California university providing iPad Air bundle for 35,000 students

Posted:
in iPad edited July 2021
Up to 35,000 first-year and transfer students in the California State University school system will receive an iPad Air bundle to use throughout the entirety of their undergraduate program.




The new program, dubbed CSUESS (which stands for California State University Connectivity Contributing to Equity and Student Success,) is designed to create more equitable conditions and opportunities for students at CSU.

The university points out that half of all CSU undergrads receive Pell Grants -- grants that are awarded to students who display "exceptional need" -- and nearly a full third are the first in their family to pursue a bachelor's degree.

"CSUCCESS will assure that students have immediate access to innovative, new mobile tools they need to support their learning, particularly when faced with the lingering effects of the pandemic," said CSU Chancellor Joseph I. Castro. "The new initiative will establish a foundation for their achievement and has the potential to play a key role in eliminating stubborn equity gaps among our talented and diverse students. In addition to truly addressing equity and access, we see iPad Air as a powerful tool to prepare our students for their future careers."

Apple's Vice President of Education and Enterprise Marketing, Susan Prescott, spoke on the news of the initiative as well.

"At Apple, we believe that education is a powerful force for equity and opportunity, and that technology can empower all students to achieve their goals," she said. "We're thrilled that iPad Air and the incredible education apps in the App Store will be central to the experience at CSU campuses across California, and will play a part in the learning and career development of students from Humboldt to San Marcos."

Students who register for the initiative will receive an iPad Air, Apple Pencil, and a Smart Keyboard Folio. Students must be first-year students or transfer students coming to one of CSU's eight campuses.

In 2020, Apple highlighted how the iPad can help students of all ages overcome educational challenges. The tech giant showcased a school that used the iPad to teach eighth-graders how to tend to the school's community garden.

School staff in West Virginia recently convinced the Berkeley Board of Education to begin the switch from school-supplied Chromebooks to iPads. The board unanimously voted to provide the school system with 180 iPads distributed to teachers as part of a pilot program.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    We have been told by critics and analysts that Apple has lost its mojo in the educational market. Chromebooks are the go-to choice for schools now. So what’s up with this story? There’s another story mentioned here about a school district switching from Chromebooks to iPads. 

    I remember the good old days when parents would demand their school district buy Windows computers so their kids would learn how to use a REAL computer, one they would use in real life work. When my oldest son entered the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana the engineering lab was exclusively Macs running Mathematica. That must have been a shock to those parents and their kids.
    jas99Alex_Vwatto_cobraalexsaunders790
  • Reply 2 of 12
    prismaticsprismatics Posts: 164member
    I found the iPad to be useless for study except for very certain specific apps, but I frequently needed a desktop computer along the way. Maybe other study subjects are more suitable to be "consumed" on an iPad, but engineering/computer science is definitely not one of them...

    iPad is not a real computer, it is unsuitable for general purpose computing. A  windows computer or macOS computer is; However the decreasing quality of scientific applications on macOS or simply that they don't exist for macOS above 11.0 seems to discourage usage of macOS for study of engineering subjects at the place I am working at it seems. The Silicon transition leaves this field of computation completely behind, leaving Windows or Linux-based distributions the only choice.

    But iPad is brilliant for content consumption in the evening or simple relaxation while passively watching a lecture.
    edited July 2021 muthuk_vanalingamGeorgeBMacwatto_cobraalexsaunders790
  • Reply 3 of 12
    amar99amar99 Posts: 181member
    If by "equity" they meant a mediocre experience for all, I'd say they nailed it. And device aside, I don't understand how education has sunk so low as to teach things which are tactile, real-world skills, using a digital device. Why not go out into the garden, get your hands dirty, and teach by example? This means the teacher has to actually know something, rather than being a stooge pointing to a device. The idea that they "...teach eighth-graders how to tend to the school's community garden" using an iPad...just sounds sad. Maybe I'm wrong.
    edited July 2021 mobirdlkrupp
  • Reply 4 of 12
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,331member
    Wow, what a sweet deal. I would have loved to have had this type of tool available to me for undergrad electrical engineering. The iPadOS 15 Quick Note feature along with the Pencil and Smart Keyboard should be very popular. Being able to take snapshots of whiteboards/chalkboards and have the lecture notes, reference material, and textbooks available in electronic format rather than trying to write stuff down during lectures would be totally awesome. Having access to all manner of calculators, scientific, business, graphing and conversion tools, drawing tools, Microsoft Excel, Word, Pages, etc., ... definitely a huge improvement over what we had back in the olden days.
    danoxVermelho
  • Reply 5 of 12
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    amar99 said:
    If by "equity" they meant a mediocre experience for all, I'd say they nailed it. And device aside, I don't understand how education has sunk so low as to teach things which are tactile, real-world skills, using a digital device. Why not go out into the garden, get your hands dirty, and teach by example? This means the teacher has to actually know something, rather than being a stooge pointing to a device. The idea that they "...teach eighth-graders how to tend to the school's community garden" using an iPad...just sounds sad. Maybe I'm wrong.
    We're talking about college, not grade school. The assumption, which is usually wrong, is that most of your actual education has already occurred in K-12 with college being where you focus on "higher education." For me, this was true. College wasn't much more than regurgitating what I already learned in HS, including suing the same physics textbook. I did learn new things in my major but the rest was worthless. I went to college in the early 70's but at least back then there were technical classes beyond science ones. Now, I believe almost everything is non-technical, focusing on MBAs, legal degrees and things that really only need access to existing information, which can be found on-line. This doesn't include most science programs although many of those also have on-line resources that don't require local computing power. Even AutoCAD has web-based access and every single business program has web access to every database you want to learn about.

