Pennsylvania school district to buy iPads with $291K donation from Apple CEO Tim Cook
The board of Pennsylvania's Steel Valley School District has officially voted to use a $291,791 donation from Apple chief Tim Cook --?made by Cook in honor of former Apple board member Bill Campbell --?to purchase iPads for each of the district's students and train teachers on how to take advantage of the technology.
Administrators will plan to roll out iPads for the 2015-2016 school year, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Cook's contribution was announced in September, though it was not officially accepted until this week.
"We're excited to be working with Apple," Steel Valley superintendent Ed Wehrer told the publication.
Before the rollout begins, administrators will devise a strategy for how best to use the tablets to augment the classroom. They have already traveled to at least one school where iPads are currently in use to gather information.
Steel Valley is a relatively small district, serving approximately 2,000 students, but it has long benefited from Campbell's generosity. The former Apple executive and Intuit CEO -- who grew up in the area --?has contributed nearly $9 million to the district in the last 14 years.
Apple has sold millions of iPads to schools around the world and boasts a near-monopoly on tablet usage in education, though not every rollout has gone smoothly. A $1 billion program to put tablets in Los Angeles public schools has failed spectacularly, with the FBI called in to investigate the program's bidding process.
Administrators will plan to roll out iPads for the 2015-2016 school year, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Cook's contribution was announced in September, though it was not officially accepted until this week.
"We're excited to be working with Apple," Steel Valley superintendent Ed Wehrer told the publication.
Before the rollout begins, administrators will devise a strategy for how best to use the tablets to augment the classroom. They have already traveled to at least one school where iPads are currently in use to gather information.
Steel Valley is a relatively small district, serving approximately 2,000 students, but it has long benefited from Campbell's generosity. The former Apple executive and Intuit CEO -- who grew up in the area --?has contributed nearly $9 million to the district in the last 14 years.
Apple has sold millions of iPads to schools around the world and boasts a near-monopoly on tablet usage in education, though not every rollout has gone smoothly. A $1 billion program to put tablets in Los Angeles public schools has failed spectacularly, with the FBI called in to investigate the program's bidding process.
Comments
Now we no how to get LA on board... give them the money! That said they'd probably still by Chromebooks!
Are you using speech recognition or something?
It's "know", not "no", and it's "buy", not "by".
Now we know how to get LA on board... give them the money! That said they'd probably still by Chromebooks!
It sounds to me like LA just didn't know what the hell they were doing. They were way in over their heads with the scale of iPads they wanted to deploy.
That being said, I think Chromebooks would be just as much of a nightmare in the end, maybe worse. Honestly, I don't see Chromebooks has being a very good educational tool. Sometimes you get what you pay for...
Honestly, I don't see Chromebooks has being a very good educational tool for anything. Sometimes you get what you pay for...FTFY.
Wonder how long until someone says he bribed the school district....
Well that would be a dumb bribe
(The fact that school books for the iPad are at least as expensive as paper versions doesn't help)
I think using iPads in schools is a good way to give children access to information for learning. The problem we ran into at our school when we did this, was the 2 year life span of these devices. Once the iPad won't support the newest OS, that limits their effectiveness. New apps written only for the new OS aren't compatible. Older apps stop being supported or expanded. It becomes a dead end too quickly. The expense of $25K-30K to outfit the lab with the hardware was too great for our small independent school to only last 2 years. Apple's release schedule isn't tied to the academic schedule so we would be buying at the wrong time of the year for the school year rollout. The tech was already at least 6 months old when it's installed for the fall semester.
This isn't a complaint, just an observation that technology is developing faster than academic funding provisions and scheduling. And for some (like us) in a challenging financial situation that is a deterrent for using the iPad in the classroom.
To clarify, they were iPad ones. There was no model in place for how things would develop, annually, bi-annually etc. No case study to use as comparison. The school saw the move as progressive and thought it would be a good recruiting tool. Unfortunately it suffered some backlash when it came time to upgrade and ask for money for something that was only 2 years old. People resisted putting the lab on that kind of upgrade time cycle.
Ultimately they turned to a different group of people within the school and went with a more traditional option when it came time to redo the lab. They actually got 3 years out of it because of the delay in funding. I have no idea what they did with the iPads, we moved to a different school after that.
Wonder how long until someone says he bribed the school district....
