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Live Coverage of Apple's Education-Focused Media Event
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as for K-12 eduction, my wife is a kindergarten teacher. Her school has two carts of iPod Touches. She says its much easier for her students, given their tiny hands and coordination, to manipulate iPod Touch screens than iPads.
And as for concerns that Apple is indoctrinating kids or using schools to promote its products ... duh. Why do you think Apple has provided education-related discounts for years?
And as for concerns that Apple is indoctrinating kids or using schools to promote its products ... duh. Why do you think Apple has provided education-related discounts for years?
Exactly...$500+ for the device, then how much for each "book"?
And what happens when your non-replaceable battery dies after all that use? Send it back to Apple and wait 5-20 days for them to fix it (for a fee of course)?
e-books/textbooks has ALWAYS sounded cool and promising...there will have to be huge technical advances to make it a reality. I still think we are at least 20 years away from a great device and mass user adoption. There are so many negatives to e-books/textbooks...you can find these cons in all sorts of posts here and on the web.
Aren't textbooks free in High school? Mine were free.
Not for the schools buying them.
Apple said the big textbook publishers are only charging $15 for their high school books and and you can redownload them at anytime.
Aren't textbooks free in High school? Mine were free.
They're free for students. They aren't free for the schools. I imagine a lot of schools will come up with a voucher program or something, if this works out.
Ok - so now the burden is on the parents to pay for an iPad and books? You realize that there are thousands upon thousands of people for which this "miracle" of a solution is out of reach?
K-12 schools already have been dabbling with iPads. Because of the recession and, in my state at least, cuts to education funding, it hasn't been a massive effort ...
keep in mind, folks, we're not talking wholesale replacement of print textbooks. No school administration with an iota of rational thought would announce next week, "This is the last year for print books in this district. Next year it's iPads for everyone."
You can expect districts, if they embrace this, to phase this in over the course of a decade or so. And I'm sure they simply would shift money from their annual "laptop/desktop computer purchases" line items in to a new "iPad" line item in their technology budget.
Jason?
That would make sense, since the tools are free. They have to make profit somewhere.
I hope these interactive textbooks take off as quickly as iPad apps, then college books will be SO cheap! not to mention fun! I'm so excited!
Theres still a device cost however. I don't think most iPads will last more than 2-3 years before they require a battery replacement (or outright device replacement) which is expensive.
Most highschool books serve for far longer than that, especially in subjects like mathematics.
Not only is an iPad probably cheaper than a laptop (which many schools already provide) it's likely that future iPads will be cheaper yet. Just because they cost $499 today should we plan on that being true forever?
What happens when they cost $99 in 2018? And that cost gets spread out over 4 years? Do you really think that $25 per year will be too much money for everyone? Apple has to plan for the future. Waiting until then to come out with digital textbooks would let others take the market before then.
Why wait?
Woah. No one said that it's now up to parents to buy an iPad and all the books to go with it. I was under the assumption that now schools would be providing iPads and now the books as well.
Huh?
1)I had a locker...in fact, I've NEVER HEARD of a high school kid NOT having a locker. There may be some, sure, in over populated schools or towns that 2 schools have to merge to 1 for a year due to 1 school being under construction. But please don't anyone try to tell me that high school kids can't carry a few books around in a bag (for what, a 1 minute walk between each class...can't carry some books for 60 seconds?!)...and college kids keep them in their dorm room...and 4th graders keep them in their desk/cubby/whatever.
2)A typical day has about 5 classes in high school...so 5-7 books. Yes, they all fit in my backpack/bag. It's not like each text book weighs 20 pounds and the kids are carrying 100 pounds of books every day of the school year.
that future already is here. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and yes, I know the role that a calligraphy course played in the history of Apple.
An emphasis on handwriting no longer is needed in schools. In my wife's district, the teachers who have totalitarian rules about handwriting are the same teachers who fear any new technology. While they gripe about handwriting legibility, my wife (when she taught middle school) had her kids type the papers and focused on content.