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Grohowiak

macrumors 6502a
Nov 14, 2012
768
793
Yay. More kids that will forget what a pen looks like...
Just what we need. Point an touch, point and touch, point and touch... Builds character I bet

:rolleyes::rolleyes:;)
 

NotAdvisable

macrumors regular
Nov 16, 2011
220
90
Perth, Australia
I work at a school in Western Australia that's starting a BYOD program for iPad's which is compulsory for all 2,000 students to have (eventually).

Each student has an iPad which their family has paid for, which the school provides apps through an MDM platform.

So far, marks are up and bullying is down.
Students are taking much more interest in their education.


So it's fine for you to all say how books will always be better than electronic displays...
... but what normal 12 year old want's to read a book these days?
 

SpectatorHere

macrumors 6502a
Apr 21, 2010
501
109
I work at a school in Western Australia that's starting a BYOD program for iPad's which is compulsory for all 2,000 students to have (eventually).

Each student has an iPad which their family has paid for, which the school provides apps through an MDM platform.

So far, marks are up and bullying is down.
Students are taking much more interest in their education.


So it's fine for you to all say how books will always be better than electronic displays...
... but what normal 12 year old want's to read a book these days?

See, this is the problem...you act like you know. Parents and teachers frequently make this mistake.

You see how the kids love their iPads and iPhones at home, so you make the logical inference that when we put school work on iPads kids will love that. The problem is that it doesn't work.

I've seen kids ignore iPads for weeks at a time in this sort of environment. Just let them sit on a table. The first couple of days they're interested...yay iPads! Then they see they can't get the apps they want...then they see that flash games won't work....then they see the web is filtered like the rest of computers....and it becomes apparent iPads without games, music, the web suck.

Kids will not like them, although admittedly some will do better with ebooks.

This is just like parents in the 80s thinking that putting computer labs in the schools would change everything. What changed? Kids plagiarize off the web and can't write cursive worth a darn.

BTW, this isn't to say your stats are wrong. Heck I hope I'm wrong because this is clearly what's coming for nearly everyone.
 

donutbagel

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2013
932
1
This is so sad and pathetic. The value of a book cannot be replaced with an iPad full stop.

The value in dollars can't, but the learning value can. What's the difference? This Netherlands school is about replacing teachers with iPads as well. If you ask me, that's going to be really bad for most students.

----------

I don't really trust any "alternative" schools anymore. The students coming out of them never really get good at anything. At Crossroads (a semi-"alternative" school) here in LA, staying 7th-9th grade would not even teach you about WWI, WWII, the Cold War, the Civil War, or anything medieval, and they're behind a year in math classes.

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Just cut this crap and give a proper school, with proper teaching, and maintain a degree of discipline. A lot of children abuse their privileges, and blame the school for that. iPads can work well for textbooks and interactive programs, but should never take the job of the teachers.

Are you referring to the US or Netherlands? I know that's true in the US since I live here. No discipline, plenty of rotten kids, and a screwed up curriculum. My cousin can't even take any kind of computer science in high school, but he can take Korean. I went to visit his school and came back with a Mac 512K that his computer repair (closest thing to CS) teacher randomly and generously gave me, and everyone seemed to be wanting to pick a fight with me or something.

----------

I work at a school in Western Australia that's starting a BYOD program for iPad's which is compulsory for all 2,000 students to have (eventually).

Each student has an iPad which their family has paid for, which the school provides apps through an MDM platform.

That sounds excellent as long as it works. Are all of the reading materials on the iPad? They're attempting that in California, but so far, it hasn't been working well at all because you'd get only one or two textbooks on the iPad.
 

Hastings101

macrumors 68020
Jun 22, 2010
2,338
1,446
K
Yea.. every school I've taught or subbed in that made use of iPads the iPads were almost never used properly by students. They were more of a hindrance than anything and the schools always lacked software to monitor the iPads.

Still, those experiences were at the High School level, maybe it will be different if the kids are younger and grow up using it in schools?
 

thasan

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2007
1,104
1,031
Germany
Yeah cause students are really going to need 1024 levels of pressure support etc.

