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iPad2’s Used in School Pilot Program

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
The Auburn, Maine school district has purchased 285 iPad2’s for use in a pilot program to increase the learning curve among kindergarteners. The initial layout of $200k will cover an entire grade level of this small community.

The device is seen as more portable and less expensive than laptop computers, and more appropriate for the age group's hands-on use
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So they're going to spend $200k on iPads? I can think of many things a school could do with two hundred thousand dollars that doesn't involved expensive toys that kids will destroy. Get cheap Android tablets or netbooks for this stuff, it will save thousands of dollars and then put the money you've just saved into fun activities that promote reading and education in general.
 
so in a time where schools budgets are constantly getting cut, teachers loosing their jobs, and students suffering, they manage to find 200k in the budget to buy 285 things that are completely unnecessary
 
computergeek485 said:
so in a time where schools budgets are constantly getting cut, teachers loosing their jobs, and students suffering, they manage to find 200k in the budget to buy 285 things that are completely unnecessary
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Soft Capital (which is where the money comes from to buy stuff like that) is from a different pot of money than M&O. The two pots of money can't intermingle.

While a district might have a surplus of Soft Cap and can afford $200k of iPads, they might be running a deficit of M&O thus requiring them to RIF (reduction in force) employees or ask for early retirements.
 
It's all part of Apple's world domination plan....catch them when they are young and indoctrinate them. :D
 
wow. 200K for toys? I would be losing my shit if i lived in that community and was paying school taxes for that.
 
iPads cheaper than laptops? :eek: What kind of laptops were these schools buying before, macbooks??

That + what everyone else said, sheesh! Luckily budgets over here are even tighter so wasteful purchases like that are even less likely. :eek:
 
Maybe they could take that money and just get better teachers instead expensive toys for the tots?

Just a thought.
 
Ascario said:
iPads cheaper than laptops? :eek: What kind of laptops were these schools buying before, macbooks??

That + what everyone else said, sheesh! Luckily budgets over here are even tighter so wasteful purchases like that are even less likely. :eek:
Click to expand...

Most laptops I see people buying these days are <$400.
 
Ascario said:
iPads cheaper than laptops? :eek: What kind of laptops were these schools buying before, macbooks??

That + what everyone else said, sheesh! Luckily budgets over here are even tighter so wasteful purchases like that are even less likely. :eek:
Click to expand...

This is not the first time my state has had this idea (look up MLTI - Maine Learning Technology Initiative). When I was in middle school, they gave all the students iBooks. The project failed horribly since you can't just give a bunch of kids an expensive piece of technology and expect them to take care of it. Many students intentionally broke their iBooks after the first year so that they would be given the newer, faster, second generation ones. One student even threw his iBook at a teacher (it missed and smashed against the wall). The biggest problem (aside from the students themselves) was trying to find software for them that was compatible with the rest of the network. After I graduated, I spent a lot of time trying to find alternative programs for teachers that had become reliant on mac-only software, but could not actually afford to purchase a mac for themselves. The laptops were also plagued with permissions problems (after about 3 months, random files would have their permissions changed to admin-only). Not to mention the problems associated with managing separate machines with no remote access to any of them.

It did help provide some students access to computers, that would not have had that chance if it was not for this program. I don't think the benefit was worth the cost though.

My local school has taken a different approach to this. They are now giving students eeePCs (the project is not funded by the state, or the public, it is actually fit into the current working budget for IT, which is shrinking every year). Right now there are not enough netbooks for everyone, so they are handed out to the classes that need them (sciences, English, etc., with the option to take them home if needed) and stored there. The school uses a thin-client setup that is a modified version of the K12LTSP project. The eeePCs enable students to log into their accounts from anywhere (home or at school), and access all the software the school provides, and all their files, no matter which computer they actually log in to. If a computer is damaged, the student can just log into a different machine and pick up where they left off.

I was hoping that other school districts would pick up this idea, but I guess I was wrong.
 
I'd rather my kid be taught on an actual computer that will be used in his workplace.
 
I remember taking a database course in College a few years ago. They were testing some software they'd written. They gave us all tablet PC's to use for the duration of the course.

We spent half the class trying to get the software to work and the other half of the class ignoring the teacher and screwing around online.

Seems like a pretty good use of 200k
 
Budzman said:
WTF is wrong with these people.
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Apple keeps paying the right people a lot of money to use only Apple products, and the parents buy the "we're just preparing students for the real business environment" bullshit.
 
