What, you think regular desktops are cheaper?
$299 Dell Inspiron 660s with CELERON processor, WITHOUT a monitor ($99).
$399 above WITH monitor.
$329 iPad Mini
And the Dell will use about 10x more power.
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Apple Scores $30 Million iPad Contract from L.A. Unified School District [Updated]
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What, you think regular desktops are cheaper?
$299 Dell Inspiron 660s with CELERON processor, WITHOUT a monitor ($99).
$399 above WITH monitor.
$329 iPad Mini
And the Dell will use about 10x more power.
If there is any improvement in the quality of education at all I am wiling to sacrifice the teachers unions getting (very slightly) higher pay, more benefits, and better (partially) unfunded pensions for the teachers that are already the center of a widely agreed failed system.
The current political system cannot reduce public employee power even in the face of entire cities going BK. So anything that can impact real students in real ways will at least partially offset the insanity of the politics.
Remember the impossible, schools are about students and parents, not teachers, administrators and politicians. You would never know it by the management and test outcomes.
Rocketman
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This is not true for textbooks. Printing, Binding and Distribution is a fractional cost to make a hard-cover book (think like 10% of the list price).
The majority of the costs are in things like editorial, permissions and royalties. it is expensive to *make* the content, and much cheaper to *print* it.
Where would you place those teachers and their students? I assume that there are not empty classrooms.
But as others have already pointed out, they cannot use that money to hire teachers because it is earmarked for infrastructure. 30 million will not build an additional school and hire staff for it.
Are these the 16GB versions then, cause the 32GB iPads, with warranty are already $698 sans software.....seems like not a whole lot of memory for educational software and/or textbooks.
Wonder if they'll be engraved with the LAUSD logo?
teach kids
creative problem solving
engineering
computer programing
along with one of; german, chinese, hindi
stop making factory workers (our factories are all closed/offshore)
make critical thinkers who can meet the challenges of the 21st century!
If only critical thinking were much more emphasized in our public schools. Truth be told however, I feel like my generation is less critical than the last.
Hiring more instructors is nothing more than a dream you and I share. You have to keep in mind things like corporate donors/lobbyists to the board members and the crazy ideology that anyone can learn everything with the internet without the need of interacting with another human being.
Personally, I think there's a middle ground with hiring more instructors while bringing academia to the 21st century. Let's hire more instructors and digitize textbooks, homework, and anything else we would have gotten on paper.
If by "heavy focus" it is twisted to infer the ability to use Apple's products like the Apple TV, Airplay, and Mac OS X actually work in an enterprise environment where the customer wants to work with Virtual Desktops (especially since they no longer make rackable servers to run VDI on in the data centers) Apple TV working in a multi-vlan/subnet environment, or manage iOS devices with special carts with cables going to each one. Then yes, Apple has long had a heavy focus on the education market.
Unless Apple starts listening to the customers and their K-12/Higher Ed needs they will find themselves losing more and more ground to their competitors. Especially those who come to the HigherEd market with the products our faculty are clamoring for (AppleTV/iOS Airplay)
What makes those textbooks expensive? Clue: it isn't the paper.
I see no indication that electronic versions will be any cheaper. Never mind any kind of interactive version.
Oh, the the publisher will probably manage to put a yearly "ebook maintenance fee" into the deal somewhere.
The professional engineering books that I use are often 100-200USD each - and the ebooks are priced exactly the same, so no savings there.
With the introduction of tablets in the classroom, there is a bunch of HW that can break, get stolen, damaged or abused.
I doubt whether teachers have had time to adjust the teaching methods to work with the new iPad (or are we just going to just them as breakable books?)
This is dumb.
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Books:
Don't get stolen and flipped on craigslist
Don't crack when you drop them
Few good books need to be updated on a yearly basis. (Maybe the removal of Pluto as a planet.)
Don't have useless crap like movies, which a single 32" screen in the classroom can already cater for. Nor does it require publishers to magically make those movies for that "so much cheaper than paper books" pricing that they're not going to live up to.
"Though Microsoft has been making a strong push to disrupt Apple's foothold in the education market by offering K-12 schools its Surface tablets at the low price of $199, its pricing incentives didn't have an effect on the Los Angeles Unified School District, reports AllThingsD."
Duh. LAUSD doesn't care how much anything costs
It's like Santa Monica College. They have brand new high-end iMacs to do the job that low-end 2007 iMacs could do easily.
Though even iPads instead of textbooks could be cheaper and better than textbooks as long as the teachers actually know how to use them.
Youreally thing the cost of an iMac means anything? Look at the BIGGER budget. What does the empty desk with no computer on it cost? Figure there is a floor and a foundation under the floor and there are kights inthe ceiling above the desk add up the TOTAL cost of that 100 square feet of space before you plce a computer in it. The school has alraady spent rought $20,000 for the space the desk sits on. Yes, you need space for walkways and to pull backthe cair and so on so a 10 by 10 foot square is reasonable. Buildings cost about $200 per square foot to build, and that is for cheap buildings.
So assuming the university has spent $20K why go cheap on the computer by trying to save $400?
