Georgia state senator hopes to replace schoolbooks with iPads - Page 2

Precisely.

They didn't complain because the populace didn't see the slate. That was reserved for those of wealth.

I did the test. Based on your criteria...

Eyestrain is a myth.

I'm at my computer screen (a glossy iMac) all day. I'm also on the iPad reading or watching videos for two hours daily.

My eyes don't get tired.

I also have a Kobo ebook reader. I use this mainly when others are using the iPad and outdoors.

I'd rather have my children *suffer* from iPad eye strain, than suffer life long back pains due to the ridiculous amount of books they carry in their backpacks.

Why bother with a mobile device at all (with all the maintenance and content-control [for children] issues)? The textbooks should all be accessible from The Cloud, tapped into from classroom desktops (literally: built into the desks, not sitting on top) and at-home laptops/desktops/tablets. Elementary-age kids shouldn't be carrying around state-issued $500 devices any more than they should have 40 lbs of textbooks riding in their backpacks.

Boom! There it is... ...and it's just the beginning.

Learn and/or teach anything from/to anyone anywhere anytime.

This is a gold rush folks. What ever people, companies or countries take better advantage of this will be ahead in the global economy.

Go Apple! Go USA.

Time will tell.

hahaha. First its not Apple Computer Anymore, is apple inc. Second that's just a funny sentence if you think about it.

Hooray to the south for actually teaching their kids science, though I am sure intelligent design will sneak its way to the ipad as well...

+1 for featuring Chicago in the vid.

Boo-hoo, I'll cry a river for the Android fanboys. Let's give everyone a cheap, plastic piece of junk that will most likely not last not 90 days in a classroom setting, will not be OS upgradeable because the manufacturers only make money on selling hardware, and will be incompatible on many apps to due Android fragmentation.

How well did that OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program go? Crashed and burned. Why? Too many players fighting for a cut of the pie. Just like Android would end up in the classroom, there will be dozens of different tablets, each running a different flavor of Android, some cheaper ones, some better ones, but junk in the end. Some apps will work on one tablet, others may not. Sounds familiar people?

Apple is a one-stop shop. iPads (hardware), iOS (Software), and tons of apps (Developers) that are totally motivated on making the best possible software for the education field. No hassles, no worrying about getting the best price from different companies, and in the end resulting in getting something you didn't want that works horribly.

While everyone has been infighting for the past few decades with how the industry should be, Apple was quietly buying time to change the world. It just showed that patience and perseverance pays off.

I personally know many teachers that are excited about the possibilities that the iPad can provide. Some have applied for grants that were discussed in that video. When I mention Android, they just respond "What??" or "Gosh, I hope not!"

Apple does have an uphill battle in lots of schools though. These same teachers tell me horror stories of IT administrators removing their Mac labs that have given no problems and replace them with cheap, Windows computers that provide nothing but problems yet provides job-security for the admins. Many admins are so anti-Apple simply out of ignorance and do not give-in lightly to having any kind of Apple hardware in their network. It's a shame hearing this stories from the teachers that teach our children.

It already has. This MobileMe feature is available for all purchasers of iOS devices for free.

I actually would expect Universities and then High Schools to implement this first, not middle school.

The Cloud will be dead in 5 years. Another version will take it's place and we'll continue to try and reinvent the idea of Oracle's Network Appliance while never getting it.

Google and the idea we rely on a CENTRAL MAINFRAME [GOOGLE] distributing all Information is f'n absurd.

Are you sure it permanently locks the device? I thought you could only lock and wipe settings (i.e. A simple reflash and you have a perfectly working iPad again)






Wow... really? \

You've got to have a much narrower idea of what The Cloud is than I do, because I can't think of a single conceivable situation that would end up with Cloud Computing being dead in 5 years!

Well, being from New Jersey you must be the preeminent expert on the Georgia school system. Please fabricate more blatantly false information for us to consume if you have the time.

I couldn't find any statistics that placed the Georgia school system that low nationwide. I did find some metrics that placed the state as high as #7 and as low as #20, but nothing close to what you've purported.

The support for Android is going to have to significantly improve for that to happen. MSFT had support. With Android tabs you are in the Wild Wild West with no support. It's a use at your own risk type of situation.

I for one think giving attractive teenage girls iPads with front-facing cameras would be an awesome idea... in the interests of their learning.

