Chromebooks Are Outselling iPads In Schools 225
Nate the greatest (2261802) writes Apple thrilled investors earlier this week when they revealed that they had sold 13 million iPads to schools and claimed 85% of the educational tablet market, but that wasn't the whole story. It turns out that Apple has only sold 5 million iPads to schools since February 2013, or an average of less than a million tablets a quarter over 6 quarters. It turns out that instead of buying iPads, schools are buying Chromebooks. Google reported that a million Chromebooks were sold to schools last quarter, well over half of the 1.8 million units sold in the second quarter. With Android tablets getting better, Apple is losing market share in the consumer tablet market, and now it looks Apple is also losing the educational market to Google. Analysts are predicting that 5 million Chromebooks will be sold by the end of the year; how many of those will be sold to schools, do you think?
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
That's probably a good thing since students shouldn't be static consumers of information and tablets are really subpar for most kinds of content creation. Add in the fact that a Chromebook costs half as much as even an ipad mini and overall the schools are probably making the rational choice.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Content creation? You mean only English essays, right? Can the students even install and use a proper compiler or something like AutoCAD? Photoshop?
A heavily DRM'ed up "laptop" that no one can do anything except be forced to Google cloudservices to even login and a browser is a rational choice now? Not to mention Google Apps and email which helpfully uploads everything to the Google Cloud.
It pulls Palladium to shame since you can't install any apps except those provided by the Google overlords.
This proves that all the Slashdot talk about software freedom is thinly disguised Microsoft hate since everyone here seems to be pumping up heavily locked down iDevices and Chromebooks.
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You don't have to login to use a Chromebook, you can browse as a guest. As to your comment about compilers, MS offers Visual Studio Online Basic for free.
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Because Every Student Needs AutoCAD and Photoshop!
Well that and yes, you can do Photoshop and AutoCAD on Chrombooks, via VDI infrastructure like VMWare View Desktops, like we are. It isn't as nice as $1500 specialized workstations and 22" monitors but it works in a pinch (and at home). So, you have VDI for remote work, a Lab full or real Computers for classwork, and not spend a shit ton of money on laptops that are used 85% of the time as IM and Typing stations.
Spending money is easy when it isn't yours.
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>This proves that all the Slashdot talk about software freedom is thinly disguised
>Microsoft hate since everyone here seems to be pumping up heavily locked down
>iDevices and Chromebooks.
Many people - especially Slashdot readers - don't use Microsoft products unless, perhaps, they'd paid to use it at work (either as end users or developers). They're just not relevant to a discussion about tablets (they don't make any that have any impact on the market) or Chromebooks (which are usable in seconds,
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If only tablets had on-screen keyboards or supported Bluetooth keyboards or keyboard docks! Those poor students with tablets! They're unable to do anything but watch Netflix!
This sort of commentary just sounds stupid. Even if you want to make a point that tablets don't have good native input solutions don't go full hyperbole. All you're doing is reducing the impact of the point you're trying to make.
In the real non-hyperbolic world tablets are perfectly capable of being typed upon. I would even suggest tabl
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> If only tablets had on-screen keyboards
They're dreadful.
> Bluetooth keyboards or keyboard docks!
A decent bluetooth keyboard costs a lot of money. Keyboard dock? Why not just buy a laptop?
> All you're doing is reducing the impact of the point you're trying to make.
But i'm right though. That's what this story is about. Using a laptop, not a tablet, when you want to do something other than consume. How many people use laptops to write books, code etc. And how many use tablets. Thank you.
> It
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> If only tablets had on-screen keyboards or supported Bluetooth keyboards or keyboard docks!
In other words, spend extra money to turn your tablet into some kind of laptop wannabe. You're trying to make the tablet something it's not in order to make up for it's inherent flaws when the simple and obvious thing is to buy the thing that already meets your requirements.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Content creation? You mean only English essays, right? Can the students even install and use a proper compiler or something like AutoCAD? Photoshop?
Well you can develop webapps, there's IDEs like Codenvy and there is a version of AutoCAD 360 for Chromebooks.
A heavily DRM'ed up "laptop" that no one can do anything except be forced to Google cloudservices to even login and a browser is a rational choice now?
