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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

#181

Post by hisyam »

askvictor wrote: post #66
ploggingdev wrote: post #27

> “At the end of the day, I can get three Chromebooks for each of the Mac devices I would have purchased,” said Steve Splichal, the superintendent of Eudora Public Schools. Not choosing a Mac for school students should have always been a no brainer because, as mentioned a) cost, b)what benefit do Macs provide over say Windows laptops or chromebooks for high school students ? Apple did a real good job marketing their…

Macs definitely have less downtime, shorter startup time and better battery life than windows machines. Windows has certainly gotten better over the last few years, but 5 years ago it would be taking a minute or two for windows to wake up and log in between each class. Mac is pretty much instant (Chromebooks are fast too). Before you say that a minute isn't much, consider that you have 25 teenagers in the classroom,…

> 5 years ago it would be taking a minute or two for windows to wake up and log in

OS boot time depends mostly on storage speed, not just the OS itself. My 2012 MBP takes 90s to boot before I upgraded it to SSD.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#182

Post by mavhc »

askvictor wrote: post #66
ploggingdev wrote: post #27

> “At the end of the day, I can get three Chromebooks for each of the Mac devices I would have purchased,” said Steve Splichal, the superintendent of Eudora Public Schools. Not choosing a Mac for school students should have always been a no brainer because, as mentioned a) cost, b)what benefit do Macs provide over say Windows laptops or chromebooks for high school students ? Apple did a real good job marketing their…

Macs definitely have less downtime, shorter startup time and better battery life than windows machines. Windows has certainly gotten better over the last few years, but 5 years ago it would be taking a minute or two for windows to wake up and log in between each class. Mac is pretty much instant (Chromebooks are fast too). Before you say that a minute isn't much, consider that you have 25 teenagers in the classroom,…

No malware on the Windows PCs I manage because I authorize every executable that can run.

Wake up times depend on sleep state mostly, not going to take more than 10 seconds anyway. Login times can be improved/made terrible by the IT department.

Build quality just depends on how much you spend, same with battery life.

Main problem with Apple is cost/lack of choice/ability to fix hardware.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#183

Post by unfamiliar »

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.…

> "Year 7" is not high school in the US.

Maybe we could all agree to just use pupil age in these discussions, to avoid the international confusion between "year 7", "4th grade", "primary 6", "middle school", "6th form", and all of the other country-specific nomenclature.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#184

Post by blipmusic »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #145
blipmusic wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so nice to read after having seen my sister's children receive laptops at school. No one was actually giving them any system knowledge. No programming, no "how does a computer work, what is a file...", no support/teaching on how software can help when e.g. writing an essay. Nothing. They were carrying 10+ kg (no joke) in their bags every day because of course they were forced to bring the (heavy) laptop to ev…

I bet no one told you how to code though. I imagine that you probably had some proto computer some time in your past and spent a long time figuring it out? That the school system wasn't equipped to teach you anything but you somehow did just fine? It doesn't have to be like that of course and I suppose that there is some neuro elitist aspect to kids just fiddling with the things that interest them...

I couldn't call myself a programmer - most of what I've done are smaller things that help out at work - but I'm slowly improving. If you are implying that there is an abundance of resources out there, you are of course correct.

It was quite different when I grew up. [Home] Internet was not a thing that existed and most data was analogue. When home computers became common I had to learn a bit about the system if I wanted to get some use out of it. I'm not saying user friendliness is somehow bad, it's what we should always aim for! We've come a long way and I like it here. I'm not that old, it's just that I had a childhood before home computers and internet were a thing.

The school system back when did in fact teach me a bit about computers. In my case, in [the equivalent to] high-school when home internet started to take off, our curriculum came to include (very) basic computer science, (very) basic coding in ... prolog? (prolog might be incorrect) We created home pages in class from scratch in html. Not by choice, as most of this concerned every student at my school. Maybe I was lucky?

