
Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms - 2arrs2ells
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/technology/apple-products-schools-education.html
======
ux-app
I'm a HS teacher. I was so happy when my school finally phased out iPads as
the designated device for our year 7 students. It's such a rubbish device for
content creation. The touchscreen is a POS for anything other than web
browsing and casual games. Teaching coding, image manipulation, file
manipulation was utterly painful or impossible.

Typing on them is beyond painful and of the hundreds of students I taught,
fewer than a dozen actually bought a physical keyboard. This meant that every
task took 3x longer than necessary.

On top of this they are expensive. To anyone even remotely IT savvy it was
clear from the get-go that this was going to be a failed experiment.
Unfortunately education, like most other things follows the fashion of the
time and everyone had to learn the hard way that a traditional computer is
superior in every conceivable way.

Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don't really see the move to them as a
positive either.

~~~
dpark
> _Chromebooks are rubbish too, so I don 't really see the move to them as a
> positive either._

What to your mind would not be rubbish? I'm a Microsoft employee, so I have a
vested interest in Windows devices being the dominant choice for schools, but
I don't see anything realistic students at the high school or below level
couldn't do on Chromebooks.

Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7" is not high school in the US. That is
distinctly junior/middle school.

~~~
ux-app
> Also, where do you live/teach? "Year 7"

I'm in Australia. Nationally we are transitioning to a R-6 = Primary School,
7-12 = High School model.

My school is a little unorthodox. We're a private school with a 6-12 shared
campus which is why I had experience teaching younger students even though I
am HS trained.

> What to your mind would not be rubbish?

Either Mac or PC is fine in my books. Anything that allows them to install
native software is fine. I recently did a small unit on binary data. It was
really handy for students to install a hex editor, inspect a flat text file in
binary mode and map out the ascii table for themselves. I don't think that's
possible on a Chromebook.

I also teach Web dev. We use MAMP which is cross platform. We install VSCode,
interact with the FS, create a local DB, file uploads, programmatic image
resizing etc. My understanding is that this is not possible without
jailbreaking (is that the right term?) a Chromebook.

I'm also opposed to any device that hides away the file system from the user.
It relegates a computer to the dumb appliance category which I think is
unhelpful.

~~~
dpark
Thanks for clarifying.

I agree that Chromebooks are not the ideal learning device for coding. I was
thinking general schooling and glossed over your earlier comment about
teaching coding. I think they can probably work there, but you're right that a
"real" computer is a better choice for that.

~~~
Adaptive
I'm running a coding class right now that is almost entirely run over ssh on
chromebooks to a linux server. Works beautifully.

No fancy IDE, but lots of actual learning to code.

~~~
yoz-y
I have never used chromeOS, does it have a terminal or is there some sort of
ssh as a service?

~~~
kevinnk
It has a built in terminal called crosh, which might have an SSH client built
in (I'm not sure). What most people do is download a chrome extension like
Secure Shell[1] that lets you ssh from a tab.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-
shell/pnhec...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-
shell/pnhechapfaindjhompbnflcldabbghjo)

~~~
fragmede
Sadly, ssh was removed from crosh just recently.

    
    
        crosh> ssh
        The 'ssh' command has been removed.  Please install the official SSH extension:
      
      https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pnhechapfaindjhompbnflcldabbghjo
        crosh>

------
DaiPlusPlus
I remember the huge push when the iPad came out and all the talk about how it
would replace textbooks and exercise books.

It could only be because school administrators were won-over by the engaging
user-experience - completely overlooking practicalities - back in 2010 even
into 2014 iOS lacked decent enterprise-management tools that would enable
staff to lock devices down as they're obvious distraction devices - things are
made worse by Apple's decision to not have multiple user-profiles on the iPad
and confusion with how Apple IDs work. I understand they've gone some way to
address those issues - but other concerns still apply, such as the vision of a
wide range of high-quality (and interactive, no-less!) iBooks to replace
textbooks - simply hasn't happened due to massive cost of authoring even a
single iBook. But the main blocker I feel is that staff (both teachers and
school district IT folks) just don't want to have to manage them. I know an IT
contractor who resigned his job at a private school after having to deal with
setting up hundreds of iPad Mini devices for every student - he just simply
hated the work involved.

As Apple is neglecting the desktop market, they're just as well neglecting the
education market: remember when Apple had massive education market penetration
in the late-1980s? Now there's not even an equivalent of the old eMac unless
you count the now 3-years-old Mac Mini models.