It isn't particularly "DRMed", there's nothing to stop you dual booting a full Linux distro if you want. But really if you're talking AutoCAD and Photoshop then obviously you're suggesting Windows or OS X are the necessity.
Not to mention Google Apps and email which helpfully uploads everything to the Google Cloud.
Well that makes it accessible from anywhere and prevents data loss from hardware failure so i'd say that's pretty damn helpful in the education environment. Though having the option to upload to DropBox or OneDrive or some other alternative would be useful.
This proves that all the Slashdot talk about software freedom is thinly disguised Microsoft hate since everyone here seems to be pumping up heavily locked down iDevices and Chromebooks.
Or maybe they are finally realizing that not everybody needs/wants a fully open, infinitely configurable, high maintenance product all the time. Sometimes they just want it to do a limited subset and do it well with minimal requirement from the user. That isn't to say you couldn't dual boot and have full desktop Linux on there as well.
The whole free and open thing seems to be stagnating a bit, I mean Android is free and open but where is all the FOSS innovation? Sure there are some helpful utilities for devs and admins but that's about it. There's no reason a FOSS package or distro couldn't have been developed that provided all the innovative features that exist in Google Play Services but it didn't. It's nice for everything to be FOSS but from the consumer perspective it doesn't seem to have much advantage over proprietary.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
How many school kids have a daily need for AutoCAD or Photoshop? I'd imagine only a tiny percentage. So why should a school district equip elementary and middle school kids with a computer powerful enough for tasks that only a small minority of their high-school students need? Would it not be better to give something more powerful (and much more expensive) to just those with the specialist need for something more powerful?
As for a compiler, they could use something like Cloud 9 [c9.io] for cloud based developing.
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What we need is FireFox OS on the desktop.
Hate Mozilla all you want, this is exactly the reason we need them around.
It fits a need (Score:3)
Chromebook is perfect for the sort of people who don't understand the difference between a computer and the internet. The lack of ability to install anything you want (aka malware) with just a click is in this case a bonus.
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How many schools can afford licences for AutioCAD and Photoshop? They each cost several times as much as the laptop. There are plenty of productivity apps for ChromeOS, and of course Google Apps for office stuff.
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They can probably get really good deals on student versions of those products. AutoDesk, certainly, would like as many young people to grow up using their software as possible, so when they're out in industry as adults they can tell their boss to buy big-boy AutoCAD.
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You don't know what you're talking about. I can install apps from anywhere on mine, and I haven't even put it in developer mode. That includes unpackaged apps I've developed on the device itself.
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It isn't exactly trivial, you have to essentially unlock it and then click through an annoying prompt on every single boot. Even a PC with Secure Boot has better support for Linux than that.
>but for general purpose devices, Chromebooks can be great, especially when they are being compared to an iPad
How are they better than an iPad with a proper hardware keyboard? And it's a bastardization of the term 'general purpose' when it's locked down to run only Google's native's app and everything has to be done i
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Not only that, jailbreaking the device and installing anything else besides school-approved software would likely get the child disciplined. This is true of both iPad and Chromebook.
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That is also true of Windows and Mac laptops, at the kids' schools and their parents' offices.
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It isn't exactly trivial, you have to essentially unlock it and then click through an annoying prompt on every single boot. Even a PC with Secure Boot has better support for Linux than that.
Oh please. Nothing in the world is as difficult as hitting either Control +D to boot into Chrome, or Control +l to boot into Linux? Even switching between the two is simple and quick.
If you think that installing and using Linux on a Chromebook is not trivial, then perhaps computers are not for you?
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On any PC I can set Linux to be the default boot. On Chromebooks you have to type through an annoying prompt every single time you boot a kernel that's not signed by Google and the message says that OS verification is off, implying that using your own Linux install is less secure. Even the much hated UEFI Secure Boot doesn't do this.
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On any PC I can set Linux to be the default boot. On Chromebooks you have to type through an annoying prompt every single time you boot a kernel that's not signed by Google and the message says that OS verification is off, implying that using your own Linux install is less secure. Even the much hated UEFI Secure Boot doesn't do this.
Yes, you have to turn off OS verification. That's sort of sensible, since your choosing between two different systems.