In my nephews case, they were handed a computer, then absolutely nothing. And I mean nothing. They are still forced to bring the computer to every class but report hardly ever touching it at school. Maybe their bad experience is an exception. I hope so. Back then my teachers definitely weren't the best - or even good - at computer science but they were prepared to try and to learn together with the students.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#185

Post by liveoneggs »

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…

If chromebooks had the option of plugging in a usb drive that could open "portable apps"-style programs + save files it would be a really great option for classrooms (or, really, anything)

Those crazy web-only restrictions hit fast

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#186

Post by xyzzy123 »

blipmusic wrote: post #184
xyzzy123 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet no one told you how to code though. I imagine that you probably had some proto computer some time in your past and spent a long time figuring it out? That the school system wasn't equipped to teach you anything but you somehow did just fine? It doesn't have to be like that of course and I suppose that there is some neuro elitist aspect to kids just fiddling with the things that interest them...

I couldn't call myself a programmer - most of what I've done are smaller things that help out at work - but I'm slowly improving. If you are implying that there is an abundance of resources out there, you are of course correct. It was quite different when I grew up. [Home] Internet was not a thing that existed and most data was analogue. When home computers became common I had to learn a bit about the system if I wan…

I apologise, and thanks. You're right we should be doing better. I'm a little ashamed of myself. You're right we should do the best we can for everyone.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#187

Post by selllikesybok »

douche wrote: post #151
rebootthesystem wrote: post #144

I read through this entire thread. Interesting range of comments. I had the experience of being consulted by the principal of our local elementary school on this a few years back. They had received a donation and could make their own localized purchasing decision with that money. Based on what we learned at home with our kids and various iOS devices my advice was to avoid them and opt for inexpensive PC laptops runni…

> The last straw was when one of them started to lie about usage and would play Clash of Clans hidden under his blanket in bed instead of sleeping. They exhibited the behavior of alcoholics or drug addicts who deny their reality. That's when the iOS devices evaporated. This is what kids do when you try to enforce a bedtime. I used to get hell for reading actual books under the covers with a flashlight when it was dec…

Same. Of course, my mom used to catch hell for it too, from her parents.

Addictive patterns and compulsive behavior are interesting. Especially our mores about them.

Binge watching is good, binge drinking is bad.

One of the best things you can say about a movie or show or book is its compelling and you can't stop consuming it.

But if you can't stop Cheetos, that's a problem.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#188

Post by nicky0 »

christoph wrote: post #168
simonh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sad to see the Apple desktops gone. Nobody goes to the Apple Stores anymore, they're too crowded.

Apple need to take a long hard look at the nose dive their customer service has taken in the last few years. I love Apple kit, I really do, but Apple the company are starting to become increasingly difficult to like and do any sort of business with. I have many personal data points on this, but below is the worst i've encountered in any retail store in my life: I went into an Apple Store to purchase 3 (yes, 3) Macboo…

I like this story, I like the part where you walked in thinking buying THREE laptops they would fall to their knees in joy.

So did you buy online or.... ? ;)

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#189

Post by abricot »

cm2187 wrote: post #98
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…

What I find the most frustrating on ipad is content selection. Particularly in the browser, where I do that a lot when I want to google what I read about. The text selection in safari is absolutely useless.

...and non-existing in many apps. I really hate how it is up to the app maker to allow/dissalow text selection.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#190

Post by subspaceman »

jacobolus wrote: post #149
xyzzy123 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the utility of this depends on your definition of learning. No one I know "produces" content on an ipad but it's fine for HN comments or management emails. So maybe that's what we want to teach, not sure. In theory I suppose the lesson is that if you are a "regular" user, IT is brutally unhelpful, and put your content on removable media or cloud storage. This is not such a bad lesson, and the kids who care…

iPads with Apple’s stylus are amazing tools for illustration, hand-drawing diagrams, sketching out ideas, proofreading PDF files, taking technical notes, doing mathematical scratch work, and so on. Think of it like a notebook/scrapbook with pens/markers that doesn’t take any consumables, takes up less space in a bag, allows undo/redo, and makes sharing the products digitally a snap. Works best when used alongside a l…

Yep, this is exactly what I do with my Surface - except then I do code on it, which is why I picked it instead of an iPad pro. This one device has replaced my MacBook pro while still letting me sketch and draw and annotate.
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