New age is upon us and frankly handwriting is dying out. Soon it will be merely an art form, voluntarily undertaken like many others. Get used to the idea

not only handwriting. drawing schemes etc is plain awful in ipad. i tried...with stylus. its bad, really bad, really really bad :(

there are three things i regret moving to apple.
1. buying magic mouse: could never get used to it.
2. an sd card reader for iPad: never used it!
3. an stylus. used it a few days. started having nightmares :(
 

hayesk

macrumors 65816
May 20, 2003
1,459
101
But no real stylus suport in iPad makes it quite limited for education.

Host based pressure sensitivity is important for education? You don't need iOS level stylus support to make diagrams or jot down text. And typing is faster than taking notes. At work, I type much more than I write with a stylus or pen.

Agreed. Apple really needs to complete the iPad hardware with a wacom digitizer layer to fully realize its potential as a creative device. Writing, note-taking, drawing, diagrams... education is creative.

Writing, note-taking, diagrams don't require that level of sensitivity. Drawing and painting does, but I did little of that outside art class.

You probably don't use books a lot. Not only is it not good for your eyes, but online reading makes it very hard to go forward and backwards over a large number of pages. […]

Just try to scroll from page 1 to 56 on an iPad.......RSI within a month

I would use the "Go to page" dialogue box, or set bookmarks, but you may have a point here - it depends on how well you study.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. It saddens me that two kids can be standing in the same room and would rather text each other back and forth than talk face to face. People have more FB friends then they do in their daily lives that they see face to face.
Kids still talk face to face in the same room. Why would you think they wouldn't?

And so what if people have more FB friends than they see in their daily lives. Before FB, people didn't see more people every day, they just had fewer remote friends because they didn't keep in touch.

I was replying to your post because it was sending out the message that schools using iPads will corrupt social interaction with the outside world. My reply was that it's already happening with FB and the like so schools won't be able to stop it at this point by keeping the kids interacting with teachers and physical books.

I shutter to think what the social world will be like 20 years from now. :(
My mom used to say that. So did my grandma. So did my great grandma…
 

217833

Guest
Aug 19, 2008
162
0
It's very funny to read comment from people that don't understand anything about digital age...
 

JoeG4

macrumors 68030
Jan 11, 2002
2,828
494
Part of the problem I had with computers in school was that they simply took too much of the experience away from the students over the years. At first, the teachers had no idea what to do with them and they were randomly installed.

In my town, we received a huge donation of 486s in the 90s. I remember setting up almost every last one of those in my school in 5th grade, and doing it again in 8th at another school as they made excellent toys for rainy days.

Amusingly, I think the kids learned more about using those computers than they possibly could today on ones that are so locked down they're even less functional than the iPads are.

When they locked everything down except the web browser and MS office, that's pretty much all anyone would bother trying to do on them anymore.. same goes for office places! So look where we ended up.
 

JGRE

macrumors 65816
Oct 10, 2011
1,012
664
Dutch Mountains
Why? And I am American but have been living in Amsterdam for 10 years now.

Okay not all Dutch but after ten years.......
Why not:
1. The false pretend of the school using Steve Jobs name to attract interest.
2. Not use you kid as a guinea-pig just to find out after 10 years that this system did not work after all.
3. Ruining your kids eyes by making them look at a computer screen all day long.
4. The fact that kids do not work without proper supervision by a teacher.
5. There are already many applications of ICT in school for may years, the basis of their system is no different they are just exaggerating it.
6. You restrict you kids access to just that what this school is programming into the system.
You kid will be unable to handle a pen.
7. The school cannot point out a single reason why this would be better than conventional schools beside it is supposed to be easier for you as a parent.
8. An iPad cannot replace normal teaching material, just compliment it.
9. Lack of proper social interaction with others besides email and other ICT tricks.

Just a few as an example why I would never go along with something like this.
PS My youngest kid is dyslectic and uses Kurzweil 3000 to help him, but I would never allow it to replace normal eduction.

----------

In that case, I suppose the other Dutch people are ashamed you are Dutch as well.