As for your annoying prompt - I don't see it. I just hit control L - or Control D. Then whichever OS I choose is about 7 seconds away.
If you actually have ever used Linux on a Chromebook, and you're encountering more than one keypress (aside from login) you're not doing it right.
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Except Google doesn't track apps for education users.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
They used to track apps for education users, lied that they didn't track, got caught in federal court where they didn't have the cajones to tell the same lies to the judge that they were telling the public and only recently now say that they stopped.
Read these articles:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/artic... [edweek.org]
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek... [edweek.org]
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, that's much ado about nothing.
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Wow, that's much ado about nothing.
What, the tracking, or the lying, or the fact that people dare being appalled by Google's behavior?
In any way, hardly nothing, unless you work for damage control.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
I like mine a lot. It's basically become my primary laptop. Anything that I need beyond Chrome, I can do in Linux via Crouton.
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I have a similar experience, although there is some stuff I would like to do that's a pain:
* Photo managment with Shotwell -- not enough local storage
* Video editing with PiTiVi -- not enough local storage or horsepower (not that I've tried, don't think crouton/xephyr support video acceleration)
I was going to leave an old PC on to remote into for stuff like that, but it's deciding to be unreliable and I need a way to automatically suspend it to save power.
crouton in nuts (Score:3)
I installed crouton and it totally sucks!
1) you have to run in developer mode which means one accidental miss boot or wake up and you entire hard disk is erased.
2) you get no live updates from google for the chrome portion
3) crouton linux has all sorts of network adapter problems, like seeing it at all, on my machine.
4) the archiving system for saving your current state for a reinistall after you accidentally press the space bar when it tells you to at boot (and reformats the hard drive) is byzantine and on
Keyboards (Score:5, Informative)
It's hardly surprising that schools would prefer laptops with keyboards, since students are expected to do a lot of writing. Chromebooks make sense because they are cheap, virus-proof and don't run Windows games.
Keyboards (Score:3)
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Chromebooks don't support Java, or Silverlight for that matter, in the browser. There are of course web games, but the school will have their internet connection censored to block those out anyway. The students can't install much on those machines, and in fact I think they can be locked down so that no apps can be installed at all.
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The students can't install much on those machines, and in fact I think they can be locked down so that no apps can be installed at all.
Unlike the Apple iOS devices where whole classes of applications were banned outright by Apple even before it got into the admins' hands, not matter who buys them...
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No porn and no torrenting, and no hacker tools are not a disadvantage for schools use.
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> No porn and no torrenting, and no hacker tools are not a disadvantage for schools use.
Lack of "hacker" tools is a disadvantage for any educational environment. Students might actually be expected to create something rather than just being mindless consumers.
There have already been educational programs mired by patent attacks that have been pre-emptively banned from the iPad. The corporate IT mentality filters out more than just "the bad stuff".
This much should be obvious to ANYONE that has had to deal
Re:Keyboards (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it has anything to do with being "remotely managed" but rather the simple fact that a tablet and a laptop are still two different tools.
I think people are starting to understand that using a tablet isn't just "using a computer with a touch screen." It's an entirely different experience, one that is probably better suited for certain tasks that rely on organic movement. Gaming happens to be one of those tasks but certainly not the only. Music and art are others.
A chromebook is a cheap and crippled laptop, basically, but it beats the heck out of any tablet for typing which pretty much anyone would agree, at least as of now.
So I guess if you're seeing a controversy between people clamoring for one item over the other, a reasonable conclusion to draw would be that one person thinks one type of education is better than another.
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Well said. Also the different forms of education are better at different ages. The typing advantage only kicks in once students are writing long essays. At Kindergarten, the educational activities possible with a touch screen tablet are much more rich. Between the two, there's a changing dynamic of advantages.
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https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/1290513?hl=en
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It's hardly surprising that schools would prefer laptops with keyboards, since students are expected to do a lot of writing.
It would be hardly surprising if schools prefer tablets with touch screens, as students are expected to do a lot of drawing and diagramming.
Whilst you can type modest amounts of text on a touch screen, drawing with a keyboard and trackpad or mouse is not practical.
Further: Keyboards are only better for typing. The direct manipulation of objects that a touch screen enables is far better for most kinds of educational software.
