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UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#21

Post by pkorzeniewski »

jstalin wrote: post #12

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…

I have similar feelings about reading books on tablet, I just can't get used to it. The only advantage to me is the unlimited number of books I can 'carry', otherwise I'll always choose a physical book.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#22

Post by mavhc »

The school did a presentation at an Apple event I went to, the pupils were there too. Apple was pushing 1 to 1 deployment, everyone sets up their own accounts. There's loads of licencing and control issues though ("apps are only $1, just buy a new licence for every new pupil"). Fine for university level, but still a lot of compromises for schools.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#23

Post by alanctgardner2 »

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…

Except for the loading times. If you've ever used a graphics-heavy textbook, especially on a high-res device like the iPad 3, rendering pages takes forever. It's not just a UI problem, it's an issue of effectively caching the bookmarked pages, and for a large book that might be a big problem.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#24

Post by js2 »

steverb wrote: post #19
robmcm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Settings > General > Restrictions?

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#25

Post by alanctgardner2 »

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…

Do they use it for reading, or also for tests? I'm really curious about the testing they demonstrate in the video, because it seems inherently rigid and less indicative of a student's understanding than writing something down. Do they write all their tests on iPads, and are the tests multiple choice, or short-answer?

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#26

Post by sopooneo »

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…

I like to have multiple books open at once all in my field of view. I think you could only replicate that with multiple tablets.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#27

Post by sopooneo »

Someone close to me works at a very good public high school in Massachusetts. The district is in the middle of the enormous task of planning/budgeting/funding a new school building. At one point they showed some preliminary plans to various interested parties, and the teachers were immediately prompted to ask where the bookshelves were, or where freestanding ones could even be placed. The answer from the superintendent was that this school was to have no physical books whatsoever, so they're not bothering with shelves.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#28

Post by objclxt »

mavhc wrote: post #22

The school did a presentation at an Apple event I went to, the pupils were there too. Apple was pushing 1 to 1 deployment, everyone sets up their own accounts. There's loads of licencing and control issues though ("apps are only $1, just buy a new licence for every new pupil"). Fine for university level, but still a lot of compromises for schools.

>There's loads of licencing and control issues though ("apps are only $1, just buy a new licence for every new pupil")

There is a volume licensing program for the App Store, where schools retain ownership and can buy in bulk at a discount (where developers opt in to allow such discounts). But in fairness, distribution still isn't perfect out of the box (it's done via one-time codes on the App Store. It is possible to automate this, but not as standard).

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#29

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

jstalin wrote: post #12

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…

I find tablets fine for reading one single book, in particular when you're reading that book from cover to cover. So if I want to buy a fiction book (e.g. The Hobbit) on my Kindle it works just fine.

But when it comes to non-fiction/reference books the technology is just not ready. You don't read cover to cover, you bounce around, you mark sections, you take notes, you check your answers in the back, and yet the software I have seen does all of this stuff badly.

Plus whenever people roll out one of these snazzy "look how hip and modern we are" school programs I never read about how much they spent on teacher training or development of researches (apps, lesson plans, etc).

So I always wonder if they literally just turned up with a pack of iPads one day and said to the teachers "make this work!" Without any real thought given to how exactly the teachers are meant to use them.

Re: UK School Replaces All Textbooks with iPads

#30

Post by obtino »

skymt wrote: post #14
obtino wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I doubt the degree of magic involved in the user experience factors into institutional technology purchasing.

User experience is not magic. It's something that involves a lot of time and effort on behalf of the apps developers. It does contribute to the choices made by individuals and this filters up to the institution level. How do you think the iPad penetrated the enterprise?

> And fragmentation is hardly an issue when the school is buying all the hardware.

True. However, what happens when the school wishes to use an app that's not supported by the device they purchased? As an Android user I've found plenty of apps that fail on my device while working perfectly on others. Sure there are problems with compatibility with apps on different versions of iOS, but they are relatively minor compared to the problems that I've come across on Android.

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