LA public schools to deploy 31K Apple iPads this year, supply all 640K students in 2014

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in iPad edited January 2014
More details have emerged on the L.A. Unified School District's massive plans to supply students with iPads, as all 640,000 students in the district will receive their own Apple tablet by the end of next year.

Education


The district's rollout plans for more than a half-million iPads were revealed this week by CITEworld. The program will kick off this year with 31,000 students at 49 schools receiving their iPads this year.

But the district plans to aggressively distribute iPads to all of its 640,000 students by late 2014, reaching students in a total of 1,124 schools for grades kindergarten through 12.

When the initial deal was announced in June, it was said that the district would pay $678 per iPad, including the cost of preloaded educational software. Assuming that average price would remain, the total cost of hardware and software to the district would be nearly $434 million.

The L.A. Unified School District is the second largest in the U.S. The district's board voted unanimously to award Apple with a $30 million contract for iPads.

But that $30 million deal was just the first phase of a larger roll-out for the Los Angeles school district. The news that all 640,000 students will receive an iPad by the end of 2014 suggests the deal is for much more than $30 million. An exact cost for the larger rollout was not given.

Digital textbooks for the L.A. program will be provided by publisher Pearson. District officials believe the program will help them save money over time by negating the need to buy traditional paper-based textbooks.

The district considered offers from Apple's rivals for the program, including Samsung and Microsoft, but ultimately went with the iPad. Microsoft pushed for the district to pilot more than one device and include its Windows hardware in the mix, but district staff felt the iPad was a superior product, and that it wouldn't be fair to require some students to use a lesser device.

Research has shown demonstrated that Apple's iPad is definitively replacing sales of traditional PCs in education. One pilot program in Idaho dubbed "iSchool Campus" has earned rave reviews, while an initiative at Arkansas State University will require all incoming students to have an iPad as of this fall.
«1345

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 89
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Apple is doomed. DOOMED, I tell you.

    Sorry, had to get that in before the fandroids pipe up.
  • Reply 2 of 89
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member


    If apple could manage to enter the school system in other states than California, they could move a significant amount of ipads.  640k for LA only, imagine if it becomes the norm in many cities or states.


     


    The upcoming color plastic shells for ipads mini will be better for schools so Apple can compete on prices. Those institutions tend to be very price sensitive.

  • Reply 3 of 89
    kkerstkkerst Posts: 330member
    And we all know throwing money at education works right?
  • Reply 4 of 89
    arlorarlor Posts: 533member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by herbapou View Post


    If apple could manage to enter the school system in other states than California, they could move a significant amount of ipads.  640k for LA only, imagine if it becomes the norm in many cities or states.


     


    The upcoming color plastic shells for ipads mini will be better for schools so Apple can compete on prices. Those institutions tend to be very price sensitive.



     


    My little school district in Iowa is buying iPads for the middle school (and Mac laptops -- can't remember which) for the high school. Neighboring districts have done so, too. I know of a few districts in Michigan that have done the same. 


     


    I could, frankly, be more enthusiastic than I am about the purchase here. For $600 per student (there's an educational discount, but then about $150 of apps per tablet), I can think of better uses for the money. Especially when half the kids already have one; they should at least check which families can provide one already.

  • Reply 5 of 89
    gadgetcanadav2gadgetcanadav2 Posts: 694member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by kkerst View Post



    And we all know throwing money at education works right?


     


    "District officials believe the program will help them save money over time by negating the need to buy traditional paper-based textbooks."

  • Reply 6 of 89
    hydrogenhydrogen Posts: 314member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kkerst View Post

    And we all know throwing money at education works right?

     

    If you believe education is costly, try ignorance.
  • Reply 7 of 89
    kkerstkkerst Posts: 330member
    Knowledge does no good if you don't know what to do with it. Throwing money only provides the option; it does nothing to increase learning. That's accomplished by example and routine exercise and a willingness to learn. Don't get me started, public schools are a joke.
  • Reply 8 of 89
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    jragosta wrote: »
    Apple is doomed. DOOMED, I tell you.

    Sorry, had to get that in before the fandroids pipe up.

    Are there any reports to be found that an Android tablet bulk order has been placed by...well, any company or institution? Government?
  • Reply 9 of 89
    arlorarlor Posts: 533member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by GadgetCanadaV2 View Post


     


    "District officials believe the program will help them save money over time by negating the need to buy traditional paper-based textbooks."



     


    That remains to be seen. So far most textbook publishers charge almost as much for etexts as for textbooks, and a lot of their justification for the way-ahead-of-inflation increases in textbook costs have to do with the development of electronic editions. 


     


    I know this is true for the college market, and a quick inspection of the K-12 sites for a couple publishers suggests that it's true for them, too. And they can't make their students bear the costs of the books. 

  • Reply 10 of 89
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,673member
    philboogie wrote: »
    Are there any reports to be found that an Android tablet bulk order has been placed by...well, any company or institution? Government?

    The iPad is much more high profile, prolific, and most certainly gets the attention of educators more so than competing products. At the same time those "other products" do get adopted.

    http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2013/01/educators-reveal-why-and-how-school-districts-are-adopting-tablets
  • Reply 11 of 89
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    This is good news...