When kids get to college, and they have to write long essays, then the laptop become
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...except consumer tablets aren't proper digitizers. This is especially true for platforms where a stylus is a banned option because it doesn't seem fashionable enough.
Proper tablet inputs typically are PC peripherals, not the limited functionality that comes with consumer tablets.
Even a mundane mouse is better at the "direct manipulation" stuff than what's provided on your average consumer tablet. The "direct manipulation" on a consumer tablet is crude and clumsy.
Surprise, surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Surprise, surprise (Score:2)
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CItation:
The iPad doesn't have a keyboard. QED.
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I'll be darned. Cheapest product sells more units. I wonder who's making the most money?
But don't you really mean "who has the most to lose when sales volume dries up?"
Re: Surprise, surprise (Score:2)
I feel that way about the entire tablet form factor. I had a couple given to me. I threw them out because it wasn't worth my time to find someone to buy them.
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What do I think? (Score:2, Insightful)
Analysts are predicting that 5 million Chromebooks will be sold by the end of the year; how many of those will be sold to schools, do you think?
As a parent in a school district, I'm pissed that our school district is buying every student a Chomebook*.
I would be even angrier if they had gone with the iPad.
These programs are a bloody sham--they're a waste of money and will not help the education of our next generation one bit. There is nothing that providing a laptop per child affords that can't be accomplished through classroom media presentation devices (computer & projector) and a good school computer lab. These devices will only be a distract
Re:What do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was at school I wasted vast amounts of time being forced to write stuff out in draft form and then re-write it neatly. Fortunately now we have computers that allow editing. This is progress - I can write a report and edit it without endless copying out by hand.
Kids should have access to computers. Not all families can afford them. By giving all the students the same computers it is easier for the teacher to teach without getting bogged down in technical differences, and allows the school to administer and manage them.
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When I was at school I wasted vast amounts of time being forced to write stuff out in draft form and then re-write it neatly.
They don't ask you to re-write stuff to annoy you, they force you to re-write to make sure you double-check your work. Or, in the case of lessons, to help you memorize it.
I'm all for teaching kids how to use a computer but it doesn't mean that they should be used all the time. For writing reports, sure, it improves efficiency, but whether it is better for learning is debatable.
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Kids should have access to computers. Not all families can afford them. By giving all the students the same computers it is easier for the teacher to teach without getting bogged down in technical differences, and allows the school to administer and manage them.
I actually agree with you, which is why I said, "I would be in favor of a program that provides these devices to low income families."
Writing a 5 paragraph essay for an exam is no burden by hand, but I agree that handwriting large English assignments would be a bear. But with a computer lab and a computer at home, nobody would be forced to write by hand.
Re:What do I think? (Score:4, Insightful)
Writing by hand remains an essential skill, and will continue to be an essential skill for the foreseeable future. It is true that it is no longer the domain of people who author reports or books, corresponding with friends and businesses, and many other areas. Yet it is still used extensively for note taking, completing forms, and in many situations where it is easier to use the pen than the keyboard (diagrams, equations, etc.).
In time, that may change. In time, it will probably change. Yet I am getting quite tired of reading the handwriting of adults that wouldn't pass the muster of a grade 3 teacher.
Re:What do I think? (Score:5, Interesting)
A few months back, I sprained and fractured the thumb on my writing hand. It was almost a week before by thumb was strong enough to even allow me to grip an empty soda can without dropping it, so you can imagine it took awhile before I could write again (nearly two months before I could write more than a few lines, in fact). I also work at a software development shop where a key part of our culture is our use of notebooks. To say the least, I was a bit concerned, since writing seemed like an essential skill.
Because writing by hand was out for me, I turned to taking notes on my iPhone, simply out of necessity. I write by hand at around 30 wpm, I'd guess, which I was able to get on par with almost immediately, without any of the annoying hand cramping that happens after awhile when writing on paper. Plus, the notes are much more legible (even with the occasional auto-correct mishap), have the ability to be searched more easily later, can be synced to other locations, and are "written" using an object I'm keeping with me all of the time anyway. I'm actually seriously considering ditching notebooks altogether at this point, now that my thumb is mostly healed, since I can type just as fast, and if someone throws up a picture on a whiteboard, I can snap a photo more easily than I can copy it to paper anyway.
