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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

#91

Post by kaspiCZ »

Adaptive wrote: post #71
dpark wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying. I agree that Chromebooks are not the ideal learning device for coding. I was thinking general schooling and glossed over your earlier comment about teaching coding. I think they can probably work there, but you're right that a "real" computer is a better choice for that.

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.

Have you considered online tools such as Cloud9, replit etc.? If so, is the problem missing features, workflow or pricing?

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#92

Post by chjohasbrouck »

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 operating system.

This isn't a choice any of us made, it was just the climate and the time. That lucky coincidence has given most of us a lifetime of experience using these tools, extending back all the way into our childhood.

Over the last 10 years though, a lot of people/families have started replacing their desktops/laptops in favor of tablets/smartphones.

I can't even imagine how I would've become a programmer if I had grown up in a house that just used tablets and smartphones for everything.

They say that one of Bill Gates' greatest advantages in life was early access to the PDP-10.

I think this trend toward "convenience computing" is especially bad for lower-income families (which are more likely to rely entirely on smartphones/tablets), and could even be a significant contributor to income inequality.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#93

Post by pjmlp »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #78
ReverseCold wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also see comments about programming on them, that'd be painful. For everything else (that matters at school) though it's 10/10.

Not really. It's quite easy with Crouton installed.

Crouton is not ChromeOS.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#94

Post by pjmlp »

canuckintime wrote: post #87
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…

Please describe your PURE Chromebook setup to take the Udacity Web Development Course. Also is there a PURE Chromebook (or Chromebook+Android apps) setup to take an Udacity Android course?

Apparently ChromeOS devices are so useful that everyone has to force developer mode with Crouton to make use of them.

Never got the point of a browser based OS.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#95

Post by pasta »

This might be a little unrelated, but here in The Netherlands a research showed that 60% of the children have some form of pain caused by device usage.

As you can see in the statistics of this article, more and more devices are used at school. And looking at the pictures my first reaction was: let's also teach those children to have a good posture.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#96

Post by pjmlp »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #75
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. 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.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#97

Post by willvarfar »

Adaptive wrote: post #71
dpark wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying. I agree that Chromebooks are not the ideal learning device for coding. I was thinking general schooling and glossed over your earlier comment about teaching coding. I think they can probably work there, but you're right that a "real" computer is a better choice for that.

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.

Does X forwarding work? Or has someone got some kind of screen-scraping client that runs in a browser?

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#98

Post by cm2187 »

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.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#99

Post by 0xCMP »

kaspiCZ wrote: post #91
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.

Have you considered online tools such as Cloud9, replit etc.? If so, is the problem missing features, workflow or pricing?

Eclipse's Che is also very interesting. I hate the name, but it was super when I tried it.

Re: Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms

#100

Post by blitmap »

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…

The biggest problem I saw was the inability to mass-create Apple ID's for all the iPads. Leading the classroom through doing so was very frustrating.
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