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L.A. School District Officially Ends $1.3 Billion iPad Initiative in the Midst of an FBI Investigation

US Company in Name Only

Sure Apple is a US company - in name and charter only, but they hide most of their money offshore to avoid paying US Taxes and 95% of their products are made using sweat shops overseas. So please stop with the Apple is a US Company BS. They are NO different than Samsung, Sony, etc.
 
$1.3B worth of iPads now sitting in warehouses, unsold.

With this and recent news of declining iPad / tablet sales, all I can say is "Apple is doomed". :)
 
I hope they don't loose the iPads in the US, if Apple loose the education sector it will be massive, I'm constantly fighting propaganda for Android tablets in school here in the UK, trouble is they are doing loads for education, Apple does nothing! The tablets might be rubbish but Google Apps for education is almost must now..Why doesn't Apple realise this huge market..

Maybe I'm wrong but I see no alternative from Apple for iCloud education
 
kodos said:
An iPad for education - what kind of education are kids getting on an iPad? We ditch iPads for our 4 children as soon as they can type.

iPads are great for e-Readers, and playing Angry Birds, and maybe web browsing and movies.

Real computing skills, writing essays, doing core research, writing articles, etc. is done on a computer of some kind. Even a ChromeBook is better than an iPad.

I think there is going to be a tectonic shift away from Apple in a variety of industries / sectors over the next few years. I think this change will be so rapid.

But Apple will probably retain the jewlery market, since that's their focus with the "thinner lighter phones, headphones, and wristwatch" sectors. All running a rapidly aging and out of date OS.
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Never heard so much rubbish about the subject.

You may ditch your kids for an iPad. I sit with mine and play educational games only and read books together. They can play alone when they are about 7. And even then only with parental controls and a limited time per day as a treat. The rest of the time they can be outside playing and exercising.

As a educational tool. Tablets are the best thing ever. SEARCHABLE books. INTERACTIVE apps. If you want to know some thing it's now possible to find out instantly. This wasn't even possible 15 years ago.

An iPad with a keyboard case beats a chromebook hands down. And even then it's only needed for heavy writing. ALL iPad apps beat the best chromebook apps. Googles own are mostly a joke and cannot be relied upon when offline. They constantly Crash out and failed to update when connecting back losing work.

"Rapidily ageing out of date OS"
iOS had FAR more apis and core code than Android. FAR, FAR more stable. A incredibly fast and modern programming language. You don't know what you are talking about at all.

Enterprise don't want android as it's incredibly easy to hack ( which is all a big positive but not for companies ) Fragmentation means that the device they buy this month may not be available next month as Samsung etc just give up on a product without notice. Devices are often non standard - many tablet have propietory chargers, that is to say they draw a higher current than the USB Spec.

Fragmentation also means they have to support multiple devices and have apps work on all of them. One thing as a developer you can say about apple. It's incredibly easy to make sure that an app works across the board.

As for real work HAVING to be done on a computer... the iPad air 2 is faster than a macbook from only 2 years ago. And given 90% of people only do general office type work there is almost no reason to have a laptop.
 
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Les Kern said:
Working in IT for 30 years and EDU for the last 20, all I can say with certainty that you can bet if Pearson is involved there will be "issues". Never before has education been made into a profit center with quite the bravado as is has been with that company. They do some things VERY well, like PowerSchool. They also stick their noses in to make a profit in the most sensitive areas, like PARCC, sending school districts REELING. I know this first-hand. And as for the "Chromebooks are better for education" because of content, nothing could be further from the truth. For that security issue, there IS a way to lock them down securely, but it seems a few important steps were overlooked. All this being said, Chromebooks do have a real place in EDU if you decide that what they do fits your curriculum.
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Education is big business. It used to be that teachers and an ever growing administrative staff were the ones who really profited. But now large companies have gotten involved, because that is where the money is.

I will say that Chromebooks are better for learning to type on. That is a valuable skill. And I think for writing papers the Chromebook will be better. And the kids should be writing papers. Considering Chromebooks are half the price of the iPad, it seems like they would be better device. Durability is probably not too much of an issue since none of these devices are going to live to a ripe old age in the hands of kids. They will be constantly dropped and have stuff spilled on them. Nearly disposable Chromebooks seems one way to go. Though with the HP Stream now super cheap (and I'm sure Microsoft will extend that Office 365 subscription indefinitely for kids), maybe they should go with the Windows devices.

