[lynchburgwildcats]

On a freezing, cloudless day last January in New York, Apple presented to the world its vision for the future of education. It was a clear-eyed argument for bringing tablets into classrooms, a blueprint for fusing cutting-edge technology with advanced learning techniques.

http://gizmodo.com/5952482/amazon-just- ... -classroom

[Hold My Own]

Speaking from everything I hear from my wife, Apple is completely unwilling to cut education or schools any slack. Apple has to come up with a better game plan for school systems because right now it seems as if they are very anti education.

[Sly Fox]

Apple is all about bleeding every penny out of every source possible. If you are looking for a company that is looking out for anyone's interests other than their own, pass right on by. I appreciate their capitalist zeal but come on.

[RubberMallet]

Speaking from everything I hear from my wife, Apple is completely unwilling to cut education or schools any slack. Apple has to come up with a better game plan for school systems because right now it seems as if they are very anti education.

they don't really have to because schools are still buying the crap out of them. when i hear them speak at our edu-tech conferences i'm blown away by their arrogance but i'm equally blown away by teachers and techs getting completely sucked into it.

[LUconn]

K-12 was always apples in the classroom back when apple was a joke. Is this just a carryover from that?

[alabama24]

You guys are all "smoking de weed."

[RubberMallet]

K-12 was always apples in the classroom back when apple was a joke. Is this just a carryover from that?

in elementary, i imagine so. its fairly simple computing. i talk to tons of schools that are full apple = elementary / windows = hs/jr high.

the problem that apple will always have in schools is that open directory is a complete turd. when you have apple representatives urging schools to not purchase open directory but use active directory (microsoft) thats not good. especially when the schools will still buy open directory and then be like "THIS ISNT WORKING!!!" or buying ipads and going "WHY CANT I LOCK DOWN ANYTHING"

and i'm like

[NotAJerry]

I'm starting to see a shift on the ed tech approach locally. I devised a plan to go fully BYOD for Prince William County, VA (2nd wealthiest school district in VA) as my capstone project for my M.Ed. and they took my advice of going web 2.0 instead of apps and thus using something like a Kindle Fire (and now Nexus 7) instead of the much higher priced iPad options. I think you might start seeing that shift slowly happen as other products are at least equal in quality and clearly have a better price point.

[RubberMallet]

we are seeing some chromebooks but most tablet 1:1 in the midwest/west is ipad.

byod is going to have schools falling flat on their face. its a crappy solution to dealing with affordability problems to 1:1 programs. in a system where haves and have nots is already a problem, you are going to futher that by having kids that can afford it bring in devices, and have the poorer kids do what? fall further behind? give them school issued books that have "SCHOOL NAME" spray painted on them? yeah they won't get picked on.

nevermind imagine a classroom setting "everyone go to blah blah blah on their device" ...."how do i do that on my hacked up hp tablet my dad got on sale for 99 dollars?" teacher =

[NotAJerry]

we are seeing some chromebooks but most tablet 1:1 in the midwest/west is ipad.

byod is going to have schools falling flat on their face. its a crappy solution to dealing with affordability problems to 1:1 programs. in a system where haves and have nots is already a problem, you are going to futher that by having kids that can afford it bring in devices, and have the poorer kids do what? fall further behind? give them school issued books that have "SCHOOL NAME" spray painted on them? yeah they won't get picked on.

nevermind imagine a classroom setting "everyone go to blah blah blah on their device" ...."how do i do that on my hacked up hp tablet my dad got on sale for 99 dollars?" teacher =

BYOD drops the price point for things like textbooks to nearly zero once the teachers understand what they have at their disposal. Throw in the idea of doing a program that runs somewhat akin to the school lunch program, which won't need more money dedicated to schools due to the savings on the massive textbook prices, and you've got the have/have not problem taken care of. That's also why you go web 2.0, where you can run entirely off of free options, instead of apps that mostly aren't cross platform. At that point you only have to set minimum standards and provide those to students who can't afford them.

