iPad makes it to school.

Losty Dublin

I read this in a regional paper today and it shows the practical potential of iPads as replacements for the traditional paper book.

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12889:dawn-of-digital-classroom-for-st-colmans&catid=23:news&Itemid=46

Next September will see 90 first year students in St Colman’s College, Claremorris being part of what can only be considered the dawn of the digital classroom. The school has decided to swap school books in favour of the Apple iPad tablet. The programme will be phased into use later this year and all first year students will be given the option of purchasing an Apple iPad instead of their course books.

The decision to move ahead with the new technology was taken after many weeks of consultation between staff, students and parents. Jimmy Finn, principal of St Colman’s, said there was strong support for the move and they were pleased to be pioneers in the field. It is understood the cost per student over a three year spell will be in the region of €700. This €700 will include the device and a suite of apps specifically designed for schooling.
The switch will enable students to download ebooks and also avail of many related facilities in the self-directed learning field. It will also mean an end to the often very heavy schoolbags that they carry around with them.

The school has agreed a deal with the local Credit Union and anyone wishing to avail of a loan offer for the iPad will be facilitated. The deal will have low rate loans of about €23 permonth available to any family purchasing the iPad. The programme however is not mandatory and all pupils will be given the option to retain books over the iPad.

St Colman’s are the first school to introduce the new method of learning but they are not the first school in the west to embrace the iPad as a learning tool. Sancta Maria College Louisburgh earlier this year introduced the iPad as part of a pilot programme into their learning environment.

“Ipads were introduced in our school early this school year in 2011. We decided on this unique initiative to enhance learning and teaching in the classroom. It was also for us seen as a way to encourage literacy and numeracy using technology as a complementary teaching methodology.” said Pauline Moran, School Principal.

She added: “The school purchased the iPads as a pilot project for use in the school. This meant that they were accessible to all students irrespective of their socio-economic background. We find that the iPad complements the textbooks as well as providing numerous applications to enhance learning. The reaction by the entire school community has been very positive.”

-Chris-

Would Apple not give heavy educational/promotional discounts?

Losty Dublin

-Chris- wrote: »

Would Apple not give heavy educational/promotional discounts?

They do on an individual basis to students or staff in certain institutions but I haven't heard of anything large scale though I'd expect they would do so.

Sad Professor

I'm pretty sure Apple do offer bulk discounts to educational institutions, but the discount is nothing worth talking about. The discount on software would be far larger. They currently don't offer individual student discounts on the iPad, so I can't see them offering bulk ones either, especially on the iPad 2 which they currently can't make enough of. At 700 euro it certainly doesn't sound like they are anyway, but that figure obviously includes interest on the loan, etc.

ozt9vdujny3srf

This is a bad way for schools to go you have to think. Firstly, I'm not sure why it's an iPad they are going with. It is only a distraction in the classroom, and outside the classroom its not as useful as a regular laptop (although perhaps the more curated experienced makes it more difficult to ruin their computers). However, thus far the only good example I have seen of the digital classroom (in terms of a packaged educational service) is http://www.khanacademy.org/.

phenomenale

The students doing TY next year in our school have the option to purchase apple ipad 2s as opposed to school books. We're getting them at a discounted price of around €400.

-Chris-

I wonder why iPads were chosen over €250 netbooks.

It seems like a fantastic PR coup for Apple, but in return I'd hope the school would be getting a large chunk of flesh in return for their part in the exercise.

whiterebel

Apple have done bog deals before, notably with US institutions, but I think they had a huge deal with the Royal College of Surgeons here as well.
iPad makes perfect sense, with no danger of viruses etc, the closed system will be much easier to manage for the school.I wish my young lads school would get them in, his back will be broken from all the bloody books......

aphex™

Which apps in the Appstore comply with the Irish Junior/Leaving Cert syllabus?

conor.hogan.2

Netbooks in theory can do more and have better specs, until you use them.
You want students to want to use them, nebooks dont offer that.

PennyLane88

No offence, but I dont think swapping text books for digital media is anything new. Secondary schools around here (Rural east Galway) have already been using laptops/ netbooks for the last 2 years, instead of texts.
I know its ipads they are going to use, but it works on the same principal as netbooks - using oprating systems instead of paper.
So this isnt really 'big news' imo.

-Chris-

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Netbooks in theory can do more and have better specs, until you use them.
You want students to want to use them, nebooks dont offer that.

I don't understand that at all. How do you mean?

conor.hogan.2

Essentially - specs lie and netbooks are **** in practice.

Great if you use them if you want but the 400 euro is better spent on a tablet imo even if it has worse specs and can do "less".

aphex™

Well the iOS is very specialized and software is designed to run on it specially. The optimization possibilities are enormous because it's custom hardware. The software is compiled just for those processors where as in Windows you have to deal with old processors and old versions of the OS. I think the other poster was alluding to malware and viruses that infect pc hardware. Also, when you add a requisite virus scanner to a netbook it slows down the Atom processors too much IMO.

Also, the touch screen interface is very intuitive for a classroom.

I'm concerned that there is very little info about what they'll be actually running on the devices. Surely software will have to be purchased separately? How much will this cost? Is it designed for the Irish junior/leaving cert? Who makes it?

conor.hogan.2

Well there are plenty of free apps, the textbooks will be charged/bought by the students or in bulk by the school.

Skerries

but how do you draw willies in the margins?

darragh o meara

This is a great idea, Ive been using mine in college the last few months and have downloaded a few of my college books onto it. Very worthwhile investment IMO. I have all the tools there to help me along.

Its a pity Apple dont do a decent discount on the Ipad as I can see the tablet being the tool of choice in the classroom in the future. It would be a good idea to get in early cos you know that some of the Android tablet makers would only be delighted to drop off a few quid in favour of increased sales.

muggyog

Love #43!

