Plan to give iPads to kindergartners met with approval and cost questions

The math in your situation does seem to point to the advantage of the more expensive software, especially with the $150K sysadmin.

That was just an example of how cheaper in IT often comes around to bite you on the butt. A good IT exec will look at a very low price and ask "what's the catch?" As Heinlein says, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Within a certain margin, all companies pay about the same for their parts, although Apple gets some very good bulk discounts by committing to billions of dollars of purchases up front. If somebody's price is really low, then something's wrong, alarms should go up.

There’s no need for these devices for these 5 year olds. I’d say the way to go here is to wait until they’re cheap enough (say $100).

You'll be waiting many years for a device of reasonable quality at $100. The market's still new, commoditization isn't close to kicking in to drive prices down. Apple's own cost for parts alone was about $220 for the low-end iPad when it first came out. The touch screen alone was almost $100. That does not count R&D recoup, profit, overhead, packaging, shipping, the case, support, taxes, retail markup, etc. It's like you're in 1993 hoping for a halfway decent Windows PC for under $500.

Capacitive screens and Android 3.0 over 2.2 are preferences, which might or might not be better, might or might not be worth the additional cost.

They are absolutely better, the question is being worth it. Is it just something wrong with me thinking that an organization should buy software approved by the manufacturer to run on the hardware it selects? To me it is beyond comprehension that an organization would do otherwise in a production environment (production here means kids using it day-to-day).

I would want to wait until something that is both cheap and doesn’t have any glaring flaws is available

Looks like you have two choices. You can wait until Android 3.0 gets mature and starts getting installed on inexpensive hardware. Google is not releasing 3.0 to just anybody to put on any device, they're actually requiring a minimum amount of hardware in order for people to have a decent Android experience. So far the only hardware they've approved costs as much as the iPad.

Your other choice is to wait until HP gets WebOS tablets going, they get mature, and people actually start writing software for WebOS. Blackberry's tablets will never be low in price, and Microsoft is finally being smart and not planning for tablets any time soon. Apple will never sell in the low-end.

IOW, if you want to purchase decent tablets for under $300, you'll be waiting at least a year, probably two.

Funny though, I thought you would have caught onto the parental control part. You'd think that would be a very important criteria for any school, one that any product absolutely must meet in order to even be considered. The iPad is the only tablet on the market that does.

parental control = a long long discussion. we haven’t asked the questions like - do 5 year olds need the internet? would a 5 year old getting the internet be worse than no device at all? do we now have to teach parents about ipads? are these kids expected to take these things home, or what? Entrusting a 5 year old with their own computer to take home, having the internet accessable to a 5 year old - 2 separate questions entirely separate from which tablet, or any tablet.

Having the internet, letting the kids take them home, both increase costs. The additional burden on parents who now have to learn a new computer system because it’s mandated by the school district, the additional burden on parents who now have to monitor internet usage, the additional burden on parents who have to try to help the 5 year old not have the computer lost, stolen, broken, all of those things are costs, and these are types of costs that we shouldn’t necessarily want the parents to pay at all. It’s not a dollars and cents thing. Some may validly argue that we do not want the parents to spend 1 extra minute of their busy day on tablet issues. In the olden days, kids learned fine without these tablets, and parents did not have to waste their time catering to the whims of the school board.
A valid argument can be made that the internet for a 5 year old is just too much. And, if you go in the “no internet” direction, why exactly are you paying so much for a device when this feature is disabled? And why does a 5 year old need a video camera, or any camera, for their schoolwork?
A camera could be dangerous or risky in the hands of a 5 year old (as could the internet)

The outcome, for 5 year olds at least, is a near toy, with very few features, at a very low price point.

The Auburn school district did use the tablet for 1) playing audio and 2) a simple learning the abcs game. Without getting bogged down in all the details, let’s just simplify, cut the costs down even below $67, to get to a point where no one is going to call it a folly, and pull the trigger at that point. The kids don’t have their own computer, they don’t store files on the computer, it’s not theirs, but there’s one for everyone, if needed, and if there are 20 kids in the class, they all pick up this cheap computer out of the cardboard box when it’s time to do tablet work, and put it back in the box when it’s time to do something else. The computer will be tested to see if it does do the 2 things the school board could figure out beforehand they wanted kids to do.

