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."
Contract (Score:3, Interesting)
"listed in the contract, but the school district did not confirm the condition of the tablets before accepting them"
But they were listed in the contract. Presumably the school didn't check the CPU either. So what?
Re:Obvious Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't give them tablets.
Tell me about it. Some of these smartphone screens break at nearly the drop of a hat. Anything you're going to give to kids should be nearly indestructible, perfect testing for anything which could in the future be called Mil Spec.
Re:And this is what you get when you (Score:5, Interesting)
go with the lowest bidder. If you're going to make notebooks for school, make them so they can withstand those things found in schools -- students.
Umm, these are tablets not notebooks. From my experience with my little sister, teenagers do not treat their electronics very well -- Gorilla glass wouldn't help much. All the glass does is keep the display from being scratched. It won't help if you drop the device, or if it is subjected to tortion stress (twisted). Both of these will deform the case, and in turn the LCD. It doesn't take much to destroy an LCD. Sitting on it. Dropping it onto a hardwood or concrete floor. The list goes on. And teenagers don't just kill the devices through these simple physical forces...
My sister routinely drags her iPad into the bathroom to listen to music while she takes a shower. I die a little inside thinking of all that humidity corroding the insides. And I can't tell you how many times she's yanked the power adapter out by the cord, or grabbed it, and forgetting it was still plugged in, tore the adapter right out of the wall socket. Without inspecting one of these Amplify tablets, I don't know if this is the case, but with ipads the connector has a spring to hold it in place -- which means the cord and the connector in the device gets bent and mangled after doing this a few times. I've replaced the power adapter for her about 5 times now. She hasn't even had it two years. Her current one is held together with electrical tape and numerous warnings that this will be the last one. She still comes to me every few weeks after it shorts out and dies from the latest careless act.
But god help you if you tell slashdot this [slashdot.org]. It's a hanging offense to state the obvious around here... :/
Same problem, different form factor (Score:5, Interesting)
Half-a-dozen years ago when my daughter was in high school, the district piloted a "laptop progam" where all the books and assignments were done electronically. They had some deal with Microsoft and Dell with "deals" on MS Office Student and some Dell laptops.
I threw a fit and insisted we would NOT be purchasing the "required" laptops and would provide one for our daughter. The school relented because I made such a pain of myself.
Off to E-Bay I went and purchased an older, used Panasonic Toughbook. Not the latest, but ran all the software and rugged enough to stop small caliber weapons fire.
The breakage rate of those cheap, plastic Dell laptops was horrific. High schoolers casually tossed them on desks or in their locker or bookbags, resulting in over 90% of them getting returned for repair by the end of the year.
We ended up selling the Toughbook to a student entering the program in the next year. It had held up fine.
Computers given to students need to be mil-spec ruggedized if you want them to remain usable for any period of time.
Lack of iPads in the news (Score:5, Interesting)
This comes as no surprise to those of us that work for public schools (including me, staying safely anonymous). What is a surprise is the lack of negative news for iPad roll-outs. The latest one in my county was to a tiny public school in the country of 500 students. They were given iPads a week before school started. On opening day there was a dozen broken sent in plastic bags to my office with a 'Pls repair ASAP! Thx' post-it note applied. After a month the pile had risen to 50. We expect to go into Christmas break with over a hundred broken.
Of course we will not be canceling the program. The way that the Apple contracts are set up with the administration means that the parents have to reimburse the school district $1000 for a totaled device, $400 for a screen, and $100 for anything else. No opt out, as our textbooks are all digital now. It is considered a self-funding project, IT costs included.
I apologize for the rant. It is just this tablet craze is more of a detriment, nomatter the manufacturer.
Students are Hard on Hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, this mirrors my own experience [ideonexus.com] when I bought all the kids on my street laptops on the condition that they spend weeks with me learning how to handle and respect them. One year later, every single laptop was inoperable. Of course, every one of these kids owned an iPod touch... with a broken screen, so there were warning signs.
I think the problem is the portability of these devices. The reason I didn't break my Commodore 64 when I was a kid is because it sat on a desk. If it was portable, I probably would have shattered or lost it at some point too. I don't think we can make these devices rugged enough to survive your average teenager.
As a student in Guilford County.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
So this is logical (even if horribly broken). The district bought them, not the schools, even if they "gave" them to only one school as a pilot. At my school (a public school that has been on the list of the best in the country), the teachers volunteered for most after school activities. Only sports were sponsored. So academic contests were often held under the banner of UIL, the same organization that handles sports in Texas. So the math contests were "sports" on paper. And yes, I got a High School Letter in "sports" because of my participation in math (and other) contests.
Re:I kinda' get it ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Lack of iPads in the news (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be illegal for a school to do anything like that. Patents shouldn't have to pay for the bad decisions of school boards and administrators. I propose passing a law requiring school boards and administrators to reimburse and pay for any such fees that impact more than x % of students out of there own pockets. x would require some research, but 6% sounds like a good target.
Re:Obvious Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Same problem, different form factor (Score:4, Interesting)
Toughbook salesman came to the place I used to work, was told, "No, we don't need your expensive laptops, we have a contract with Compaq already." He asked to borrow one of their bucket trucks, and amazingly they agreed. He went about 20 feet up and tossed the Toughbook out. It bounced around a bit, and started right up when he turned it on. Then he closed it, laid it on the ground and told the bucket truck driver to run over it. He did, and when they opened it up it was still running. They bought a bunch of them. Amazing salesman.