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

AUBURN, Maine — Moments after her daughter worked on writing and pronouncing letters on an iPad 2 Thursday, Natasha Landry said she was happy the Auburn School Committee voted to give kindergartners the tablet computers in the fall.

“It makes it easier for teachers to teach a larger group of kids, one on one, without having more teachers,” Landry said in the hall of Washburn Elementary School.

The $200,000 cost for the iPad 2 tablets will be less than hiring more teachers, she said. “It probably would take four teachers to do what the computers can do with one teacher.”

Landry was also fine with a 5 percent hike in the school budget, even though it would mean her property taxes would go up, if the budget is approved in a May 10 referendum.

“If we don’t try to keep up, our kids are going to fall behind,” she said.

But parent Nicole Fortin said she didn’t understand the idea of giving iPads to young students.

“It’s crazy,” Fortin said. “I look at all of the budgetary restraints we have. Our school system loses money every year to certain things. This is a lot to put in the hands of a 5-year-old.”

That great divide in opinion was common in Auburn on Thursday as news about iPad 2s for all Auburn kindergartners spread throughout Maine, New England and beyond.

Washburn Elementary School Principal Holly Couturier was “ecstatic” about the vote.

“I’ve seen myself the few students who have used iPads with [teacher] Mauri Dufour, and the gains they’ve made,” she said. “If they can make those gains in a relatively short amount of time, I can’t imagine where the kindergarten students are going to be at this time next year.”

Superintendent Tom Morrill said he would work diligently to pay for the iPads privately through grants or donations. Only if that fails will money in the budget be used, he said. By being first in Maine, and gaining the endorsement of former Gov. Angus King, Auburn has positioned itself well for grant money, Morrill said. The iPads will cost $479 each, he said.

Another way of paying for them could be through the newly formed Auburn Educational Fund, a private, nonprofit organization to support educational initiatives, Morrill said.

Some people questioned giving iPad 2s to 5-year-olds. They said the youngsters would drop and break the tablets. But children take care of things that are important to them, Morrill said. Also, the iPads are lighter and smaller than laptop computers, have no moving parts and will be in protective cases.

After students, teachers and parents go through iPad orientations, students will be allowed to take the computers home, Morrill said.

Two people representing Auburn taxpayer groups said Thursday they were unhappy with the school committee’s decision to approve the iPads.

Leroy Walker, a co-owner of Andy’s Beans in New Auburn and leader of the United New Auburn Association, said the iPads “are not needed in the kindergarten age.” He called the tablet “a toy.” Kindergartners “are a little young to be starting off with iPads. They’re too expensive,” he said.

However, he said, “educated people like teachers may be right. I may be wrong. We’ll see.”

He was less forgiving of the 5 percent budget increase, which he said is far too much.

“The whole state is in deep financial trouble,” he said. “Taxpayers are strapped with all these fuel problems and wars going on. It’s not the time to be asking for this kind of income.”

Ron Potvin of the Auburn Small Property Taxpayers Association agreed, calling the increase “beyond common sense.” To go from no increase to 5 percent when people are struggling “is not a doable figure,” he said. “All the things they’re asking for do not have to be done this year. They can be phased in.”

Potvin was receptive to iPads “if the money’s there.” Young people seem to instantly understand technology, he said. “You look at kids today, they do stuff I never did. There would be value in it.”

So basically, what you’re saying is that the school could get portable touch-screen computers for a lot less money, and all they have to give up is the touch screen and the portability. They have a great platform for collaboration, except for the part where the tiny screen with a 45° viewing angle can only bee seen by one kid at a time. Oh, and they have to give up the tens of thousands of available apps in the hopes that someone will come along and write the Android apps they need.

They would also be giving up the best tech support in the industry in favor of no support at all. If you hire one IT guy per 200 tablets at $40K a year — a low-ball estimate on both figures — your savings have evaporated in two years.

By your logic, the school could save tons of money by buying stateboards instead of school buses. They do the same thing, and kids need the exercise. Your notion of what’s good enough for kids reminds me of the Dan Akroyd character in the early days of Saturday Night Live, arguing that a bag of broken glass (among other things) is a great toy.

Stop bragging! All salamanders can do that!

:-)

The point you make is an excellent one. With proper parental care and attention many things can be done that aren’t being done. We can once again lead the world in education if we can shake the chains of liberal destruction from our shoulders.