It makes sense that it saves money as a school will have on average 20 books per student, $50 per book = $1000 per student that lasts 7 years. A $500 iPad per student can last a few years and even if they keep the iPad for 3.5 years, it matches the book cost and they have resale value. Plus the textbooks are included and can be updated at any time, which is such an important feature in certain subjects like world history, finance, modern literature, media studies, even science and math as new discoveries appear.

While iPads seem expensive, we pay tax on top of the sale price but schools won't and might even get volumes discounts.

The costs will go up if the iPads get damaged but they are harder to damage than a laptop and a laptop in no way engages people the way an iPad does and it's much lighter with a higher quality screen.

It will be hard for competing tablet technology to match the price and quality that Apple have in their device because of their exclusive component deals so schools would end up with a worse experience, more easily broken hardware, worse customer support etc.

I didn't believe the iPad would have a huge impact when it launched but the more software there is and the more people are finding ways to adapt it into what they do, it's starting to look like a pretty big deal. I still believe the modular approach plus multiple screens is better vs many fixed form computers despite current costs and there still needs to be improvements to iOS to make it a master OS but for now, the iPad is a nice piece of hardware and the best device at defining this computing genre.

For it to be a first generation device too is impressive.

5 Years in Internet Computing is roughly 15 years in other traditional industries.

Having a Distributed Client-Server model which combines the notion of a MainFrame where all content is stored on the Server and the Clients are dumb clients to do all the heavy processing where necessary, but keep all content remotely, is nothing new. The cloud has taken the MainFrame and distributed the load and then fine grained it with Virtualization.

It's like a Distributed RAID Network that attempts to be a Virtual Repository of infinite redundancy that manages your assets for you.

Unfortunately, instead of being a MainFrame it's now a VirtualMainFrame Umbrella that has clusters of distributed nodes. It all sounds theoretically interesting when you apply it to Scientific Applications that need heavy hardware to crunch and large database clusters for Wall Street, etc.

Where I see it failing is it's over extended reach into trying to convince Class C/S/LLC Corporations to manage all their assets for them--a Virtual Big Brother Watch Dog you can call GOOGLE, for example.

They don't stop there. They want the Consumer's assets as well. They want all your information.

That's where it fails when it goes beyond utilizing the distributed networks to solve problems and becomes the distributed networks to store, track and predict everyone's decisions and choices of economic consumption of services and disposable goods.

The necessary level of redundancy to protect that level of scaling will ultimately compromise data, especially government data. It's then that a DMZ style Distributed Network of Cloud Services will arrive.

The Sciences Clouds.
The Health Care Clouds
The Education Clouds
The Governments Clouds
The Commerce Clouds
The State Governments Clouds
The FOX News Clouds
The MSNBC News Clouds
,etc.

The over kill carried to its end will produce nothing but a need to strip back to areas that GOOGLE and others wanting to control information will not want--a limited ceiling on their market opportunities.

We lived in a Central MainFrame solution and it was a nightmare.

We broke free with Client-Server and extended it to Distributed Client Server Networks.

Now we're trying to Virtualize that into a Virtual MainFrame of Services--a Gatekeeper.

It's obnoxious and technically bound to cost a fortune, ultimately ripe with security holes and cost overruns.

Ultimately, any dolt who thinks the cost of housing a server or two for a small business [scale up accordingly to the size of your business] far exceeds the cost and risk of storing that information remotely through a contract is deserves to see all their IP stolen and used to compete against them.

In Europe a lot of universities are trying this magnificent surving device in a pilot project: does it add a value for students or teachers. For now the results are: just for mailing and still than you need a filesystem to organise attached files locally. The (free) internet or Dropbox is not permanent available: train, plain, car. Nor is it always reliable. My USB-stick is.
As a student or a teacher does I want to use my Ipad as a netbook? Yes, please. Why not?
And education is a huge market.
*

I am ignorant to the administrative side of running a network with iPads on it. Is it possible to push updates (or new books or apps) to select clients? I was under the impression that each device had to be done manually.

Yes yes and higher efficiency/productivity. Whereas in the past, girls would look away from chalkboards/whiteboards/textbooks to check their makeup and hair in their always-handy pocket mirrors, the highly reflective glass screen on the iPad, with it's awesome clarity, will allow these girls to CONTINUE looking at their screens WHILE ensuring they're still looking attractive.