    Your comment about "teaching by example" started to go away when I attended college. I learned how to set type using an old Linotype machine along with hand-setting type. My computer class required a card-punching typewriter. Neither of these are in use or even available anything in high schools much less colleges. I felt I was born either 20 years early or 20 years late because I went through the hell of staring with old technology and having to learn on the job all the new publishing technologies. Forty years of constant change blew my mind and nothing I did in K-12 and college really helped me get through those forty years, except reading, writing, and of course the other "R" arithmetic (stupid person who came up with the three R's who couldn't spell). 

    Fast forward to 2021 and it doesn't really matter what tablet or fake computer you have, almost everything can be taught using on-line resources. This also means students don't have to purchase over-priced, professor-written, worthless textbooks you can't resell. For those people who want to be artists (open your mind to what an artist actually is), college isn't always the place to go. In fact, it was a waste of money for me, my parents, and the scholarships I received because the year I got out, I started working on electronic publication systems (this was prior to Macs and PCs), fixing the hardware, then managing a large scale in-house system that nobody in high school or college even dreamed about. What really makes me mad is kids are still pushed to waste money on college when the piece of paper they get doesn't get them a job that will pay off their college expenses. I actually think more current high school students are better prepared for the job market now without going to college and just learning on-the-job or taking specific on-line courses for the job they're working at. As for all the college graduates who end up working at food service and similar jobs, college really was a waste. 

    Time to think differently about so-called higher education.

    disclaimer: Of course scientific jobs benefit from higher education as long as the college has lots of money to support their labs. 
    ronnAlex_VVermelhowatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 12
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    This isn't about teaching computing basics to new students. It's expected that these incoming students know basic computing since that's how college applications are filed anyhow.

    This is more about providing a standardized content delivery platform so that students with modest backgrounds have the same access to the educational tools as the ones whose families can afford fancier technology. This also streamlines content creation (textbooks, multimedia content, lesson materials, etc.) for the faculty.

    Not all of the CSU schools are equal and certainly various majors attract a wide diversity of people. If I recall correctly, CSU Riverside has a large number of incoming freshmen who are the first in their family to go to college. It's not just the School of Engineering kids at San Jose State.

    Things that college can hone is deductive reasoning and critical thinking, two skills that many AI commenters seems to failed to pick up on. It also proves that you can FINISH something. Set a goal, pick a timeline and see if you can hit it. In the business world, this is really important to do. In high school, your parents will prod you to make sure you are doing what you need to be doing. In college, YOU -- as an adult -- are responsible for getting it done.

    CSU's distribution of iPads isn't about getting kids familiar with a mouse/stylus/keyboard. They already know about computing: they all have smartphones. Remember that Steve himself called the iPhone "the computer for the rest of us."


    ronnAlex_Vtmaydewme
  • Reply 7 of 12
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,800member
    rob53 said:
    amar99 said:
    If by "equity" they meant a mediocre experience for all, I'd say they nailed it. And device aside, I don't understand how education has sunk so low as to teach things which are tactile, real-world skills, using a digital device. Why not go out into the garden, get your hands dirty, and teach by example? This means the teacher has to actually know something, rather than being a stooge pointing to a device. The idea that they "...teach eighth-graders how to tend to the school's community garden" using an iPad...just sounds sad. Maybe I'm wrong.
    We're talking about college, not grade school. The assumption, which is usually wrong, is that most of your actual education has already occurred in K-12 with college being where you focus on "higher education." For me, this was true. College wasn't much more than regurgitating what I already learned in HS, including suing the same physics textbook. I did learn new things in my major but the rest was worthless. I went to college in the early 70's but at least back then there were technical classes beyond science ones. Now, I believe almost everything is non-technical, focusing on MBAs, legal degrees and things that really only need access to existing information, which can be found on-line. This doesn't include most science programs although many of those also have on-line resources that don't require local computing power. Even AutoCAD has web-based access and every single business program has web access to every database you want to learn about.