I see no problem with 5 year olds having iPads. It is simply an additional tool, is easier to handle and use than a textbook, even if the book has only pictures and letters, and it has the ability to speak to the students.

There may be no problem in Auburn, Maine, but in many locales older kids and young adults will be taking them from the 5 year olds on the way to and from school.

1) Styluses. GOOD FOR CHILDREN. THEY NEED TO USE PENS, PENCILS, CRAYONS. THEY NEED TO LEARN HOW TO USE THEM.

Touch is more intuitive. Obviously you don't use it to teach writing, but it is better at teaching other things.

The $67 android can do flash.

Good luck with that. Powerful 1 Ghz Cortex A8 systems have problems doing Flash well. Your cheap tablet is less than half as powerful as that. On top of that, Android Flash can't even do all the Flash that's out there -- compatibility problems abound. Using Flash as a selling point is a negative for these tablets, since it can only lead to disappointment.

Even now, these $67 devices DO as much as $467, but not as nicely.

You can say the Xoom doesn't do some things as nicely as the iPad, but at least it's a decent product. When you're talking about these cheap tablets, you're going down into the area of they suck so badly nobody's going to want to use them, and then your money is completely wasted.

Sure, an old communist East German Trabbi will get you down the street the same as a Mercedes S-Class will, but as you say "not as nicely." Only masochists will voluntarily ride the Trabbi again.

The part about the film wasn’t bragging.

That had to be one of the most worst moments of my life.

I’ve spent 40 years hoping somebody burned that film.

There’s nothing quite like being paraded around like a geek-freak to endear you to your peers...:-\

It set the tone for the rest of my school years.

In the 9th grade, I won the all-grade spelling bee against a bunch of seniors.

The “prize” was a ginormous dictionary, which, although I loved, earned me the nickname “Shari The Dictionary”.

I just wanted to be invisible.

This $67 device has a 800mhz processor. Many tabs don’t have the processing power to run Flash. Flash won’t install unless a minimum amount of power is there. These Sub $100 tablets do have the power to run flash. 800mhz is sufficient for the needs of a 5 year old, especially since wood blocks are sufficient for the needs of a 5 year old.

What usually happens when students in a school aren’t happy about the age or condition of the textbooks they’re given? The students are told - tough. If you don’t like the free tablet you get from the school - tough. Use it anyway. Do schools now apologize for not giving students Mercedes? No they don’t.

There’s a real budgetary difference between $100 and $500.
In Auburn’s case, the difference is between $200K and $50K or $30K.

http://cgi.ebay.com/7-Epad-Android-2-2-WiFi-3G-Tablet-Touch-MID-PC-Camera-/330543209926?pt=PDA_s_Pocket_PC_s&hash=item4cf5e91dc6
ebay buy it now $89.99 total, free shipping. via 8650 processor. It’s perfectly fine for a 5 year old, and, really, I’d be looking at a cheaper device for a 5 year old.

These are 5 year olds. I’m not sure they should get a free computer at all, but taxpayers should not be buying mercedes or bentley computers for 5 Year Olds. 5 Year Olds.

Kids have to take the bus. They’d prefer that Limos pick them up. But they have to take the bus.

Schools should not be wasting $400 when the needs of the 5 year olds (they have no need for a computer btw) can be met with a $100 computer.

And I still haven’t heard what the $500 computer can DO that the $100 computer can’t. Your only argument to that is that the thing that the $100 computer can do cannot do it as well as a different $500 computer, but the $500 computer you approve of cannot do that at all.

Is there anything that your $500 computer can DO that the $100 computer can’t?

Or are you just so enthralled by the idea of school districts wasting $500 when they could get the same thing for $100, because “you” “think” “the” “ipad” “is” “better”?

In the 9th grade, I won the all-grade spelling bee against a bunch of seniors.

The “prize” was a ginormous dictionary, which, although I loved, earned me the nickname “Shari The Dictionary”.

I know that giving a dictionary to such a talented speller seems a natural thing to do, but to me, it just somehow seems wrong. Sort of like, "Here, now go practice! Learn every word in the world!" :-)

Peer pressure can be devastating at that formative time of our lives but, since your mother cared enough to teach you to read so early, she probably also provided the support you needed to continue.