Furthermore, not only have we eliminated textbooks from their backup, but we have further reduced the weight of all the those pocket mirrors they used to carry!

Apple truly understands what these kids need. Highly impressive, especially in a first-gen product.

That's pure fud.
Viewing into a glossy light source causes more strain than reading from piece of paper unless your children are reading in a cave.

Ae you a child?

The good thing is that AppleInsider has reported a rumor that the next screen will be improved (sadly not retina display) by being matte.

How do you know that carrying some books around as an adolescent will cause life-long back problems?

iPads are closed devices provided by a single vendor. Why on earth would you want to lock your educational curriculum to that sort of model. Further, Apple has a history or blocking apps from their App Store solely because Apple disagrees with its content. Is that the sort of precedent we want to set? Is that the example we want for children?

This is a horrible idea.

Give $500 glass slates to kids in school? Oh yeah, great idea...

Thank you.

I am 32 now. When I was in Grade 7 there was a revolution in schools at the time: overhead projectors (remember those?)... Printed material was able to be projected onto the "chalkboard" (which thankfully was a whiteboard by the time I started Grade 7). And teachers could annotate on-the-fly by writing on the transparency.

In a few years time there was this transparent screen you could hook up to a laptop and you put that on top of the overhead projector. Voila! Birth of computer projection onto a screen in schools.

Forward 18 years to the present - how are we going to expect teenagers to graduate into a world where you need to use computers, tablets and mobile phones to survive if they are stuck with paper and pencil throughout their education?

Engage them with modern tools but of course the cover the fundamentals of thinking (not dogma!).

Unfortunately what I foresee happening in a lot of schools is they want to get "with it" but instead of iPads they buy up garbage Android junkblets which I would say is worse than traditional methods.

Strange, many schools around the world have been giving $999 laptops to kids for several years now. I wonder how that worked out...

Maybe they will be careless in the way all kids are careless and break the iPad. Lousy idea.

Pros: Too many to list.

Cons: Cost per child. To easy for someone to modify books to their version of how history should be portrayed.

Right, give them Android tablets or crappy netbooks and they can download all the viruses, porn, malware, crapware, and adware they want. Oh, and did I mention porn? Of which they are mostly delivered as Flash video?

Also, I'm sure you might have heard that through the Enterprise (and I'm sure eventually there will be education-specific channels) program, anybody can install custom apps on their iPad without having to go through the App Store.

The US is getting mired down in problems that are related to its disastrous parenting practices and its appalling education system.

iPads in the classroom are a good idea, but probably won't work. It's too late.

Finland wipes the floor with their US peers. Wipes the floor. Hell, you don't even need to get to the schools to figure out why that is. Just look around the airports. Look at Atlanta, for instance. What a bunch of fat slobs and shabby crap everywhere. And the cities are like sewers of crime and dysfunction.

Every school age kid dresses and acts like baby, moping around ghetto shit fashion. Keep it there.

Yeah like the books kids are given in these past 500 years are the correct version of how history should be portrayed... Nice one.

Maybe schools actually have had functioning one-to-one MacBook programs. I wonder if those were lousy ideas. Note that the cost of those programs are 200% of any iPad program.

This argument against using tody’s newer tech for students is the same argument for book and PCs at various times in the history of civilization.

Books/PCs are so expensive.
Students can deface the books/PCs.
Students can destroy the books/PCs.
You can’t learn real-world skills with a book/PC.

In 5 years it will be pretty much impossible to do any sort of "computing" without a MINIMUM of a 2mbit connection (actually, in 2015 anything less than 5mbit/sec down will probably be worthless). In fact, think of everything you do today. The stuff that needs an online connection is already in the majority for most people. And yes I have a broader interpretation of The Cloud. It is not a central mainframe but multiple mainframes... Look at it now - we have Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. I don't think Google will dominate, they don't have enough of a cohesive strategy to be the Windows of the Internet. Maybe the Windows of mobile devices (though at less of a market share than Windows).

Right... and the children will lug these cloud-enabled classroom desks to the library, park, house, etc?

Jeezus people, I've been gone a week and already things are going down the tubes here!
On a side note, sorry for the multiple post intensity. As I said, I've been gone a week.

Clay tablets were around before any of our parents. If clay tablets were good enough for the Babylonians, they should be good enough for our kids.

The problem of weight can't be simply dismissed. My daughter weighs around 110 pound. Her backpack weighs 25 - on a good day. Add in the other things she has to carry and it's a problem.

