Georgia state senator hopes to replace schoolbooks with iPads

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  • Reply 61 of 159
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ltcompuser View Post


    I'd rather have my children *suffer* from iPad eye strain, than suffer life long back pains due to the ridiculous amount of books they carry in their backpacks.



    How do you know that carrying some books around as an adolescent will cause life-long back problems?
  • Reply 62 of 159
    iPads are closed devices provided by a single vendor. Why on earth would you want to lock your educational curriculum to that sort of model. Further, Apple has a history or blocking apps from their App Store solely because Apple disagrees with its content. Is that the sort of precedent we want to set? Is that the example we want for children?



    This is a horrible idea.
  • Reply 63 of 159
    Give $500 glass slates to kids in school? Oh yeah, great idea...
  • Reply 64 of 159
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Thank you.



    I am 32 now. When I was in Grade 7 there was a revolution in schools at the time: overhead projectors (remember those?)... Printed material was able to be projected onto the "chalkboard" (which thankfully was a whiteboard by the time I started Grade 7). And teachers could annotate on-the-fly by writing on the transparency.



    In a few years time there was this transparent screen you could hook up to a laptop and you put that on top of the overhead projector. Voila! Birth of computer projection onto a screen in schools.



    Forward 18 years to the present - how are we going to expect teenagers to graduate into a world where you need to use computers, tablets and mobile phones to survive if they are stuck with paper and pencil throughout their education?



    Engage them with modern tools but of course the cover the fundamentals of thinking (not dogma!).



    Unfortunately what I foresee happening in a lot of schools is they want to get "with it" but instead of iPads they buy up garbage Android junkblets which I would say is worse than traditional methods.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. Me View Post


    This is your first post. It is therefore an unimpeachable fact that no one was talking about you. Just like the nonsense you wrote about the "hints" above, virtually everything else you wrote is also nonsense:
    • Children are sent to school to learn from their teachers in a controlled environment, not from the World. Otherwise, we would send them to the farm field, factory floor, office tower, or into the street to form roving bands of feral youth.

    • The iPad touchscreen is not more limiting than the printed page and "some programmer's" judgement is no less valid than the arbitrary printer's.

    • There is much more to learning than looking-up facts. Personally, I revere books. However, up-to-the-minute, even up-to-the-second information is readily at hand on an iPad.

    Make no mistake. My personal skepticism for technology is as healthy as my respect for its potential. The most important thing is the content, not the technology. We all know the limits of textbooks. This is why many textbooks today include a CD and/or links to online material. OTOH, the iPad is a newborn. Future versions will be more powerful with many more resources dedicated to them.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pmz View Post


    Whether or not children learn at school depends on these factors:



    1. Parents.

    2. Teachers.

    3. Curriculum.



    In that order. If the parents are educated and involved, the teachers are competent teachers and not repeaters, and the curriculum is factual instead of biased unreality, the kids stand a chance.



    iPads are irrelevant to the learning process. They could simplify a childs organization, eliminate the insanity of carrying heavy books of which 6 pages are used, and remove the evil and unnecessary extortion known as the publishing of text books. Good things.



    They are no more of a distraction than the pretty girl or handsome boy sitting next to you.



    It staggers me how many "things" get blamed for poor education, when in reality it only comes down to the faults of the adults involved.



    ...and as far as your comment re: intelligent design. the only "criminally insane concept" being taught in school is the one that excludes critical thinking. If you've not taught students that the only thing in the world that matters is their ability to make up their own mind....then you haven't done your job at all.



  • Reply 65 of 159
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    Give $500 glass slates to kids in school? Oh yeah, great idea...



    Strange, many schools around the world have been giving $999 laptops to kids for several years now. I wonder how that worked out...
  • Reply 66 of 159
    doroteadorotea Posts: 323member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rcoleman1 View Post


    Education with iPads makes learning fun...maybe kids will love to learn again!



    Maybe they will be careless in the way all kids are careless and break the iPad. Lousy idea.
  • Reply 67 of 159
    jr_bjr_b Posts: 64member
    Pros: Too many to list.



    Cons: Cost per child. To easy for someone to modify books to their version of how history should be portrayed.
  • Reply 68 of 159
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by derekmorr View Post


    iPads are closed devices provided by a single vendor. Why on earth would you want to lock your educational curriculum to that sort of model. Further, Apple has a history or blocking apps from their App Store solely because Apple disagrees with its content. Is that the sort of precedent we want to set? Is that the example we want for children?



    This is a horrible idea.



    Right, give them Android tablets or crappy netbooks and they can download all the viruses, porn, malware, crapware, and adware they want. Oh, and did I mention porn? Of which they are mostly delivered as Flash video?