We normally think of the peer pressure from non-achievers trying to hold achievers back in order to minimize their own lack of achievement. They pray on your sensitivities and fears to hold you back. Rarely do we consider the self-imposed pressure of some high achievers who fear being ostracized for their achievements. We normally just admire you guys and think you are too smart to have sensitive feelings about those things.

I just wanted to be invisible.

Does your screen name, Salamander, relate to that?

These are 5 year olds.

The video rendering is choppy, better spend $500 on clearer video. Because 5 year olds can’t be expected to watch videos with dropped frames.

They don’t have tablet computers now. But they can’t benefit from $100 computers which do everything an ipad does. No, 5 year olds need to have great computers or no computers, but not computers that cost 20% of the price of the expensive computers.

The question is not

1) which computer do I want?

2) do I like iPads?

but

3) what computer should the taxpayers buy for the little kid?

I would say the taxpayers should, in order.

1) Buy the $100 computer for the 5 year old (1st choice) or
2) No computer for the 5 year old (2nd choice)
but not
3) $500 ipad for the 5 year old.

It’s a news story elsewhere you know, and 10 people think buying an iPad for a 5 year old is ridiculous for every 1 that thinks it’s a good idea.

And it’s ridiculous that Apple can’t figure out how to make Flash 10.1 work on their tablet devices when some android maker can make it work on a Sub $100 device, and even worse that Conservatives can pretend that it’s an advantage, and not something that YOU should be embarrassed about.

You’re looking at my logic, nice.

Hey, listen, the 5 year olds do not have tablets now.

They do have school buses.

School buses = no tablets = what we have now.

Better school bus, with seatbelts (maybe) = cheap tablet = what I propose

Limos = Ipads = what you want.

But kids are forced to use the school bus, even if they’d prefer a limo.

I’m not sure what a tablet would be, but it’s an improvement over nothing, which is what the 5 year olds have now.

And I’m not sure the kids need anything, but they don’t need a limo, a mercedes, a bentley, a ipad or a xoom.

These are 5 year olds. A resistive screen might teach them to use a stylus such as a pen, pencil, crayon. And it needs just as much processor power to register a tap on a screen, which is not much.

Every kid is getting their own tablet, so they don’t need to share. or they can hand the tablet over.

Since only happy thoughts seem to register with apple cultists, let’s try to figure out what $150K can buy.

They spend $50K instead of $200K for 300 tablets, there’s $150K left over. How about a kickass protools studio?

How about every classroom (10 classrooms / 30 kids a classroom maybe?) gets a powerful computer. How about a Pro tools HD studio in every classroom? Is not Pro Tools HD far better, far more kick ass, far cooler than a mere iPad?

Pro Tools HD is what the industry uses. Why can’t 5 year olds learn how to be audio engineers? If they got a Firewire 1814 for $300 or less with Pro Tools LE, would you suggest that the taxpayers foot the bill for the Pro Tools HD, because the HD is no doubt better? Or would you recognize that even though the LE is not as good as the HD, these are after all 5 year olds, and the taxpayers do not need to provide expensive electronics for small children when inexpensive electronics can do the job well enough. And it could be argued that they don’t need these electronics at all.

This $67 device has a 800mhz processor.

One that is, per MHz, far inferior to the processors in the better tablets and even phones today, being a full two generations ago. It also has no graphics processor or multimedia extensions like the others do. It was considered a decent chip five years ago (an eternity in mobile processors).

My Android phone has a lower clock, but it does have more RAM and the next generation ARM after your tablet, which includes many big improvements such as hardware 2D and 3D graphics acceleration, multimedia extensions (SIMD), branch prediction, more efficient cache, and a buch of others. At best (and I'm being generous here), your tablet may be as powerful as my phone.

But my phone is annoyingly slow even at phone resolutions (320x480). I have to be careful to encode video for it using a very low MP4 profile and bitrate so it can handle it. Even then, if I'm playing a video and someone calls, it takes the phone about ten seconds to go from video playing to phone answering if it can manage at all before the call goes to voicemail. Just hitting Next when playing music can take a couple seconds for the button touch to be recognized. YouTube videos often hang as it can't keep up with the data coming in. I've basically given up on doing video and music on it, and forget any 3D games. For the most part it's just a phone now for me where I also get emails and texts.