    Your comment about "teaching by example" started to go away when I attended college. I learned how to set type using an old Linotype machine along with hand-setting type. My computer class required a card-punching typewriter. Neither of these are in use or even available anything in high schools much less colleges. I felt I was born either 20 years early or 20 years late because I went through the hell of staring with old technology and having to learn on the job all the new publishing technologies. Forty years of constant change blew my mind and nothing I did in K-12 and college really helped me get through those forty years, except reading, writing, and of course the other "R" arithmetic (stupid person who came up with the three R's who couldn't spell). 

    Fast forward to 2021 and it doesn't really matter what tablet or fake computer you have, almost everything can be taught using on-line resources. This also means students don't have to purchase over-priced, professor-written, worthless textbooks you can't resell. For those people who want to be artists (open your mind to what an artist actually is), college isn't always the place to go. In fact, it was a waste of money for me, my parents, and the scholarships I received because the year I got out, I started working on electronic publication systems (this was prior to Macs and PCs), fixing the hardware, then managing a large scale in-house system that nobody in high school or college even dreamed about. What really makes me mad is kids are still pushed to waste money on college when the piece of paper they get doesn't get them a job that will pay off their college expenses. I actually think more current high school students are better prepared for the job market now without going to college and just learning on-the-job or taking specific on-line courses for the job they're working at. As for all the college graduates who end up working at food service and similar jobs, college really was a waste. 

    Time to think differently about so-called higher education.

    disclaimer: Of course scientific jobs benefit from higher education as long as the college has lots of money to support their labs. 

    If you now how to use AutoCad, Revit, and Navis Manage before getting out high school you can have a well paid job the summer right after high school, the same goes for knowing Xcode, Swift and Metal in a different field. That 2, 4, or 5 degree can come little later.

    Fire sprinkler design, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical construction fields, the need for people who know how to use AutoCad, Revit, and Navis Manage is now not 5 years from now and there many other construction sub-contractors aside from the ones I mention who need the same thing.

    Apple iPads are all over the place in construction these day’s, along with Trimble and BIM manager’s. (Big Bucks and no loan debt to those who can).
    Alex_V
  • Reply 8 of 12
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,331member
    mpantone said:
    This isn't about teaching computing basics to new students. It's expected that these incoming students know basic computing since that's how college applications are filed anyhow.

    This is more about providing a standardized content delivery platform so that students with modest backgrounds have the same access to the educational tools as the ones whose families can afford fancier technology. This also streamlines content creation (textbooks, multimedia content, lesson materials, etc.) for the faculty.

    Not all of the CSU schools are equal and certainly various majors attract a wide diversity of people. If I recall correctly, CSU Riverside has a large number of incoming freshmen who are the first in their family to go to college. It's not just the School of Engineering kids at San Jose State.

    Things that college can hone is deductive reasoning and critical thinking, two skills that many AI commenters seems to failed to pick up on. It also proves that you can FINISH something. Set a goal, pick a timeline and see if you can hit it. In the business world, this is really important to do. In high school, your parents will prod you to make sure you are doing what you need to be doing. In college, YOU -- as an adult -- are responsible for getting it done.

    CSU's distribution of iPads isn't about getting kids familiar with a mouse/stylus/keyboard. They already know about computing: they all have smartphones. Remember that Steve himself called the iPhone "the computer for the rest of us."


    Excellent post, thank you.

    The iPad is simply a tool. If it can help streamline the administration of the learning process, both for the student and the teacher, it will more than earn its keep. As someone who was the first in my family to graduate from high school and college, the most important thing that I learned in college, in the military, in corporate training programs, and on the job, was to learn how to learn and to always be climbing the learning curve.

    If tools like the iPad, a Chromebook, a Mac, a PC, or a Kindle make it easier for you to stay on the learning curve, they deserve a place in your toolbox for lifetime learning. If providing iPads to these CSU students gives them a tool that will help them navigate their own learning curve for the next few years, it’s all good. They’ll acquire more tools later on, depending on their career and life path. No one tool needs to do it all.