By the way, I went on to youtube, and there are a ton of videos for the via 8650. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=via+8650&aq=f

It certainly appears to work well enough for a 5 year old.
It is clear that a stylus is NOT required to use the resistive screen, and that a simple finger touch would work for a 5 year old. Someone - you or someone else - argued that this device required a stylus. It doesn’t. Finger and/or stylus works. When I’m watching these youtube videos, it’s clear that this is a plenty fast device for a 5 year old.

Maybe, every quarter, 4 times a year, someone buys one of the most promising sub $100 tablets, and tests em out. If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
Here’s the tablet playing youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK1O2kYL46U looks pretty good to me, good enough for a 5 year old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeJ7KXCYa5s - that’s CNN flash video apparently. This performance is sufficient to me, at least to start testing. And for sub $100.

Now, to cut costs further, you explain to the manufacturer that you don’t really need a bunch of features, and ask them how much the device would costs without those features. And you might find a sub $50 device. here’s more flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39iTo9Iw2bI

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/search.php?searchid=583458
that was a search on 8650

One reason why the $67 tablet is less than the $500 tablet is that the $67 tablet is not as good as the $500 tablet.

Also, the generic tablets don’t have the advertising that Apple does. Those nifty ipad ads on the TV make the ipad cost more. The Apple rep, who was there to convince the admittedly stupid school committee members to buy Apple is also paid. Lots and lots of people getting paid when someone buys an ipad. The version of support for the android tabs is basically the user community. You can howl in protest that the “user community” is unacceptable in a business. But the Auburn School District is not an ordinary business. Ordinary businesses do not make purchasing decisions a day after seeing the product for the first time.
The “user community” provides helpful instructions to get the job done on the cheap, and the roms that are provided for free often can do customizations (like disabling the internet and/or the camera, perhaps) that the school district can want and can’t afford to do on their own.

These are, again, 5 year olds, and I am struck by how often people say that these cheap tablets are great for children.
I’d say “just buy one”. After getting it, most would likely say they can’t understand why this device would be unsuitable for 5 year olds.

Start there, at this $67 / sub $100 price level, and test.

Your $100K software package was presumably mission critical. These tablets clearly are not.

would a 5 year old getting the internet be worse than no device at all?

Good questions, but there's more. Can they enable WiFi or Bluetooth? Can you lock out certain apps from running? Can they initiate video chat? Can they install or delete apps? Do you want to allow access to YouTube, the camera, the web browser? Do you allow in-app purchases? Can you set an age restriction for videos? You might want to enable them to get their own educational apps, but if you do that, can you restrict them to age-appropriate apps?

These questions are not separate, they would be an important part of any school's purchase decision. And the iPad is the only one that can answer "yes" to being able to control all of that right out of the box.

It is clear that a stylus is NOT required to use the resistive screen,

I've used them. You can use your fingers, but it is very inaccurate and subject to error. In addition, you have to press hard, and that shortens the life of the relatively soft plastic screen. Resistive also doesn't do multi-touch, something being widely used in tablets to allow users to interface with them much more efficiently.

The version of support for the android tabs is basically the user community. You can howl in protest that the “user community” is unacceptable in a business.

It's absolutely unacceptable in an organization, since you can't contractually count on the "user community." Take Linux for example. Only organizations with highly developed internal Linux expertise just download the free installers and go to work, depending on the "community" for support. All other organizations purchase it with support from the likes of Red Hat so there is one contractual source of support they can point to and say "show me how to do this" or "fix this." If an reasonable organization buys an Android tablet, it will be from the likes of Dell, Motorola or Samsung.

Had the district performed due diligence, it would definitely result in your tablets being rejected. Only the district most completely uninformed and ignorant of IT management basics could possibly buy them. It's obvious they don't have any IT expertise, so they definitely need something with very good contractual support behind it or they will have completely wasted their money.

the roms that are provided for free often can do customizations (like disabling the internet and/or the camera, perhaps) that the school district can want and can’t afford to do on their own.

