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Apple Offers to Replace iPads With MacBooks in Maine State Classrooms

Getting nostalgic about my 12" PowerBook whilst I was at university! Perfect machine for me back then. It was small and light enough to carry around in a Crumpler bag that would also fit A4 notepads (but not much more!), and when I got back home I had a larger monitor, external HDD, full sized keyboard and mouse to plug in and it became a much more capable system.
 
apolloa said:
the Pro range extends that with the Apple Pencil for designers and artists etc.
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I did most my note-taking with a pen and paper and yeah, I think only now with the iPad Pro would I consider move away from that.
 
This is so stupid. No I wouldn't want to build complex excel macros on an iPad but this idea that iPads can't be used for learning is ridiculous. The school knew what it was getting when it purchased iPads so shame on them for not making a better decision in the first place.

ppcebay said:
That happens when you don't give the iPad a proper OS!
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You really think students couldn't use iOS for learning because it doesn't have a file system and a mouse? That's ridiculous.
 
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Have to say, on a productivity measure, iPad slows me down, at least twice as slow at accomplishing tasks. However, as a pure content consumption device, it is entirely more suitable and enjoyable.
 
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Education Pro.
The worst use of tax dollars for "education" since transgender sensitivity training for first graders.
 
tampageek said:
This debate wouldn't be happening if Tim Cook hadn't tried to sell iPads as laptop replacements without first having them run MacOS. It's not about the device - it's the operating system.
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Yes!! Because Surface Pros have been a resounding success! Oh, wait!:oops:o_O
 
M. Gustave said:
I saw his comment as suggesting Apple make an iOS laptop form factor specifically for education. Not dropping OSX from the entire Mac lineup.
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I don't know. The comment was, "Apple can solve this problem by dumping OS X from their laptops..." That doesn't sound like make an iOS laptop in addition to keeping OSX. Maflynn was right imo. A lot of people would no longer purchase Apple laptops if that idea was adopted. I would be one of those people.
 
As someone that used to work for Apple in their Enterprise Server and Education Support, i see this as a great move. iPad deployment both with MLTI and also with LAUSD was a farce. AppleID creation was ridiculous, having to whitelist everyone so they wouldn't get locked out, for one...MLTI also had a weird AppleID process where each iPad was assigned a temporary AppleID which then got converted to a 'regular' student one (if over 13y/o). Under 13 was a whole other kettle of fish. Each device was allocated a software deployment too, can't remember if that was through VPP or not though, but I quickly learned the names of all the Tech Admins at the various schools throughout the state as they'd have to call in far too often, through no fault of their own.
Apple REALLY dropped the ball on support for these school districts. A good buddy of mine ended up working with the Exec team for months after he showed them just how broken the whole thing was. I'm just surprised that MLTI are willing to stick with Apple tbh.
 
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urtules said:
With Pencil and iPad Pro you can do amazing things. Many professional replace their Wacom tablets for it. You use some old apps which don't want to change. But if you embrace yourself for new software, love Procreate and Pixelmatr you can achieve great results. Many people do.
iOS 9 brought Split Screen and Picture in Picture which allows to use 2 apps at once.
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This is a story about schools with limited budgets. You're example is about professionals and iPP and a $100 stylus. Not the same thing. In education (especially public education), the budget is always a factor.
 
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urtules said:
With Pencil and iPad Pro you can do amazing things. Many professional replace their Wacom tablets for it. You use some old apps which don't want to change. But if you embrace yourself for new software, love Procreate and Pixelmatr you can achieve great results. Many people do.
iOS 9 brought Split Screen and Picture in Picture which allows to use 2 apps at once.
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LOL, you live in fantasy world. First of all - you realise most design work (for all the stuff you see around you every day - billboards, banners, magazines, books, flyers, etc etc) has nothing to do with tablets/pencils? I do complex designs (like multi page print layouts with hundreds of individual parts, that need to be individually cleared with multiple parties, using different communication channels). You know very little about this obviously. Suggesting iPad for 90% of what serious designers/desktop publishers (not home enthusiasts playing around) need is absolutely ridiculous.

Pixelmator is fun, I own it both on Mac and iPad, but if on Mac it could one day become a Photoshop competitor (I'd love to see some real competition for Adobe), then on iPad only for light messing around. I've tried it extensively couple of times on the go - it can only do very very basic stuff and the whole workflow is extremely slow, compared to what is possible on computer (even Pixelmator on Mac).

Split screen, while useful, only fully works on some apps and is FAR FAR away from true multitasking and efficiency you can achieve on a large screen and a powerful OS like Mac OS or Windows 10.
 
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Sounds to me like a fail by the state of Maine. We have a 1-to-1 iPad program at our school and have taken steps to make sure this doesn't happen. Bottom line - it works. We have done the work and education to apply it intelligently. We have virtual desktops so that any kid who needs to do something that can only be done in a PC environment can just open their virtual desktop and do it. They have virtual Windows OS environment. There are plenty of productive apps for iOS. Either they did not do due diligence in their application or people were against it before it even happened. If students are just playing games on them then teachers need to be monitoring better. There are plenty of fun games that can be played on Macbooks too! At the elementary level our iPads are managed such that students cannot even download anything unless it has been added to their "App Catalog" through our iPad management system. iPads have allowed me to do a lot of things that I wouldn't have been able to do in the past. Some of them I could have done I guess if I'd found an open slot in the computer lab and taken my class down there. Some of them could not be done in the computer lab. iPads in schools have taken a lot of criticism but they are a boon for me and many of my coworkers.
 
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iPads will never be good for any real work unless you are an artist or app developer. they are a side show for consuming media and web content, that's it. there will always be need for both pad-like devices as well as true computers with full-sized, comfortable, and dedicated input devices.
 
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groovyd said:
iPads will never be good for any real work unless you are an artist or app developer. they are a side show for consuming media and web content, that's it. there will always be need for both pad-like devices as well as true computers with full-sized, comfortable, and dedicated input devices.
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You win the award for the most inane comment of the day. Well done.
 
I have to agree. iPad's (as much as they say otherwise) are just blown up phones, running on a slightly different version of iOS. I'm not bashing iPad's, in fact I really like my iPad, all I'm saying is that what is essentially a phone operating system running on a larger display is not ideal for classrooms.
 
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Does this basically come down to mouse support? Because that's the only thing an iPad really lacks support for for students compared to a Macbook. I mean "word processing is all but impossible" really? :)
 
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Back in the day we had to buy our own sliderules. Some kids had fancy ones others had the ones from Woolworths for 99 cents. I would have loved for the state to buy me a laptop. Of course back then there were no laptops and the smallest computer was the size of a room and used paper tape and punch cards... but still...
 
linuxcooldude said:
I see using the tools for learning as the ones you use in real life. Don't know of any business or job that uses Chrome books on a daily basis. See plenty of businesses using iPads and MacBooks.
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Perhaps, but if these students keep using the chomebook through out their education, don't you think that will make their way into the business world?

In a way that's what Apple did years ago, and as kids used the Apple computers in classrooms they wanted them at home.
 
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