Which is to say, I'm not convinced that writing by hand remains an essential skill, or else that it will be one for much longer. Useful in numerous situations? Absolutely. Something I'd teach my kids? Without a doubt. But essential? Other than legal and old-world business forms that haven't moved online yet, I can't remember the last time that I had to write by hand, and those are both a dying breed.
Personal note: Just to put it out there, I'm not someone with years of experience as a prolific typist on phones. I'm averse to text messaging and get frustrated when trying to type out e-mails since I'm still, of course, much faster on a full keyboard.
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I have arthritis but it wasn't diagnosed until well after I left school. My teachers used to complain that I didn't write enough, or that after a few lines my handwriting was hard to read. Now I know why. Writing by hand just put me off writing stuff completely, which is a shame because I enjoy it now I can type instead.
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Are you left handed?
Re:What do I think? (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing these programs [try] to bring isn't so much help with learning as much as EQUAL ACCESS to learning. It attempts to level the playing field between the kids at home with no pc for research and the more well-off kids with greater tech access.
That said, it doesn't provide in home internet access, satellite or 3g coverage, so many times it seems like a wasted effort, but it allows students greater flexibility than previous generations. They aren't tied down to a classroom, or getting shuffled out of the lab so a new class can come in. They can do their work anywhere there's free wifi. Further, it adds a value to your district in less tangible ways: showing kids you trust them with not-inexpensive hardware does interesting things to their psyche.
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That said, it doesn't provide in home internet access, satellite or 3g coverage...
Citation needed. I am aware that some Chromebooks come without data, but I actually read the article and I don't see anywhere where they differentiate between Chromebooks with mobile data (and wifi) and Chromebooks without data (but only wifi).
My first Chromebook came with 2 years of free 3G Verizon service at 100MB per month (if you want to buy more than the free level of service, you can prepay for more, but there is no danger of getting charged when you go over that amount, once above that quota and if y
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The thing these programs [try] to bring isn't so much help with learning as much as EQUAL ACCESS to learning. It attempts to level the playing field between the kids at home with no pc for research and the more well-off kids with greater tech access.
That is not a point of benefit our district has ever tried to make, but I see the benefit of that. That's why I said, "I would be in favor of a program that provides these devices to low income families."
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"At-Risk Schools" is bullshit misnomer. These schools get ALL sorts of extra money other schools don't. Let me tell you, money is not the issue, the issue with "At-RisK" is the parents of the kids who are "At-Risk". These people are lower educated because many (most?) do not value education. They are lower Economic, because they are lower educated. And because they are lower economic, they don't see a way (even if you tell them) out of their situation. I am not going to say they are lazy, because many of th
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There is nothing that providing a laptop per child affords that can't be accomplished through classroom media presentation devices (computer & projector) and a good school computer lab.
Homework. Many poorer kids do not have a computer at home, and a smartphone is terrible for writing papers and research. The laptop/tablet is also locked down so distractions are kept to a minimum.
These devices will only be a distraction and huge expense for families and schools as millions of them are broken every year.
Hyperbole. Citation needed. Yesterday's article about iPads in Coachella said district-wide there were less than 10 lost or stolen. How does that scale up to millions?
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There is nothing that providing a laptop per child affords that can't be accomplished through classroom media presentation devices (computer & projector) and a good school computer lab.
Homework. Many poorer kids do not have a computer at home, and a smartphone is terrible for writing papers and research. The laptop/tablet is also locked down so distractions are kept to a minimum.
These devices will only be a distraction and huge expense for families and schools as millions of them are broken every year.
Hyperbole. Citation needed. Yesterday's article about iPads in Coachella said district-wide there were less than 10 lost or stolen. How does that scale up to millions?
I'm replying to comments now, and it's amazing how person after person has responded with, "but what about the poor kids?!?!" Apparently everybody has terrible reading comprehension, for I said, "I would be in favor of a program that provides these devices to low income families."