    I wonder what is happening to a similar effort for Turkey -- the Fetih Project. The project includes 15 million tablets, supposedly worth about $4.5 billion -- and was supposed to be awarded in June 2013.
  • Reply 12 of 89
    mechapreneurmechapreneur Posts: 1member
    What a fantastic waste of money by CA schools. Demonstrating that our educational administrators are completely out of touch with kids and reality. Have they ever been around kids? Have they seen the way kids treat their textbooks? Scratched, banged up, etc. they take a beating that no iPad could survive and keep on teaching. The replacement costs for broken iPads is going to be 50%. Not to mention the distractions from all the mobile games!
  • Reply 13 of 89
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    kkerst wrote: »
    And we all know throwing money at education works right?

    Just "throwing money" at anything -- likely won't work!

    But that does not mean that you should not spend resources to resolve a problem or improve an enterprise...

    Future Shock FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2010 AT 10:39AM

    I'll have more to say on the iPad later but one can't help being struck by the volume and vehemence of apparently technologically sophisticated people inveighing against the iPad.

    Some are trying to dismiss these ravings by comparing them to certain comments made after the launch of the iPod in 2001: "No wireless. Les space than a Nomad. Lame.". I fear this January-26th thinking misses the point.

    What you're seeing in the industry's reaction to the iPad is nothing less than future shock.

    For years we've all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the 'average person'. I find it difficult to come to any conclusion other than that we have totally failed in this effort.

    Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices.

    ...

    http://speirs.org/blog/2010/1/29/future-shock.html


    The iPad Project: How It's Going THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 AT 7:46PM

    So we're now nearly five weeks into the iPad deployment and I thought it was time to update you in some detail.

    The Educational Part

    So many people have asked me to explain the educational impact of the iPad. I simply can't yet get to grips with everything that's happening. Put simply, the iPad deployment has transformed our school. Not evenly and not everywhere yet, but it's coming.

    There are stages to technology adoption. Two important stages are 'replacement' and 'transformation'. With replacement, you take an existing resource and replace it with an essentially identical digital resource. Think of a paper textbook replaced by the same textbook in PDF form. That's not to be sniffed at - there are big advantages to that.

    What we're reaching in some classes is the transformation stage. We're seeing the iPad completely change the way that certain subjects are taught. Our best example so far is Art. I will write and share more about what we're doing in Art over time but it's fair to say that it is already far beyond anything I expected in the first year, let alone the first month.

    At this point, all I can give you are some practical anecdotes which, I hope, will give you a flavour of the change.

    • I picked up a ream of printer paper yesterday. It had dust on top of it.
    • Primary 2 pupils have now memorised their passwords. That's not something that happens when they get 40 minutes a week on computers.
    • Last week, we couldn't get the Primary 3 pupils to stop doing maths and go for lunch.
    • My daughter April asked me if I could install the educational apps from school on my iPad so she could use them at home.
    • We're seeing a reduction in the amount of homework forgotten or not done.
    • "Forgetting your folder" for a subject is now a thing of the past.

    The one feature that my teachers are crying out for is a way to present the entire iPad UI on a projector. At the moment, it's up to the application how they choose to support the iPad VGA Adapter. Some, such as Brushes, show a 'presentation' style display but almost no applications mirror the entire UI. That's quite technically difficult for a developer, so it would be nice to see something in the OS to support video mirroring.

    ...

    http://speirs.org/blog/2010/9/23/the-ipad-project-how-its-going.html



    Here's an index of the efforts of Fraser Speirs -- the pioneer in using iPads one-per-student in education.

    http://speirs.org/index/
  • Reply 14 of 89
    just_mejust_me Posts: 590member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post



    Apple is doomed. DOOMED, I tell you.



    Sorry, had to get that in before the fandroids pipe up.


    apple fanboys are usually the first to say that around here.

  • Reply 15 of 89
    arlorarlor Posts: 533member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Just_Me View Post


    apple fanboys are usually the first to say that around here.



     


    Yeah, lol. I can't remember the last time a fandroid used that phrase here. 

  • Reply 16 of 89
    christopher126christopher126 Posts: 4,366member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by kkerst View Post



    And we all know throwing money at education works right?


    Too negative, Bro!

  • Reply 17 of 89
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    mechapreneur wrote: »
    What a fantastic waste of money by CA schools. Demonstrating that our educational administrators are completely out of touch with kids and reality. Have they ever been around kids? Have they seen the way kids treat their textbooks? Scratched, banged up, etc. they take a beating that no iPad could survive and keep on teaching. The replacement costs for broken iPads is going to be 50%. Not to mention the distractions from all the mobile games!

    Really?
    The Butcher's Bill MONDAY, MAY 27, 2013 AT 10:40PM

    So we are coming up on three years with the iPad 1. I thought it would be interesting to look back at our damage rate and see how things went.

    I've kept a log of when devices were replaced and why. These numbers are based on a deployment of 115 iPads and all the repairs were handled through the Genius Bar at our local Apple Store.

