Matthew Miller
Christopher Dawson
Opening Statements
Apple's a friend to education
Matthew Miller: In 1989 I was issued a Macintosh SE at the USCG Academy. A few years later at Berkeley I purchased another Mac with an education discount. Apple has a long history of being a friend to educational institutions and I think they are going to be even more aggressive starting this year with deep discounts on the iPad 2, incentives for organizations to adopt Apple products, and willingness to spend some of their huge cash reserves to build the Apple educational ecosystem.
Apple has the OS, the hardware, and now the ecosystem strategy needed to have a major impact on the educational system. The only real barrier to implementation is cost and that is something they can impact, if they are willing to take the risk. If they are successful in widespread adoption of the iPad and the Apple Textbooks program, this success should increase their growth in the PC market as children growing up learning with an iPad, then take that experience to their primary computer.
Not suited to public education
Chris Dawson: Herbert Hoover called for a “chicken in every pot” during his 1928 presidential campaign. That didn’t work out so well with the Great Depression coming shortly thereafter, but the idea of a “tablet in every backpack” is one whose time has come. For well-heeled schools and districts, that device will probably be an iPad. For everyone else, though, it’s going to be something different.
Perhaps it will be an Intel Classmate, a Kindle Fire, a cheap laptop, a Chromebook, or any number of personal computing devices that students can bring to class and have as constant companions for anytime, anywhere study and interaction. But Apple’s first foray into e-textbooks, iBooks and iBooks Author makes it clear that theirs will be a closed ecosystem not well suited to widespread use in public education. Yes, a tablet in every backpack will be a reality. An iPad in every backpack? Not so much.
The Rebuttal
Closing Statements
What's best for the students
Matthew Miller
I understand that many people have an aversion to Apple products, but they need to set that aside and look at what is best for the students. Android has not shown that an open ecosystem is that beneficial -- with inconsistent experiences and content experiences that range from good to bad. Closed ecosystems generally result in more consistent products that can be easily managed with minimal staff.
Apple has made the iBooks Author tool simple to use and free so teachers who want to offer up customized experiences and tools are free to do so. When teachers create outstanding resources, they can easily share these throughout the country and know that others are able to use and take advantage of their work because the ecosystem is standard across the entire educational sector.
Cost is a factor, but let's all step up to the plate and make education the priority.
Open and cheaper alternatives
Christopher Dawson
There aren’t many people who aren’t utterly enamored of their iPads. But guess what, folks? There are alternatives. Apple will make plenty of money in education, but the iPad will not become the de facto choice for the “tablet in every backpack”.
As we’ve seen with Windows marketshare in education, no matter what sort of discounts or market positioning Apple applies to the iPad 2 when it launches the iPad 3 (think white MacBook), there will always be cheaper alternatives that meet the needs of students as well as the iPad and that don’t require buy-in to a closed ecosystem. Apple threw down the gauntlet with iBooks and iBooks Author and made it abundantly clear that for educational content on the iPad, it was the Apple way or the highway. While this will work for some settings, most will gravitate towards more open (and cheaper) solutions.
Budget realities and impossible dreams
Jason Hiner
When we look at tablets for education, Apple is off to a running start with the iPad and interactive books, and this is likely to get Apple back into the education market and shape the education industry in the years ahead. Matt is absolutely correct that the Apple approach offers a simple, unified experience that a lot of schools and school systems are going to embrace.
Still, it's unlikely to become a universal standard. There is already a strong open source bent in a lot of the education sector and a lot of well-funded companies from Intel to OLPC want to continue to feed that. Budget realities will also drive a lot of educational institutions away from Apple and toward low-cost alternatives. So, Chris is ultimately correct that an iPad in every backpack is an impossible dream.
More from "The Great Debate"
This will result in 1:1 since the students who don't have their own devices will have increased access to school technology because of those who bring their own. The onus will be on the schools to provide secure, reliable access.
If this BYOD is to work, even the poorest household needs a way to provide these to the students. There is a significant portion of the population where the household cannot afford a basic computer. How then will these families and students participate?
You're thinking (just pretending, maybe) like any other Apple fanboi. Definitely not original. And not very creative either.