Remember, that's the next-generation chip after yours, pushing less than half the number of display pixels, and I'm not even trying to run CPU-hogging Flash. The same level of performance in a tablet would render the device practically useless.

Many tabs don’t have the processing power to run Flash. Flash won’t install unless a minimum amount of power is there.

That's because Flash is a power hog, even on the most high-end tablets. Over-glorified digital photo frames like this don't stand a chance. Flash will install on anything, no minimum detected, even if it doesn't really function to any acceptable level.

What usually happens when students in a school aren’t happy about the age or condition of the textbooks they’re given?

You can still sit down and read an old dog-eared book with no problems. Crap like this tablet slows you down, you will be constantly waiting for things to happen.

And I still haven’t heard what the $500 computer can DO that the $100 computer can’t.

It'll work without frustrating the hell out of everyone involved. There's no use paying $400 less if what you get is completely unusable, cheaply made, unsupported crap. It's like saying the district should buy its buses from the junk yard. Who cares if they smoke, leak, have burned up brakes, only go 25mph, and they have no warranty. They were cheaper, right? A new bus doesn't DO anything MORE than the junk bus.

I'd be more pissed about a school buying unusable crap than for it buying nice stuff that will at least give them a few years of quality computing before they become obsolete. Your tablet was obsolete by at least two years before it was even manufactured.

because “you” “think” “the” “ipad” “is” “better”?

Better? There is a usability baseline in all of computing. You CAN run Windows XP on a 233 MHz Pentium II with 64 MB RAM, but you definitely DON'T want to do that, it will be very painful as you try (emphasis on "try") to use it. Your tablet falls under the same scenario, just because you can throw Android on it and call it a tablet, doesn't mean you should, because the usability will suck. Better to get nothing.

It doesn't have to be the iPad. The Xoom appears to be pretty good, if a bit unfinished. In either case though, you'd get a decent product for the school and kids to use, and I expect the next Android update to add much more polish to the Xoom. Problem is, a Xoom costs about as much as an iPad. Right now the fact is that around $400-$500 is the entry price for a decent tablet.

You’re buying a simple tool for a 5 year old.

The small child is not going to be multitasking.

Look at the picture. The small child is staring at A B C.

The child really needs a $20 toy, not the fastest tablet computer.

But you seem to be arguing that the taxpayer should be spending $500 on a computer when a $20 toy would work as well for what they’re buying it for.

Are you a Socialist? Do you think that the school district - the taxpayers - should be buying unnecessarily good new modern electronics for small children.

Do you think the Government should talk all of our money and buy us stuff that they think we’ll like, because they took all our money that we had saved to buy our own electronic goods. We all had $100 saved up for a cheap android computer with flash, but the government took our money and is spending it on $500 tablets without flash and are giving them to the only people who can’t use them.

And you support that, as a Conservative? Or as a Socialist?

I’m not arguing the specs on cheap old computer vs new expensive computer chips. New expensive chips are typically better than old cheap chips. Got it. That’s not really a new phenominon, really, with computers.

I’m saying, look at that picture? Do you think that little girl there is going, sweet, an ipad, I can watch videos uncompressed? Or do you think that multitasking speed is not really that important to that little girl? Remember, these devices are only used to run one program at a time, and these are pretty simple programs, that don’t even need 600-800.

No, my mother didn’t.
Quite the opposite, in fact.

When my sister was born, she finally got her much-desired “Blonde Barbie Doll” to dress up and project her own unfulfilled childhood “cheerleader/social butterfly/popular girl” fantasies upon and pretty ignored my existence from then on.

The harsh reality of my life was that society values beauty over brains.

The screen name is something I’ve used positively forever as a signature for my artwork.

The mythologcal/symbolic reasons are so myriad you would go into a coma from boredom, should I list them all....:)

For the rest of my scholastic existence, I was the “weird one” who roamed the halls, more or less avoiding my ‘peers’.

I finished my required credits early and spent my junior/senior years mostly sequestered in the art department and dark room taking “elective courses”.

The rest of my classes were creative writing related and the teachers basically let me go off in a corner and ‘do my own thing’, unfettered by the obligatory “official curriculum” the rest of my classmates had to adhere to.

