> 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.…
"Year 7" is not high school in the US. That is distinctly junior/middle school. Year 7 is also the first year of secondary school (high school) in the UK.
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.
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.
I'd just be happy if students had digital only textbooks. Would save a lot of back pain and locker trips.
>Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a positive either. http://lifehacker.com/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook-a...
If it isn't running ChromeOS it isn't a Chromebook experience any longer.
Actually, it is running ChromeOS. You can switch back and forth between Linux and ChromeOS quite easily because they're both running simultaneously.
>Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a positive either. http://lifehacker.com/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook-a...
But what's the point of that ? Why not buy any laptop if you want to run linux ? If all you are worried about is cost, a thinkpad from a couple gens ago will cost about as much, and will do a lot more than a chromebook with a shitty processor and possibly soldered ram + hard drive.
To have the benefits of ChromeOS full time and the option to use Linux part time.
> 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…
I think the key reason tablets were chosen wasn't that it was the best learning tool, but it was the best learning tool that won't cause a maintenance nightmare for school IT when kids go crazy with viruses and bricking their laptops whenever they were late for a homework assignment. Ipads are relatively hard to fuck up fron a software side, and if they do you just do a reset.
When it is the school buying the equipment, I can very well believe that they could decide to make the switch to PCs or Chromebooks. But Macs still have mindshare of the actual kids. My daughter wasn't allowed to use a computer for homework and such until she got to 8th grade (it is a private school and it is their policy -- they should be playing outside with friends and not spending hours shooting monsters and watc…
Sometimes you can be surprised to learn what "Everyone else..." means. If the cool kids have mac it means you will be left outside the cool kids group as a pc owner.
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.…
While you could always run python on windows have the WSL is a big deal for education. You can get away with running a pretty modest system and still be able to run ruby on rails and mysql or postgresql on even a modest atom based laptop.
If it isn't running ChromeOS it isn't a Chromebook experience any longer.
Actually, it is running ChromeOS. You can switch back and forth between Linux and ChromeOS quite easily because they're both running simultaneously.
That Linux experience isn't a ChromeOS feature, rather something that one with developer experience needs to dig on Google forums and not exposed to the regular users that buy Chromebooks.
"Year 7" is not high school in the US. That is distinctly junior/middle school. Year 7 is also the first year of secondary school (high school) in the UK.
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.
It often is in practice, because students need time to think and digest the material.