California university providing iPad Air bundle for 35,000 students
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.
Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast -- and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.
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.
Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast -- and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.
Comments
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.
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.
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."
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).
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.
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.