I read the iPad story on Slashdot. That is an amazing story, and it made headlines because it's [going to be] an outlier. Have you ever purchased a new piece of equipment? You baby that thing at first, then as the familiarity grows
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Actually there is. I refer to you Google Classroom (using Google Apps for Education). http://classroom.google.com/ [google.com]
This provides interactive access to the students up to 24 hours every day. The teacher gives feedback and the student receives it immediately, regardless of whether or not they are in class at the time. With Hangouts a "sick" student can be in class, and participate without having to infect classmates with Virus of the year. And so on.
What is a waste of money, is spending it on is old style indu
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I foresee the time when we dump Industrial Education and start providing kids all the education they can handle at any age and quit trying to pigeon hole them into "age" segregated classes, and start putting them into online sessions with educational peers
That's interesting, but I don't see what you rant has to do with school districts providing laptops. If the incumbents keep promoting programs like OLPC through the schools, then I can assure you that the world will actually be moving away from your vision of reformed education.
And at $200 ea. Chromebooks offer even the lowest income people a chance to own technology that can help bridge the education gap. $200 buys one, maybe two textbooks these days, something school districts have to do every year or two. Are they as capable as a Laptop? Probably not, but they are usable for 85% of what kids need in school.
Wow, I am amazed at how many people seem to lack basic reading comprehension. I explicitly had said, "I would be in favor of a program that provides these devices to low income families." I am in favor of equal access for all and hug
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they're a waste of money and will not help the education of our next generation one bit
I believe that the real goal is to make every student familiar with computers.
Tablets are easier to understand than laptops.
But I do agree that they'll increase ADHD even more.
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There is nothing that providing a laptop per child affords that can't be accomplished through classroom media presentation devices (computer & projector) and a good school computer lab.
I would guess it depends on the implementation of the program. Giving kids laptops and then doing everything else the same old way doesn't really help. However, it opens up the possibility of having lessons that include multimedia, interactive lessons, and lessons in logic/programming. If you have some kind of open-source textbooks available on the computers, then you might be saving money over buying textbooks. The kids can' use the computers to write their papers, which is potentially more convenient
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Thank you for offering a very sensible reply. I agree that the right implementation would make a difference, and I suppose part of my being upset is not trusting our school district to do it right--they certainly have not offered any indication that they will do anything novel with these laptops. They just came in to a little extra money and it's burning a hole in their pocket.
I hope they offset the cost by putting open source textbooks on them, but I'm skeptical. School districts (including mine) seem to b
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I'm not particularly happy with the state of education, and I might agree that it'd be more effective to spend extra money on having more/better teachers rather than more computing equipment. I would just argue-- and you don't seem averse to this-- that providing each student with a computer *could* be a helpful educational tool. I think the problem that we run into tends to be that we want computers to be a replacement for good teachers and high-quality educational materials rather than a supplement.
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Um... have you heard of personalized learning applications?
Outselling? (Score:2, Interesting)
Google's basically giving them away for free or extremely subsidized and then tries to make money from them by snooping on the kids' email, while Apple actually tries to make a profit from them.
http://thenextweb.com/google/2... [thenextweb.com]
From http://www.edweek.org/ew/artic... [edweek.org]
The plaintiffs allege that Google has employed such practices since around 2010, when it began using a new technology, known as Content Onebox, that allows the company to intercept and scan emails before they reach their intended recipients, rather than after messages are delivered to users’ inboxes, regardless of whether ads are turned off.
Mr. Fread and Mr. Carrillo say that neither they nor any other users of Google Apps for Education consented to such practices. They are seeking financial damages amounting to $100 per day of each day of violation for every individual who sent or received an email message using Google Apps for Education during a two-year period beginning in May 2011.
While the allegations by the plaintiffs are explosive, it’s the sworn declarations of Google representatives in response to their claims that have truly raised the eyebrows of observers and privacy experts.
Contrary to the company’s earlier public statements, Google representatives acknowledged in a September motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ request for class certification that the company’s consumer-privacy policy applies to Apps for Education users. Thus, Google argues, it has students’ (and other Apps for Education users’) consent to scan and process their emails.
In November, Kyle C. Wong, a lawyer representing Google, also argued in a formal declaration submitted to the court in opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification that the company’s data-mining practices are widely known, and that the plaintiffs’ complaints that the scanning and processing of their emails was done secretly are thus invalid. Mr. Wong cited extensive media coverage about Google’s data mining of Gmail consumer users’ messages, as well as the disclosures made by numerous universities to their students about how Google Apps for Education functions.