Who's paying to hire this high-speed Android tech to do all this stuff when any idiot can flip a slider to "No" for camera use on the iPad parental control settings? Do not shame yourself by suggesting kids or volunteers again. They are neither reliable nor accountable, and thus unacceptable for an organization.

Your $100K software package was presumably mission critical.

Actually, it wasn't. Mission critical software tended to cost well over a million dollars and run across several large servers, with a connection to the disaster recovery site where that whole setup was mirrored. One reason it cost that much was that we could get very high-level support with just a phone call. This was not some dude in India going off a checklist, but an actual American expert in the system, even the developers themselves if necessary.

Lots and lots of people getting paid when someone buys an ipad.

Speaking of the above, that includes the highly knowledgeable Americans who answer the phone when you call support. With Apple, you never get an American job outsourced to an incomprehensible guy in India who knows nothing more than the troubleshooting checklist in front of him.

Assumptions have been made about the level of support that the ipad would need and the $67 tablet would need.

It’s I’m sure wonderful that the ipad has these customization options built in. Who is doing the customization? That person is getting paid. Adding to the already huge ipad cost.

We already assumed that some struggling with the $67 tablet might be necessary. That stuggling was already built into the price. It would be quick enough to disable the wifi and the camera by not including drivers on the ROM for the $67 tablet. Just make it impossible to use the internet, impossible to use the camera. Over and done.

The apple process seems overly complicated, overly expensive and overly burdensome on parents. I’d say for 5 year olds, no camera, no internet. Just get rid of all that too expensive stuff, unless the school district can explain why they need small children to be video chatting, and explicitly requests that ability.

Again, the story that we’re talking about deals with listening to a story, and playing a simple learning / spelling game. That’s what the simple, cheap device seems very capable of doing.

Apparently, the nook color (said to be good as an android tab, but still too expensive for what is needed) can run either as an ereader (w/out a sd card installed) or as a android tablet (with a sd card installed). That seems to be a quick and easy way to have 2 devices with 2 sets of programs.

Re screens, right, but the 5 year olds are really only being asked to tap on a letter at this point. And we aren’t looking for a 5 year lifespan on these products. And we don’t care if capacitive is better. This is all philosophical, really. Resistive is cheaper, can possibly teach stylus use, does not require the use of a stylus, but is not as fun and magical. Test the cheaper one, if difficulties arise with the less magical screen, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I appreciate that you’re coming from a software purchasing background. A number of things that aren’t being considered is how amazingly stupid the school committee was in approving the ipad purchase (don’t forget, there’s little chance that Auburn is actually getting the ipads) after only 24 hours of knowing of the existence of tablets. Remember that context, when discussing rational organizations.

Because Auburn was so stupid, I guess I’m saying, the old rule book is out the door.

Another thing to consider is that this is an unnecessary purchase. 5 year olds have never had ipads and have done well without them. We don’t even know if these devices help learning. I’d rather have a broken $100 computer that didn’t teach well than a functional $500 computer that didn’t teach well. In the first case, you wasted $100, in the second, $500.

I think you’re comparing adults and children a little too closely.

You’re talking about workers and businesses who need these devices to increase their productivity, bringing efficiency and profit to the organization they’re working for. I’m talking about our little ones. Small children. Who need toys, and not powerful computers.

The stakes are higher for these businesses. For the kinds of businesses you’re talking about, a $100k software package wasn’t mission critical. A $1 million software package was.
If you’re coming from that background, and you’re comparing the kind of diligence necessary to keep a $1 million dollar software package running smoothly with the kind of diligence a kindergarten teacher needs to remember to plug the tablet in every night and to wipe the screen off to get rid of the jelly. These cheap little computers can do a heck of a lot more than the plastic toys that when you pull the string you hear “and the cow goes ... moooooo”. Basically the same thing, in the same product category, a early childhood learning tool.

It should be more clear to you that we’re dealing with a toy for a 5 year old, and not a productivity tool for an adult who needs to do work that is important to the business on it, or a $100K or a $1M software package that is very important to the business.