Truth be told, I loved that dictionary.
Though the hardback binding is a total wreck by now, after 34 years later, I still have it.
[it has beautiful full color maps and plates...quite a wonderful work, actually]

“We normally just admire you guys and think you are too smart to have sensitive feelings about those things. “

I’m “the family freak”.

Not much joy in that.

[just so you don’t feel sorry for me about that, *I* consider myself the peacock in a coop full of drab chickens]

What these schools should do is just start buying these cheap android tablets. Not 300. But 1. Spend $100. Then run it through its paces. If you’re buying them for 5 year olds, you really should have a strong and fixed idea of why you’re buying them. You buy the cheap tablet, and then you figure out whether or not the device will work for why you are buying it. Learning letters, can the android do that? Yes, there is a bunch of adequate free android software to do that. Listening to a story, yes, there are speakers and a headphone jack and the capability to play music, mp3s or whatever. So, if the $100 device does everything you want it to, why spend $500 of the taxpayers money on unnecessary frills? We’re Conservatives here, we don’t like wasting money, right?

1) Determine why you’re buying the tablet
2) Test cheap tablets to find out if the tablet does what you want it to do.
3) If after testing the cheap tablets, you find that they do what you want them to, buy the cheapest one that does the job.
4) If they don’t work for what you want them to, determine what the problem is, and upgrade in that area. If the small child must view 1080p video, then buy the cheapest tablet that will play 1080p video.
5) If the iPad is necessary, spend the $500, but not without looking at the $400 option, which leave enough money for a 55 inch UN55C7000 - 55” LED-backlit LCD TV - 1080p (FullHD) with a great stereo and with all the wireless connectivity options available so that kids can wirelessly send their artworks or their music or whatever to the tv and the stereo. So, if the angle of view is bad, then beam it to the awesome tv and stereo. Each $100 savings on the tablet means about $3000 dollars of tvs computers and stereos for each of the 8 classrooms. A $100 tablet and $12,000 worth of other electronic goodies in a classroom, or a $500 ipad and no other electronic goodies? Do you want everyone huddling round an ipad, or everyone looking at a huge and awesome tv? And you wouldn’t have to replace the new TV, Computer, Stereo every year.

The small child is not going to be multitasking.

I wasn't even talking about multitasking. I was talking about doing basic tasks well.

But you seem to be arguing that the taxpayer should be spending $500 on a computer when a $20 toy would work as well for what they’re buying it for.

There's your problem, the $20 toy, or $100 in this case, doesn't work as well. In fact, it barely works at all. It works at so low of a level as to be a hindrance to education.

Don't think raw price. Think value. Think return on investment. The ROI on the cheap tablets would be just about zero, or even negative. Anything you save on initial purchase price will be pissed away in lost time, frustration and lack of support and warranty. At least with the iPad (or similar decent tablet), you know it can positively contribute to education.

And you support that, as a Conservative? Or as a Socialist?

As a taxpayer, I support getting the best bang for my buck. Buying practically unusable, already obsolete tablets running an OS that the author itself says is not good for tablets absolutely does not represent that concept. I would work to have the short-sighted, clueless bureaucrat who bought them fired for wasting my tax dollars.

It just has to work sufficiently.

Does it do what you want it to?

Yes or No.

If Yes, buy the cheapest one.

If No, but the cheapest one that does what you want.

It either works or it doesn’t. It does not need to be a joyful experience, it does not need to provide the level of enthrallment that Apple cultists seem to derive from the Apple devices. It needs to do a handful of predetermined tasks adequately. And that’s all it needs to do. If the android educational software teaches the kids, it’s a success, if it doesn’t, it’s a failure. And you buy the cheapest computer you need to run those programs for 5 year olds. And I’m guessing that the Sub $100 tablet will run all the programs that the educators want to run on them.

The point is, you start with the assumption that you can get an adequate device for $100 - not $500.

And then you test. You buy a $100 computer, and you test it. You load the programs, you use the programs, you do everything with the tablet that you want the kids to do. And if it all works fine, you buy that one.

It’s almost that the School Board in Auburn is so amazingly stupid that they did not know that functional alternatives are available for 1/7th the cost.

It’s almost that they did not know that a wide variety of android tablets are available in a wide variety of prices, all cheaper than the ipad.

It’s almost like they spent $200K without doing the most basic research on the subject at all. Really sad.

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