LOL: Funny dude :D
 

curmudgeon32

macrumors regular
Aug 28, 2012
240
1
Oh come on, the kids today (and many people on this very forum) are buried in electronic devices almost every second of the day. You're taking this way too far as if it's the first time people are starting to interact with computers. :rolleyes:
Sure, "kids today" are using mobile electronic devices constantly — and have been for what, the last five years or so? Nowhere NEAR long enough to assess long-term physiological effects, much less effects on comprehension, attention span and a host of other factors.
 

mrsir2009

macrumors 604
Sep 17, 2009
7,505
156
Melbourne, Australia
In New Zealand I've noticed that the schools are eager to have the students using laptops/iPads all the time during primary and the first couple of years of secondary school - but during senior high school they run into problems. The ministry of education still runs all exams in a traditional exam-room, and the students have to write their essays & do their tests with pens on pieces of paper. Therefore they have to practice writing fast & efficiently with a pen and paper (without making too many mistakes), kind of killing the whole "e-learning" thing, with the teachers making you go back to the old-fashioned way...
 

NotAdvisable

macrumors regular
Nov 16, 2011
220
90
Perth, Australia
See, this is the problem...you act like you know. Parents and teachers frequently make this mistake.

You see how the kids love their iPads and iPhones at home, so you make the logical inference that when we put school work on iPads kids will love that. The problem is that it doesn't work.

I've seen kids ignore iPads for weeks at a time in this sort of environment. Just let them sit on a table. The first couple of days they're interested...yay iPads! Then they see they can't get the apps they want...then they see that flash games won't work....then they see the web is filtered like the rest of computers....and it becomes apparent iPads without games, music, the web suck.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you.
But, we let the students install games / music / videos or anything they want. It's their device.
We teach them how to use the iPad, how to manage space and content. We give them the apps needed to work and play.
They can then use their iPad however they please, within reason. Finished your work for the class? Play Angry Birds.
Of course while the devices are connected to school WiFi we block inappropriate content (eg. porn) - but that's all we block.

That sounds excellent as long as it works. Are all of the reading materials on the iPad? They're attempting that in California, but so far, it hasn't been working well at all because you'd get only one or two textbooks on the iPad.

Students use a combination of physical books and e-books.
For example they'd read their English Novel on the iPad (bookmarks, highlighting and so-forth), write their draft & editing copies using paper and then their final copies on the iPad.
This is so students don't loose the ability of handwriting, and we get the best of both worlds.

In New Zealand I've noticed that the schools are eager to have the students using laptops/iPads all the time during primary and the first couple of years of secondary school - but during senior high school they run into problems. The ministry of education still runs all exams in a traditional exam-room, and the students have to write their essays & do their tests with pens on pieces of paper. Therefore they have to practice writing fast & efficiently with a pen and paper (without making too many mistakes), kind of killing the whole "e-learning" thing, with the teachers making you go back to the old-fashioned way...

The issue here is that teachers and schools place students in an all electronic environment, taking them completely away from pen and paper.
Obviously during an exam, kids can't use an iPad / tablet and Google the answer so in senior school they have to be re-taught how to write & spell.

Proper eLearning is all about balance between technology and pen & paper. That's what we do at the school I work at, and it works wonders.
 

AaronTheYoung

macrumors member
Jan 27, 2010
89
2
I think there is no scientific reason why there should be any difference between paper and iPad books for eyes.

But no real stylus suport in iPad makes it quite limited for education.

No real stylus support? It supports my Jot Pro stylus quite well. What do you mean?
 

charlituna

macrumors G3
Jun 11, 2008
9,636
816
Los Angeles, CA
Yay. More kids that will forget what a pen looks like...
Just what we need. Point an touch, point and touch, point and touch... Builds character I bet

:rolleyes::rolleyes:;)

And? Times change. Pen and paper aren't the norm anymore. Just like ball point pens replaced fountain ones, which replaced quills. Same with using graphite in wood pencils over chunks of charcoals or chalk.

----------

See, this is the problem...you act like you know. Parents and teachers frequently make this mistake.

Way to miss the part about how this is someone at a school in the midst of an iPad based program. So I would say he knows better than you what is going in at his school.
 

jaymzuk

macrumors regular
Jun 1, 2012
222
46
Thousands of kids who have no idea how to use MS office. This bodes well for their employment prospects
 

charlituna

macrumors G3
Jun 11, 2008
9,636
816
Los Angeles, CA
They're attempting that in California, but so far, it hasn't been working well at all because you'd get only one or two textbooks on the iPad.

Total BS. There are dozens of available textbooks at all levels and topics, most of which are well under 1 GB. Plenty of room for most students.
 
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