~~~
Merad
It blows my mind that Apple has basically put no effort at all into supporting
the multi user business/education market. Our company rolled out our first LOB
mobile app last year. Only six devices are involved, but they're basically in
use 24/7 and are handed off at shift changes. The amount of hoops we had to
jump through were absurd both in terms of device management setup and adding
some features to the app to make it feel more "multi user".

There's supposed to be an intrinsically safe iPad Mini case available later
this year (IIRC), and our manufacturing areas are salivating over the
possibilities... But we might have to disappoint them, because the overhead of
trying to manage hundreds of iPads would be truly insane.

~~~
2arrs2ells
Have you been able to try the multiple user features launched in iOS 9.3?
[https://appadvice.com/appnn/2016/01/apples-
ios-9-3-features-...](https://appadvice.com/appnn/2016/01/apples-
ios-9-3-features-multi-user-support-for-ipads-in-schools)

~~~
Merad
No, unfortunately it is only for schools. When it was announced I was really
hopeful that it meant general multi user support would be in iOS 10, but...

------
decasteve
I replaced my kids' iPads because of the awful hunched posture it precipitates
(as shown in the 2nd picture in the article). Also, after an initial
enthusiasm for iMovie and Swift Playgrounds wore off, they gravitated towards
the more distracting apps and games, youtube and netflix, etc.

Having them sit upright, with good posture, at a desktop computer puts them in
a different frame of mind when it comes to what they do on the device. I also
have more input on directing their attention to being interested in computing,
playing different types of games, and programming (dabbling in python mostly).
My hope is they get a broader picture of computing, which won't be inhibited
by the handicaps of iOS.

~~~
simonh
Interesting, personally I think mobile devices and laptop/desktops have
differing roles and both have their place. Funny you should mention switching
to a desktop to teach them Python, I'm teaching it to mine using Pythonista on
iPads because I do a fair bit of coding for fun with it on the train.

No one device can be the be-all and end-all. Yes my daughters watch a lot of
dreck on Youtube, but my youngest recently got really excited and showed me
her 'favourite video'[0] and told me about this great channel she'd found
called numberphile. My eldest watches tons of Anime, but recently got into AMV
(Anime Music Videos) and is working on one for herself using Garageband and
iMovie on our desktop. It's not the tool that matters, it's cultivating the
mind and attitudes that count.

On devices in formal education, I don't think any good can come from kids
carrying around any device to use in classrooms all the time until at least
high school age. I'm a big fan of using computers educationally, they have
specific places and roles to play in that process and one solution simply
doesn't fit all cases. iPads, Chromebooks and 'proper' desktops and laptops
all have strengths and weaknesses. I'd no more outfit a school entirely with
one or the other than I'd replace everything on the road - lorrys, cars, buses
- with one kind of vehicle. Tying kids permanently to one specific device just
makes no sense to me.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdyociU35u8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdyociU35u8)

------
secabeen
Finally. It was always so hard to see schools spend millions on expensive
Apple tech when there was equivalent equipment available for half the price
that met their needs equivalently well. We really don't need to be spending
$400-500 per tablet to outfit a classroom with 1 device for every 3 kids, when
each kid really needs their own.

~~~
GuiA
I question the underlying premise that " each kid needs their own". Every time
there's a pilot program that gives every kid a laptop or tablet, it seems to
be a complete failure after a few months. My aunt is a teacher in a public
school district, and has seen a number of such programs come and fail over the
decades.

~~~
derefr
They don't need to give the kids laptops or tablets to _take home_ , but
having each child be able to do individual computer-supported exercises at
their own desk—in effect, turning every classroom into a computer lab—has
important benefits for lesson planning.

