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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

#111

Post by metafunctor »

The sad thing is that in practice, iPads are mostly used as substitutes for books. That's completely backwards. It reminds me how "multimedia CDs" were supposed to revolutionize teaching in the 90s. They ended up being picture books on a computer, with silly animations and sound effects on mouse hover added on top.

Computers and tablets could be a great pedagogic tool for many things, like exploring maths concepts interactively, spaced-repetition for rote learning foreign language words, and other things where the computer as an interactive, programmable medium shines. Sadly, I don't see these opportunities being exploited at all in the classroom.

On the bright side, at least kids have equal access to modern tools, and learn the same basics of searching for stuff online.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#112

Post by rsj75 »

Apple is focused on consumer apps and barely provides any support to edtech developers. There is no focus on education strategy or business model. We built an iOS educational platform but because of all these issues, transitioned to cloud with our classk12.com platform with Google and Microsoft integrations.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#113

Post by rsj75 »

Apple is focused on consumer apps and barely provides any support to edtech developers. There is no focus on education strategy or business model. We built an iOS educational platform but because of all these issues, transitioned to cloud with our classk12.com platform with Google and Microsoft integrations.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#114

Post by ptaipale »

kriro wrote: post #108
ptaipale wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. However, if your goal is to learn to lift up large masses, learning to operate a forklift is a good thing to do. (I cannot write about a "forklift operator" without asking if you have seen this German "educational" film. It starts slowly, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo )

No need to put the educational in "". It was originally a parody of the edu-videos (the narrator is famous for doing "Der 7. Sinn" which is a serious edu-series) but is actually used quite often as an introduction to the safety stuff for a fork lift license. It's not an official video or anything but in practice you have ab out a 50% shot of watching that movie from anecdotal evidence.

So, it started out as a parody of educational videos, and became an actual educational video?

Anyway, I appreciate it. Who said the Germans don't have a sense of humour?

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#115

Post by rayalez »

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…

You're probably right about the schools, but I want to disagree with you about content creation in general.

I'm using my iPad for painting, writing, video creation every day. It is extremely useful and convenient for my purposes. It has a specific niche, and might not be for everyone, but I very often prefer it for specific tasks.

At this point, writing(in Editorial) for me is pretty much as convenient as writing on my laptop. I wouldn't code on ipad, but for notes(which I take a huge amount of) and fiction it's perfect.

And since they've introduced the stylus, it's insanely great for painting(in Procreate). I have a wacom tablet, but I still use my ipad all the time. And I can record the video tutorials, or stream my painting process on twitch, it's really cool.

And if I need to, I can use Pinnacle Pro to edit my videos, narrate voiceover over them, and publish them on youtube.

So the whole creative process - script writing, video recording, editing - can be done entirely on my tablet. I find it extremely cool.

----

For example:

- Here's a video I've made entirely on the ipad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dvx6nBDfpE

(sorry for the annoying voiceover, I'm working on getting better at it)

- And here's the collection of my favorite art made by other people:

https://www.artstation.com/artist/rayalez/collections/117859

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#116

Post by skookumchuck »

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #92
skookumchuck wrote: post #52

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.

Completely agree. I take this one step further and say tablets are probably handicapping your kids in the home. Having no tablets or smartphones available during the PC revolution forced most of us here to default to exactly the correct set of tools for maximum learning and efficiency: a keyboard, a mouse, a full-size monitor, sitting at a desk, with a full computer with some kind of (more-or-less) exposed desktop op…

I see a lot of kids who grew up with tablets and stuff, and they've learned nothing at all about computers - they learn how to run various apps. And that's it.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#117

Post by smnscu »

ux-app wrote: post #23
dpark wrote: post #15

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…

> install a hex editor

> I don't think that's possible on a Chromebook.

First google result for "web hex editor": https://hexed.it/

Took me 10 seconds to open, including googling for it.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#118

Post by exodust »

Tsagadai wrote: post #68
secabeen wrote: post #2

Finally. It was always so hard to see schools spend millions on expensive Apple tech when there was equivalent equipment available for half the price that met their needs equivalently well. We really don't need to be spending $400-500 per tablet to outfit a classroom with 1 device for every 3 kids, when each kid really needs their own.

It's telling that MIT still lectures with blackboards while other universities spend oodles of dollars on expensive electric whiteboards, projectors and whatnot.

Depends what is being taught. Electric whiteboards, displays and projectors can provide obvious benefits and time-saving for things like updating values, neatness, illustration, demonstration.

Ever noticed when a lecturer writes a sentence on the chalk board, the only sound in the room is the sound of chalk? That isn't efficient use of time.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#119

Post by kevinnk »

yoz-y wrote: post #110
Adaptive wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm running a coding class right now that is almost entirely run over ssh on chromebooks to a linux server. Works beautifully. No fancy IDE, but lots of actual learning to code.

I have never used chromeOS, does it have a terminal or is there some sort of ssh as a service?

It has a built in terminal called crosh, which might have an SSH client built in (I'm not sure). What most people do is download a chrome extension like Secure Shell[1] that lets you ssh from a tab.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell/pnhec...

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#120

Post by toast0 »

yoz-y wrote: post #110
Adaptive wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm running a coding class right now that is almost entirely run over ssh on chromebooks to a linux server. Works beautifully. No fancy IDE, but lots of actual learning to code.

I have never used chromeOS, does it have a terminal or is there some sort of ssh as a service?

There's an ssh client in the chrome store($0, I think it's published by google). It runs as a chrome tab (one tab per connection), which means you do waste some screen space for browser UI that doesn't make sense, but it's workable.
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