Think of these as childs toys, put that amount of worry into whether they’ll work. 5 year olds should have some cheap toys if they could help them learn. $67 is sufficiently cheap. I’d be angling to get that price cut down, perhaps by removing as many unnecessary features as possible, if for no other reason as to end the debate of whether this device should be treated like a million dollar software program, or like a Speak and Spell http://www.99er.net/spkspell.html
These cheap $67 tablets are costing about twice as much as used speak and spells are going for on ebay.
http://completed.shop.ebay.com/i.html?rt=nc&LH_Complete=1&_nkw=texas%20instruments%20speak%20and%20spell&_fln=1&_sc=1&_sop=15&_sticky=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m283&_rdc=1

These are 5 year olds. Treat the purchases like a toy purchase, don’t think whether this tablet would make an acceptable business purchase. When you stop making “computer like” arguments and see you should be making “toy like” arguments, you’ll see that a 5 year old might be able to benefit from a cheap device that does a handful of tasks adequately. People don’t worry too much about the upgradability of their childrens toys. The upgradability argument is there when you are spending a lot of money. Here, you won’t be.

If the school board has figured out 5 things for the device to do, and the device does those things, you declare victory when the devices are cheap enough. And these devices are - at $67 - cheap enough to do just that.

Think “toy”, not “computer”, and you’ll see where I’m coming from. Paste, glue, paper, pencils, playdoh, crayons, silly putty, cheap $67 tablets for the 5 year old. Powerful $500 computers for the businesses.

Assumptions have been made about the level of support that the ipad would need and the $67 tablet would need.

Apple: Consistently the industry leader in support. Cheap tablet: No support. Pretty simple.

It’s I’m sure wonderful that the ipad has these customization options built in. Who is doing the customization?

It requires basic user-level skills. If you can slide your finger on the screen, you can do it. Do not try to equate this to modifying Android images, rooting devices and burning custom ROMs. While I myself am capable of doing it, I know that it is not a viable option for an organization such as this.

It would be quick enough to disable the wifi and the camera by not including drivers on the ROM for the $67 tablet.

Who's going to do that expert-level work? When it's time to upgrade (woohoo, tablet-based Android is available for your tablet!), you need to rip out those drivers again from the downloaded image. iPad? Slide two sliders, and both are disabled. Upgrade? You'll have to click a button to get the latest OS.

The apple process seems overly complicated, overly expensive and overly burdensome on parents.

What bizarro world are you in? Ripping out drivers, recompiling images, rooting devices and flashing custom ROMS is easy, but moving a few sliders on the screen is "overly complicated"?

Because Auburn was so stupid, I guess I’m saying, the old rule book is out the door.

Their stupidity calls for the process to be stopped, and the rulebook strictly enforced. What you don't like is that the rulebook points to the iPad.

5 year olds have never had ipads and have done well without them. We don’t even know if these devices help learning.

They didn't have chalk boards at one point either. Technology advances. Apple has been tightly working with educational software companies for decades. They know how to leverage a device to teach, whatever it is. Don't forget, even without them, there's iTunes U, over a third of a million videos, lecture series and books, many free, available to all iPad users.

I think you’re comparing adults and children a little too closely.

The adults are the one making the buy. The adults will be the ones managing all of this. The adults have an interest in locking down the devices. All of that needs to be taken care of as well as the needs of the children. I thought that was obvious by now.

Think of these as childs toys

I will absolutely not do that. I will be thinking of them as educational devices. Do you really propose they spend $40,000 on mere toys? Maybe that's the major source of our disagreement here. I'd rather spend $200,000 on proven educational devices rather than $40,000 on mere toys.

As I mentioned before, remember accessibility? That's a government requirement not often present in toys. The iPad's got it in spades, a versatile universal screen reader, closed-caption display, high-contrast setting, universal zoom (the whole display, not just within apps), large text, mono audio (with headphones, combines right and left channels for both ears in case you can't hear in one ear), and a large screen that's much more forgiving to clumsy fingers. What's your tablet got?

, glue, paper, pencils, playdoh, crayons, silly putty, cheap $67 tablets

All but the last actually do their jobs well. By this list it seems you think that's all kindergarten kids do these days. Now they are actually learning their letters, numbers, shapes, etc., and even the spelling for simpler words.

We’re talking about Additional Need here.

The ipad works fine right out of the box. No support needed.
When you get into settings, that’s where much more time needs to be spent.