~~~
dpark
Such as?

I think having computers at home is the one compelling reason for all the
"let's give everyone laptops/ipads" initiatives. It means that everyone has a
device they can do typed reports or homework research on. I'm much less
convinced that computers in the classroom are a clear value-add in many cases.

~~~
BearGoesChirp
>It means that everyone has a device they can do ... homework research on.

I've known a couple of families where the children received take home devices
they were expected to use to do further research or school work on, but who
were unable to due to the lack of internet. A few had dial-up which can be
unusable with some of the education sites (all the js resources take too long
to load, time out, and leave the page useless), but some had no internet at
all. Some of these families had no heat/ac, to give an idea of the level of
poverty. There were no libraries within walking distance either (nor public
transit options).

I think the devices are a good thing, because it gives some of these kids
exposure to computers they wouldn't have otherwise and if the school handles
it correctly they can be used to do work from home (have all needed resources
already loaded on the device), but I've seen multiple teachers not be able to
account for the most impoverished students lacking internet action (I somewhat
suspect the teachers don't always have a choice in the matter either).

~~~
dpark
Internet access is an good point. That would seriously diminish the
"equalizing" factor of giving every child a device.

------
foxfired
When I used to see all schools turning to iPads I was one of the naysayers. I
saw my nephew working(playing) on his school iPad and I thought this was the
worst decision the school system ever took.

But now looking back, I am glad they went through it, call it a phase if you
must. The American school system (or government) is always last to adopt any
tech. You can still find outdated technology barely holding together in some
schools. But this time they did something different. They took a risk. They
adopted something that hadn't been tested yet. Well now they tested it. We
thought iPads were inferior to laptops or desktop, but now we know that they
are, at least in the classroom.

Money was wasted, time was wasted, but at least now we know through
experience.

I'm glad that they took the risk of trying something untested. And I hope that
in the future they will do so again with whatever tech that looks promising in
improving education.

~~~
eksemplar
I work in the public sector, albeit in digitization an architecture in the
central administration in a Danish municipality, but I can assure you the
lesson won't stay learned for long. We've gone through the same shift, but it
wasn't because IPads were unfit for classrooms, it was because chromebooks
were cheaper and are easier to administrate for the IT department (also a
major financial saving).

Our school system is at a whole a lot better than the American, yet even here
it's typically cost and business needs which define what IT makes it into
classrooms, rather than educational needs.

Apple is unfortunately for Apple technically and financially unfit for most
enterprise, and in the modern world schools are becoming enterprise.

------
ChicagoBoy11
I was the Director of Technology at a school overseas when the hype first
began -- and over there the pull was even stronger because in addition to all
of the reasons American schools were swooning over the iPad, the fact that
this was an "American" thing was yet another factor over there.

I was lucky to be at a place where my principals listened when I suggested
that we pass -- for many of the reasons stated here. What I think most people
don't appreciate, though, is how much of a marketing tool these iPads became
in this space. There wasn't a parent who would come in for a visit who didn't
want to see that the school was "innovative," and the surest way to (pretend)
show that was to point to your iPad initiative. We held our with laser focus
on our educational mission, but I saw many of our peers spend a ton of time,
money, and effort, to try to use iPads in one way or another. Marketing was --
and often still is -- the real driving force behind the adoption of these
devices.

------
ploggingdev
> “At the end of the day, I can get three Chromebooks for each of the Mac
> devices I would have purchased,” said Steve Splichal, the superintendent of
> Eudora Public Schools.

 _Not_ choosing a Mac for school students should have always been a no brainer
because, as mentioned a) cost, b)what benefit do Macs provide over say Windows
laptops or chromebooks _for high school students_?

Apple did a real good job marketing their products to schools all over the
country though.

I imagine high school students require a device to do basic coding,
assignments, office applications (presentation, word), browsing and maybe
basic image editing. Sure, in professional settings I can understand people
choosing Macs, but but for high school students it just seems overkill for
their use case.

Anyway I'm glad to see schools coming to their senses and move away from apple
devices...into another (cheaper) walled garden.