The title says iPad and the voting box is before the arguments, it's a misleading click bait using the iPad name instead of tablets but I voted before reading arguments, so it's impossible to get iPads to everybody, but cheaper tablets might be possible.
Yep. Tablets ultimately make a lot of sense to replace textbooks, but it will never be the iPad that does it at a universal level. Apple's products are luxury items and the price points needed to make this work in tight school funding is not an area Apple ever wants to play in.
But there is a lot of room for something cheaper. Think raspberry pi with a touchscreen and some serious armor.
Look at it the otherway - you know, the largely populated aeras that have no energy, or very little at all, but not because they want or prefer it that way.
It's a student's ability to come to valuable conclusions that makes them successful Not how well they can do on standardized tests about facts.
Kindle for every student might be do-able though, and be cost neutral.
Kindle's combined with State copyrighted e-textbooks would REDUCE expenditures since the textbook could be modified later, rather than totally re-written every couple of years. Although the State employed Profs taking paychecks from Texbook Mfg and the State Uni's would come to a halt. (not to say they wouldn't get paid extra for writing the textbook, but no middle-men to get in the way and add expense)
Apple is the device of the 1% (or the pseudo-1%). It is far too expensive for schools, and too limited for proper education. The schools will get tablets, because it'll be CHEAPER than textbooks. iPads bust that because they're more expensive than textbooks.
While I think having a tablet is great as a supplement, I sure in heck won't forced to buy my child an Ipad.
Let parents decide what type of device (and let them buy through the school at whatever discount is agreed upon), and you may have something.
My daughter teaches in a Title 1 school. Many parents just don't care. What you are talking about may work in the suburbs. In the inner city ... forget it! Even if the kids get them, will they be cared for and maintained? Will they be sold? Good luck!
I can tell you that for my area (Southern California) that does not exist.
Most schools are just trying to have enough money to stay open. Forget things like band, art, music, sports......
IT? That is decreasing at an alarming rate.
With Windows 8, later versions of Android or even some other OS - Many device makers will get a chance to create devices ranging from high-end tablets to cheap low-end tablets.
If the question was "A tablet for everyone????, I would have said - "it???s In inevitable in the long run". But blocking out all other tablets is the ultimate form of iFanboyism.
What are the children going to use them for?
Think of it terms of what activity they currently do will this replace and do better.....
Still looking for that answer
The requirement to run everthing through iTunes vs just connect a cable or insert a thumb drive is not intuitive to someone who wants to move a video from his or her camcorder to the tablet.
I think the divice of choice will look a lot more like a Kindle Fire or a Nook than either an iPad or a general purpose Anroid or Windows tablet, because that is how you keep cost and complexity down.
Allowing "Asia Inc" to sell the devices will pretty much guarantee that they can be affordable.
So, I believe that economics will drive an e-reader of some sort for every child, but not only don't I believe that it will be iPad, I will make it my business to oppose it if it ever comes to board of education which I vote for.
Any general purpose tablet would be a mistake. You need an advanced e-reader only.
First spec the requirement, then design/select an open device with open software.
iPADs are definitley overkill, as are open Androiod tabs.
Any ereader will have the capability to be a general purpose device. The biggest need is the screen. But, the first generation OLPC had a cheap touch screen. It can be done. It can even be done easily.
What you are missing here is the need for teacher supervision. The system has to have a backdoor for the teacher to monitor the systems the students are using. Teachers also need to be able to 'collect' the student questions and answers.
These devices will not just replace textbooks, they will also be the test and homework devices. Software keyboards on touchscreens are already good enough for many school activities.
But, I do agree with you, Apple has priced itself out of this market already. They cost more, and they don't do anything more.
Apple's ibook 'author' program doesn't give you anything that GPL Sigil doesn't have too. As a plus, Sigil allows the Author to own and distribute the resulting text any way he or she chooses.
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An iPad for every child: Inevitable or impossible?
RE: An iPad for every child: Inevitable or impossible?
RE: An iPad for every child: Inevitable or impossible?
RE: An iPad for every child: Inevitable or impossible?
RE: An iPad for every child: Inevitable or impossible?