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Whoop dee fucking doo.
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The only people up in arms seem to be the slashdot editors, it seems to me. I've started to be like "Oh God, not another NSA article!" I got it, the NSA is doing surveillance, how many times a day do I need to be reminded?
What does it mean? (Score:2)
Sounds like the modem debate from 20 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
USRobotics kept walking around and saying their modems were the #1 selling modem. This is analogous of what Apple is doing today.
However, while USR was the #1 brand, most modems sold overall had the Rockwell chipset, with most brands simply adding a plastic box and different color LEDs.
More recently, Apple claims that the iPhone is the #1 selling phone. However, phones that use Android sell the most, period.
I shouldn't be, but I'm always surprised how religious people get when their favorite electronics company is shown to be extremely misleading. I know a guy that I'd known for years who threatened to "unfriend" simply because I refuted his claim that the iPhone was the #1 phone.
So this iPad/Chromebook issue is just another chapter of misleading sales tactics. But if you look at what Apple actually says officially, they're very specific in the literature. Unfortunately, people will be blind to anything that might change their worldview... and any company would be nuts not to take advantage of that.
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I shouldn't be, but I'm always surprised how religious people get when their favorite electronics company is shown to be extremely misleading. I know a guy that I'd known for years who threatened to "unfriend" simply because I refuted his claim that the iPhone was the #1 phone.
So this iPad/Chromebook issue is just another chapter of misleading sales tactics. But if you look at what Apple actually says officially, they're very specific in the literature. Unfortunately, people will be blind to anything that might change their worldview... and any company would be nuts not to take advantage of that.
It's strange. It like tribalism in a globally connected world. Product brands and companies are one of the few things that touch most places on Earth so they have been able to build this strange support from people. If people got so passionate about things that really mattered, instead of consumer electronics, just imagine what they could do.
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ACs can be quite funny sometimes.
An iPad's value isn't in its hardware specs. It's in the way that it works both with hardware and software and ecosystem.
Yeah, man... puff puff pass, k?
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You're proving my point.
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Samsung Galaxy S models may occasionally beat the iPhone in worldwide sales, even though globally, the iPhones are the best selling smartphone models. ... but if you count all cell phones, low-end Nokias are well ahead. The Nokia 1110 is the best selling phone of all times, with more than 200 million units sold.
and yet... (Score:2)
every freaking year they try to raise the wheel tax in my county (which goes to schools) cause the teachers cant buy fucking paper towels and tissues
meanwhile every tween is totally ignoring what is going on in class with their state issued internet gadgets
sigh
It is inevitable (Score:2)
Any overpriced product has limited life
Right tool for right job? (Score:2)
I can not imagine homework is very practical without keyboard or trackpad. Chromebooks are also easy to pass along to next kid or share without privacy issues, and if they break down, like things in kids' hands often do, replacement is exceptionally cheap. Tablets for web browsing, visual tasks like photo editing, and casual games, laptops for heavy duty typing and bigger screen/multi application workflows.
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Simple reason (Score:2)
There is a simple reason for this - economics. Early adopters went with iPads as they were really the only choice at the time. Now that the rest of the schools are going to jump on the bandwagon there are other choices and price comes into play. You can buy twice as many chromebooks as you can iPads for the same money.
Of course, that is assuming that their is educational software on the chromebooks that fit the students needs.
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What are you gonna use for typing papers?
Well, I spoke to a parent recently about this. Apparently they do often write papers on a keyboardless tablet. The astonishing part was that the kid's tablet broke and her solution was to write the paper on her phone.
The parent (as so many seem to) thinks her kid is nuts.
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A bluetooth keyboard?
Just say'in.
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Double kudos for writing it on touch screen devices. I do some Play-by-email roleplaying and at times I do posts on my Nexus 7, and man oh man it's difficult. I wouldn't even dream of doing long prose writing on a tablet.
