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Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

nytimes.com

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Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#51

Post by Merad »

2arrs2ells wrote: post #38
Merad wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you been able to try the multiple user features launched in iOS 9.3? https://appadvice.com/appnn/2016/01/apples-ios-9-3-features-...

No, unfortunately it is only for schools. When it was announced I was really hopeful that it meant general multi user support would be in iOS 10, but...

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#52

Post by skookumchuck »

Tablets are great for media consumption. I don't understand how anyone can use them for creation, though. On my desk is the biggest screen I can afford, and a full size keyboard, and I use it all when doing work.

As for helping kids learn, I just cannot see how a tablet will help in the classroom.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#53

Post by microcolonel »

2arrs2ells wrote: post #34
ux-app wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

A cloud IDE like Cloud9 ( https://c9.io/ ) works well on a Chromebook. 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 school…

To be honest though, I think these environments make new programmers go through the trouble of learning a platform which they can never ship a real application in; except maybe Cloud9.

Scratch has been around for about 15 years now, and 12 years in a workable state. And while it seems superficially to be helpful (none of that fussy text editing!), I have never met a programmer who got their start in Scratch.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#54

Post by microcolonel »

ux-app wrote: post #41
ploggingdev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm also opposed to any device that hides away the file system from the user. It relegates a computer to the dumb appliance category which I think is unhelpful. 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.

> 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 always found the better security argument to be a red herring in a school environment and always pushed back against it. If a computer breaks then re-image it. malware spreading? Wonderful! There's an amazing learning opportunity!! The point is moot at my school…

That's a much better situation than I've seen at many schools. Good on 'em. The school computer has been the worst one since the home computer started being practical.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#55

Post by skookumchuck »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #9

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…

Schools are always looking for ways that teachers can teach without doing work and students can learn without doing work, and computers are the magic tool that promises to do that.

It's like using a forklift to raise the barbell. Sure, the barbell goes up, but you don't get any stronger.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#56

Post by skookumchuck »

derefr wrote: post #7
GuiA wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the underlying premise that " each kid needs their own". Every time there's a pilot program that gives every kid a laptop or tablet, it seems to be a complete failure after a few months. My aunt is a teacher in a public school district, and has seen a number of such programs come and fail over the decades.

They don't need to give the kids laptops or tablets to take home , but having each child be able to do individual computer-supported exercises at their own desk—in effect, turning every classroom into a computer lab—has important benefits for lesson planning.

> has important benefits for lesson planning

If computers help learning, why have school results essentially been flat since 1970 or so?

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#57

Post by 2arrs2ells »

microcolonel wrote: post #53
2arrs2ells wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cloud IDE like Cloud9 ( https://c9.io/ ) works well on a Chromebook. 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 school…

To be honest though, I think these environments make new programmers go through the trouble of learning a platform which they can never ship a real application in; except maybe Cloud9. Scratch has been around for about 15 years now, and 12 years in a workable state. And while it seems superficially to be helpful (none of that fussy text editing!), I have never met a programmer who got their start in Scratch.

I got my start in Scratch! And so did everyone else whose first programming experience was CS50 (http://cs50.tv/2016/fall/).

Don't want to threadcrap too much, but I deeply believe that most programming in the future will happen in environments like GoMix, in the same way that a ton of programming today happens in Visual Basic.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#58

Post by thr0waway1239 »

I don't quite understand why people thought iPads were good for content creation in the first place.

Also, I think Apple really missed a trick by not going after the education market with a more suitable device. With Windows, you never know what havoc the next update around the corner is going to wreak. And Chromebooks are still quite limited in many different things. By merely having a serious presence in this market, Apple would by now have had a best in class device because this is turning out to be the classic case of the one eyed man being the king of the land of the blind.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#59

Post by kregasaurusrex »

I worked in Education IT as my college job, and Apple provided zero value added with regard towards educational software. For every piece of software that instructors requested such as stat analyses, whiteboards with note-saving capability, standardized test-prep materials, and math visualization it was often non-existent, cost-prohibitive, or a available as a free web app. Campus labs virtualized Windows 7 on iMacs to run side-by-side in order to allow compatibility with 90% of the tools educators need.

While I think that we're doing an excellent job at preparing tomorrow's teachers on how to educate kids; technology largely remains a point of friction in keeping kids focused because of the lack of good tools in the ecosystem. My high school district always received the short end of state funding and we never had any good tools available for physics simulations, art & design, CAD, or personal finance to name a few. Anything we did end up using was available as a web app with no OS dependence; and I see school districts pay extra for mac systems without any competitive advantages to the platform. It's largely a market mismatch that Apple's failed to address, and were largely being phased out because of this.

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