Who is doing the customization? I’m sure that it’s easy. Who is doing it? How long does it take? Are parents forced to participate? Those are additional costs that aren’t factored in to the price of the already high priced ipad.

With the $67 tab, there are no additional costs. The assumption has always been there that a certain amount of money would need to be spent to get those tablets nailed down and working sufficiently. The same amount of work - finding a custom ROM and installing it.

And there is no doubt in my mind that Auburn can figure out how to get a custom ROM and how to install it. They have over $100K left over because they chose the $67 device instead of the $500 device. They won’t need to spend anywhere near that. Perhaps the 6th grade G&T teacher has an average or above intelligence and solid computer skills.
Perhaps that G&T teacher might want to make it a class project where the kids do something useful. If they don’t want to do that, they can always just pay someone to do the menial tasks. The school district can just call “Joe’s Computer Repair” on Main Street in Auburn, and say “can you install my ROM for me” or whatever. Point being, there are plenty of people out there who are capable of doing this stuff - it’s by no means something that is beyond the organizational skills of a school district, even if the Auburn School Committee are proven idiots.

You don’t seem to understand that these $67 devices aren’t going to be upgraded. They get it working once. One ROM is needed. One person (or contracting company) installs it 300 times. Getting a sweet ass ROM off the internet won’t take very long. Say “oh, hey Roger Calvert” http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/15929-eken-m009s-with-android-22/page__st__80
I like your ROM, it looks like you know your way around the that operating system. Can you put up a version with the wifi not operational and/or the camera not operational?
Oh, by the way, just as a show of our love, here are 5 sample pads of different styles of the via 8650, green light, blue light, etc., for you to test things on.
And you’ll have your ROM. Then, once the hard part of creating the ROM is done (and it’s mostly done right now already and the people who can do it are already identified), then comes the easier, but very boring task of upgrading.

You seem to be forgetting that this tablet should be considered like a toy, like a speak and spell, not like a powerful computer, which a 5 year old does not need.

I think you’re operating under the mistaken assumption that
parents are going to be upgrading ROMs. No, kids, parents, even teachers aren’t going to be upgrading ROMs. The tablets, like the speak and spell, don’t get software upgrades. The ROM is installed (detailed above) and then given away. The device was purchased to do certain things. Like a speak and spell. The proper ROM is installed, the device is tested, and proven to work. And then it’s given to the kids. No further upgrading.

What rule book? The 5 year old kids need a cheap learning tool, a toy. And you want to think of the purchase of a computer for adults. Think speak and spell. If the ipad costs $67, I’m all for it. If it doesn’t, we can wait until it costs $67.

You don’t understand what I was saying about comparing adults and children.

Adults need powerful tablet computers
Children could possibly find some benefit from a cheap tablet.

That’s what I mean by comparing the needs of adults and children.

A parent drives a car, a kid drives a bike. Yes, the parent has an interest in making the bike safe.

But they don’t use the same devices, and shouldn’t.

I’d rather have them use a toy.

What exactly does the $500 ipad DO that the $67 tab toy doesn’t DO?

If the $67 tab toy DOES EVERYTHING that the ipad DOES, I think, as a Conservative who wants to cut spending, that we should look very closely at the $67 tab / toy?

How cheap does the toy have to be for you to classify it as a toy and not in the category with a powerful $500 computer?

I’ll wait to buy until these tabs are clearly placed in the “toy” category. Because these are 5 year old kids who don’t have powerful computers, shouldn’t have powerful computers, but do have plenty of toys and even learning toys.

And “proven” vs “mere”. 1) you admitted the $500 tab hasn’t been proven to increase learning in the “they didn’t have chalk boards” paragraph, only arguing that the $500 tab is more likely to increase learning because the company has been working on it for a while.

Accessability - a government requirement not present in toys. Does that mean that if I classify this device as a toy, I can get around those accessability requirements? I don’t think so, but that would be bonus. It seems like you’re using the existence of burdensome government regulations as good thing for your tablet. Obviously, Conservatives don’t care about such things, it is the Liberals who do care. I’ll just say that this $67 tab is at least barely adequate in that regard. But it’s neat to see how government regulations could possibly cost taxpayers 500% more.