~~~
askvictor
Macs definitely have less downtime, shorter startup time and better battery
life than windows machines. Windows has certainly gotten better over the last
few years, but 5 years ago it would be taking a minute or two for windows to
wake up and log in between each class. Mac is pretty much instant (Chromebooks
are fast too). Before you say that a minute isn't much, consider that you have
25 teenagers in the classroom, with a minute of boredom.

Also, build quality, effective lack of malware and other system problems mean
students (and teachers) don't have to deal with broken computers nearly as
often.

It's only the last couple of years that windows has come close, and for
hardware the compares in terms of durability, you'll be paying as much as
Apple anyway (which schools are hesitant to do as they are underfunded)

I speak from years of experience as a teacher and IT manager, and as an apple
hater.

~~~
hisyam
> 5 years ago it would be taking a minute or two for windows to wake up and
> log in

OS boot time depends mostly on storage speed, not just the OS itself. My 2012
MBP takes 90s to boot before I upgraded it to SSD.

~~~
askvictor
I'm not talking about boot time - I'm talking opening the lid of a suspended-
state laptop. Which is something a highschool student has to do at least 5
(but probably more) times a day. Windows is better now (my shiny new Windows
laptop takes around 5 or 10 seconds) but Mac is pretty much instant.

------
yawz
> “At the end of the day, I can get three Chromebooks for each of the Mac
> devices I would have purchased,”

No brainer, really. A device's cost and what value you're getting from it are
very important, especially in a classroom environment.

------
kregasaurusrex
I worked in Education IT as my college job, and Apple provided zero value
added with regard towards educational software. For every piece of software
that instructors requested such as stat analyses, whiteboards with note-saving
capability, standardized test-prep materials, and math visualization it was
often non-existent, cost-prohibitive, or a available as a free web app. Campus
labs virtualized Windows 7 on iMacs to run side-by-side in order to allow
compatibility with 90% of the tools educators need.

While I think that we're doing an excellent job at preparing tomorrow's
teachers on how to educate kids; technology largely remains a point of
friction in keeping kids focused because of the lack of good tools in the
ecosystem. My high school district always received the short end of state
funding and we never had any good tools available for physics simulations, art
& design, CAD, or personal finance to name a few. Anything we did end up using
was available as a web app with no OS dependence; and I see school districts
pay extra for mac systems without any competitive advantages to the platform.
It's largely a market mismatch that Apple's failed to address, and were
largely being phased out because of this.

------
thr0waway1239
I don't quite understand why people thought iPads were good for content
creation in the first place.

Also, I think Apple really missed a trick by not going after the education
market with a more suitable device. With Windows, you never know what havoc
the next update around the corner is going to wreak. And Chromebooks are still
quite limited in many different things. By merely having a serious presence in
this market, Apple would by now have had a best in class device because this
is turning out to be the classic case of the one eyed man being the king of
the land of the blind.

~~~
joezydeco
In my local school district, gDocs is the key for our switch away from iOS
devices. We don't even need the chromebooks, Docs will run on older PCs as
well.

I don't believe any newer/cheaper hardware from Apple will help here.

~~~
antfarm
Shouldn't computers in schools be used for more than just teaching students
how to use office tools?

