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L.A. School District Cancels iPad Pearson Curriculum, Asks Apple for Refund

mainstreetmark said:
I used pen and paper and i turned out just good.
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Obviously not, as you should have turned out "well", not good. ;)

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Poisonivy326 said:
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You live and learn. Nowadays if I want students to do something web-based I use the chromebook cart. Cheap, easy, and I can monitor as they have to put the chromebooks on the desk and I can walk around and make sure they're actually doing their work.
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And there's no chance that anyone would want to take one home or fight over them...

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ericinboston said:
When you really look, what's the difference between the iPad 2 and iPad 6 other than hardware guts, iOS version, and a fingerprint reader?
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The user experience. I can hold my iPad Air indefinitely and the iPad 2 for about 15 minutes before my wrists hurt. When I hold the iPad Air, it feels better in my hands than the iPad2. I can one hand the Air and use the other hand freely for input, on the iPad2, it was a bit of a stretch to one hand it and have complete control over the other hand.

Stop looking at the hardware and start looking at the person using it and THEIR experience.
 
Sometimes the old low tech way is best.

Books.
Not dependent on electricity, no cords or charger needed.
Can take it just about anywhere.
Durable. Don't have to worry about cracking the screen.
 
rei101 said:
I have tried to take notes on an ipad and is so clumsy. Pen and paper, period.
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If I could go back to school / university and do it all over again, I'd bring some kind of audio recorder (video recorder would be ideal, if there are visual aides) and then actually listen to the teacher/instructor/professor and take in what they're saying.

Then when I get home, transcribe (or summarise) the recording for later reference.

I spent most of my education quickly scribbling notes without taking any time taking in what any of it actually meant, until much later when I was trying to make sense of those messy, scribbled notes.
 
Loucifer said:
Irrespectively of the (undoubted, in my view) usefulness of digitising educational material, I think Apple should do the right thing and pay back the 30 million.
As a gesture, it would be costly, but it would go some way toward cleaning up the tarnished image this affair has tainted Apple with.
I don't want to apportion blame to either party, but it is a joint venture, and Apple should distance themselves from it by doing the right thing.

:apple:
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I'm curious, why is Apple paying Pearson's debt "the right thing to do"? Pearson's an enormous company with a ton of money - they can pay their own debts just fine.
 
Pearson is JUNK

Pearson is a terrible company. There systems are junk.

They somehow have the textbook market cornered. I suspect it is years of corruption within the business. There is clearly not a free market at work with textbooks.

Books are overpriced and often outdated. There online packages are difficult to use, have wrong questions and answers and are sloppy and just plain junk. They use antiquated technologies and are impossible to deal with.

Apple should have never attempted to partner with Pearson.
 
doctor-don said:
What use is an iPad for photography and videography when the storage cannot be increased and the memory is sufficient for email and surfing, but not much more. I removed one locally popular TV news app because they could (would?) not update their stories which were minimal to start.
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Fair point. Didn't Steve Jobs once say something on the subject of iPads being used for productivity. "If the software isn't there or the hardware isn't powerful enough, this will be solved with time." Or words to that effect.

That was my point: If the iPad 3 was powerful enough for iPhoto, but did not have sufficient memory or storage for other tasks, why not fix those things 3 years on? Maybe Apple has, and that's why we're hearing rumours about an iPad Pro.
 
What we need is Oregon Trail and Number Munchers on these ipads. I remember learning math and reading on an Apple IIe back in grade school, hell I wouldn't mind playing either of those now, I have played Oregon Trail on my iphone.
 
Naimfan said:
In their copious spare time?
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It's their job to teach, so I'd say, no, not their spare time - that should be part of the job. At my school the teachers have various department meetings where they discuss the merits of various materials they could use to teach. I would say that, as an extension of this, if no adequate materials can be found, the teachers should be given time and resources to produce the materials themselves.
 
whooleytoo said:
If I could go back to school / university and do it all over again, I'd bring some kind of audio recorder (video recorder would be ideal, if there are visual aides) and then actually listen to the teacher/instructor/professor and take in what they're saying.

Then when I get home, transcribe (or summarise) the recording for later reference.

I spent most of my education quickly scribbling notes without taking any time taking in what any of it actually meant, until much later when I was trying to make sense of those messy, scribbled notes.
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Yeap, that is the best way. Probably an iphone with a mic would do and take notes of things here and there.
 