    I know that I would be thrilled, if only to not have to lug around a backpack full of hardcover books, notepads, a calculator, etc., and to be able to devote more of my in-class attention to what the teacher is presenting that’s not in the books. 
  • Reply 9 of 12
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    My own experience assisting my 8th grade grandson through 8th grade cyber school is that an iPad, trackpad, keyboard and pencil are great helps: they do a fantastic job at those things they are able to do.   But, they are not adequate to do the entire job:   you also need a laptop.

    But, the limitations of the iPad to do laptop level work are all fixable software deficiencies.

    So, this major contract is a good thing in that it may open Apple's eyes while giving them a kick in the butt to resolve those software deficiencies quickly and effectively and bring the iPad up to its full potential.

    This is not new:  the iPad 6 was created in March 2018 with great fanfare for education.   But, while educational Microsoft and Google products have seen exponential growth in education iPads have, with a few minor exceptions, mostly languished.

    Time to get serious about this Apple!
  • Reply 10 of 12
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    dewme said:
    mpantone said:
    This isn't about teaching computing basics to new students. It's expected that these incoming students know basic computing since that's how college applications are filed anyhow.

    This is more about providing a standardized content delivery platform so that students with modest backgrounds have the same access to the educational tools as the ones whose families can afford fancier technology. This also streamlines content creation (textbooks, multimedia content, lesson materials, etc.) for the faculty.

    Not all of the CSU schools are equal and certainly various majors attract a wide diversity of people. If I recall correctly, CSU Riverside has a large number of incoming freshmen who are the first in their family to go to college. It's not just the School of Engineering kids at San Jose State.

    Things that college can hone is deductive reasoning and critical thinking, two skills that many AI commenters seems to failed to pick up on. It also proves that you can FINISH something. Set a goal, pick a timeline and see if you can hit it. In the business world, this is really important to do. In high school, your parents will prod you to make sure you are doing what you need to be doing. In college, YOU -- as an adult -- are responsible for getting it done.

    CSU's distribution of iPads isn't about getting kids familiar with a mouse/stylus/keyboard. They already know about computing: they all have smartphones. Remember that Steve himself called the iPhone "the computer for the rest of us."


    Excellent post, thank you.

    The iPad is simply a tool. If it can help streamline the administration of the learning process, both for the student and the teacher, it will more than earn its keep. As someone who was the first in my family to graduate from high school and college, the most important thing that I learned in college, in the military, in corporate training programs, and on the job, was to learn how to learn and to always be climbing the learning curve.

    If tools like the iPad, a Chromebook, a Mac, a PC, or a Kindle make it easier for you to stay on the learning curve, they deserve a place in your toolbox for lifetime learning. If providing iPads to these CSU students gives them a tool that will help them navigate their own learning curve for the next few years, it’s all good. They’ll acquire more tools later on, depending on their career and life path. No one tool needs to do it all.

    I know that I would be thrilled, if only to not have to lug around a backpack full of hardcover books, notepads, a calculator, etc., and to be able to devote more of my in-class attention to what the teacher is presenting that’s not in the books. 

    Well yeh, it's a tool.  Agreed.
    But, most seem to agree that, due to software limitations, the iPad, even with attached keyboard and trackpad, is not up to doing laptop level work.

    Your point about not having to lug around a 20 pound backpack stuffed with "hardcover books, notepads, a calculator, etc." is a a good one.  But, it applies to computers as well:
    For my 8th grade grandson, his combination of iPad and MacBook worked great while he was in cyberschool.  But, when he returned to the classroom, he needed a 2 in 1 because he was not about to lug two devices around when one would do.

  • Reply 11 of 12
    larryjwlarryjw Posts: 1,031member
    For education, you would need an iPad + pencil + MBAir. 

    But, the student also needs to know how to use these devices for education -- not for playing games. 

    One study showed that use of technology at the university split the student body into two groups: those for whom the technology was beneficial, the other for which the technology was harmful. The gap between these groups expanded significantly. Further review showed that the split was between students who knew how to use technology to help their learning, the other had used technology for entertainment and games. 

    The University suspended tech use, generally, until the group doing poorly was trained on the appropriate use of tech for learning and study. 

    At the same time, the pandemic forced campus universities to offer online educational resources as well as the need to address "non-traditional students" and online educational institutions like EdX, Coursera, Phoenix and MIT, which has been making some lecture courses available for some 50 years. 

    The same is true for secondary schools. The digital divide needs to be closed. 

    Whatever one thinks of this process, that's where it's all headed. Will it be successful? I'm not hopeful. The US is a country of cowboys -- everybody doing their own thing. The teachers in secondary schools were thrown under the bus, as were kids without easy online access. Demands for management was not followed by support known to work. It's the same on university campuses. 
    edited December 2021
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