IPads for school kids - Leveling the playing field for the poor

Daily News ^ | 06/22/2013 | Doug McIntyre

[jacknhoo]

At first blush, it seems crazy.

The perpetually destitute Los Angeles Unified School District will spend $30 million to purchase thousands of iPad tablets to give away to students at 47 LAUSD campuses.

At second blush, it seems crazier.

This purchase all but commits the nation's second largest school district to hundreds of million of dollars of additional spending with Apple over the next two years.

That's right, two years, hundreds of millions.

At third blush, it seems like a rip-off.

The LAUSD will pay $678 per iPad, even though you can belly up to the Genius Bar at the local mall and pick one up retail for around $500.

At fourth blush, it looks like a conflict of interest.

LAUSD Supt. John Deasy is not only an Apple stockholder, he has appeared in at least one Apple promotional video.

At fifth blush, it doesn't seem ethical.

The funds slated to buy the iPads come from a school construction bond approved by voters for brick and mortar construction and maintenance on existing structures. Would voters have said "Yes" if they knew hundreds of millions would end up in Apple's pocket?

And at sixth, seventh, eighth and

50th blush, it raises all kinds of unanswered questions.

Questions like what happens when kids lose them? What happens when kids drop them? What happens when kids steal them from other kids? What happens when kids view porn on them? What happens when kids download personal photos onto them? What happens when kids drop out of school? What happens when kids move out of the district, or out of state, and take their LAUSD iPad with them?

And what happens to a generation of kids who will go through life without ever having opened a book? I mean a real book with covers and pages and print?

In our increasingly semi-literate, short attention span world, do we really need to expunge the few remaining books from our kid's lives only to replace them with yet another digital device offering flashy images and slickly produced video.

I know I'm a quasi-Luddite and I might as well take a kitchen broom to Zuma and try to sweep the Pacific back to China. Still, actual textbooks and the physical act of reading a full-length book is an exercise in long form study and concentration that trains the eye and mind to think.

No doubt the iPad is an amazing device. The wife has one; so do each of the kids. It's a magical machine with remarkable capabilities to educate and amuse.

But it's not superior to books. A reminder to the digital generation, Steve Jobs didn't have an iPad when he went to school.

Superintendent Deasy defends the move as a necessary step for students living in an increasingly online world. He specifically cited state and national standardized tests that will soon be offered only in digital form as one of the many reasons this program is not only necessary, but visionary.

So a case can be made. But this massive investment has been sprung on the public with far too little input from the people paying the freight and far too many unanswered questions.

For the record, I do not believe Deasy pushed this plan for personal profit and he correctly recused himself during the debate and vote. And the superintendent argues the high cost per iPad is deceptive because it includes an educational software package that replaces expensive textbooks. Fair enough.

But I suspect what's really driving the bus is the ugly underbelly of Los Angeles, massive poverty.

As more and more of life's processes are converted to online operations, the disparity between the haves and have-nots has become a digital divide. With so many kids living below or hovering near the poverty line, the LAUSD is attempting to level the playing field by giving every kid a tablet, costs be damned.

[publius911]

It’s California....just pick anyone at random.

HEY!

I resemble that remark.

I was going to give you credit for identifying the heart and dark soul of the problem, the legislature, but I can't evade the fact that those ignorant, arrogant jackasses did not vote themselves into office.

[Political Junkie Too]

Didn't the federal government sue Microsoft because they thought that the already discounted Windows licenses were too expensive? Now we have a liberal city paying over market prices for Apple products?

-PJ

[slowhandluke]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet-the-men-who-spy-on-women-through-their-webcams/

Nothing like seeding the next generation with a need for computerized KGB minders, they'll carry government eyes and ears around with them for the rest of their lives.

[BikerJoe]

I have YET to be convinced that computers can be used to good effect in public school classrooms.

I think this sums it up nicely...

"Cape Elizabeth High Says The Hell With Trying To Educate Anybody, Let’s Hand Out 10 Inch TVs And Be Done With It | The Rumford Meteor"

Rumford Meteor

[I want the USA back]

Leftist thinking.
Poor oppressed kids don’t have ipads.
Evil oppressor kids do.
Solution:
Take money from evil oppressors and buy ipads for poor oppressed kids.

When poor oppressed kids use ipads as frisbees, and to surf garbage, buy them all a new ipad.

[Think free or die]

I just finished my first year of teaching, and already have seen some of the iPad initiative at two schools. The first was an inner city school which aggressively rolled out iPads to its freshman class. I hated having these devices in the classroom. The IT folks were supposed to block access to unapproved online sites via the school wifi. Within 24 hours the kids had figured out how to hot-spot off their O-phones and were on FB and watching football games during school hours. The students were told by admin to take notes on them, so I was not supposed to tell them to put away the iPads during class, lest I upset their educational use. Few were taking notes; most were watching ball games, checking FB, etc, etc. I caught a few of them and when the disciplinarian checked their iPads she found a lot of banned content and even student-generated porn with photos of classmates in compromising situations on school grounds. Very educational of course. It's just one more very expensive distraction. We were expected to create lessons for the iPads (with little to no training for many of us), but anything that required WIFI access usually failed for about 2/3 of the kids in my classroom and the only thing that worked was a few apps that made gee-whiz noises as the kids 'built' and destroyed atoms on their apps.

My next school was heading down the same path but hadn't distributed the devices yet. They'll go to next year's freshman class. Many of the teachers there have the same concerns that I expressed. There is a big drive toward Apple everything, but that doesn't work well with many of the current lessons, test banks, publisher ancillaries, etc. It will mean a lot of new equipment and re-thinking how many things are done that currently work just fine. There is a big issue with textbooks. Many of the textbooks in the building are too old to have an iPad app or to have eText available. Going digital is in conflict with efficient use of existing resources.