Teaching only boring stuff has great potential to suck the fun out of computer
use for them and does not encourage them to explore what it is _they_ might
want to do with a computer.

~~~
joezydeco
From my personal experience watching my own children use gDocs, they're
_extremely_ comfortable working with computers in general and the operation of
the tool itself is nearly transparent.

They open a document and start typing. They open a slide presentation and
start moving pictures and words around. Collaborative work is automatic and
they kids don't even think about it. I can remember a time when simultaneous
editing of a document was something only CS PhD students dreamed about in
their theses. Now my 7 year-old is doing it. And she finds it kind of fun,
actually.

It doesn't need to be an indoctrination into corporate life and I haven't seen
one iota of that in the classroom. They're just _tools_ like everything else
in their school.

Is writing on a whiteboard training for the business world, or just an
easier/cleaner way to write so the whole room can see it? How about using a
video projector overlaid on the whiteboard? Sitting on an exercise ball to
minimize fidgeting? Standing desks? RFID cards in the lunchroom? Maybe they're
all just applications of technology that have positive uses with the kids.

------
basseq
My county in Virginia was one of the first national pilots for computers in
high schools. Every student was given an iBook. I also worked on the help
desk, so I saw the administration side as well.

The school system experienced all the challenges you'd expect from giving
several thousand 14-18 year-olds expensive tech kit. Broken screens, porn,
integrating technology into the curriculum, etc. (But, oh, those heady days
when we knew more than the admins and played multiplayer Quake 3 or CroMag
Rally—the latter came _pre-loaded_ on the first images!—in the back of
classrooms over school wi-fi.)

They switched from Apple to PCs in 2007 or thereabouts, but it was generally
regarded as "worse" (more issues, more hardware problems, etc.).

I suspect Apple's strategy changed. They used to _own_ primary school, but I
think in the mid 2000's they started to back off that. Macs were becoming
popular, including the rise of the iPhone, and the kiddie image wasn't in line
with Apple's brand. Not to mention the hardware expense as schools a) bought
more volume and b) went with lowest-cost options (like Chromebooks).

------
Brendinooo
My wife's school used the iPad 2 in classrooms, and my wife generally disliked
them. They don't do a whole lot for content creation as others have noted, and
they went obsolete _fast_. It's a nice box to check (particularly for a
private school) - "We have iPads" sounds nice. But the reality wasn't so
great. This point might be a little more moot now that iPads have matured a
lot and Apple has started to push for better content creation, but that stuff
is still on the higher-priced end of the platform.

I'd have to think that the lack of repairability is a problem for some schools
as well. My school district was one of the first to distribute laptops to
junior high students (this was around 1999...and pre-WiFi I guess, since we
all pointed the tops of our laptops to the infrared caps in the ceiling! [0]),
and I remember seeing the IT guy with a stack of computers in the tech room,
replacing screen after screen.

[0]:
[https://www.cnet.com/i/ne/pre/Pcnews/12_97/kidntbk.jpg](https://www.cnet.com/i/ne/pre/Pcnews/12_97/kidntbk.jpg)

------
LeicaLatte
The passing of Steve has affected the iPad product line the most. iPads have
pretty much stagnated since his demise and Apple has alienated the education
market with their laptops too. I mean look at the Pro features of the iPad -
split screen multi-tasking and 100$ pencils. Its a joke.

~~~
remir
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro (32GB, Wifi only) is selling for $1,049 CAD. Who are
they kidding?

~~~
LeicaLatte
32 GB storage on a 1000+$ device is mind boggling. The cloud storage situation
is even worse.

Every Pro device (MBP or iPadP) should come with atleast 100GB cloud storage
IMO.

~~~
remir
To be honest, the only Pro thing about the MBP and iPad Pro is their name.

------
skookumchuck
Tablets are great for media consumption. I don't understand how anyone can use
them for creation, though. On my desk is the biggest screen I can afford, and
a full size keyboard, and I use it all when doing work.

As for helping kids learn, I just cannot see how a tablet will help in the
classroom.

~~~
chjohasbrouck
Completely agree.

I take this one step further and say tablets are probably handicapping your
kids in the home.

Having no tablets or smartphones available during the PC revolution forced
most of us here to default to exactly the correct set of tools for maximum
learning and efficiency: a keyboard, a mouse, a full-size monitor, sitting at
a desk, with a full computer with some kind of (more-or-less) exposed desktop
operating system.

This isn't a choice any of us made, it was just the climate and the time. That
lucky coincidence has given most of us a lifetime of experience using these
tools, extending back all the way into our childhood.

Over the last 10 years though, a lot of people/families have started replacing
their desktops/laptops in favor of tablets/smartphones.

I can't even imagine how I would've become a programmer if I had grown up in a
house that just used tablets and smartphones for everything.

They say that one of Bill Gates' greatest advantages in life was early access
to the PDP-10.

I think this trend toward "convenience computing" is especially bad for lower-
income families (which are more likely to rely entirely on
smartphones/tablets), and could even be a significant contributor to income
inequality.