    1 Sep 2010: Dead Digitiser

    A pupil reported that her iPad was not responding to touches in one area of the screen. I checked and there did appear to be a ‘dead band’ the width of the screen about one fifth of the way up where drags across the affected area would not be recognised. The iPad acted as if the user had lifted their finger from the screen.

    8 Sep 2010: LCD Failure

    Our Primary 4 teacher reported that one boy's iPad had developed rainbow stripes across the screen. No evidence of any physical damage to the device.

    1 Nov 2010: LCD Failure

    Another pupil's iPad is displaying similar video issues to the above.

    16 Nov 2010: Home Button

    An iPad is exhibiting a sticky home button. Clicks are not always registering.

    22 Nov 2010: Broken Headphone Jack

    A Primary 1 pupil accidentally broke off a headphone jack in the socket. As a result, the iPad thought there were headphones plugged in and would not play any sound. Neither I nor the Genius Bar could extract it, so the device had to be replaced.

    23 Aug 2011: 4x4 Farrago

    An iPad was destroyed by accidentally being run over by a 4x4.

    23 Aug 2011: USB Failure

    An unassigned device that had been stored over the summer was unable to be recovered from DFU mode, consistently showing error -1604 in iTunes.

    29 Aug 2011: Cracked Screen

    An iPad developed a crack in the lower corner of the screen due to being stacked horizontally under too many other iPads.

    10 Nov 2011: USB Failure

    An iPad stopped responding to cables being plugged in. Reboot or DFU failed to fix.

    11 Jan 2012: Drop Damage

    A pupil dropped her iPad right on the power switch. The aluminium case was dented and is mechanically interfering with the operation of the sleep/wake button.

    27 Apr 2012: LCD Failure

    A pupil's iPad developed black and flashing lines on the screen.

    1 Sep 2012: Cracked Screen

    An iPad had a cracked screen.

    2 May 2013: Sleep Button

    A pupil's iPad had a depressed sleep/wake button, making it difficult to turn the device on and off.

    2 May 2013: Sleep Button

    Another iPad developed a bad sleep/wake button.

    Summary

    • 3 LCD failures
    • 2 sleep/wake button failures
    • 2 connector failures
    • 2 cracked screens
    • 1 digitiser failure
    • 1 case damage
    • 1 home button failure
    • 1 headphone jack
    • 1 bad interaction with a motor vehicle

    So, over the course of three years, a total of 14 devices have been replaced. That works out at as an overall replacement rate of 4% per year.

    Of these devices, half were for what we might call failures - damage not resulting from user action - and the other half were damage. Interestingly, our battery failure rate remains at a steady 0%.

    I'm no mechanical engineer, so I can only guess at reasons why we may be seeing such a low damage rate. For one thing, I'd say that the iPad 1 is very robustly built. It doesn't have such a sharp edge as the iPad 2-style case, which can be vulnerable when the device is dropped.

    The second thing I think contributed to our low damage rate was the fact that we have carpet in almost every classroom of the school except the science lab.

    Another factor is that there just isn't that much to go wrong. A laptop has a complex hinge, more than 100 switches on the keyboard, a moving hard drive, a fragile power socket. The iPad has four switches, a charging socket and solid state storage. The 30-pin connector has proven reasonably robust but I expect the Lightning connector will be even more reliable.

    Finally, I also believe that being 1:1, and building a culture of responsibility around that, makes a massive difference to the way pupils treat computers. When your name is on it, when your data is on that device and when its damage or loss will directly impact you, you tend to take good care of it.

    http://speirs.org/blog/2013/5/27/the-butchers-bill.html
  • Reply 18 of 89
    christopher126christopher126 Posts: 4,366member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mechapreneur View Post



    What a fantastic waste of money by CA schools. Demonstrating that our educational administrators are completely out of touch with kids and reality. Have they ever been around kids? Have they seen the way kids treat their textbooks? Scratched, banged up, etc. they take a beating that no iPad could survive and keep on teaching. The replacement costs for broken iPads is going to be 50%. Not to mention the distractions from all the mobile games!


    I take your point...but everything I've read is that iPads have a positive effect on improving learning from autistic children all the way up to med students. 


     


    Perhaps a thicker case is in order, but....textbooks? Made from trees? that are out of date before they are even printed? Hello?

  • Reply 19 of 89
    christopher126christopher126 Posts: 4,366member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post





    Just "throwing money" at anything -- likely won't work!



    But that does not mean that you should not spend resources to resolve a problem or improve an enterprise...

    http://speirs.org/blog/2010/1/29/future-shock.html

    http://speirs.org/blog/2010/9/23/the-ipad-project-how-its-going.html







    Here's an index of the efforts of Fraser Speirs -- the pioneer in using iPads one-per-student in education.



    http://speirs.org/index/


     


    Thanks for sharing, Dick! :)


     


    I love the comment, "picked up a ream of copy paper and it had dust on it!" That says a lot, right there! The rest of the post warmed my heart. :)

  • Reply 20 of 89
    christopher126christopher126 Posts: 4,366member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Hydrogen View Post


     

    If you believe education is costly, try ignorance.


    Brilliant, Hydrogen! Well said!  Made me laugh! :)

Sign In or Register to comment.