It also requires getting rid of the tired homework concept. Go project based, store the devices at school, and remove the gobs of homework for three reasons: 1) If a teacher can't communicate the necessary information during the class time then they need to get better at their job 2) We tell people not to take their work home with them, why should school be different 3) Studies are showing homework to either give equivalent results, or often negative results, compared to a no homework approach.

It takes a rethinking of the education system that stops letting publishers getting rich off of textbooks, and politicians taking the easy way out just to say they're doing something, by dropping the ridiculously flawed standardized testing approach of things like NCLB.

[SumItUp]

Let's ban homework! The French are proposing it.

[NotAJerry]

Let's ban homework! The French are proposing it.

No, 10 years of research is proposing it.

[lynchburgwildcats]

Apple is all about bleeding every penny out of every source possible. If you are looking for a company that is looking out for anyone's interests other than their own, pass right on by. I appreciate their capitalist zeal but come on.

+1

[lynchburgwildcats]

Speaking from everything I hear from my wife, Apple is completely unwilling to cut education or schools any slack. Apple has to come up with a better game plan for school systems because right now it seems as if they are very anti education.

they don't really have to because schools are still buying the crap out of them. when i hear them speak at our edu-tech conferences i'm blown away by their arrogance but i'm equally blown away by teachers and techs getting completely sucked into it.

It's because people are stupid and buy into hype and stereotypes. I do a lot of design work that design freaks say is much easier to do on Apple. I have zero issues doing it on a Windows machine that cost less than half of what people across campus use to do the similar type of work. Maybe it is easier, I wouldn't know, but is it worth at least $800? I highly doubt it unless the Apple versions of Adobe products automate everything I do.

Same goes with iPads and quality android tablets. My brother spent $600 on an iPad. I spent $250 on an Android-powered Nexus 7. Only thing I know his iPad does that I wish my Nexus 7 could do is the History Channel's Civil War app. And you can't even really call that an iPad feature since it's a third-party app.

Apple makes good equipment, but what Best Buy is to consumer electronics stores, Apple is that to the computer/phone/tablet world - good products and service but at awful deals.

[RubberMallet]

we are seeing some chromebooks but most tablet 1:1 in the midwest/west is ipad.

byod is going to have schools falling flat on their face. its a crappy solution to dealing with affordability problems to 1:1 programs. in a system where haves and have nots is already a problem, you are going to futher that by having kids that can afford it bring in devices, and have the poorer kids do what? fall further behind? give them school issued books that have "SCHOOL NAME" spray painted on them? yeah they won't get picked on.

nevermind imagine a classroom setting "everyone go to blah blah blah on their device" ...."how do i do that on my hacked up hp tablet my dad got on sale for 99 dollars?" teacher =

BYOD drops the price point for things like textbooks to nearly zero once the teachers understand what they have at their disposal. Throw in the idea of doing a program that runs somewhat akin to the school lunch program, which won't need more money dedicated to schools due to the savings on the massive textbook prices, and you've got the have/have not problem taken care of. That's also why you go web 2.0, where you can run entirely off of free options, instead of apps that mostly aren't cross platform. At that point you only have to set minimum standards and provide those to students who can't afford them.

It also requires getting rid of the tired homework concept. Go project based, store the devices at school, and remove the gobs of homework for three reasons: 1) If a teacher can't communicate the necessary information during the class time then they need to get better at their job 2) We tell people not to take their work home with them, why should school be different 3) Studies are showing homework to either give equivalent results, or often negative results, compared to a no homework approach.

