Minnesota school district set to roll Apple's iPad out to 40,000 students
Minnesota's St. Paul School District is preparing to deploy tens of thousands of iPads to students in 37 schools around the city, marking another victory for Apple in education even as a similar program in Los Angeles comes under fire.
The district's plan appears somewhat different from others, who have carefully stage-managed the use of iPads in the classroom, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. St. Paul officials compared the usefulness of the iPad to a pencil, saying that the most important benefit is giving children the ability to be creative.
"As educators, we have the luxury of whether to use the tool or not," Hamline Elementary Principal Craig Anderson told the paper. "But kids are not going to have the option of living in a world that doesn't use technology."
The district has also identified a number of "core apps" for use on the devices. Apple's own iWork suite, iTunes U, iMovie, and iBooks are among those chosen, alongside utility apps like classroom management system Socrative and image manipulation app Skitch.
Rather than purchasing the tablets outright, the school district will lease them from Apple. The cost of the program -- which also appears to include more than 1,000 MacBooks --?will begin at $5.7 million per year for the initial rollout and rise to around $8 million once all 61 schools in the district are outfitted.
The St. Paul intiative comes on the heels of the suspension of Apple's $1 billion agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District, following charges that district administrators tailored the bidding process to benefit Apple and content provider Pearson. Despite the setback, Apple continues to win new rollouts and commands more than 90 percent of the education tablet market.
The district's plan appears somewhat different from others, who have carefully stage-managed the use of iPads in the classroom, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. St. Paul officials compared the usefulness of the iPad to a pencil, saying that the most important benefit is giving children the ability to be creative.
"As educators, we have the luxury of whether to use the tool or not," Hamline Elementary Principal Craig Anderson told the paper. "But kids are not going to have the option of living in a world that doesn't use technology."
The district has also identified a number of "core apps" for use on the devices. Apple's own iWork suite, iTunes U, iMovie, and iBooks are among those chosen, alongside utility apps like classroom management system Socrative and image manipulation app Skitch.
Rather than purchasing the tablets outright, the school district will lease them from Apple. The cost of the program -- which also appears to include more than 1,000 MacBooks --?will begin at $5.7 million per year for the initial rollout and rise to around $8 million once all 61 schools in the district are outfitted.
The St. Paul intiative comes on the heels of the suspension of Apple's $1 billion agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District, following charges that district administrators tailored the bidding process to benefit Apple and content provider Pearson. Despite the setback, Apple continues to win new rollouts and commands more than 90 percent of the education tablet market.
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Good, because Apple just lost a $1 billion done deal with the L.A. School District over a kickback scandal.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-deasy-ipads-20140826-story.html
Separate iCloud accounts? Dropbox? Export as PDF, "Open in" Goodreader / Xfer to cloud account?
So without a file system, how do these students keep their Pages/Keynote stuff separate from other students stuff when iPads change hands?
Separate iCloud accounts? Dropbox? Export as PDF, "Open in" Goodreader / Xfer to cloud account?
Quite a bit simpler: the iPads don't change hands: they're issuing one to each student.
Good, because Apple just lost a $1 billion done deal with the L.A. School District over a kickback scandal.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-deasy-ipads-20140826-story.html
That number is odd (billion) the original news release said $30 million and there was a further $115 million contemplated (which I gather is what has been halted) topping out at a possible $500 million.
Also noted in the earlier AI article.
Perhaps a lifetime total project cost? [eta: yes, that includes, per the L.A. Times linked-to piece, $500 million in internet and other infrastructure investments that aren't Apple related]
From your article:
"School board members were made to understand that the initial $30-million contract was expected to expand to about $500 million as the project rolled out over the next year or so. An additional $500 million would be used to expand Internet access and other infrastructure issues at schools."
Oh and there's zero mention of "kickback" in any actual coverage, just communications dating back two years being seen as the usual "appearance" of a conflict.
"
In addition, the report said that past comments or associations with vendors, including Deasy, created an appearance of conflict even if no ethics rules were violated.
"
"kickbacks" would not only be an ethics violation but a huge criminal one as well.
That number is odd (billion) the original news release said $30 million and there was a further $115 million contemplated (which I gather is what has been halted). Noted in the earlier AI story on the L.A. status.
Perhaps a lifetime total project cost?
Oh and there's zero mention of "kickback" in any actual coverage, just communications dating back two years being seen as the usual "appearance" of a conflict.