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Chromebooks (Score:2)
Chromebooks work fine offline too. You do have to change a setting in Google Docs to enable offline use, and perhaps Gmail also suffers from this flaw, but it is trivially possible. It is not the default, which is frankly bizarre, but I bought mine to be a backup web development machine, so it's running debian in a chroot.
I'd love a $99 netbook. My current one is getting up in years, but it's great for tossing into a messenger bag; it fits the ultra-mobile lifestyle very well. $99 is cheap enough to be disp
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After all why would you buy a Chromebook that ONLY works on the net when you could have a netbook that runs all the apps a Chromebook can run AND run offline as well?
Chromebooks are "net only" just like Apples only use 1 button mice. My Chromebook reuns just fine off the network. The main issue is storage.
Oh and the Linux guys should love 'em as both Intel and AMD have been pretty good about opening up the APUs so it should be a dirt cheap way to have a pocket Linux lappy.
And the Linux fans already like the Chromebooks. I dual boot mine into either Chrome or Linux. They make a lightning fast Linux machine.Is there some reason you think that you can't install linux on
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> There's a reason GDocs is free...
Yes there is. It's a solved problem. It was a solved problem 20 years ago. It's simply not a task that anyone should be paying money for anymore.
Re: Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to break it to you but web apps kickstarted the neo-mainframe movement because everyone having their own PC turned into an admin nightmare. Apple and Google have given the same thing to people who don't want to fight with their computer all the time.
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> everyone having their own PC turned into an admin nightmare.
This is entirely the fault of Microsoft. Apple itself used to even acknowledge this fact before it gave up on being a computer company. Remember those old commercials you never see anymore.
This was never a "PC problem". It was always a Microsoft problem. They poisoned the well.
A Chromebook is little more than a very locked down PC running Unix. Even an iPad is ultimately the same thing.
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The last quarter was the second quarter. This doesn't show any sort of change in sales. It shows that out of 1.8 million units sold in the 2nd quarter, 1 million, or well over half of them, were to schools.
Re: iPads are toys (Score:4, Interesting)
Managers where I work usually get iPads.
All they can do in addition to Facebook and other web browsing is browse the intranet (which nobody really does anyway) and check email. They already get emails on their Blackberry's and use them more often.
Pretty much a corporate toy.
Re:Teachers perspective... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's interesting as we are actually having the opposite to your experience in the school I work at.
The teachers (mostly) think they are great
Before students had these devices they had pen and paper. Now they have a device that does word processing, spreadsheets, basic multimedia, communication (email, video chat etc), has access to a wealth of information through the internet for research, access to our online learning environment and more. A lot of activities that are great for education across every subject and that they couldn't do prior with pen and paper. And it does all these activities rather well and because it is low powered it easily lasts a whole day without recharging (with the model we have). This last point is really important as it alleviates the problem of a mess of cables for people to trip over etc but it also allows people to move around a lot easier than when they are tethered which is good for collaboration exercises.
Of course it doesn't do cad and multimedia and all that other fancy stuff. That is what our labs are for and in our opinion a desktop with a 20 something inch screen and a mouse and that is plugged into power permanently is much better for doing those tasks than even a high end laptop.
Actually you can do cad and multimedia and a lot of that other stuff on these devices. There are web based options for many of these things. Sure they aren't as powerful but for teaching the theory and concepts you shouldn't need the full blown tools (unless you are a poor teacher who doesn't understand the theory and concepts well enough and can only teach a product which you yourselves were taught on.) For instance we teach students cad with Tinkercad.com and they easily transfer those skills over to AutoCad in later years.
From a management point of view they are awesome. Way fewer breakdowns than with traditional laptops and when they do, a lot of the time a Power Wash and the student is back up and running in a matter of minutes. If it's hardware we loan them another device, they log in and are off and running again in a few minutes, and again when they get their repaired device (or a replacement) back.
I really hate this argument that a device that is easy to manage and offers many things they didn't have before (with just pen and paper) which are of value and which this device does really well, and is actually quite well priced, is useless because it doesn't do some other things which are specialised and for which we already have better devices doing those tasks anyways.
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I am glad your high school has money for a Photoshop license for each student and an IT stuff to fix and remove malware from all their Windows laptops. For most, it will be more realistic to have a lab with Photoshop and in the meantime focus on students being able to do some web research and type up a paper.