    Also, I'm sure you might have heard that through the Enterprise (and I'm sure eventually there will be education-specific channels) program, anybody can install custom apps on their iPad without having to go through the App Store.
  • Reply 69 of 159
    The US is getting mired down in problems that are related to its disastrous parenting practices and its appalling education system.



    iPads in the classroom are a good idea, but probably won't work. It's too late.



    Finland wipes the floor with their US peers. Wipes the floor. Hell, you don't even need to get to the schools to figure out why that is. Just look around the airports. Look at Atlanta, for instance. What a bunch of fat slobs and shabby crap everywhere. And the cities are like sewers of crime and dysfunction.



    Every school age kid dresses and acts like baby, moping around ghetto shit fashion. Keep it there.
  • Reply 70 of 159
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jr_b View Post


    Cons: Cost per child. To easy for someone to modify books to their version of how history should be portrayed.



    Yeah like the books kids are given in these past 500 years are the correct version of how history should be portrayed... Nice one.
  • Reply 71 of 159
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dorotea View Post


    Maybe they will be careless in the way all kids are careless and break the iPad. Lousy idea.



    Maybe schools actually have had functioning one-to-one MacBook programs. I wonder if those were lousy ideas. Note that the cost of those programs are 200% of any iPad program.
  • Reply 72 of 159
    This argument against using tody’s newer tech for students is the same argument for book and PCs at various times in the history of civilization.



    Books/PCs are so expensive.

    Students can deface the books/PCs.

    Students can destroy the books/PCs.

    You can’t learn real-world skills with a book/PC.
  • Reply 73 of 159
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    In 5 years it will be pretty much impossible to do any sort of "computing" without a MINIMUM of a 2mbit connection (actually, in 2015 anything less than 5mbit/sec down will probably be worthless). In fact, think of everything you do today. The stuff that needs an online connection is already in the majority for most people. And yes I have a broader interpretation of The Cloud. It is not a central mainframe but multiple mainframes... Look at it now - we have Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. I don't think Google will dominate, they don't have enough of a cohesive strategy to be the Windows of the Internet. Maybe the Windows of mobile devices (though at less of a market share than Windows).



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    The Cloud will be dead in 5 years. Another version will take it's place and we'll continue to try and reinvent the idea of Oracle's Network Appliance while never getting it.



    Google and the idea we rely on a CENTRAL MAINFRAME [GOOGLE] distributing all Information is f'n absurd.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    Are you sure it permanently locks the device? I thought you could only lock and wipe settings (i.e. A simple reflash and you have a perfectly working iPad again)





    Wow... really? \



    You've got to have a much narrower idea of what The Cloud is than I do, because I can't think of a single conceivable situation that would end up with Cloud Computing being dead in 5 years!



  • Reply 74 of 159
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by resnyc View Post


    Why bother with a mobile device at all (with all the maintenance and content-control [for children] issues)? The textbooks should all be accessible from The Cloud, tapped into from classroom desktops (literally: built into the desks, not sitting on top) and at-home laptops/desktops/tablets. Elementary-age kids shouldn't be carrying around state-issued $500 devices any more than they should have 40 lbs of textbooks riding in their backpacks.



    Right... and the children will lug these cloud-enabled classroom desks to the library, park, house, etc?



    Jeezus people, I've been gone a week and already things are going down the tubes here!

    On a side note, sorry for the multiple post intensity. As I said, I've been gone a week.
  • Reply 75 of 159
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gabrielsolomon View Post


    I teach middle schoolers. They need to be stimulated and interested in their subject and in each other, not some silly device (however "magical") that will look like a doorstop before they graduate from high school. Think about it: Books were around when we were in school, and when our parents and their parents went to school. If too many are being hauled back and forth, solve that problem - don't introduce a different one. Bad books? Get good ones, preferably those unpolluted by criminally insane concepts such as intelligent design. Books aren't up to date? The lesson is that not all knowledge can be found inside a book. What if students never wondered what existed outside of their little touchscreen?



    Clay tablets were around before any of our parents. If clay tablets were good enough for the Babylonians, they should be good enough for our kids.



    The problem of weight can't be simply dismissed. My daughter weighs around 110 pound. Her backpack weighs 25 - on a good day. Add in the other things she has to carry and it's a problem.



    Outdated books? I see that you've discarded that one with "all knowledge can't be found inside a book". So let's not get them books at all. That would save even MORE money. The fact is that keeping and maintaining books is so expensive that schools don't do it. It's sad to see a high school using science books that are 30 years old.





