31–40 of 335 posts
It's sad, but Apple has completely lost it at the low end. The value proposition just isn't there any more. This goes for iOS as well as Macs.
> It's sad, but Apple has completely lost it at the low end. When was Apple ever targeting (or winning) the low end? Apple was never the "value proposition" for affordable devices.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a positive either. What to your mind would not be rubbish? I'm a Microsoft employee, so I have a vested interest in Windows devices being the dominant choice for schools, but I don't see anything realistic students at the high school or below level couldn't do on Chromebooks. Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" is not high school in the US.…
> Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" I'm in Australia. Nationally we are transitioning to a R-6 = Primary School, 7-12 = High School model. My school is a little unorthodox. We're a private school with a 6-12 shared campus which is why I had experience teaching younger students even though I am HS trained. > What to your mind would not be rubbish? Either Mac or PC is fine in my books. Anything that allows them t…
I agree that Chromebooks are not the ideal learning device for coding. I was thinking general schooling and glossed over your earlier comment about teaching coding. I think they can probably work there, but you're right that a "real" computer is a better choice for that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's sad, but Apple has completely lost it at the low end. When was Apple ever targeting (or winning) the low end? Apple was never the "value proposition" for affordable devices.
The iBook was solid quality at a competitive price especially if you got their student discounts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a positive either. What to your mind would not be rubbish? I'm a Microsoft employee, so I have a vested interest in Windows devices being the dominant choice for schools, but I don't see anything realistic students at the high school or below level couldn't do on Chromebooks. Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" is not high school in the US.…
> Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" I'm in Australia. Nationally we are transitioning to a R-6 = Primary School, 7-12 = High School model. My school is a little unorthodox. We're a private school with a 6-12 shared campus which is why I had experience teaching younger students even though I am HS trained. > What to your mind would not be rubbish? Either Mac or PC is fine in my books. Anything that allows them t…
If I were teaching programming today, I'd probably start with something like GoMix (https://gomix.com) or Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) - neither of which require a download.
Not saying there isn't value in installing native software... but it's amazing what you can do in a web browser these days vs. 2010 when I was teaching middle schoolers intro programming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a positive either. What to your mind would not be rubbish? I'm a Microsoft employee, so I have a vested interest in Windows devices being the dominant choice for schools, but I don't see anything realistic students at the high school or below level couldn't do on Chromebooks. Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" is not high school in the US.…
> Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" I'm in Australia. Nationally we are transitioning to a R-6 = Primary School, 7-12 = High School model. My school is a little unorthodox. We're a private school with a 6-12 shared campus which is why I had experience teaching younger students even though I am HS trained. > What to your mind would not be rubbish? Either Mac or PC is fine in my books. Anything that allows them t…
Depends on the use case. So in your case where you teach programming, it makes sense, but there are legitimate cases where it makes sense to not expose the filesystem directly and disallow native apps. This has the benefit of better security.
I remember the huge push when the iPad came out and all the talk about how it would replace textbooks and exercise books. It could only be because school administrators were won-over by the engaging user-experience - completely overlooking practicalities - back in 2010 even into 2014 iOS lacked decent enterprise-management tools that would enable staff to lock devices down as they're obvious distraction devices - thi…
There's supposed to be an intrinsically safe iPad Mini case available later this year (IIRC), and our manufacturing areas are salivating over the possibilities... But we might have to disappoint them, because the overhead of trying to manage hundreds of iPads would be truly insane.
I remember the huge push when the iPad came out and all the talk about how it would replace textbooks and exercise books. It could only be because school administrators were won-over by the engaging user-experience - completely overlooking practicalities - back in 2010 even into 2014 iOS lacked decent enterprise-management tools that would enable staff to lock devices down as they're obvious distraction devices - thi…
It blows my mind that Apple has basically put no effort at all into supporting the multi user business/education market. Our company rolled out our first LOB mobile app last year. Only six devices are involved, but they're basically in use 24/7 and are handed off at shift changes. The amount of hoops we had to jump through were absurd both in terms of device management setup and adding some features to the app to mak…
I remember the huge push when the iPad came out and all the talk about how it would replace textbooks and exercise books. It could only be because school administrators were won-over by the engaging user-experience - completely overlooking practicalities - back in 2010 even into 2014 iOS lacked decent enterprise-management tools that would enable staff to lock devices down as they're obvious distraction devices - thi…
It blows my mind that Apple has basically put no effort at all into supporting the multi user business/education market. Our company rolled out our first LOB mobile app last year. Only six devices are involved, but they're basically in use 24/7 and are handed off at shift changes. The amount of hoops we had to jump through were absurd both in terms of device management setup and adding some features to the app to mak…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a positive either. What to your mind would not be rubbish? I'm a Microsoft employee, so I have a vested interest in Windows devices being the dominant choice for schools, but I don't see anything realistic students at the high school or below level couldn't do on Chromebooks. Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" is not high school in the US.…
> Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" I'm in Australia. Nationally we are transitioning to a R-6 = Primary School, 7-12 = High School model. My school is a little unorthodox. We're a private school with a 6-12 shared campus which is why I had experience teaching younger students even though I am HS trained. > What to your mind would not be rubbish? Either Mac or PC is fine in my books. Anything that allows them t…
There's a package called "crouton" which makes it fairly simple to run a full Linux distribution alongside Chrome OS, as long as you switch it into developer mode (which is simple*). The trouble there is that it's not the sort of thing you would want to administrate in bulk.
Chromebooks are capable of running custom operating systems by design. Granted, you need to void the warranty (take out the firmware lock screw) to make another operating system the default boot option, for security reasons.
And of course, to manage custom images on Chromebooks for a general classroom environment could be hard.
Personally I think that the idea of the "school computer" is terrible. Schools should issue laptops which are maintained and administered by the student; otherwise students are just being taught helplessness. The only problem with this is that school boards typically buy a wide range of abysmal proprietary packages which are usually locked to a single OS vendor.