It takes a rethinking of the education system that stops letting publishers getting rich off of textbooks, and politicians taking the easy way out just to say they're doing something, by dropping the ridiculously flawed standardized testing approach of things like NCLB.

the problem we are seeing schools have is creating the minimum standards needed. its easier for a teacher to say "everyone turn your books to page blah" or " go to blah on your nexus" as opposed to "open up whatever you have and go here".

i think you could easily subsidize costs of 1:1 programs by getting rid of textbooks all together. the book printers already see this. California will be textbook free in a year or so. what does one of these dang things cost? when i lost an algebra book in hs my mom was going to write a check for like 60 bucks before i found one in the classroom and claimed it.

byod with school supplied to those who can't afford it just furthers the gap in my opinion. let kids bring in their own devices, fine but you can't have a teacher easily teaching while one kid is doing it on an ipad and the other kid is attempting the same thing on a kindle.

i spoke at length with a school district in iowa who has kids all over the board income wise. they implemented byod instead of full 1:1. its a near disaster with parents of kids with nothing up in arms.

[NotAJerry]

Web 2.0 handles that. When it comes to browsing, at least for educational purposes, there's nothing an iPad can do that a Kindle Fire or Nexus 7 can't do. Put a heavy emphasis on blogging, wikis, research, etc. and you don't have any reason for the gap to matter at all. That's where the educational app approach simply doesn't work (and most of them aren't worth what they do offer outside of special education).

I think a lot of places are attempting to do this without understanding that the minimum standards need to be low and so do the maximum standards. When it comes to things like producing audio/video, those items can still be handled in bulk at the school level instead of trying to have students do things at the individual level. Blog, wiki, research, read (other than blogs/wikis) and watch video/listen to audio is really all that is needed for the tablets. Don't do more than that and once again the iPad means nothing compared to the Nexus/Kindle Fire.

It really is going to take a concerted effort to change a lot of the ideas of what school is that are based on mimicking the needs of the industrial revolution, standardized tests are little more than an assembly line for attempting to produce identical people, and redesigning things for the technological reality of the present and future.

[RubberMallet]

there is a good chance that apps and software will beat out web based applications because of bandwidth affordability and such. many schools are still dealing with t1 connections out there. our local school with over 10,000 devices just got a 200 meg pipe from a 50 meg....not enough to handle a byod initiative where 5,000 kids are bringing in their own devices trying to access education based web apps.

[Purple Haize]

1) If a teacher can't communicate the necessary information during the class time then they need to get better at their job
Therein lies your biggest hurdle. I would like to see your solution to that. In an idealism world this is no problem but in a heavy unionized state or even a place like LCS this would be a problem. How much is it going to cost to train teachers on this? There are teachers who can't communicate now let alone throw a new tech device at them.

2) We tell people not to take their work home with them, why should school be different
You mentioned 'project based' (or someone did). What is a project if not homework? Also, in the 'real world' jobs are from 9-5 and people often stay late to finish their 'projects' if they can't take things home. How do you propose to handle that with students

3) Studies are showing homework to either give equivalent results, or often negative results, compared to a no homework approach.
Yeah, cause practicing something never makes it easier.

I know a lot of classrooms are going hi-tech but it is not a Utopia. I would think that a standard device and standard software would be a must. Also it'll take along time to get it implemented. You would be amazed at the number of teachers who can't even type let alone work the computers they have now.

[El Scorcho]

Amazon and Apple have some catching up to do.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3537 ... s-8-review

Not that Microsoft doesn't have some catching up of their own to do in terms of developers and sales, but for mobile devices, Windows 8 seems like they've finally lived up to their full potential.

[NotAJerry]

there is a good chance that apps and software will beat out web based applications because of bandwidth affordability and such. many schools are still dealing with t1 connections out there. our local school with over 10,000 devices just got a 200 meg pipe from a 50 meg....not enough to handle a byod initiative where 5,000 kids are bringing in their own devices trying to access education based web apps.

Very interesting. Are they trying to do 3G/4G connections or just WiFi. WiFi is being used as the standard here, with a "loop" system that was funded by grants through Verizon. They've got enough in place that it's handling 93 schools and 83,551 students. That's another area where schools need to scale back as far as they can on older methods so that money can be judiciously spent on getting up to speed with mobile device usage.