I'm starting at a third school next fall. Apparently they've been a little less gung-ho on the iPads, but are also heading in that general direction. I may have a little time to breathe and get oriented before I get hit over the head with it.

I will give credit to Apple. They have done an incredible job of marketing to the educational establishment. They have legions of administrators completely sold on the idea that kids need school-provided devices and that everything teachers are doing on current platforms is of no consequence and that any who resist are luddites. Some teachers support it, but many are skeptical of the benefits and concerned about distraction and the impact on lesson preparation. Schools that are forced to replace large numbers of text books with eText and iPad apps might find themselves spending a lot more than they expected and also subject to a lot of ongoing expense to renew their access codes every school year. As a teacher, I'd like stability, attentive students who can read, a building in good repair, a safe work environment, and reliable equipment for classroom use. I don't need iPads for any of that - just a solid desktop unit with projection capability.

[Izzy Dunne]

I love that paper, published not too far from me.

Just reading the headlines gives me a kick:

"Women Who Elbow Other Women For A Hobby Tell Rumford High School Girls Not To Elbow Other Girls"

[Gabz]

BFL

[TADSLOS]

I just read your post to my wife. She nodded in complete agreement with everything you stated. The good idea fairies in school administration have run amok fed by us, the taxpayers.

[roadcat]

I will give credit to Apple. They have done an incredible job of marketing to the educational establishment.

Yes, that's how Apple got rich in the early 1980's. They went back to their original sales techniques of selling to schools. I've bought and resold surplus Apple computers. It amazed me that I could buy dozens for a few bucks apiece, that schools had paid hundreds for not long before. I'd peel off the school inventory tags and resell after some cleaning.

It's school administrators who are guilty, not Apple. The schools have done the same thing with books, tossing them out after a few years for new ones. Rather than teach kids how to learn using basics, the schools are focused on warehousing and indoctrinating kids. Give the kids a pad of paper and a pencil, and instructions on using a library. And stop wasting taxdollars on schools.

[ejonesie22]

In the right hands and the right school the Ipad is a powerful tool for education, it can be managed with software from Apple and there are hundreds of textbooks and publications at the students finger tips.

This is not one of those occasion.

Maybe high school kids in a good school in advanced classes who are responsible...

[Think free or die]

"The good idea fairies in school administration have run amok fed by us, the taxpayers."

Yep. I work in a private district, so it's not just the public schools that have gone nuts.

[publius911]

I have YET to be convinced that computers can be used to good effect in public school classrooms.

For more documentation than you or any other rational human being needs to see the extent of the real problem, check out...

The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein, Jeremy P. Archer/Penguin, member of the Penguin Group, New York. Chapters 2-4.

2. The New Bibliophobes
3. Screen Time.
4. On Line learning and Non-Learning.

[Think free or die]

"Rather than teach kids how to learn using basics, the schools are focused on warehousing and indoctrinating kids. Give the kids a pad of paper and a pencil, and instructions on using a library. And stop wasting taxdollars on schools. "

Agree. Unfortunately, when money gets tight, the library can be among the early casualties.

[libstripper]

That, IMHO, is the best argument against giving the pads to the kids. In itself, an I-pad is one of the world’s great book handling and storage devices. Instead of carrying around several books, a kid can carry only one I-pad. Equally important, the schools do not need to buy thousands of new test books every year, saving a lot on storage and distribution. However, the nearly $700 spent on each I-pad would buy 35 hard copy books at $20.00 per book. I have an I-pad and a Kindle and really like the I-pad as a book storage and reading device; indeed I prefer it for book reading to regular books, especially because it solves the storage problem.

The problem I see i personal responsibility. Kids, given expensive devices like I-pads for free, will treat them like so much junk, and will expect to get new ones for free when they break, steal, or lose the old ones. They can only be expected to treat such valuable property with the respect it deserves if they have to pay for it with their own money.

[The_Media_never_lie]

The wonderful lady who has cut my hair for the last 10 years is raising two sons and was married to a deadbeat but smart bipolar dude. Her sons classmates got free PCs from the district because they get free lunch. However, her sons did not because she works. She couldn’t afford to buy PCs for her sons.

[libstripper]

Try one some time. If you like books an I-pad or Kindle is really great because you can store a whole library in one of the things. A 2'x 7' particle board book case capable of holding only about 160 books costs about $280 at Office Depot. Five of them, occupying 10 running feet of wall space, will set you back $1,400, eat up all that wall space, and will only hold 800 books. An I-pad or Kindle, OTOH, will hold all those books and an infinitely larger number in the cloud. One of the things is also great for a responsible student who will properly care for it (BIG caveat here), because it makes lugging text books much easier and gives the student instant library access for required reading.

BTW, I've walked the walk in addition to talking the talk. I have an I-pad and a Kindle and have gone through the very book case purchase and installation process I've described.

[Whenifhow]

Was there any indication of the iPad being connected to Common Core curriculum in either of your situations?

Are you aware that one of the purposes of using the iPad for common core curriculum is to track the body language using the video cam?

NSA related?

[luckystarmom]

Sounds like our private school. I think our private school is turning into a gn expensive version of public school.

Oh well, next year my girls are only taking a few classes there, and the rest will be online.

[matginzac]

Vote as many of the SOBs out who were a part of this decision, go to the next public forum for candidates to challenge them on how to rectify the situation, talk to my neighbors about the tax hike and the iPads...
How’s that for you? Good enough??????