Tim Cook Calls Chromebooks 'Test Machines', Discusses Testing at Hour of Code Event

[mayuka]

Governments have one distinct rule: Only take the cheapest. It just happened to me and my new job. I expressed my need for a new laptop to work most effectively and I applied for a Macbook Pro (of course). My application was canceled, because Apple is being thought as "luxury" brand.

 

[eyeseeyou]

I have a home full of apple products and my teenager is needing a laptop more and more.

I was looking at a WALMART special Windows 10 tablet/laptop/netbook which seemed to provide the same functionality as a chrome book in a similar price range. I figured the full desktop experience would be a lot more helpful than the limited chrome book option. I asked for a 2nd opinion and one solid point that was brought up was that for the user and and user needs the chrome book may be a better option seeing that the chrome OS received consistent OS updates and generally less moving parts that could break from an os standpoint. Word processing, web browsing, messaging, email, document sharing.

I'd really prefer to get her an apple option to sync with her iPhone but the cheapest laptop option was a 5 year old MacBook Air which cost a almost $200 more than an hardware wise equivalent chrome book.

It's looking like she's going to have a chrome book underneath the Christmas tree.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Creativity is the future. Because we won't need bridges in the future... Just a bunch of finger paintings and poems.

Ok, I have two bridges. One designed & built by people who don't recognize the value of creativity in problem solving, and one designed & built by people who do. Which one do you want to drive over every day on your commute?

 

[MacsRgr8]

Let's be honest, there are two sides to this reasoning:

1. Tim has an absolute point: Of course it's crazy we're only testing students of their knowledge-by-heart, while all the accurate and up-to-date information is seconds away from you on your device.

2. OTOH: You must teach children to learn and to understand, so that means also training the brain in remembering facts.
Mankind has come this far in its intellectual state because of our ability to remember and to understand. If you don't learn facts, you won't learn to remember, you won't "connect the dots", i.e. understand.

If you want to learn a language, you must learn words by heart. If you want to be able to understand world politics, you must learn the facts of nations / wars / religions, even the timetables, etc. You cannot simply "Google" your question and you join a discussion.

But, of course, digital devices like iPads and Chromebooks help the students as it makes leaning more fun, and be more creative. But, leaning facts is important too.

 

[anek007]

A lot of the school districts in my area went with chromebook because of cost. Supplying just about every student with a learning device cost money. Google is offering $100 per chrome book. Apple isn't giving much of a discount on iPad. I think it was $400. The keyboard is very important for students. It's not fun typing up a 5 page essay on a iPad.

 

[Mums]

Creativity is the future. Because we won't need bridges in the future... Just a bunch of finger paintings and poems.

Sorry but that is a blatantly ignorant statement. Leonardo da Vinci as the archetypal Renaissance Man proves that art and engineering (science) benefit from the same source: the imagination.

 

[MH01]

Tim, not every kid that wants an education can afford an apple product. Stop being elitist , and if you truely care about education, create an apple product that competes with the chrome book on pricing ! Otherwise don't rubbish a product as being a test product, and offering kids an education irrespective of the brand on it.

 

[MH01]

Chromebooks are full of fail. Don't even get me started on the Pixel... over a grand for a web browser lol


He knows that kids will learn better with interactive iPad apps instead of Google "Sheets" in a silly web browser

"Learn better" you say......

 

[baryon]

Creativity is the future. Because we won't need bridges in the future... Just a bunch of finger paintings and poems.

No, no, memorization is the future. Because to build a bridge, you have to know which dates each king reigned and what treaties were signed during various wars by which generals at which dates. To build a bridge, you don't need to have the ability to imagine, to draw, or to "create". Just remember the things you learned in school and the bridge practically builds itself. It's well known that creativity has nothing to do with creating things.

 

[iPhysicist]

Tim Cook gets it. Why "learn" to take tests on what they remember when we all have readily available access to devices that can look this information up almost instantly?

I think the idea that creativity is more important that memorization is spot on. We all need less useless facts in our heads and more creativity in our heads.