My list included paper and pencils. They have been learning to spell with paper and pencils for years, and a teacher.

That very necessary configuration needs to be done regardless of the device. For the cheap tablet, you're doing it all yourself at an expert level or paying for support to do it. For the iPad you have teachers do it with user-level ability required, or use a configuration tool to make all the settings centralized (higher-level ability required, but you'll get help from Apple), and from there it's user-level ability to install that on all iPads.

Perhaps the 6th grade G&T teacher has an average or above intelligence and solid computer skills.

Again, not acceptable. Your "just wing it" attitude is the source of many a disaster in IT. Sure it may work for now, but you have no plan for future sustainability.

Can you put up a version with the wifi not operational and/or the camera not operational?

You seem to think that is the solution to parental controls. I have a better idea, leave the WiFi functional, because it is very useful, but limit the use. Leave the camera functional because it can be useful too, but limit their ability to share that video and those photos. That's real fine-grained parental controls, not the clumsy hacks you're thinking of.

You don’t seem to understand that these $67 devices aren’t going to be upgraded.

Unacceptable. I expect any device purchased to be upgradable as long as upgrade and updates are offered that work on the device. What will you do if a massive security flaw is discovered, a patch is released, but you're sitting on a custom-rolled ROM and you no longer have the resources to upgrade? What if the upgrade has to do with the battery charging driver, say a flaw that allowed the batteries to overload and burst into flames? Don't want kids around that, but, oops, we can't update.

I expect at least two years of upgrades and updates. Anything less is wasting tax dollars. You seem to have a problem with spending tax dollars, but no problem wasting them.

The device was purchased to do certain things. Like a speak and spell. The proper ROM is installed, the device is tested, and proven to work. And then it’s given to the kids. No further upgrading.

Kind of going backwards, aren't you? Here you have a device with unlimited potential, something that can always be changed to give the kids the best possible education as new software and abilities come out. Yet you want to dumb it down to a speak & spell. In that case, forget tablets and all they can offer. Just buy a bunch of speak & spells.

But they don’t use the same devices, and shouldn’t.

Both I and my kids ride bikes. Is there something wrong with that?

It seems like you’re using the existence of burdensome government regulations as good thing for your tablet. Obviously, Conservatives don’t care about such

Yeah, screw little Johnny. His eyesight's not too good, so he doesn't get the same chance at an education as the other kids. Janet can't hear in one ear, and Jimmy is colorblind, so I say screw'em all. Let'em be idiots and grow up on the goverment dole, costing us far more in the long term. This is government regulation concerning the operations of government, specifically making sure government services can be accessed by those with disabilities.

So, you’re saying that the $500 tab would have to be customized either way? There was no scenario where additional costs on top of the $500 would not be incurred. So, no matter how you sliced it, it’s $500 plus additional costs or $67 plus additional costs. The plan surrounding the $67 tab does most certainly involve a trained intermediary between the tablet manufacturer and the small 5 year old child. Apparently there also has to be a trained intermediary between the manufacturer of the $500 tab. You’re basically just saying that the job for the trained intermediary is one that a stupid person can do. I understand that you’re worried about the intelligence level of the trainers / fixers. It certainly could be a problem that could be solved merely by identifying the more intelligent members of the school community, whether it be teachers or students. If there is no one able to install the custom ROMs within the school district itself, plenty of people outside the school district, but in close physical proximity to the schools, are available. I’m in favor of creating Jobs In Maine. And this could do it.

You’re talking about “IT” Stop. It’s a TOY. If you can’t see that the $67 tab should be seen not as a powerful computer, but as a really really cool learning TOY, you’ll still keep pushing to spend hundreds of dollars when tens can do the trick. “Future Sustainability”

This reminds me of an old Seinfeld episode, where Elaine is shopping for socks for Mr. Pitt.

PITT: It’s good, but...

ELAINE: But what??

PITT: Ultimately I don’t think they’ll stay up.

ELAINE (pulling up Pitt’s socks): No, no! They’ll stay up!

PITT: For a while, yes, but not in the long run.

These are toys. What long run? The goal is to have them last a school year.

You are talking about parental controls. So, you ARE going to force parents to have to learn these devices, spreading out the added hidden costs to those who are busy people who don’t want to spend additional time on learning how to keep the internet out the hands of their 5 year olds.