The LA school system is hopelessly politically compromised and there are power struggles non-stop. The whole thing needs a hard reset.
IMO those cheap arse chrome books seem to be pretty good fit for schools.
The LA school system is hopelessly politically compromised and there are power struggles non-stop. The whole thing needs a hard reset.
The _________ is hopelessly politically compromised and there are power struggles non-stop. The whole thing needs a hard reset.
Fill in the blank most school systems, institutions, government, business entities etc, etc.
Good, because Apple just lost a $1 billion done deal with the L.A. School District over a kickback scandal.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-deasy-ipads-20140826-story.html
No kickback scandal mentioned. That’s just a rumor some iHating troll started.
IMO those cheap arse chrome books seem to be pretty good fit for schools.
Sure, if you're totally irresponsible and bind your child to a Google account making sure Google knows every single detail of their private and school life from before your child even knows how to spell Google.
I am curious to see how it works, though for anything other than typing or surfing I can't stand the things...
Sure, if you're totally irresponsible and bind your child to a Google account making sure Google knows every single detail of their private and school life from before your child even knows how to spell Google.
Apple reads all your iMessages.
Well, I'll let you know. The district is rolling out Samsung ChromeBooks to all kids in my district. 3rd, 6th, and 9th graders all get one to keep for the next 3 (4 for HS) years.
I am curious to see how it works, though for anything other than typing or surfing I can't stand the things...
The result might be called Chrome's disease... or something.
Sure, if you're totally irresponsible and bind your child to a Google account making sure Google knows every single detail of their private and school life from before your child even knows how to spell Google.
IMO it would seem difficult to track private details etc if the student is logged with a student id, one would have to be pretty cyni... hey I saw what you did there.
Well, I'll let you know. The district is rolling out Samsung ChromeBooks to all kids in my district. 3rd, 6th, and 9th graders all get one to keep for the next 3 (4 for HS) years.
I am curious to see how it works, though for anything other than typing or surfing I can't stand the things...
Agreed, for kids at school... typing(no cursive, shows how old I am), reading, research etc. what else is needed? And not nearly expensive as an ipad. Google has student accounts, master account etc,
FYI - Consider the source....
http://www.omgchrome.com/chromebook-sales-1-million-q2-2014/
Chrome is not ready for prime time. My daughter earned a Samsung Chromebook selling cookies for Girl Scouts. The parental controls are a joke. If you enable them, there is almost no granularity for web content settings and apps are completely locked out. I have to log her in now and sit with her whenever she wants to do anything on it. She uses my old iPhone (sim removed) for games and my old iMac (2007) when she has to get any work done.
The iPad has a file system and I love the way it works. On my iPad, I open say Pages and all my Pages docs appear. If I do it on my Mac or PC, I have to stop and think, where did I put that doc. It's time for adults to get out of the way and let the kids learn.
Too bad your district wasted the taxes payers money on dated and limited technology. I remember back the early 90's parent's thought their kids needed to learn Windows. It was only a myth. The iPad is the perfect device for education. It's time for the adults who never figured out how to use technology to get out of the way and let kids learn.
So now corporations are largely using iPads and iPhones to replace most mobile computing, but oh no we wouldn't want to train the kids on that! Give them Chromebooks!
Because ... um ... that's what everyone will be using in the "real world" 12-16 years from now?
@bageljoey
Chrome is not ready for prime time. My daughter earned a Samsung Chromebook selling cookies for Girl Scouts. The parental controls are a joke. If you enable them, there is almost no granularity for web content settings and apps are completely locked out. I have to log her in now and sit with her whenever she wants to do anything on it. She uses my old iPhone (sim removed) for games and my old iMac (2007) when she has to get any work done.
There are problems with google's parental control on chromebooks, but there are parental control apps in the chrome store that work well.
Something people should keep in mind regarding stories like this is that education is a fad-driven field where good ideas are killed through lousy implementation and lack of patience. And IT departments in school districts are typically worse than IT departments in companies (which also aren't that great).
So every time I see one of these stories I get nervous. I think the only way one of these big deployments can work is if Apple has the ability to do a lot more than just sell the device. They need to be involved in everything from selecting software to teacher training to troubleshooting issues that come up after deployment. Because if there's a way for a school district to screw this up and turn an iPad into an expensive paperweight, I guarantee you they will find it.