Apple Executives Meet with Turkish President to Discuss $4.5 Billion iPad Education Initiative

[Acoustimac]

ipad bashers?

Those of you that are downplaying the impact of technology like the ipad on education obviously have never seen these devices in action. They are not glorified books as some would suggest. I've seen children who struggle to read and write due to physical/mental limitations become authors in their schools. Students are able to produce examples of their learning easily on these devices in ways that are more fitting for their style of learning. Technology of any kind is only as good as the teacher who designs the learning experiences. You can give a person a BMW, but if they don't know how to drive it becomes a nice looking boondoggle. Apple has been involved in many learning ventures dating back to the 1980's. As long as Turkey follows their advice and prepares the educators this could be an incredible transformative experience.

 

[92jlee]

The only reason you all think this is a good idea is because you love apple, this is an apple forum at the end of the day.

Ipads are expensive
they break easily
they need to be replaced regularly due to apple's restrictions
closed eco system

I think this is a stupid investment and I hope it doesnt catch on because we will be dumbing down our children even more than we already have.

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A massive waste of funds, and the world's resources. Books are great: renewable, re-usable, don't use rare minerals (which we extract / exploit from African countries), don't become obsolete after a few years, don't get stolen, don't have screens to crack.

Hey, I'm a technology user, comp. sci. graduate, and currently an engineer working for a medical devices startup - but people, this insanity with making everything "digital" is costing us the world - literally and figuratively.

Turkey, nor any other country, needs iPads or much tablets in schools.

Of course Turkey is getting USD 1.14Billion in aid this year from the EU, so I guess they can use some of that money to buy iPads from Apple.

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/instruments/funding-by-country/turkey/index_en.htm

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So giving kids a new toy is going to make them behave?

Day one with iPad at school: "Cool we have an iPad"
Day forty with iPad at school: "Meh, school still sucks"

What needs to change is kid's perception and thereby parenting, not *giving* them more crap to fill up their lives.

Best post in this thread.

 

[BonnieOlson]

HI ! it's very nice. it gets big response.

 

[conradwt]

What a massive waste of public funds. They did a test in a British school and so many ipads were damaged, they are far too brittle and expensive to be used for education. Whats the point anyway? Its not like they will move on and get jobs in any area that will require use of an iPad!

You really don't know what kids will or will not achieve. Also, you can't predict what skill set the job will require. I have seen iPad and other tablet devices being integrated and used in medical centers by doctors, nurses, and staff.