~~~
antfarm
When you teach e.g. basic astronomy or anatomy, you want students to explore
the solar system or human body interactively, not their computers.

Computer use in schools is not only about learning to use the computer. One of
the great features of the iPad is that once you start an app, it becomes a
single-purpose device that just works.

I totally agree with your last point.

------
metafunctor
The sad thing is that in practice, iPads are mostly used as substitutes for
books. That's completely backwards. It reminds me how "multimedia CDs" were
supposed to revolutionize teaching in the 90s. They ended up being picture
books on a computer, with silly animations and sound effects on mouse hover
added on top.

Computers and tablets could be a great pedagogic tool for many things, like
exploring maths concepts interactively, spaced-repetition for rote learning
foreign language words, and other things where the computer as an interactive,
programmable medium shines. Sadly, I don't see these opportunities being
exploited at all in the classroom.

On the bright side, at least kids have equal access to modern tools, and learn
the same basics of searching for stuff online.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The opportunities aren't being exploited because the cost of professional
content creation is so high.

Paper textbooks are a comfortable earner for publishers, especially with
nominal annual or regular updates.

Print development, including author payment, is _much_ less expensive than app
development, and requires skills that are far more common.

Publishers are reasonably likely to make some money on a book project. (The
author probably won't beyond an initial advance, but that's a different
problem.) They're much less likely to make money on educational app or ebook
development.

It doesn't help that the industry never standardised a format for animation
and interactivity.

There's a big gap between the features you can include in an epub and in a
native app. Apple poked at this problem with their book creation software, but
never really solved it. The other platforms barely considered it an issue.

There's definitely an entrepreneurial opportunity in developing smart learning
tools for schools. But between conventional publisher apathy, school board
politics, device incompatibilities, marketing access, and a dearth of
authors/designers who can produce the content that's needed, it's a very bumpy
minefield.

Platform selection is not the hardest problem. IMO Apple should have created a
"school certified" app creation program, added multi-user and app selection
locks to iOS, brought in experienced educators and consultants with evidence-
based credentials who could explain effective learning strategies, and acted
as a bridge between developers and school management.

Instead we got an app store free-for-all with education tacked on as a buying
category. That strategy was never going to give schools the tools they needed
to go beyond buying iPads to making education the well-managed and effective
market it could be.

------
lowpro
My HS rolled out iPads to all students my Sophmore year of HS 4 years ago.

It was well known the average GPA dropped by a sizable amount (mine personally
by nearly .5). There wasn't a good way for the school to lock down games, and
it was really hard to self regulate. The technology side of Canvas worked
pretty well once teachers knew how to use it, but the fact that so many games
could be played just distracted the hell out of everyone, and the teachers
knew this. Without a way to lock down device gaming, I don't think they're a
good idea in a school environment unless you antipate and actively try to curb
gaming, but this can be hard and will make the teacher seem like the bad guy,
which is never a good thing.

~~~
sperglord
There are many iPad MDM solutions to that problem. Apple s App Store can be
disabled and replaced with a custom one, for example.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Doesn't matter if its technically possible if teachers and administrators are
clueless on how to do it.

~~~
sperglord
The teachers and admins should not be the people administering equipment...

------
sna1l
I'm curious how much of a boon Chromebooks/low cost laptops were for schools
in low-income areas. I can imagine they made quite a significant impact!

~~~
protomyth
I'm in a very low income area and they really haven't changed anything for us
since the lack of any local management software for chromebooks has not
allowed us to buy them. Netbooks were interesting but they had quite the
maintenance problems. I think buying tough books or their equivalent would
have been a more cost effective solution.