Incidentally, except for the learning to type issue and some greater familiarity with computers, I doubt there are going to be much in educational gains from either program.
 
Tubamajuba said:
...Companies undercutting one another is how I got my 46" Samsung TV over the weekend for $240 less than the usual retail price.
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Ugh. I'm sorry. :)

Seriously though, I've bought three Samsung TVs in the last 6 years, and installed several for other people. I won't buy another one. Their displays themselves are okay, and i like the ultra thin designs. But they just don't get it (or don't want to get it) regarding software and UI. Their "smart tv" technology usually gets in the way, and ends up making the whole experience of using the TV kludgy and hard, especially with custom programmed, macro driven remote controls. When will they understand that some of us don't need or want the smart tv tech, and just want our TV to be a dumb monitor?

Let's face it. When you buy a television there is a good chance that it will be around for a minimum of 10 years. Heck, my Panasonic plasma will likely be around for 15-20 years. I don't want to be limited to whatever software Samsung puts on the TV today (and changes in 6 months, with no upgrade path). I'll let my modular components (Apple TV, HT receiver, DISH receiver, etc) do the heavy lifting, and swap them out when they become obsolete.

<Climbs off soap box>
 
Why the FBI?

I find it very interesting that the FBI is getting involved in a school system's issue. Certainly this is not the first time a bidding process has not gone well and in most, if not all, cases the state's attorney would handle that.
 
rowspaxe said:
Agreed. We keep increasing the input cost of education while degrading the output. We turn out kids who cannot write or read a sentence--or do simple math problems. Because this is somehow beneath their dignity--or injurious to their problem solving skills.
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You know, I hear this same song time and again from Americans about the abysmal educational system and how your kids aren't learning.

Yet immigrant children go through the same educational system and excel. As an immigrant I experienced that myself as well as my extended family and friends.

Maybe it has less to do with how much money you spend on education and more to do with the American culture???
 
Um... Why is the FBI involved in a city school purchase? This seems like a City of LA issue. Maybe it's a county issue if the school district is large enough. It sure isn't much larger than a state issue as Apple is located in California too.

So... why is exactly does the FBI involved?
 
2010mini said:
You know, I hear this same song time and again from Americans about the abysmal educational system and how your kids aren't learning.

Yet immigrant children go through the same educational system and excel. As an immigrant I experienced that myself as well as my extended family and friends.

Maybe it has less to do with how much money you spend on education and more to do with the American culture???
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We have a winner!
 
2010mini said:
You know, I hear this same song time and again from Americans about the abysmal educational system and how your kids aren't learning.

Yet immigrant children go through the same educational system and excel. As an immigrant I experienced that myself as well as my extended family and friends.

Maybe it has less to do with how much money you spend on education and more to do with the American culture???
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There was quite a big write up on this in readers digest a couple months back. The advantage is only to current immigrants, and after a generation or two it goes away you could probably google it. In general people only get out of anything they put into it, if your parents are on top of you to study, checking homework, and asking questions the student will excel. The problems in my opinion with education in the states can be found in the nearest mirror.
 
prowlmedia said:
Never heard so much rubbish about the subject...
If you want to know some thing it's now possible to find out instantly. This wasn't even possible 15 years ago.
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I see. Without the iPad, one cannot use the Internet.

prowlmedia said:
An iPad with a keyboard case beats a chromebook hands down. And even then it's only needed for heavy writing. ALL iPad apps beat the best chromebook apps. Googles own are mostly a joke and cannot be relied upon when offline. They constantly Crash out and failed to update when connecting back losing work.
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I'd prefer a laptop to a ChromeBook personally. But an iPad is not much more than a toy. Try using Office (or Pages, if you hate Microsoft) on the iPad. It is an exercise in frustration compared to a keyboard and mouse. Even with a BT keyboard, you have no mouse ability with an iPad, because Apple doesn't support it.

prowlmedia said:
"Rapidily ageing out of date OS"
iOS had FAR more apis and core code than Android. FAR, FAR more stable. A incredibly fast and modern programming language. You don't know what you are talking about at all.
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You're right - they *had* far more APIs. Any stability is rapidly narrowing. I didn't even mention Android btw. I would rather use a laptop, with a real OS.

