Irish school's attempt to replace books with HP tablets results in 'unmitigated disaster'
Major technical problems have forced an Irish secondary school to migrate its students back to paper books after their deployment of HP ElitePad tablets became what the school's principal termed "an unmitigated disaster."
Rather than purchasing traditional books at the beginning of the school term, students at Mountrath Community School in County Laois, Ireland, were instead made to buy HP ElitePad tablets running Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, reports the Irish Independent. The ?550 ($741) tablets have since frustrated students by refusing to power on, going to sleep unexpectedly, and experiencing hardware failures involving the devices' logic boards.
Mountrath principal Margin Gleeson wrote in a letter to parents that the "HP Elite Pad has proved to be an unmitigated disaster" and that a return to paper books --?at the school's expense -- was necessary to "ensure stability and continuity of education." The school is working with HP to address the issues, but there is no word on when, or if, the school will reintroduce the tablets in classrooms.
Gleeson told the Independent that the HP tablets were chosen after an 18-month investigatory period, during which the school searched for "a device that was effectively a computer in tablet form for our students, so it would have a word processor, sufficient memory etc." He called out the ElitePad's 64-gigabyte memory as especially impressive.
"We're not blaming anyone" for the failures, Gleeson said.
The timing of the debacle is especially poor for HP and Microsoft, as schools throughout the world prepare for a shift toward e-learning and the race for classroom technology spending heats up. Apple's iPad already enjoys a near monopoly in the sector with an estimated 94 percent share of the classroom tablet market, and the company's overall revenue from education topped $1 billion for the first time ever in the last fiscal quarter.
Rather than purchasing traditional books at the beginning of the school term, students at Mountrath Community School in County Laois, Ireland, were instead made to buy HP ElitePad tablets running Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, reports the Irish Independent. The ?550 ($741) tablets have since frustrated students by refusing to power on, going to sleep unexpectedly, and experiencing hardware failures involving the devices' logic boards.
Mountrath principal Margin Gleeson wrote in a letter to parents that the "HP Elite Pad has proved to be an unmitigated disaster" and that a return to paper books --?at the school's expense -- was necessary to "ensure stability and continuity of education." The school is working with HP to address the issues, but there is no word on when, or if, the school will reintroduce the tablets in classrooms.
Gleeson told the Independent that the HP tablets were chosen after an 18-month investigatory period, during which the school searched for "a device that was effectively a computer in tablet form for our students, so it would have a word processor, sufficient memory etc." He called out the ElitePad's 64-gigabyte memory as especially impressive.
"We're not blaming anyone" for the failures, Gleeson said.
The timing of the debacle is especially poor for HP and Microsoft, as schools throughout the world prepare for a shift toward e-learning and the race for classroom technology spending heats up. Apple's iPad already enjoys a near monopoly in the sector with an estimated 94 percent share of the classroom tablet market, and the company's overall revenue from education topped $1 billion for the first time ever in the last fiscal quarter.
Comments
Yeah, you should. Blame HP and MS. In addition, blame the dumbasses who thought it would have been a good idea in the first place.
Turns out that $741 per unit provided a valuable lesson to the students after all.
"We're not blaming anyone" for the failures, Gleeson said.
Yeah, you should. Blame HP and MS. In addition, blame the dumbasses who thought it would have been a good idea in the first place.
Correct!
The largest PC manufacturer in the world and what do they make? Crappy tablets! The largest software company in the world and what do they make? Crappy software!
And they wonder why they had problems! Ugh!
Haha, the dunces got what they deserved.
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Should've bought iPads!
Windows 8 is a dud. I have been a fan or Windows for over 2 decades. I don't understand Win 8. I also would never buy anything with the HP logo on it. Android or Apple really should have been their choice. What rational mind could have come up with Win 8 and HP. They should be fired.
For a minute there I thought this was my junior high school teacher describing me.
they should have expected that if it has hp ,windows 8 and tablet in the same sentence.
they should have expected that if it has hp ,windows 8 and tablet in the same sentence.
While it's the mfgt responsibility to deliver a working product, I'd blame the schools' IT guys. They should've tested this thoroughly, which obviously wasn't the case.
Still, HP makes crappy computers and crappy products. A Sony tablet may have been better. Or just an iPad for that price.
"We're not blaming anyone" for the failures, Gleeson said.
Yeah, you should. Blame HP and MS. In addition, blame the dumbasses who thought it would have been a good idea in the first place.
No, start with blaming yourself Mr. Gleeson for forsaking the tried and tested in favor of the new and unproved. You're an educator not a IT expert, why would you go out on a limb and go with a Windows tablet? Haven't you read any of the tons of negative reviews on the internet?
I think the school would say no one is to blame because 1) they don't want to hurt their chances with future deals from HP/Microsoft and 2) they would have to admit they were also to blame for making the choice to begin with.
But instead they submitted to the sales pressure of HP, which is a huge commercial presence in Ireland because that's where HP offshores much of its work and its taxes.
That the school's administrator doesn't take responsibility for this debacle is not surprising. This shirking of responsibility by authority happens a lot in that country (like the US) - from the politicians and bankers not taking responsibility for the massive banking and real estate fraud to the clergy not taking responsibility for what they allowed.
[edit to add that iPads may or may not have succeeded in this project but won't even be considered now]
If anything, AI readers should be gloomy that a migration from paper books to electronic version does poorly. If any conversion initiative succeeds we'll have some good basis for comparing how an iPad would have done better. At this point all we hear is that the initiative is going to be scrapped. That's bad for everyone and doesn't make iPad any more alluring for a project like this.