Blown 89 said:
I'd rather my kid be taught on an actual computer that will be used in his workplace.
Click to expand...

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!

Seriously, what is this schoolboard thinking when they decided spending $200,000 dollars on 285 toys for KINDERGARTEN students was a smart idea? I bet 200 on those toys have bitemarks and slobber on the edges on them after the first year and at least 50% are broken, 35% stolen/lost (b/c we know kindergarten kids are good about keeping their jackets/stuff with them and never forget things) and the other 15% the kindergarten kids won't be able to figure out how to use. They are in KINDERGARTEN!

I remember kindergarden kids trying to figure out the triangle goes in which slot? Circle in which slot? and it taking them a while to solve that puzzle.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Where are the trillions of dollars that have been spend on US public schools over the decades when you read stories like this and you see school districts nationwide with abysmal student aptitudes and shameful scholastic performance? Where is the money?
 
cyr0n_k0r said:
Soft Capital (which is where the money comes from to buy stuff like that) is from a different pot of money than M&O. The two pots of money can't intermingle.

While a district might have a surplus of Soft Cap and can afford $200k of iPads, they might be running a deficit of M&O thus requiring them to RIF (reduction in force) employees or ask for early retirements.
Click to expand...

This is a LARGE part of the problem. Out here in California they are cutting the number of classes offered, and raising the tuition. What used to be around 6K a few years ago is now 11K, and they are threatening to raise it to over 20K, which will make California the most expensive state university system in the country.
Many students now have to go 5 or 6 years just to get the classes they need, while spending 2x as ouch per year. Meanwhile, take a walk around a campus and you will see construction work everywhere, especially on administrative buildings, landscaping, etc.

Instead, they should be trying to educate as many students as possible, as cheaply as possible.

FYI: At 20K per student, and 30 student in a class, it comes out to $600K. I know some of these "professors" are highly paid, but I doubt they are making anywhere near that much, so where is the money really going? (the $600K does not even include the huge subsidies from the state)
 
This just in ipad 2 users on the same level as kindergarteners :D

But mom this magic marker dosent work correctly on this screen.


Honestly, I can see a use fior them in the classroom. When I was in the first grade we got a bunch of brand new IIE's.... Oregon trail, CS. And some basic math games...

As long as they arnt allowing tne kids to take them home, I could see abc/123 flash cards... curious george ect.
 
MajorDomo said:
The Auburn, Maine school district has purchased 285 iPad2’s for use in a pilot program to increase the learning curve among kindergarteners. The initial layout of $200k will cover an entire grade level of this small community.
Click to expand...

I can't help but wonder whether the administrators who make these decisions are nothing more than Mactard fanboys who want to indoctrinate an ever growing loyal base for their master Steve Jobs.

I remember being in kindergarten once, and we never got anything fancy to play around with that costs this kind of money. With budgets that allow for this, no wonder all the school systems are broke. If money can't intermingle between different budgets during a time of fiscal crisis, it is proof that beauracracy is killing our system.
 
Methadras said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Where are the trillions of dollars that have been spend on US public schools over the decades when you read stories like this and you see school districts nationwide with abysmal student aptitudes and shameful scholastic performance? Where is the money?
Click to expand...

It was consumed by the teachers unions and administrators. Somehow people think that spending more money education always results into better educated students.
 
computergeek485 said:
so in a time where schools budgets are constantly getting cut, teachers loosing their jobs, and students suffering, they manage to find 200k in the budget to buy 285 things that are completely unnecessary
Click to expand...

I came to this thread to post something very similar.
 
If they get them at all, why do the little kids have to get the iPad2? The original iPad would be more than enough to teach them nothing about computers.
 
phide said:
When's the last time you saw a sub-$400 laptop you actually wanted to use?
Click to expand...

Cheap netbooks would work perfectly for what this school wants. Educational software shouldn't need anything powerful to run on and kindergarteners aren't going to get any more learning out of an expensive toy.
 
nutzo said:
This is a LARGE part of the problem. Out here in California they are cutting the number of classes offered, and raising the tuition. What used to be around 6K a few years ago is now 11K, and they are threatening to raise it to over 20K, which will make California the most expensive state university system in the country.
Click to expand...
Yeah the California UC system is quite shocking if you run numbers down. Simply go to wikipedia and look at the expenditures vs students on some of those schools, places like UC Davis and UCLA spend over $70k per student, which is more than many private schools. Hell UC Berkeley actually brings in more money than it spends, yet they keep talking about raising rates for them. It's all a big cluster fuck. At the school I work at over the past year they built an entire new building... oh that money already has been allocated... batshit insane is what it is. Because I dig the whole building expense separate from paying salaries, but when you can't afford to keep a building open, maybe you shouldn't have fucking built it in the first place?