This goes for businesses too, the cost of the actualy computer is NOTHING. The computer is writen off on a three year schedule. The cost is the building and the employee who uses the computer. The person useing the computer costs maybe $200K over the life of the commuter.
Schools are the same, the cost of the $2,000 computer is trivial.
Amazing this forum is filled with so many luddites and such arrogant ignorance. This budget and the way they spend it is up to the school board (who is answerable to the people of their districts). We know nothing of the objectives of this programme, or metrics, the ROI, none of that, yet so many here feel compelled to comment on something they know absolutely nothing about.
Personally, I think it's great, I think every child in the world should have access to technology like this, not only because it's the future (i.e. technology), but also and/or more so because it can be a different way to engage with children and teach them. More tools to teach with, great.
Rather than decrying the decision of this one district, how about putting that much energy into ensuring that every district can do the same thing? Wouldn't that be a better use of all that passion some here seem to have?!
Or, I guess it's easier to be an armchair school commissioner, passing judgment on every little partial piece of information that passes by??
Personally, I think it's great, I think every child in the world should have access to technology like this, not only because it's the future (i.e. technology), but also and/or more so because it can be a different way to engage with children and teach them. More tools to teach with, great.
Rather than decrying the decision of this one district, how about putting that much energy into ensuring that every district can do the same thing? Wouldn't that be a better use of all that passion some here seem to have?!
Or, I guess it's easier to be an armchair school commissioner, passing judgment on every little partial piece of information that passes by??
It was smart of the district to go with the iPad. The IT at my wife's school made the mistake of purchasing a bunch of Android tablets for the same price as the iPad a few years ago and they were absolutely crap and went unused.
I suspect these iPads will be stampped "LAUSD" on them in big letters and if given to the kids will be signed out. Parents will have to pay for iPads that go missing.
Also there was a pilot program where the school system was able to collect real-world data on things like theft and breakage rates.
One advantage in NOT using one large screen for the whole class is that doing this ALWAYS wastes the teacher's time. We show a video and the teach just sits down and is un productive. But with 30 small screen a teacher can spend that 30 minutes walking around giving individual instruction. She can shut down one or twoo iPads and help a students for a few minutes.
This isreally the reason techers give students things to do, to free themselves to help small groups. The big scren video is really a waste but some time worth it if the video is good enough
The biggest problem with schools is the "'zero sum" game. No mater what yu do, no matter how good it is, doing one thing means you are taking time away from some other thing. Doing "more reading" means doing less math or science. The hope is the iPad makes the limited time more productive.
Again, there was a large pilot program where that collected data from real classrooms.
After three years they will likely bump the hardware to whatever is new.
But still given that textbooks etc can cost twice that per kid each semester that's still not a bad gig.
Although the pricing is off. The iPads aren't likely $600+ as implied by the article. They are likely retail if not a bit less. It's the cost of the texts, insurance, LAUSDs corporate Apple Care contract etc that is raising the price per student that high.
Also the cost is so small (less then $200 per year for each student) that it is worth trying.
One big problem with schools is that because "everyone" went to a school, everyone things they know all about schools. It's true. most people thing they know about schools. It is about like saying that because you go to the movies a lot you know about how to work a camera, edit film and act.
Have you been in the iBooks store lately. Textbooks for basically every core subject for all grade levels from most if not all major companies
LAUSD is the second largest district in the country. That they voted in total agreement to go with iPads is huge. Many districts follow their lead
So yeah, sorry but some district in the Midwest with perhaps 1/20th the student doesn't really matter
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If it means better grades, smarter kids that actually learn something etc that's more than worth the expense.
And in this age of smart phones and Nintendos as lame as it seems putting a textbook on a tablet to the kids it might be just enough cool factor to get them to pay attention
I agree, schools need more teachers
HOWEVER,
what is likely happening LAUSD is buying the iPad's to replace the retiring desktop computers, something that would likely have cost $30 million anyway.
ALSO,
consider that by the time those students graduate, knowing how to use mobile devices will be an important job skill.
Just like Music, Movies, and Books, change is inevitable.
The publishers will need to adapt or die, and they need to change how their staff does things.
eBooks can be on an up-front/ upgrade model. Full price for edition, then a smaller amount for latest revision.
They spend just as much on paper textbooks, printing costs etc
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Or not. It is possible for the school to block off the App Store and require Configurator based loading of apps (assuming they are school owned). And they could put them on school owned iCloud accounts for tracking if they go walkabout which means under iOS 7 if a kid tries to wipe it to remove the blocks it won't reactivate until a school admin puts in the right info (and the blocks)
And with the teachers walking around and actually monitoring the room it won't be all that easy to get away with playing games. Facebook etc can be blocked on a network level. And so on.
Students will be able to take the computers home and controls will be included to limit undesirable content, such as pornography. Social networking sites will be available to students, with some limits.
Interesting info here
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0619-lausd-20130619,0,3194906.story
"The push for tablets came from schools Supt. John Deasy, who made it his goal to close the technology gap for the overwhelming majority of low-income district students. He expects to pay for the tablets with school construction bonds, a controversial source because they are repaid over decades. Such bonds typically are used to build and modernize campuses."
"The three-year warranty includes free replacement machines for up to 5% of the value of the purchase, Vladovic was told."
