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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

#241

Post by jsolson »

toast0 wrote: post #120
yoz-y wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can (or could, anyway) force it to open in a window (right click the app icon and select "open in window"). This allows you to go really fullscreen and fixes control keys (C-w works again rather than closing the tab).

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#242

Post by matwood »

decasteve wrote: post #19

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…

> 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.

Wouldn't this happen on a PC as well? ASCII games got me into computers years ago and led me down the path of wondering how to create them.

I think what's really happened is that we geeks do not understand why every single person does not want to know the inner workings of a computer. People are creative in different ways, many of which work great on an iPad.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#243

Post by basseq »

usrusr wrote: post #174
masterleep wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is absurd, isn't it? Multi user iPads would be incredibly useful in the home as well.

Would it help making households buy a second iPad? Even if it is not the main reason, it sure helps keeping the priority low. But the iPad is an offshot of a phone and those are so personal (the real personal computers, just think of the place where people water-damage their phones) that it would be questionable wether spending "UI bandwidth" on user switching would be worth it even if implementation was free.

  Would it help making households buy a second iPad?
I'd argue yes. Multi-user profiles mean you have a set-up that's yours. You're more likely to invest in it, which means you're more likely to want to interact with it. If someone else is using the device, you can't—so you buy another one.

I think that's more compelling than the argument of, "I need my own iPad so I can have my own space." Many people haven't realized they want their own space yet.

The real trick would be keeping everything in the cloud and making the devices interchangeable. So I could have 3 iPads and pick up any one to login.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#244

Post by sperglord »

dpark wrote: post #12
derefr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The idea is that you're no longer constrained by planning around the use of a shared computer lab space. Instead, any activities that benefit from computer use can be used immediately.

You don't have a "pencil and paper" lab that is used the entire school day and scheduled around, and now computers have reached the commodity price point where they don't need to either.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#245

Post by carussell »

intoverflow2 wrote: post #221
ecspike wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of Chrome apps that can run offline and do coding. I've used Caret and Advanced REST client on occasion for things. It gets a bit tricky if you need something that can't work without a real webserver but there's a lot of beginner stuff you can do with it. crouton unlocked a bit more functionality giving you the possibility of a Linux base layer, albeit likely not a great idea to have kids put the m…

> crouton Correct me if I'm wrong but is this not the hack where every time you boot your system it tells you to press a key to reset it and if you press that key it instantly blanks the partition. This seem absurd even for an expert user to use full time let alone school kids.

That's not crouton. That comes from Google's coreboot-derived firmware. See https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/2014-firmware-summit

It's true, though, that the whole process needs to be made more straightforward and easily circumventable. It's just not a part of crouton.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#246

Post by bnolsen »

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…

My kids use chromebooks and for writing papers, managing accounts, etc I can't think of any better option.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#247

Post by dpark »

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #235
dpark wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>It means that everyone has a device they can do ... homework research on. I've known a couple of families where the children received take home devices they were expected to use to do further research or school work on, but who were unable to due to the lack of internet. A few had dial-up which can be unusable with some of the education sites (all the js resources take too long to load, time out, and leave the page…

Internet access is an good point. That would seriously diminish the "equalizing" factor of giving every child a device.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#248

Post by [deleted] »

bnolsen wrote: post #246
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…

My kids use chromebooks and for writing papers, managing accounts, etc I can't think of any better option.

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#249

Post by pawadu »

siranachronist wrote: post #102
Tsagadai wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But MIT records most lectures and has great online companion resources, which is where the tech in teaching thing is really helpful

Yeah, but in my book thats "technology done right".

No hype, no expensive toys, just the right tech to solve the right problems without getting in your face.

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