Well that would be a dumb bribe
(The fact that school books for the iPad are at least as expensive as paper versions doesn't help)
It says pretty clearly that Tim Cook and not Apple gave the money to them. Also, there was a $15 cap on text books on iPad. Has that changed?
I think using iPads in schools is a good way to give children access to information for learning. The problem we ran into at our school when we did this, was the 2 year life span of these devices. Once the iPad won't support the newest OS, that limits their effectiveness. New apps written only for the new OS aren't compatible.
I used to be on the board of a small elementary school where we supplied iPads to students in grades 5-8 and figured out a way to manage the issue. Students graduation from 8th grade were offered an iPad to take away at the end of the year at a significant discount, which turned out to be a popular policy. (Part of the school's iPad costs, both acquisition and support, came out of textbook fees paid by students at the beginning of each school year.)
Might not work for larger schools, but seems to be working there, and since new machines are coming in each year, they can spread out acquisition costs and keep up with product life cycles.
Are you using speech recognition or something?
It's "know", not "no", and it's "buy", not "by".
Maybe iOS auto correction?
Where is the investigation? Something doesn't smell right...I'm sure about this.
/s
Wonder how long until someone says you just did.
could have just been 300000 or 290000.
I think using iPads in schools is a good way to give children access to information for learning. The problem we ran into at our school when we did this, was the 2 year life span of these devices. Once the iPad won't support the newest OS, that limits their effectiveness. New apps written only for the new OS aren't compatible. Older apps stop being supported or expanded. It becomes a dead end too quickly. The expense of $25K-30K to outfit the lab with the hardware was too great for our small independent school to only last 2 years. Apple's release schedule isn't tied to the academic schedule so we would be buying at the wrong time of the year for the school year rollout. The tech was already at least 6 months old when it's installed for the fall semester.
This isn't a complaint, just an observation that technology is developing faster than academic funding provisions and scheduling. And for some (like us) in a challenging financial situation that is a deterrent for using the iPad in the classroom.
As an iPad 2 will run the current version of iOS, I assume you bought the original iPad and saved money. That did not work out so well. I am surprised that the school did not research the case to make sure that they did the right thing.
You'd be hard pressed to find many people choosing to buy two-year old Chromebooks
I used to be on the board of a small elementary school where we supplied iPads to students in grades 5-8 and figured out a way to manage the issue. Students graduation from 8th grade were offered an iPad to take away at the end of the year at a significant discount, which turned out to be a popular policy. (Part of the school's iPad costs, both acquisition and support, came out of textbook fees paid by students at the beginning of each school year.)
Might not work for larger schools, but seems to be working there, and since new machines are coming in each year, they can spread out acquisition costs and keep up with product life cycles.
Yes, it can be done well.
Similarly, my kid's school (small charter school in SLC area with about 200 students) give each student an iPad and a lot of their work is done with that. It works quite well. My son just started at the school and he was given an iPad 4 for his iPad this year. That is basically a 2 year old item that will be 3 years old at the end of the school year (rough numbers). Works just fine and is at the latest OS and handles all they do (including iMovie).
Aka pocket change
I'm all for iPad over the other guys' me-too devices, but this isn't a financial donation at this point. Surely there are good teachers or educational programs that could be taken on board to improve the curriculum, instead. How about introducing modern education concepts courses, like accommodation for different learning styles (instead of the binge and purge indoctrination format of the Prussian-industrial model), and critical thinking courses? How about re-funding arts and music departments?
As is, they're now going to be bought into the maintenance of new technology they have no experience with and currently don't have a service/maintenance contract or support personnel for (or do they dump existing computer tech and things like programming classes?). Then the added cost of buying into subscriptions to electronic textbooks (are they superior at all to the crap already on market in paper, are they supplementing or replacing them?), and tech support and training services for usage/management of the devices.
It seems like adding expenses, to me, not improving curriculum. I'm no Luddite. I like new technology when it makes sense. I think there are more education-critical areas that need funding, especially after the last governor spent his term devouring social programs in this state (yes, I'm a PA resident).
Unless educational software updates run differently from end user software, and unless they are maintained long term (I have endless examples of abandonware on my iPhone), this point is a good one. The lifespan is seriously hampered by OS upgrades. iOS 7 and 8 are perfect, relevant, recent examples. Even three years is bad. The investment is typically in computers that last five years, and everything else (non tech) that lasts way longer.