It's not looking up facts what we need or memorize them. It is to understand them.
First and foremost you need capable teachers for that and a chalkboard and time.

 

[macgabe]

I like Tim but he's totally misguided on this one.

First of all, tests are fun! Every video game ever made is just a series of tests. People love em. And people quickly learn and get better and better WHILE HAVING FUN. So tests designed well are a great way to learn.

Second of all, with the above in mind, how important is it for your doctor to have a pretty good idea of the underlying mechanisms and warning signs of multiple myeloma, lupus and parkinsons? Yes he can and should plug your symptoms into a computer to see what comes up, but he's got to have a pretty thorough in-brain knowledge of the underlying science in order to know what to plug in and how to interpret the results.

 

[Gimboid]

Chromebooks are full of fail. Don't even get me started on the Pixel... over a grand for a web browser lol
He knows that kids will learn better with interactive iPad apps instead of Google "Sheets" in a silly web browser

Tim Cook couldn't give a flying fig about which is best for education, only what will make Apple the most money. Chromebooks are perfectly good for education and he knows it. I would fire any district that bought ipads unless they were privately funded and rolling in cash. Schools aren't the market for luxury 'premium' devices, they need educational tools. Apple devices are expensive luxuries schools can't afford, chromebooks are not. Plus, their browser is better than Apples.

 

[I am Sampson]

Well as the head of IT in a primary school (OK, that's a grad title, we're such a small school we only have 2 teachers) I have to say I have never been unimpressed with Apple until using it in education. We planned to be fully apple with every child having an iPad, started with 30 iPads, 2 iMacs and 4 MacBook airs, 2 Apple TVs with a Mac server and nothing has ever worked right. I've wasted SO much time trying to get things to work and 3 years down the line we are now about to switch to google services and chrome books as Apple just don't support education well at all. It's shocking actually. So many obvious features not there and so much stuff that should work just simple won't. Or will for only 80% of devices. Awful awful awful.
As a private customer however, I love Apple products and have tons and will continue to get them, but for education? No way.

Oh, and we are a free school, exceptionally creative and hate tests. I also know of another nearby free school massively larger (primary and secondary) who also have similar issues its Apple.

 

[JM]

Because building bridges have nothing to do with creativity... You wouldn't want people learning better ways to make bridges, better ways to lay them out, better ways to maximize traffic flow. Bridges that automatically de-ice in the winter or that can change the number of lanes that go in each direction depending on the time of day. Cook might have oversimplified his point in his statement, but I think he's on the right track.

An iPad won't get you where you're trying to go with this.

 

[Gimboid]

"Hour of code"?
Have fun doing that on an ipad.

 

[JM]

I had an architecture professor once say... "We should have got you all at kindergarten, now we have to break all the stuff you've been taught, would have been so much better to get you when you were still in the sandbox and playing with blocks". Creativity and individuality is being suppressed in today's education environment-it's all test test test. Tim is right. We all basically have a super computer in our pocket.

Not everyone is meant for architecture, just like not everyone is meant for the hard work and studying it takes to be a doctor. We need people in society to "memorize for the test". Your professors are only speaking about architecture students, not doctors.

(I'm in Landscape Architecture grad school, so I can say this)

 

[Keane16]

Also, what does Tim Cook have against testing as a teaching strategy? He's challenging the most common teaching strategy to look all "progressive"

How can you read the article and get that conclusion?

"“I’m not a fan of teaching to the test,” said Cook"

Nothing wrong with testing, he is against teaching kids to memorise the answers - teaching to the test.

I went on a course paid for by my work a few weeks ago. The instructor basically taught this way - he just schooled us in a manner that would allow us to pick up enough points to pass the exam. It's a poor way of doing things. Sure we all pass - but the application of what we learnt in the real world will be lacking. That is what Cook is getting at.

