NC School District Recalls Its Amplify Tablets After 10% Break In Under a Month 177
Nate the greatest writes "Guilford County Schools' headline grabbing tablet program is back in the news again. The program came to an abrupt end last Friday when the school district announced that they were recalling all of the Amplify tablets. GCS had leased over 15 thousand of the tablets (at a cost of $200 a year) for its middle school students, but decided to recall the tablets just one month into the school year after some 1500 students reported a broken screen. Around two thousand complained of improperly fitting cases, and there were also 175 reports of malfunctioning power supplies. There's currently no explanation for the cases or power supplies, but GCS has stated that the tablets broke because they lacked a layer of Gorilla Glass. This was listed in the contract, but the school district did not confirm the condition of the tablets before accepting them. This program was the poster child for News Corp.'s entry into the educational market. It was the single largest program to use the Amplify tablet, and its failure represents a serious setback. The Amplify tablet now has a record for poor construction quality and a breakage rate that is 12 times higher than what Squaretrade reported in early 2012 for the iPad 2."
What do they expect? (Score:5, Funny)
They probably shouldn't have incorporated the tablets into the wood shop curriculum - if a student doesn't have a hammer available, he's gonna use the first thing he can lay his hands on.
Fortunately, back in my day, that just meant occasionally driving nails with a crescent wrench.
Re:Obvious Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And this is what you get when you (Score:4, Funny)
Why are you supporting your sister in her bad habits?
Re:What did they expect for that price? (Score:4, Funny)
>> That's less than 13 cents each. What kind of quality did they expect??
> $200.00 / 15000 ~= 0.0133 cents each
He's still technically correct, and that's the best kind of correct. Your example would be $0.0133 each. I'm heading back to cartoons now.
Re:I'm not sure I understand the premise (Score:5, Funny)
Our school switched this term to iPads for all students. My old-school technique of placing sticky tabs on the pages to discuss no longer works. Yet somehow, I'm managing to use the highlights and notes features of the textbook app to still teach the class. And somehow, my students are managing to do their required reading, and turn in their homework on time.
I don't understand how any of this can happen if a tablet can't replace a textbook. Perhaps you have some reason that it's not working that I'm simply unaware of? Is there some critical function of textbooks I'm missing? I certainly haven't tried fully replacing all the normal functions of textbooks with iPads yet, such as doorstops, anchors, body-building equipment, or fly swatters. But as far as learning tools go, they seem to be working for us.
Re:Obvious Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obvious Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Or give them stone tablets. Upper body strength and moral instruction in one inexpensive package.
As I recall, that's what God gave Moses... And we all know how that turned out!!!
According to a documentary I saw, it caused him to drop and break one of the three tablets.