[NotAJerry]

Amazon and Apple have some catching up to do.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3537 ... s-8-review

Not that Microsoft doesn't have some catching up of their own to do in terms of developers and sales, but for mobile devices, Windows 8 seems like they've finally lived up to their full potential.

It seems like everyone is gushing over Windows 8, and the reviews of the Surface are pretty impressive as well. It's odd to see Microsoft getting almost universally good press, especially about being forward thinking and progressive in their product line.

[El Scorcho]

All of the Windows 8-specific hardware is pretty neat. Even the RT devices are not bad.

It's the software, though. Microsoft finally put their best foot forward. I'm impressed. I'm not convinced it'll do well, but I'm impressed.

[LUconn]

I saw a commercial for a device I think it was, running windows 8. It has a flat keyboard, but it sort of looks more like a tablet with a back stand. It looked neat.

[lynchburgwildcats]

Amazon and Apple have some catching up to do.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3537 ... s-8-review

Not that Microsoft doesn't have some catching up of their own to do in terms of developers and sales, but for mobile devices, Windows 8 seems like they've finally lived up to their full potential.

It seems like everyone is gushing over Windows 8, and the reviews of the Surface are pretty impressive as well. It's odd to see Microsoft getting almost universally good press, especially about being forward thinking and progressive in their product line.

Everyone gushing over Windows 8? You obviously do not visit technology blogs or you would not be saying everyone is gushing over it. Windows 8 has its positives and negatives, but the big negative is having to learn the "metro" UI which is basically the phone/tablet UI thrown onto computers that don't have touchscreens. It's going to take some work, some sort of tutorial, or help from friends for the average, non computer geek user to figure out how to do basic tasks on 8.

I tried on a virtual PC the last preview they released and do not like it one bit. I hated having to be switching from the metro UI to the desktop "app" just so I can use the programs I use on a daily basis. It's a completely disjointed experience and quite frankly a hassle to have to deal with. Additionally, many of the apps, particularly the email app that is supposed to work with gmail, failed to show over half of the emails in my inbox that I could see when going to the web version. I ended up removing over half the default apps because they either were useless or did not function properly with the services they were supposed to integrate with.

I normally upgrade to the new Windows OS when it comes out, but not this time, at least not right away. While 8 has lots of potential with the app stuff, I will hold off until either all the programs I use have 8 optimized apps, which I highly doubt will happen anytime soon, or until some third party developer comes out with a program to completely disable the metro UI. I want to use one centralized and unified interface - either the desktop app or the metro UI - not two that didn't appear to work together whatsoever from my testing. I've seen some programs come along that will return more functionality to the desktop "app", but not quite to the level I would like.

I honestly believe this is either going to be a sink or swim OS on desktops and laptops because of the steep learning curve as the article mentions. Either people are going to hop on board with it and deal with the learning curve and having to constantly switch between the tiles and desktop, or people are going to be turned away by that. I just don't really see a middle ground here. I will say thought that I think this will be a tremendous success on tablets and and maybe phones too as it is a very well designed OS for touchscreen. Microsoft just has so much ground to make up in the phone and tablet world though, the barriers to entry and the selection of apps will be the main things that hold it back if it doesn't catch on.

[lynchburgwildcats]

"If you use Windows 8 on a desktop PC with a keyboard and mouse it can feel awkward at times, frustrating at others, and confusing. If you get past the initial training required it starts to make a lot of sense, but the risk of alienating users and creating another Vista-like perception catastrophe is great.

Microsoft has a huge fight on its hands now to ensure developers create beautiful apps. Some of the best Android and iOS apps are created by organizations or individuals who have showed little interest in Microsoft."

And that is the biggest thing I take away from that review, and that is why I fully believe 8 will either be sink or swim on computers. Steep learning curve, blatantly designed for touch screens, will rely heavily on developers to build apps for yet another mobile OS. There are a lot of risks being taken here by Microsoft, especially when many businesses still have yet to get off of Windows XP!