I am a game developer, and have written apps for iOS, Windows Phone and Android.

prowlmedia said:
As for real work HAVING to be done on a computer... the iPad air 2 is faster than a macbook from only 2 years ago. And given 90% of people only do general office type work there is almost no reason to have a laptop.
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It still cannot multitask 1/10th as well as that Macbook from 2 years ago. Cannot copy and paste (this is basic stuff) nearly as easily, etc., etc.

You cannot write code on it.

There are no compilers.

There are lots of limitations to an iPad that computers do not have.

But that's okay, it is good for the preschool set.
 
It's completely reasonable considering this forum that the discussion is about hardware - but in my opinion, the real problem with the whole LA school district plan was the use of Pearson to create the software.

I live on the east coast and don't know any families in LA, but when I read that the plan was scrapped I breathed a sigh of relief that those kids were going to be subjected to even more Pearson poor quality content.
 
Iconoclysm said:
You do realize that the majority of parts of the iPhone benefit Japan and Germany more than any other company, right? The labor costs are very little, and the profit goes to a US company. Samsung does not manufacture all of its products, either.
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LOL, you are right! I seriously doubt Samsung does its phone assembly in relatively high-cost Korea. If it did, why, you would be paying much more for Samsung phones, wouldn't you. :rolleyes:

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Tiger8 said:
LOL, in case of Apple they are spent on Chinese products :D
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Where do you think Samsung does its phone assembly? :rolleyes:
 
Why would the school district switch to Chromebook?
They want to teach our kids: you can stop doing everything once something is wrong in the router, or no data service?

Great, 250M of Chinese kids can replace you at that time.

At least they can learn in bus and toilets with iPad, what can Chromebook do that the library computer can't?
 
rowspaxe said:
Did it even "sound" good on paper. This was an obvious boondoggle.
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Touche! It might have just sounded good for the corporations and the one dude that lost his mind in thinking 1.3 Billion was a good price for technology.


ms.annette said:
Agreed! I teach Kindergarten in LAUSD and this is the type of tech we have for my students to work with. I'm now on sites like donors choose trying to raise money to get them a better computer.
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Donors Choose is fantastic. My wife went on there looking to buy a stereo so her kids could listen to audiobooks, a 1/8" headphone jack splitter, and four headphones. Total price was $200. The next day she was up to $480.

I'm actually very glad to hear that the FBI is investigating this. We are talking about tax payer money for one, and giving iPads to kids that most likely can afford it, or school districts that can fund raise for it, makes no sense.

Let's not forget that the plan was to drop $500 million on the technology alone! That's just pathetically insane.
 
abhibeckert said:
Really? What content exactly?

iOS has a perfectly good web browser. It can do everything Chrome OS can do.

Honestly I think it's bu1lshit to compare iOS and Chrome OS. The question should be "do you want a keyboard"? If yes, then Chrome OS.

Also, I'm concerned about the durability of Chrome OS. An iPad can handle a lot more punishment than any laptop - especially a cheap laptop.
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I'm the tech director at a school currently fighting this issue. And unfortunately, ChromeOS is a lot more capable for what we need to do because it supports Flash. I'm no Flash advocate, but unfortunately much of the existing content Pearson (and others) has is presented this way. So for example, the middle school digital math textbook we paid Pearson nearly $15,000 for includes interactive lessons and practice / homework online. And we're in year 3 of a 5-year license on that. The interactive component will not work on an iPad at all. The same is true of many other educational content delivery platforms. Some do have iPad apps, but they're nearly never as full-featured as their Flash counterparts.

Right now we have 1:1 MacBook Airs in grades 6-8. I'm looking into transitioning to 1:1 Chromebooks in grades 4-8 with a few shared MacBook carts for special projects. They do make ruggedized Chromebooks designed for this type of deployment. I would agree, however, that iPads are probably more physically durable. Additionally our MacBook Airs (now in their 3rd year of service) have held up very well. But the cost to replace a Chromebook screen is MUCH lower than the same repair on an iPad or a MacBook.

And I don't mean to imply that 1:1 iPads aren't possible. Many schools do this. But those that do will have a much harder time finding content for them. A lot of the schools closest to me end up having teachers create their own textbooks with iBooks Author. Which is great — IF the teacher has time. Most do not.
 
Four oF NINE said:
Nobody is arguing for iPads as a teacher replacement. That's a straw man argument. Neither can it be denied that intelligent use of technology can be a huge teaching aid.
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That's true but spending $1.3 BILLION on this program in one city doesn't qualify as an "intelligent use of technology".
 
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