    [QUOTE=gabrielsolomon;1801980I am not some luddite or flippant apple hater as has been hinted at in the above comments. I love Macs and iOS as much as the next guy. However, we should always question the way we use tools and technology, including books, to educate our children. Children go to school not to learn facts or information - they go to school to learn how to learn from each other and directly from the world, not mitigated by a touchscreen and some programmer's idea of what is important. Can an iPad help them do this? Not in middle school. And after all, when they want to look up a "fact", iPads will still be around, as will books.[/QUOTE]



    You're rejecting something on the basis of unfounded biases. Every complaint you have applies to books every bit as much as to iPads (even more so - since it's easy to update the software on an iPad but more expensive to replace a hard cover book).



    You're confusing the tool with the learning. A good teacher makes use of whatever tool is available. A bad teacher is a bad teacher no matter what tools you give them. The tool should supplement the teacher - and not get in the way. The iPad's flexibility offers the potential to support the teacher in many more ways than a book ever could. If a teacher can't take advantage of an iPad's benefits, they probably weren't a very good teacher with books, either.



    At the simplest level, the iPad could be nothing more than a portable book. You could have all your existing text books on the iPad and continue to teach exactly the way you have - except with lower overall cost and reduced backstrain on the students. Then, the better of a teacher you are, the more benefits you could obtain.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pmz View Post


    Whether or not children learn at school depends on these factors:



    1. Parents.

    2. Teachers.

    3. Curriculum.



    In that order. If the parents are educated and involved, the teachers are competent teachers and not repeaters, and the curriculum is factual instead of biased unreality, the kids stand a chance.



    iPads are irrelevant to the learning process. They could simplify a childs organization, eliminate the insanity of carrying heavy books of which 6 pages are used, and remove the evil and unnecessary extortion known as the publishing of text books. Good things.



    They are no more of a distraction than the pretty girl or handsome boy sitting next to you.



    It staggers me how many "things" get blamed for poor education, when in reality it only comes down to the faults of the adults involved.



    I agree completely. It's a tool - and a good teacher should be able to benefit from it. The bad teachers are probably still fighting the change from clay tablets to paper.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pmz View Post


    ...and as far as your comment re: intelligent design. the only "criminally insane concept" being taught in school is the one that excludes critical thinking. If you've not taught students that the only thing in the world that matters is their ability to make up their own mind....then you haven't done your job at all.



    Not entirely. "Intelligent Design" involves outright fabrication and lies. We should not be lying to our students.



    Furthermore, we shouldn't be teaching students that the only thing that matters is their ability to make up their own mind. If I make up my mind that I'm entitled to your money, isn't that the only thing that matters?



    What matters is FACTS, REALITY, and fundamental principles.



    Now, if we're teaching students properly, they should be able to discern how silly Intelligent Design is. But it's not simply a matter of making up their minds.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mesomorphicman View Post


    Cons:

    Not to sound negative, but kids get beat-up and mugged for iPods and iPhones, what will happen to kids toting around a $500-600 iPad? What about inner-city (and suburban) kids getting robbed for one of these? It would be extremely negative and sad if down the road a story comes up of some kid being beaten or worse yet murdered for his/her iPad. Also, you can drop a book and no one cares - nothing happens, what if some kid drops their iPad and breaks it - who's responsible, who pays for it? Not every parent can afford to pay out hundreds of dollars to replace one.



    That's really the only logical argument I've seen. Kids get beat up and killed for a pair of sneakers. An iPad could be far more tempting.



    I suspect that in some of the worst school districts that the iPads will be required to stay at school - which negates some of the benefits. Schools will probably attempt to ameliorate that by offering all the same information online so the kids can do their work at home on a home computer, but that penalizes the kids who don't have a computer at home (which, not coincidentally, probably overlaps significantly with the neighborhoods where it's not safe to bring an iPad home).



    I don't know the solution to that - but it's still something that needs to be looked at.
  • Reply 76 of 159
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by derekmorr View Post


    iPads are closed devices provided by a single vendor. Why on earth would you want to lock your educational curriculum to that sort of model. Further, Apple has a history or blocking apps from their App Store solely because Apple disagrees with its content. Is that the sort of precedent we want to set? Is that the example we want for children?



    This is a horrible idea.



    Unlike certain states where it is the actual knowledge the school board can block from the schools, iPads will open a window to all knowledge. Apple don't block any such things they are only blocking items that breach their terms of use which has nothing to do with let's say 'evolution' for example.