Outdated books? I see that you've discarded that one with "all knowledge can't be found inside a book". So let's not get them books at all. That would save even MORE money. The fact is that keeping and maintaining books is so expensive that schools don't do it. It's sad to see a high school using science books that are 30 years old.


[QUOTE=gabrielsolomon;1801980I am not some luddite or flippant apple hater as has been hinted at in the above comments. I love Macs and iOS as much as the next guy. However, we should always question the way we use tools and technology, including books, to educate our children. Children go to school not to learn facts or information - they go to school to learn how to learn from each other and directly from the world, not mitigated by a touchscreen and some programmer's idea of what is important. Can an iPad help them do this? Not in middle school. And after all, when they want to look up a "fact", iPads will still be around, as will books.[/QUOTE]

You're rejecting something on the basis of unfounded biases. Every complaint you have applies to books every bit as much as to iPads (even more so - since it's easy to update the software on an iPad but more expensive to replace a hard cover book).

You're confusing the tool with the learning. A good teacher makes use of whatever tool is available. A bad teacher is a bad teacher no matter what tools you give them. The tool should supplement the teacher - and not get in the way. The iPad's flexibility offers the potential to support the teacher in many more ways than a book ever could. If a teacher can't take advantage of an iPad's benefits, they probably weren't a very good teacher with books, either.

At the simplest level, the iPad could be nothing more than a portable book. You could have all your existing text books on the iPad and continue to teach exactly the way you have - except with lower overall cost and reduced backstrain on the students. Then, the better of a teacher you are, the more benefits you could obtain.



I agree completely. It's a tool - and a good teacher should be able to benefit from it. The bad teachers are probably still fighting the change from clay tablets to paper.


Not entirely. "Intelligent Design" involves outright fabrication and lies. We should not be lying to our students.

Furthermore, we shouldn't be teaching students that the only thing that matters is their ability to make up their own mind. If I make up my mind that I'm entitled to your money, isn't that the only thing that matters?

What matters is FACTS, REALITY, and fundamental principles.

Now, if we're teaching students properly, they should be able to discern how silly Intelligent Design is. But it's not simply a matter of making up their minds.



That's really the only logical argument I've seen. Kids get beat up and killed for a pair of sneakers. An iPad could be far more tempting.

I suspect that in some of the worst school districts that the iPads will be required to stay at school - which negates some of the benefits. Schools will probably attempt to ameliorate that by offering all the same information online so the kids can do their work at home on a home computer, but that penalizes the kids who don't have a computer at home (which, not coincidentally, probably overlaps significantly with the neighborhoods where it's not safe to bring an iPad home).

I don't know the solution to that - but it's still something that needs to be looked at.

Unlike certain states where it is the actual knowledge the school board can block from the schools, iPads will open a window to all knowledge. Apple don't block any such things they are only blocking items that breach their terms of use which has nothing to do with let's say 'evolution' for example.

It will be interesting to watch those sort of school boards actually fear the iPad's introduction in the same way certain entire countries fear freedom of the press and the internet.

An excellent post.

I'll believe it when I see it. Georgia is currently backsliding into the dark ages. Many in our government probably think that iPads are the 'devil's work.' They are trying to set up gold as currency and eliminate driver's licenses and do away with all regulations.

Lots of predetermined BS in this post. Who are you to say that intelligent design is real, or not real? Unfortunately you and I both have precisely ZERO evidence to contribute to the discussion. No one does, anywhere. Nothing pisses me off more than someone who thinks they know the unknowable.

As far as your facts and reality, have you been in a school lately? Who is determining these kids' reality? I hate to break it to you, but at least half of what I've heard kids repeating from school is flat out wrong.
Some teachers actually follow along with the text book where it says Oswald killed Kennedy. I don't know of any intelligent person anywhere that actually believes that. So why is it still being taught?

Critical thinking is all that matters. It's all-encompassing of logic, common sense, and open-ended decision making. Your analogy of deciding your money should be mine is ridiculous and does not apply to the concept of critical thinking. A thinking kid knows that stealing is wrong, will get him into trouble he doesn't want, and is all around a bad move.

Thank you, actually, for proving how important critical thinking is. That disastrous example was the best you could come up with. But if critical thinking were your number one skill, you would have thought right past the snarky-ness, to the logic.