I’ll take a clumsy hack over “fine grained parental controls”. Does the clumsy hack work perfectly? Why, yes it does. Does the existence of the clumsy hack mean that parents will never have to worry at all about their 5 year old accessing the internet with the device that the school (not the parent) gave them. Yes, that’s exactly right. With a simple clumsy hack, parents won’t have to worry at all about their child accessing any material they don’t want their child to see, or exposing any of their personal information. The parent can teach the child about the internet their own way, instead of being forced to deal with the issue by the school. If need be (and I don’t think there really would be), Parents could be given the choice of “full” internet, or “no” internet, depending on which version of the firmware is installed. It might be best just to have “no” internet, because additional costs go into monitoring which kid gets which computer, and keeping the right tablets in the right kids hands. Same basic argument for the camera.

I might give you a bit of a nod if you can come up with a whole list of things that the internet is really needed for in these tablets, and the camera is needed for.

Remember, the idea is to start with the question “what do you want to DO with the tab”? What can the tablet teach? Not “can these features be useful?”.

Security flaw - how might this security flaw manifest itself? Does the device change in to an autobot? I’m not going to argue your creds. They seem solid to me. I’m not calling you a Stupid Apple Cultist. But, remember, we disabled the internet. no wifi drivers, no ethernet drivers, etc., That was the first thing I thought about (internet) when I hear security flaw. If no internet, how would there be a security problem? A virus transmitted from a microsd card maybe? I’d want to shut off, remove the functionality of, any feature or hardware component where the risks outweigh the rewards. What damage could be done by letting a 5 year old with a 720p camera run free on the internet? Lots. What predefined benefit do you see from the internet? That remains to be seen. It’s we want to do THIS, this camera will do that. Not, we have this camera, what can we do with that? And I haven’t seen anybody saying that every 5 year old needs a 720p video camera to do anything.

Also, I said “aren’t going to be upgraded.” That’s not the same thing as “incapable of applying security fixes”. I guess it’s similar to having the hardware requirements to run XP but not 7. You were using a precursor to the “well you have to be able to run 3.0, 4.0 ice cream after honeycomb. I was saying that’s not the plan, the plan is to build and keep a stable system. To not have to learn a new o/s. There’s nothing intrinsic to the device that won’t allow a new custom ROM with whatever battery power fixes you are imagining these things are going to have. My point is, they aren’t meant to be upgraded or modified. You buy them for what they can do for you right then, and you keep it just like that. Run 5 educational programs, that you know that you want on there. Put em on there. You want to play music, enable the music player. Preload the music on there.
And that’s that. A pretty cool educational toy for $67.

No, this is not a speak and spell. This is very much like a speak and spell, a wonderful device for its time. But this is much much much better than a speak and spell, and at such a wonderfully cheap price. Strip away as many features that can give you headaches for no specific benefit, and give them what they want. I think that 5 year olds should have tablet computers if the parents want them to have tablet computers and I think that the parent or the child should make the purchasing decision, not the government.

Liberals are 100% all about taking your money and giving back to you what they think you should have. I’m for keeping your money and making the choice yourself.

So, you’re saying that the $500 tab would have to be customized either way?

Almost anything you buy in IT needs to be customized for the organization. That's why we have Group Policy in Windows, plug a computer into a network, assign it to an Organizational Unit, and all the customizations set for that unit are applied to that computer. Changes in the customizations can be automatically applied to all computers.

These touch tablets are not yet to that point, but applying policy, and being able to change it at will, has varying levels of difficulty. Your solution is extremely difficult and cost-prohibitive with rolling your own ROMs. The iPad can work kind of like the Windows way, but applying the policy has to be done manually (browse to a location, click a button, type in a passcode).

plenty of people outside the school district, but in close physical proximity to the schools, are available

I thought all this hopey changey thing was for Democrats. This is the real world. If you need these customizations, you contract for them and pay.

You’re talking about “IT” Stop. It’s a TOY

Again, that is the attitude that has led to abject failure in the past, a complete waste of all moneys allocated, and more. There are enough toys around, you mentioned one called the Speak & Spell. These people aren't looking for toys, they're looking for something more, something that can be far more effective than a mere toy.