    It will be interesting to watch those sort of school boards actually fear the iPad's introduction in the same way certain entire countries fear freedom of the press and the internet.
  • Reply 77 of 159
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    Clay tablets were around before any of our parents. If clay tablets were good enough for the Babylonians, they should be good enough for our kids.



    The problem of weight can't be simply dismissed. My daughter weighs around 110 pound. Her backpack weighs 25 - on a good day. Add in the other things she has to carry and it's a problem.



    Outdated books? I see that you've discarded that one with "all knowledge can't be found inside a book". So let's not get them books at all. That would save even MORE money. The fact is that keeping and maintaining books is so expensive that schools don't do it. It's sad to see a high school using science books that are 30 years old.









    You're rejecting something on the basis of unfounded biases. Every complaint you have applies to books every bit as much as to iPads (even more so - since it's easy to update the software on an iPad but more expensive to replace a hard cover book).



    You're confusing the tool with the learning. A good teacher makes use of whatever tool is available. A bad teacher is a bad teacher no matter what tools you give them. The tool should supplement the teacher - and not get in the way. The iPad's flexibility offers the potential to support the teacher in many more ways than a book ever could. If a teacher can't take advantage of an iPad's benefits, they probably weren't a very good teacher with books, either.



    At the simplest level, the iPad could be nothing more than a portable book. You could have all your existing text books on the iPad and continue to teach exactly the way you have - except with lower overall cost and reduced backstrain on the students. Then, the better of a teacher you are, the more benefits you could obtain.









    I agree completely. It's a tool - and a good teacher should be able to benefit from it. The bad teachers are probably still fighting the change from clay tablets to paper.







    Not entirely. "Intelligent Design" involves outright fabrication and lies. We should not be lying to our students.



    Furthermore, we shouldn't be teaching students that the only thing that matters is their ability to make up their own mind. If I make up my mind that I'm entitled to your money, isn't that the only thing that matters?



    What matters is FACTS, REALITY, and fundamental principles.



    Now, if we're teaching students properly, they should be able to discern how silly Intelligent Design is. But it's not simply a matter of making up their minds.









    That's really the only logical argument I've seen. Kids get beat up and killed for a pair of sneakers. An iPad could be far more tempting.



    I suspect that in some of the worst school districts that the iPads will be required to stay at school - which negates some of the benefits. Schools will probably attempt to ameliorate that by offering all the same information online so the kids can do their work at home on a home computer, but that penalizes the kids who don't have a computer at home (which, not coincidentally, probably overlaps significantly with the neighborhoods where it's not safe to bring an iPad home).



    I don't know the solution to that - but it's still something that needs to be looked at.



    An excellent post.
  • Reply 78 of 159
    I'll believe it when I see it. Georgia is currently backsliding into the dark ages. Many in our government probably think that iPads are the 'devil's work.' They are trying to set up gold as currency and eliminate driver's licenses and do away with all regulations.
  • Reply 79 of 159
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    Not entirely. "Intelligent Design" involves outright fabrication and lies. We should not be lying to our students.



    Furthermore, we shouldn't be teaching students that the only thing that matters is their ability to make up their own mind. If I make up my mind that I'm entitled to your money, isn't that the only thing that matters?



    What matters is FACTS, REALITY, and fundamental principles.



    Now, if we're teaching students properly, they should be able to discern how silly Intelligent Design is. But it's not simply a matter of making up their minds.



    Lots of predetermined BS in this post. Who are you to say that intelligent design is real, or not real? Unfortunately you and I both have precisely ZERO evidence to contribute to the discussion. No one does, anywhere. Nothing pisses me off more than someone who thinks they know the unknowable.



    As far as your facts and reality, have you been in a school lately? Who is determining these kids' reality? I hate to break it to you, but at least half of what I've heard kids repeating from school is flat out wrong.

    Some teachers actually follow along with the text book where it says Oswald killed Kennedy. I don't know of any intelligent person anywhere that actually believes that. So why is it still being taught?



    Critical thinking is all that matters. It's all-encompassing of logic, common sense, and open-ended decision making. Your analogy of deciding your money should be mine is ridiculous and does not apply to the concept of critical thinking. A thinking kid knows that stealing is wrong, will get him into trouble he doesn't want, and is all around a bad move.



    Thank you, actually, for proving how important critical thinking is. That disastrous example was the best you could come up with. But if critical thinking were your number one skill, you would have thought right past the snarky-ness, to the logic.
  • Reply 80 of 159
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Right, give them Android tablets or crappy netbooks and they can download all the viruses, porn, malware, crapware, and adware they want. Oh, and did I mention porn? Of which they are mostly delivered as Flash video?



    Why are idiotic fanboys so obsessed with porn ?
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