dopexile said:
It was consumed by the teachers unions and administrators. Somehow people think that spending more money education always results into better educated students.
Click to expand...
Because those teachers are just getting paid so much fucking money they're bleeding the system dry... sounds like you've been looking at Wisconsin propaganda. While I'll agree administrators tend to be hugely overpaid, they really make up a small percentage of overall funds unless its a tiny school system.
 
nutzo said:
This is a LARGE part of the problem. Out here in California they are cutting the number of classes offered, and raising the tuition. What used to be around 6K a few years ago is now 11K, and they are threatening to raise it to over 20K, which will make California the most expensive state university system in the country.
Many students now have to go 5 or 6 years just to get the classes they need, while spending 2x as ouch per year. Meanwhile, take a walk around a campus and you will see construction work everywhere, especially on administrative buildings, landscaping, etc.

Instead, they should be trying to educate as many students as possible, as cheaply as possible.

FYI: At 20K per student, and 30 student in a class, it comes out to $600K. I know some of these "professors" are highly paid, but I doubt they are making anywhere near that much, so where is the money really going? (the $600K does not even include the huge subsidies from the state)
Click to expand...
My post has nothing to do with the state university systems. I was describing K-12 education. Higher education works completely different and everything you said has no bearing on anything related to K-12 operations.

There are so many different sources of money for K-12 districts. Soft Capital, M&O, Prop 301, grants, bonds, overrides, etc. All of those pots of money have different rules for how they can be spent, and what they can be spent on.
 
Derangel said:
Cheap netbooks would work perfectly for what this school wants. Educational software shouldn't need anything powerful to run on and kindergarteners aren't going to get any more learning out of an expensive toy.
Click to expand...

yes but kids like touching shit rather than typing it out or using a mouse.
 
What?!!! When I was in Kindergarten I had story time, snacks, nap time, counted fruit, and colored. I don't think iPods are going to aid in any 'learning curve'. I thought parents were bad slapping a screen in front of their little kids face.
"God damn it, sit down, shut up, and look at this flashy screen!!!" Now get ADHD and take a pill for it.
 
I agree with the sentiment in the thread. However, in principle, I believe that a kindergarten aged child can benefit from an iPad. Most parents think it is crazy, but I personally know a few 2 year old kids with their "own" iPads, and guess what? They are far and above smarter than any other kids their age in their class, due to the time spent playing the educational games. It is only a question of time, and this kind of learning from an extremely early age will be so common, it will be considered child abuse or similar to deprive a child of that age of such learning experiences. The difference in my example though, is that the parents bought the device, and it will be cared for. These ones the school buys will not be respected.
 
why is everyone jumping on the school district so fast? the article mentioned nothing about their finances, so it sounds like they have it in their budget to do so. Also, it looks like they have some direction and experience with the older students using laptops, so it seems like they know what they are doing.

I understand it's easy to jump on the school district, but if they aren't plagued with problems, why blast them for no reason?
 
phide said:
You're certain of this? How?
Click to expand...

Should as in "I think they will work fine". As in "I've never seen educational software that requires anything resembling a powerful computer". Also as in "I don't see a reason for kindergarteners to have iPads funded by a school district".
 
phide said:
You're certain of this? How?
Click to expand...

It seems like everyone here is an expert on what the school's needs are. Unless posters here are unanimously from this city in Maine, i'd say they have no clue what they are talking about.
 
bigpimpatl said:
It seems like everyone here is an expert on what the school's needs are. Unless posters here are unanimously from this city in Maine, i'd say they have no clue what they are talking about.
Click to expand...

So what the fuck else are we supposed to do in this thread? Its here for people to discuss the article in question.
 
Derangel said:
So what the fuck else are we supposed to do in this thread? Its here for people to discuss the article in question.
Click to expand...

There's hardly anything being discussed, it's just a bunch of whining and generalizations. If the school district is truly in a dire financial position, then I am wrong and everyone else is right. But I have yet to see any evidence of that from any poster, just post after post bashing the school district for its use of ipad. I hate the ipad, but if the school thinks it will work for them, and they have the budget to do so, then more power to them.
 
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