 

[macgabe]

Well as the head of IT in a primary school (OK, that's a grad title, we're such a small school we only have 2 teachers) I have to say I have never been unimpressed with Apple until using it in education. We planned to be fully apple with every child having an iPad, started with 30 iPads, 2 iMacs and 4 MacBook airs, 2 Apple TVs with a Mac server and nothing has ever worked right. I've wasted SO much time trying to get things to work and 3 years down the line we are now about to switch to google services and chrome books as Apple just don't support education well at all. It's shocking actually. So many obvious features not there and so much stuff that should work just simple won't. Or will for only 80% of devices. Awful awful awful.
As a private customer however, I love Apple products and have tons and will continue to get them, but for education? No way.

Oh, and we are a free school, exceptionally creative and hate tests. I also know of another nearby free school massively larger (primary and secondary) who also have similar issues its Apple.

When you say "nothing has ever worked right" can you give some examples? Are you talking about apps, connectivity, charging, upgrades, what exactly?

 

[JM]

All they have to do is allow multiple accounts on iOS. No reason why only one person can be logged into an app. Enable user accounts and multiple students can share an iPad.

No, Apple is in danger of going out of business. They need all the money they can get right now.

 

[JM]

I really like Apple's thinking on creativity and their hardware/software, but I agree with some earlier posts that lower cost devices (both OS X and iOS) would help widen Apple's reach. For example a $100 iPad (some Amazon Fire ones are much less than that) or a $200 laptop.

To hit these prices I guess they would need to cut a few features like retina displays, Touch ID, latest processors, mem, storage, etc., but I think there would be a big market, especially in education. Anyway, just a thought

I'm sure a lovely iPad 1 is around $100.

Ooh, even better:
http://m.ebay.com/itm/Apple-iPad-1s...-7in-Black-MB292LL-A-/262181861371?nav=SEARCH

 

[JM]

Chromebooks are full of fail. Don't even get me started on the Pixel... over a grand for a web browser lol


He knows that kids will learn better with interactive iPad apps instead of Google "Sheets" in a silly web browser

Kids learn better when they apply themselves. Don't give me that *sheet*.

 

[Kabeyun]

I personally don't learn from books, but from experiences.

Wow. I don't think Tim wants to get rid of libraries. I also don't think I can "experience" the life of John Adams, the design characteristics of a turbofan engine, or the theories of Carl Jung without a book.

 

[JM]

I have a home full of apple products and my teenager is needing a laptop more and more.

I was looking at a WALMART special Windows 10 tablet/laptop/netbook which seemed to provide the same functionality as a chrome book in a similar price range. I figured the full desktop experience would be a lot more helpful than the limited chrome book option. I asked for a 2nd opinion and one solid point that was brought up was that for the user and and user needs the chrome book may be a better option seeing that the chrome OS received consistent OS updates and generally less moving parts that could break from an os standpoint. Word processing, web browsing, messaging, email, document sharing.

I'd really prefer to get her an apple option to sync with her iPhone but the cheapest laptop option was a 5 year old MacBook Air which cost a almost $200 more than an hardware wise equivalent chrome book.

It's looking like she's going to have a chrome book underneath the Christmas tree.

Oh now why are you torturing your poor teenager like that? She needs to be creative to build bridges and stuff.

 

[JM]

Ok, I have two bridges. One designed & built by people who don't recognize the value of creativity in problem solving, and one designed & built by people who do. Which one do you want to drive over every day on your commute?

I want to drive on the bridge that gets me over the stress of trying to answer your test. I was brought up on an iPad, you know.

 

[aajeevlin]

Or, you could just get an Otterbox. I personally know at least 3 sets of parents who use an Otterbox on an iPad and let the children use it. Seems to work very well, and the kids don't have to be stuck on some crappy Chromebook.

There's no way I'd let my future kids suffer on a Chromebook. Would spend the extra $100-$200 in getting a cheap full Windows laptop. At least they will know how to use something actually useful.

If you really want them to learn you should give a crappy computer with Linux on it (Ubuntu?). They will figure out how to use and fix computer. The first point might be a bit off topic. However, I certainly won't call knowing how to use "Windows" in general more useful then knowing how to operate a chrome book. It's good to know how to use Windows but it's nothing special. At least not compare to chrome book.

I'm not taking about all the other thing you can do on top of Windows. That's a different story.