do-- But pay no attention to the incompetent people behind the administration desks!]
This is why dumping money on the public school system wont work. Public schools lack integrity, and as such, cannot be trusted with public funds, really. Unless there is accountability, there will be no integrity, and as long as teachers are treated like martyrs even when they fail their students by continually failing to ensure that they gain basic literacy (AND basic math, AND basic science) at an alarming statistical rate, that accountability will never come.
In terms of school administrators, there is more incentive in looking like they know what they are doing, than in actually investing the time and resources into actually gaining competence. This is especially true when there is flagrant incompetence and other serious shennanigans going on courtesy of the teacher's unions, and liberal arts majors trying to create education policies.
This money would have been much better spent on refurbishing the school's science labs, or on funding extracurricular academic activities. (no, not fucking sports activities. Those get enough money and time already. They dont need more. What needs more time and money are things like physics clubs, engineering workshops, and the like. Things that get kids interested in learning, rather than interested in kicking balls around.)
This won't work (Score:3)
A few years ago, the school I went to gave out tablet computers to every student (not portable tablets, but laptop PCs with touch-screens to be used with styluses). Not only did I use one on a daily basis as a student, but I also voluntarily helped out with the "tech director" (or whatever his position was) of the school, doing things like troubleshooting computers and helping to set computers up. As someone who has worked with this kind of program before, let me just say that there's a VERY, VERY, VERY SMALL CHANCE that this could work well. The tablets that we used were expensive, about a thousand dollars per student and teacher. We'd have to ship out pile after pile of busted tablets every week to get replacements, and we used CloneZilla and Deep Freeze to make sure that all of them were the same. Kids fooled around on them in class (I even participated in a school-wide Halo deathmatch during Biology class), and it was very poorly managed. The tech, while the teachers found the technology useful, never added more than the students would get by simply using pencil and paper (they even had digital whiteboards with a projector in every classroom, called "Smart Boards" or something like that).
For iPads to work in a school environment, they would have to be very locked down and very well-managed. What can you possibly do with an iPad, besides use the internet or a specialized research application, that you can't do with pencil and paper? It's a huge cost to support, it doesn't add much, it's more complicated than simple pencil-and-paper, and, unless it can be well-integrated into the curriculum, would be totally useless. Take it from me, as someone who has dealt with this before. Schools just seem to think that, by adding random technology, grades and learning will somehow improve. It doesn't work like that; not one bit. I know this from real-life experience.
PS: Yes, I know that Deep Freeze isn't exactly a very good solution for computers that students keep with them all the time. If I was them, I'd use Linux with limited user permissions, and the "tech director" there agreed with me. Management wanted Windows and that's what we got. Sigh...
Media consumption is not science (Score:3)
From the article: "The cash transformed Heritage into a magnet school emphasizing science, technology, engineering, the environment and mathematics."
So, why did they drop there cash on iPads, which are not oriented to any of those things, but rather to media consumption? I could understand if these devices were set up to be used as general purpose computers, but iPads are not, so I view this as somebody's vanity project at best.
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Therefore, I can't even tell you how many miles we walked in the blazing sun, uphill, both ways!
Re: (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/story/11/04/08/2157238/Gaming-Is-the-Most-Popular-Use-For-Tablets [slashdot.org]
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Why in my day, we had to buy our own graphing calculators — in the snow, both ways, uphill!
And we *wished* we had 64k of memory. But 8k was more than enough for anything we needed to do.
I can top that (Score:2)
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It won't. It's a waste of money that's not going to do anything to further education at that school and will likely do some harm.
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Why?
Re:Seems like a movement (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly what I was thinking. This is miles away from, say, Maine's laptop program. I've seen what those kids are doing with their laptops. You give kids a powerful tool and you get amazing products from them. Sadly, people are going to be impressed by what these kids do with these tablets, not even realizing that they've been hobbled by the limitations of the platform.
I like my iPad for certain specific tasks, but "powerful tool" it isn't.
Re:Seems like a movement (Score:4, Interesting)
And what Apple is pushing with the iProducts is that "you don't own your computer, we do." It'll interest them enough to mess with what they have at home, but then they'll find that they have to pay Apple again to access the mobile device, and only on extremely limited terms. Everything that I learned about computers was on hardware that never fought me or got in my way. And if Apple et. al. have their way, they'll undo the terrible mistake of DRM free, unrestricted computers being available to the average person.
The worst part is taxpayer money feeding into Apple's OCD, and their insistence that "the mobile space is only for thus and only those who pay us to bless them."
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Bribing them with shiny toys only turns them into entitled little shits as many bad parents have found out to their cost.
All ebooks? (Score:2)
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What are these "pens and pencils" of which you speak?