AlecZ said:
This is why I would think a public school system should only use technology that's been tried and tested elsewhere, most likely in the private sector, instead of having something liked this commissioned for them. This goes for everything from laptops to projector-like equipment to software.
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The problem with this thinking is that where else in the private sector will you be testing educational curriculum applications? There's really not much there and the market is so heavily weighted to Pearson and a couple other smaller players, that three's not much for alternatives. They're allowed to move and fix things at the pace that makes Microsoft look like Speedy Gonzales. We need more players in this market.
What IS Apple's fault is that their management tools need serious improvement. They need to provide their own cloud-based management for business. The level offered to 3rd parties is NOT ENOUGH. We need something similar to AD GPOs for iOS. I need to be able to mix and match settings across groups, yet add more granular settings to sub-groups and such. We need remote screen control for troubleshooting, and the ability to push app store applications with little to no fuss. This shouldn't be a free product, it should be priced fairly because it has serious value to us (plus this means we should get actual support from Apple when it doesn't work)
 
Apple has the power to revolutionize education

I would love to see Apple create an app like Game Center, but for educational standards. They could call it Report Card, and it would compile the student's progress in the different subject areas. As students complete various 3rd party educational apps, the results could be reflected in one place to help with motivation and possibly competition. It would also help with app sales, as it could tell you which apps are approved for demonstrating mastery of specific standards.

This could help free our educational system from the outdated concept of seat time, where so many classes end up being based on attendance, participation, "effort", and following the school rules, instead of basing it on what the student actually knows or is able to do.
 
Pearson digital texts are garbage. I'm currently using one for an online course at SNHU, and I've had tons of problems. The interactive homework is missing information, and the etext won't even remember what page I'm on. I can't fathom using this in a classroom setting.
 
Digital Skunk said:
They should've allowed students to download regular eBooks and bring in their own tablets; keeping some on hand for the few students that wouldn't have been able to afford one.
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This doesn't reflect the LAUSD student population. LAUSD has about 640,000 students (source) and about 405,000 of them (over 60%) are from low-income families. I got that figure from the LAUSD Comparative Title I School Data report issued January 28, 2015. The numbers change from year to year, but my point is that most students can't bring their own tablets because they don't own one.

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I'm not sure whether this is good news or just more of the same, but LAUSD has just convened an Instructional Technology Initiative Task Force, under the direction of the current superintendent, to spend the next few months planning a revised approach.
 
timbloom said:
I've worked with many of Pearson's products, as a consultant for the IT staff of a couple schools.

Pearson is an incredibly difficult vendor. Their products are spread out all across the board. Some of the products are good, some are absolute trash. They all seem to have conflicting requirements and they've had a horrible time keeping up with java security updates. One product may require firefox and and old java while another requires IE and java 1 minor version back. You can imagine the nightmare of a single IT person that's also generally just a teacher with some basic IT background. Any company that could get in there and do it right, while avoiding buyout by Pearson, will make a fortune and be loved by all involved with education IT.

Also, keep in mind that schools are punching bags for the political right, so their funding changes nearly yearly, forcing long term commitments like these fall apart on the funding side as well.
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Yes !!! You have to watch out for guys on the political right like Jerry Brown

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Doctor Q said:
This doesn't reflect the LAUSD student population. LAUSD has about 640,000 students (source) and about 405,000 of them (over 60%) are from low-income families. I got that figure from the LAUSD Comparative Title I School Data report issued January 28, 2015. The numbers change from year to year, but my point is that most students can't bring their own tablets because they don't own one.

* * *

I'm not sure whether this is good news or just more of the same, but LAUSD has just convened an Instructional Technology Initiative Task Force, under the direction of the current superintendent, to spend the next few months planning a revised approach.
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The press release sounds reasonable. My experience with my 3rd grader is that the best available content is an online book and a few interactive quizzes. Girl-go-Games are more advanced than the official online content that is currently available. iPads are great, but I would look first at content if I were on the committee.
 
$768 is a lot for a limited toy. LA should sue for fraud against taxpayers to get their money back and get the Surface 3 combo with keyboard and pen from Costco for $699. That's the best way to prepare students for the real world of Windows and Linux (via dual boot or Hyper-V).
 
AppStoreNerd said:
This could be a huge gain for chromebook now since they are considering it
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Chromebooks seem like a much better choice for the classroom than iPads for many reasons, not the least of which is that you can get 3 for the price of the $768 they spent for each iPad. They also have a keyboard already, another money-saving measure. Almost as important: they are very easy to manage on a large scale. Apple has failed miserably in this area and Google could begin to really reap the benefits.
 
G4er? said:
Sometimes the old low tech way is best.

Books.
Not dependent on electricity, no cords or charger needed.
Can take it just about anywhere.
Durable. Don't have to worry about cracking the screen.
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And I feel sorry for my elementary school-age kids every time I pick up their fully packed school bags, which seem to weigh as much as they do. I am eagerly awaiting more digital text books for them.

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unplugme71 said:
I not i. I would say, you turned out just okay. :p
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The poster also forgot the comma after the word "paper".
 
macbeta said:
In theory this program should have been a hit. Poor software and technical support are to blame. Apple need to focus more in this area if they want a program like this to succeed. Education has taken a back seat to gold watches and bling.
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Same with Common Core... now if we could just get our money back for that.
 
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