~~~
sna1l
Ah interesting, thanks for the perspective. I'm surprised nobody has build any
local management software for chromebooks, but maybe Google makes it
difficult.

~~~
2arrs2ells
Not sure what grandparent means by local management software, but Google's
built a cloud device management console
([https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/business/devices/featu...](https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/business/devices/features-
management-console.html)) and there are 3rd party tools (ex. GoGuardian - who
works with my company -
[https://www.goguardian.com/](https://www.goguardian.com/)) that help manage
devices.

~~~
protomyth
I mean something that would allow management and storage locally instead of on
Google's cloud. We have some requirements by law. I haven't heard of
GoGuardian, thanks for the info.

------
masterleep
It's sad, but Apple has completely lost it at the low end. The value
proposition just isn't there any more. This goes for iOS as well as Macs.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
But they've lost it at the high-end too: the MacPro's internals are now over 3
years old with still no update in site, AV pros are switching to HP Z-series
and the MBP is high-end only in price and design: perf-wise it's quite
lacking.

The MacBook Air (with its low price to clear their stock) and Mac Mini are
priced right for education, but spec-wise they're poor investments, especially
as even web-pages now require beefy specs to display at a decent framerate
(blame ads).

~~~
zzzeek
yet apple's stock price keeps soaring well into the 130s (!) now, despite
months and months of nothing but bad news in my own distorted, self-selected
information. what are we missing?

~~~
intoverflow2
> what are we missing?

A CEO that finds fulfilment in something more than numbers on a chart?

------
pasta
This might be a little unrelated, but here in The Netherlands a research
showed that 60% of the children have some form of pain caused by device usage.

As you can see in the statistics of this article, more and more devices are
used at school. And looking at the pictures my first reaction was: let's also
teach those children to have a good posture.

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oculusthrift
I don't know how you can teach kids anything without a keyboard and only
having access to "apps".

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shmerl
Schools should start using Linux more.

~~~
vacri
I agree emotionally, but practically it's hard to get education-level support
it it.

~~~
shmerl
Why so? Linux is great for education especially.

~~~
vacri
There's not a lot of education suppliers for linux. Most teachers aren't
techies, so you need a good support network.

On a philosophical level, I abundantly agree that a FOSS system should be in
education - which other areas of general education do we train our kids in
using Company X's stuff?

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danso
I've been teaching at Stanford for the past few years and 95% of the students
I've had are all on Macbook laptops. Still have to adjust/manage the 1 or 2
students on PCs. That said, I'm glad to hear that iPads are being phased out
in the primary/HS grades. Other than games, I haven't seen many made-for-iPad
software that show parity with desktop counterparts when it comes to word
processing, spreadsheets, photo/video editing/management, etc. I'm going to
assume that the state of the art in interactive books is much further behind.

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tasty_freeze
When it is the school buying the equipment, I can very well believe that they
could decide to make the switch to PCs or Chromebooks. But Macs still have
mindshare of the actual kids.

My daughter wasn't allowed to use a computer for homework and such until she
got to 8th grade (it is a private school and it is their policy -- they should
be playing outside with friends and not spending hours shooting monsters and
watching TV). When they get to 8th grade, the policy then says the kids needed
to have a computer. They get classes on keyboarding, creating web pages,
binary math, programming with Scratch, and they start doing homework on their
computers.

They were told they could use either Macs or PCs, no preference. We got our
daughter a decent Lenovo PC; it is better than my own computer. After a year,
she would have none of it, as nearly all of her classmates have Macs. It
simply has caché that PCs don't. My daughter was willing to go through a
second learning curve and convert her 16th birthday present in order to get a
Mac, just to be like her friends at school.

~~~
Moru
Sometimes you can be surprised to learn what "Everyone else..." means. If the
cool kids have mac it means you will be left outside the cool kids group as a
pc owner.

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rsj75
Apple is focused on consumer apps and barely provides any support to edtech
developers. There is no focus on education strategy or business model. We
built an iOS educational platform but because of all these issues,
transitioned to cloud with our classk12.com platform with Google and Microsoft
integrations.