You are talking about parental controls. So, you ARE going to force parents to have to learn these devices

I thought you understood that these would be set by the school according to school policy. They're called parental controls, but that doesn't mean that only parents can do them.

Parents could be given the choice of “full” internet, or “no” internet, depending on which version of the firmware is installed.

Wow, now you're rolling multiple custom ROMs. You could do that on the iPad to, but it would mean handling two whole configuration files to apply to the different iPads. But if you want to give parents the option, a five-minute lesson and giving them the passcode is all that's needed.

Security flaw - how might this security flaw manifest itself? Does

Not all flaws are exploited from outside. You want to lock these down. What's keeping these kids, or their older siblings, from unlocking them without permission?

Also, I said “aren’t going to be upgraded.” That’s not the same thing as “incapable of applying security fixes”.

It's the same thing when you're rolling custom ROMs. It is now your responsibility to integrate any fixes into your custom ROM code, re-compile it, package it, and flash it onto all the devices. Applying a stock patch will likely eliminate your customizations.

My point is, they aren’t meant to be upgraded or modified. You buy them for what they can do for you right then, and you keep it just like that. Run 5 educational programs, that you know that you want on there.

Then what's the point? You are no longer thinking about tablets so you shouldn't be arguing about which tablet to get. You're basically talking about buying a bunch of those LeapFrog systems, not a tablet. I can see if you want to argue they shouldn't buy tablets at all, but the idea of buying even a cheapo tablet and dumbing it down to a LeapFrog is absurd.

Strip away as many features that can give you headaches for no specific benefit

Flash should be right up there for that.

What do they figure the loss rate is going to be?

It doesn't look like they figured anything. There are three scenarios here. One is the reality of the situation, where a personal experience plus a dog and pony show from Apple convinced them to buy iPads with no real plan, no real requirements analysis. They liked what they saw, as educators they thought it would be perfect for the kids, so they decided to buy it.

Then there's what would happen with a competent IT exec, the argument I've been pushing. All functional and non-functional requirements would be taken into account, support costs factored, a product lifecycle considered (OTOH, we don't know whether Apple discussed any of this with them). IMHO, at this moment the iPad is the only product that a reasonable IT exec would recommend purchasing. The viable competition will be quite different a year from now, which is actually a good argument for holding off any tablet purchase.

Then there's truthfreedom's "let's wing it" philosophy designed to give the kids an over-priced LeapFrog with no support, no warranty and no future -- a white elephant. This is worse than the council's hasty decision to buy iPads, which at least have already been shown to provide solid educational value.

I’m gonna skip to where I’m at right now on all of this. And I do think that my position has changed.

Here’s you.
“Then what’s the point? You are no longer thinking about tablets so you shouldn’t be arguing about which tablet to get. You’re basically talking about buying a bunch of those LeapFrog systems, not a tablet. I can see if you want to argue they shouldn’t buy tablets at all, but the idea of buying even a cheapo tablet and dumbing it down to a LeapFrog is absurd.”

You’re basically right here, and we might just be talking about 2 different things.

But when we started the argument, I was arguing in favor of android tablets for 5 year olds, and now I’m arguing in favor of android toys for 5 year olds, with most features disabled unless necessary, and the apps that the kids will use will be preinstalled. It wouldn’t really be like an ipad at all. a $67 Android 2.2 Tablet Toy. And that’s what I was saying. You keep referring to IT, and all that, and I do understand that you’re applying lessons from the IT world, and I get that, but just start thinking of it as the same category as Leapfrog, which hopefully is not considered IT. I understand your objections to this device as an IT device. So, I’d prefer to class it as a toy. So, we are comparing apples to oranges.

On an unrelated matter it will be interesting to see what that Intel Educational investment is all about. There’s no doubt in my mind that theres a market, from a name brand manufacturer like intel, for devices custom tailored to the needs of the educational market. I can most certainly understand why not having a camera is a good thing. Why have one, and disable it? You determine whether you want the camera, and if you don’t, it can be smaller and lighter or be advantaged in some other way. Point being, with resources, a wide variety of perfect tablets for the specific need could easily be produced.

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