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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

#11

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

masterleep wrote: post #8

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.

But they've lost it at the high-end too: the MacPro's internals are now over 3 years old with still no update in site, AV pros are switching to HP Z-series and the MBP is high-end only in price and design: perf-wise it's quite lacking.

The MacBook Air (with its low price to clear their stock) and Mac Mini are priced right for education, but spec-wise they're poor investments, especially as even web-pages now require beefy specs to display at a decent framerate (blame ads).

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#12

Post by dpark »

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.

Such as?

I think having computers at home is the one compelling reason for all the "let's give everyone laptops/ipads" initiatives. It means that everyone has a device they can do typed reports or homework research on. I'm much less convinced that computers in the classroom are a clear value-add in many cases.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#13

Post by ux-app »

I'm a HS teacher. I was so happy when my school finally phased out iPads as the designated device for our year 7 students. It's such a rubbish device for content creation. The touchscreen is a POS for anything other than web browsing and casual games. Teaching coding, image manipulation, file manipulation was utterly painful or impossible.

Typing on them is beyond painful and of the hundreds of students I taught, fewer than a dozen actually bought a physical keyboard. This meant that every task took 3x longer than necessary.

On top of this they are expensive. To anyone even remotely IT savvy it was clear from the get-go that this was going to be a failed experiment. Unfortunately education, like most other things follows the fashion of the time and everyone had to learn the hard way that a traditional computer is superior in every conceivable way.

Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a positive either.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#15

Post by dpark »

ux-app wrote: post #13

I'm a HS teacher. I was so happy when my school finally phased out iPads as the designated device for our year 7 students. It's such a rubbish device for content creation. The touchscreen is a POS for anything other than web browsing and casual games. Teaching coding, image manipulation, file manipulation was utterly painful or impossible. Typing on them is beyond painful and of the hundreds of students I taught, few…

> 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. That is distinctly junior/middle school.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#16

Post by dpark »

masterleep wrote: post #8

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.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#17

Post by csydas »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #11
masterleep wrote: post #8

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.

But they've lost it at the high-end too: the MacPro's internals are now over 3 years old with still no update in site, AV pros are switching to HP Z-series and the MBP is high-end only in price and design: perf-wise it's quite lacking. The MacBook Air (with its low price to clear their stock) and Mac Mini are priced right for education, but spec-wise they're poor investments, especially as even web-pages now require…

In regards to the air/mini, I'm not convinced they have no place as you're describing it. My 2012 MacBook Air handles stuff just fine with modern browsers and modern applications. The numbers and specs are fine for a computer that "just works". A webpage has never been the culprit to make the thing sweat (excepting bugs with flash/Java plugins). They probably could afford to bump the specs easily if they wanted to run a new line, but to suggest the user experience is bad on these machines just based on numbers is incongruent with the reality of said devices.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#18

Post by eon1 »

dpark wrote: post #15
ux-app wrote: post #13

I'm a HS teacher. I was so happy when my school finally phased out iPads as the designated device for our year 7 students. It's such a rubbish device for content creation. The touchscreen is a POS for anything other than web browsing and casual games. Teaching coding, image manipulation, file manipulation was utterly painful or impossible. Typing on them is beyond painful and of the hundreds of students I taught, few…

> 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.…

Can't speak for OP, but in Australia we only have Primary (K-6) and High (7-12) school.

Edit: Yup, their website lists them as being in Adelaide.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#19

Post by decasteve »

I replaced my kids' iPads because of the awful hunched posture it precipitates (as shown in the 2nd picture in the article). Also, after an initial enthusiasm for iMovie and Swift Playgrounds wore off, they gravitated towards the more distracting apps and games, youtube and netflix, etc.

Having them sit upright, with good posture, at a desktop computer puts them in a different frame of mind when it comes to what they do on the device. I also have more input on directing their attention to being interested in computing, playing different types of games, and programming (dabbling in python mostly). My hope is they get a broader picture of computing, which won't be inhibited by the handicaps of iOS.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#20

Post by paulddraper »

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…

As a middle-school student in the early 2000s, I helped part-time with IT at a Mac-only school. Macintoshes, iMacs, eMacs.

People were less familiar with Macs than PCs, but from an IT perspective, it was heaven. There were only a few models, they were reliable, and everything "just worked" together. The most common snag was attempting to get floppies to work with people's PCs from home.

Sad to see the Apple desktops gone.

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