UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads • Hacker News Board

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#11

Post by robmcm » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:31 PM UTC

steverb wrote: post #8

My kids' high school ( http://knoxcountystemac.knoxschools.org/ ) has done this as well. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, the kids aren't hauling 30 pounds of books to and from school everyday, school lockers are pretty much superfluous, and the iPad is a great tool. On the other hand, it's very hard for me as their parent to tell (at a glance) whether or not the kids are actually doing school…

Can you not restrict them so they can't install games etc?

[EDIT] The iPads, not the kids!

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#12

Post by jstalin » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:31 PM UTC

Maybe it's generational (I'm 33) and maybe it's personal preference, but I much prefer a physical book over reading on a tablet. I remember reading an article somewhere saying that our brains do a better job of organizing material if it's a physical book because part of the organization process is remembering where in the book the remembered material was. I get no sense of "place" when reading an e-book. I even print out important material because that makes it easier for me to read.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#13

Post by objclxt » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:35 PM UTC

mpclark wrote: post #9

Meanwhile, here's another 'iPads in the classroom' story from last week, focussing on how fast the kids destroy them: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255546/School-spent...

...it's a terribly misleading story (which doesn't come as a surprise to me, it's the Daily Mail after all), because it conveniently omits breakage rates of one-to-one laptop deployments.

It may not come as a surprise to many people to learn that laptops break almost as often as tablets when deployed one-on-one in schools. A quick Google led me to one study from 2004 in Maine, where over an 18 month period 50% of laptops required repair, and 35% of students experienced laptops breaking down or being accidentally damaged[1].

The main difference is that a higher percentage of tablets require total replacement, which is somewhat understandable as tablets (be they Android or iOS) are far less user serviceable.

[1]: http://maine.gov/mlti/articles/research/PCHSLaptopsFinal.pdf

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#14

Post by skymt » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:39 PM UTC

obtino wrote: post #6

kitsune_ wrote: post #4

Of course, of all tablets, it had to be an iPad!

TBH, it's hard to get the same level of user-experience from an Android tablet. There are very few apps on Android which offer the same level of experience as those found on the iPad. Also, in a school setting, how do you expect students and teachers to deal with different versions of operating systems and device specifications?

I doubt the degree of magic involved in the user experience factors into institutional technology purchasing. And fragmentation is hardly an issue when the school is buying all the hardware. Frankly, your comment reads like a pair of talking points taken off the shelf and jammed in where they don't fit.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#15

Post by nicholassmith » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:47 PM UTC

mpclark wrote: post #9

Meanwhile, here's another 'iPads in the classroom' story from last week, focussing on how fast the kids destroy them: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255546/School-spent...

It did also say that the cases they were using weren't great, and when swapped out they were much less prone to breakages. Plus kids are kids, things are going to get broken, that's why the devices were insured.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#16

Post by nicholassmith » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:50 PM UTC

kitsune_ wrote: post #4

Of course, of all tablets, it had to be an iPad!

Well, Apple did have a big event where they introduced educational resources and text books in a big way, and whilst I'm unsure what they do at a school purchase level, they do also offer very handsome discounts to those in education.

Android is very good at many things, but in terms of the education market Apple has been much sharper in getting textbooks and educational content front and centre. I'm sure if there was a level of parity in terms of content and functionality, but Android was significantly cheaper then schools would go that way.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#17

Post by cryptoz » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #3

As a student, I tried to use a tablet with ebooks exclusively for a few of my university classes, and it was fairly dreadful. Not because having a tablet is distracting, but because it's not the best way to organize reference information. When I was trying to do homework, I wanted - the questions from page 251, the table of equations from 190, and to be able to flip through and find similar examples. Obviously e-book…

Most of those problems have very simple solutions in software features.

> When I was trying to do homework, I wanted - the questions from page 251, the table of equations from 190, and to be able to flip through and find similar examples. Obviously e-books fail miserably if you need quick access to multiple pages.

The solution to this could be implemented in under a week, for sure. Add a little UI for temporary bookmarks. Let the reader save a set of relevant pages (questions, table of equations, examples) and then swipe between them. Simple.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#18

Post by mirumirai » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #17

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #3

As a student, I tried to use a tablet with ebooks exclusively for a few of my university classes, and it was fairly dreadful. Not because having a tablet is distracting, but because it's not the best way to organize reference information. When I was trying to do homework, I wanted - the questions from page 251, the table of equations from 190, and to be able to flip through and find similar examples. Obviously e-book…

Most of those problems have very simple solutions in software features. > When I was trying to do homework, I wanted - the questions from page 251, the table of equations from 190, and to be able to flip through and find similar examples. Obviously e-books fail miserably if you need quick access to multiple pages. The solution to this could be implemented in under a week, for sure. Add a little UI for temporary bookm…

That's exactly what I did studying for the GRE with a pdf ebook. Flipping between bookmarks feels just as fast as flipping physical pages.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#19

Post by steverb » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

robmcm wrote: post #11

steverb wrote: post #8

My kids' high school ( http://knoxcountystemac.knoxschools.org/ ) has done this as well. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, the kids aren't hauling 30 pounds of books to and from school everyday, school lockers are pretty much superfluous, and the iPad is a great tool. On the other hand, it's very hard for me as their parent to tell (at a glance) whether or not the kids are actually doing school…

Can you not restrict them so they can't install games etc? [EDIT] The iPads, not the kids!

Not that I can tell, but we took the controversial tack of telling the kids not to install any games on there. So far, it's working for us.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#20

Post by nicholassmith » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 1:58 PM UTC

£65k saved off photocopying is huge. I've seen copier bills so I know what they can be like, but that's crazy savings from introducing it. Wonder if they're just emailing everything out now, which makes significantly more sense.

I'm in favour of iPads in school. I've ran through a few of the educational programs on the iPad (including iTunes and Udemy as well as textbooks), it's a great resource and helps to consolidate everything I need in one place. When I was at Uni I was one of the few people who used a laptop to take notes in lectures as I found it easier to split my focus.

I can't watch the video but I'm guessing that they've got all the iPads through the enterprise system that most big companies are (or should be anyway) using, which gives them a bit more granularity on what's going on, pushing updates and some additional restrictions. I'm sure teachers are smart enough to realise that kids with fully unlocked iPads are going to spend their time mucking about.