Trevor451

why not use a laptop? I would take a laptop any day over a restrictive ipad.

Greentree_uk

battery life is a key factor, not many laptops will go all day without being attached to a charger.


As I understand it one of the main publishers is committed to releasing all their text books in ipad format on the App store before the end of the summer

I also believe the device will cover 3 years of text books for the price. Thus actually saving the end user hundreds of euro.

The iPad is a very limited device and thus less of an IT headache. Don't get me wrong a computer offers a great deal many more possibilities but also requires alot more education of the student to keep it running smoothly. I'd choose a computer, but my philosophy would be to make it the students responsibility, it's a tool. it can enhance your education or you can abuse it and get nothing from it. problem with this philosophy is that only the ones who adhere to policies are likely to benefit from the technology, the others are more likely to pick up viruses and what not thus rendering the machine relatively useless. The other answer ofcourse to that problem is to buy a macbook, 7 hour battery life and no real frivolous viruses, ofcourse the macbook is a good bit more expensive than an iPad, so happy medium for now I guess.

7Sins

Tut, won't be long now before students need to update expensive software every year :rolleyes:

darragh o meara

Trevor451 wrote: »

why not use a laptop? I would take a laptop any day over a restrictive ipad.

For some areas ( like autocad etc but more often than not I use college pcs as they are specially setup for drawing packages ) I do indeed use a laptop but the iPad suits nearly all the needs I have for a computational device in college. Plus the battery is great and doesn't need to be plugged in as much, it's light and fits neatly away in my bag. To me it's just a really convenient piece of kit.

Freddie59

I think it's a great idea. These publishers have been getting away with murder for years - leave alone the health implications of the weight of the books.

But are the ebooks/data really going to be cheaper? It will be interesting.

conor.hogan.2

When you give access to more publishers to be able to release books to a large audience straight away for next to nothing it will increase competition and therefore lower prices.
Plus I got a digital edition included in many college books, plus libraries have massive subscriptions with lots of bids and not to mention the wealth freely available online and also classics free on google books and project gutenburg and in science and computer science there is a lot freely available too.

Although all this can be said for all pc s and all other tablets

spannerotoole

What happens if it breaks, (Just because it's apple doesn't mean its perfect) is the students work backed up somewhere, Do they have to pay for a new one or will it be replaced? What happens if it gets a virus, If someone finds a way (and there are people that do) to ssh into a backdoor and brick the devices, how is the users data protected in the event of data theft as this opens the door for plagiarism on a wide scale.

Does it have to be apple, if the books are just .pdf (which most ebooks are) could an android tablet be used? (Cheaper per unit)

Sad Professor

spannerotoole, this is the iPad we're talking about here. The only way iOS is ever going to get a virus is if Apple themselves decide to release one. Android is far more vulnerable to viruses and hacking.

As for backup, everything gets backed up when you sync your iPad with iTunes, and in iOS 5 that will all be done wirelessly using iCloud.

spannerotoole

@sad professor, while I respectfully disagree that apple stuff is unbreakable, because it can be broken or have manufacturing defects. It is possible if an unauthorized user can get root and type in rm -rF /* . You don't need to be a genius to figure out what this will do to your iOS device. what if someone sent you an virus disguised as an app via bluetooth and the user chooses to run it? There are plenty of ways that you can get an iOS device to stop working properly, an app that runs lots of ping requests for example could stop the ipad from displaying web pages properly and give someone a huge phone bill for data.

Just because it's apple doesn't mean it's hackproof. Back in the days of OS8/9 there were more viruses for the mac than there were for the pc, In fact the very first computer virus was developed for an apple machine. It spread by users sharing floppy disks. It was called Elk Cloner.

gowayuwilya

Fizzbooks are the way forward,ipads are form over function really,specially in second level.http://www.fizzbook.com/

Sad Professor

spannerotoole, you are talking complete and utter nonsense. I have to assume you are just trolling. But in case you aren't, you obviously don't know anything about iOS, so I suggest you read up on it, maybe even use it. And I've been using Macs since Mac OS 7.5 and there were not more viruses for it than there was for Windows, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Elk Cloner affected Apple IIs which was the first successful mass-produced PC.

Greentree_uk

Sad Professor wrote: »

spannerotoole, you are talking complete and utter nonsense. I have to assume you are just trolling. But in case you aren't, you obviously don't know anything about iOS, so I suggest you read up on it, maybe even use it. And I've been using Macs since Mac OS 7.5 and there were not more viruses for it than there was for Windows, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Elk Cloner affected Apple IIs which was the first successful mass-produced PC.

Indeed, if I recollect correclty there were under 20 viruses that directly attacked Mac OS (Pre OSX Days) and 78 in total that mostly affected Microsoft products on mac. Most viruses on the mac you had to go out of your way to get and were easily fixed. Having worked in the service trade of macs for 8 years I can report of the few thousand Macs I serviced, I can count on two hands the ones infected with a virus. I think that speaks volumes. I might add I did leave just before the latest trojan outbreak but lets call a spade a spade. a trojan is not a virus. I can report usage of Mac OS since 6.07 and have never had a virus, nor have I bothered with any antivirus software for my Mac. ofcourse my VM's of windows all have antivirus on them as it would be impossible to use otherwise.


As for Elk Cloner, you really are clutching at straws here. it affected one model of machine and Elk Cloner did not cause deliberate harm, but Apple DOS disks without a standard image had their reserved tracks overwritten. We're talking about a 30 year old virus that died with that model, you have us all running to get protected from it... Ha Ha!

justsomebloke

truthfully I think kindles would be a far better option for this, however I do believe That schools should be going digital