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snowwrestler
I'll be the guy who points out that this story is about what school districts
are purchasing in bulk, not necessarily which computers students are buying
with their own (i.e. their parents') money.

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sytelus
TLDR; 12M devices shipped to schools in 2016, Chromebooks accounted for 58%,
up from 50% in 1 year. The iPads and Mac laptops fell to 19%, from 25% while
Windows remained relatively stable at about 22%.

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rebootthesystem
I read through this entire thread. Interesting range of comments.

I had the experience of being consulted by the principal of our local
elementary school on this a few years back. They had received a donation and
could make their own localized purchasing decision with that money.

Based on what we learned at home with our kids and various iOS devices my
advice was to avoid them and opt for inexpensive PC laptops running Windows.
We, in fact bought 100 HP laptops, 17 inch screens, brand new, in original
packaging, for $200 each.

The machines have been absolutely fantastic. They have allowed the kids to
explore things that would be absolutely impossible to approach with an iPad.
For example, using a USB port to save their work and bring it home. Or read
and write CD's and DVD's. Yeah, that's how bad iPads are.

Oh, yes, and they are all multi-user, of course.

They run applications like GIMP, Lego Mindstorms and a myriad of really
excellent programs out there. And, of course, access the web under supervision
to do even more. This year, if I can find the time, I'd like to get the school
started teaching a very basic Python programming class.

One of the big problems we recognized early on with iPads was that the lack of
multi-user capabilities made them impossible to use. For example, in the
Special Ed class (For non-use readers: developmentally disabled kids) the
spectrum of disabilities was such that you would have to have a highly
customized iPad for each kid in order to configure it to fit their needs. PC's
dealt this this very easily. In some cases we had to cover the keyboard give
them a small Wacom tablet.

Tablets are great for such things as reading books and what I am going to call
limited web browsing. Even today, with the push for mobile-first, the browsing
experience on tablets can range from OK to frustrating and down-right
impossible.

Tablets will, of course, survive. It'll be interesting to see what use-cases
they end-up satisfying in the end.

EDIT:

Forgot to add that in our own case we took away our kid's iPads and iPods.
Both my wife and I concluded they were not doing anything useful with them.
The devices became an addiction and achieving balance between beneficial play
(educational apps) and mindless addictive crap was a constant battle. The last
straw was when one of them started to lie about usage and would play Clash of
Clans hidden under his blanket in bed instead of sleeping. They exhibited the
behavior of alcoholics or drug addicts who deny their reality. That's when the
iOS devices evaporated.

They have nice PC's in our family room. They can have fun and they can also
learn but the addictive element is completely gone. And rules are easier to
enforce. For example, on Saturday's they can play as much as they want. In
practice they play about a couple of hours and then go play with real toys,
the dogs, lego's etc. Better balance and better outcomes.

~~~
douche
> The last straw was when one of them started to lie about usage and would
> play Clash of Clans hidden under his blanket in bed instead of sleeping.
> They exhibited the behavior of alcoholics or drug addicts who deny their
> reality. That's when the iOS devices evaporated.

This is what kids do when you try to enforce a bedtime. I used to get hell for
reading _actual books_ under the covers with a flashlight when it was decided
that I ought to be sleeping.

~~~
selllikesybok
Same. Of course, my mom used to catch hell for it too, from her parents.

Addictive patterns and compulsive behavior are interesting. Especially our
mores about them.

Binge watching is good, binge drinking is bad.

One of the best things you can say about a movie or show or book is its
compelling and you can't stop consuming it.

But if you can't stop Cheetos, that's a problem.

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iammyIP
All public schools should be forced by law to use free systems on free
hardware, anything else seems insane.

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tkubacki
Can't stop giggle.

Android is Linux on mobile and ChromeOS is linux on desktop

~~~
gcp
Linux + Walled Garden, unfortunately.

~~~
pawadu
With a pretty huge door you can open from the inside:

[https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton](https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton)

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jboggan
Alright Google, that sweet holiday gift charity is paying off!

~~~
alokedesai
"Charity" being the keyword there

