Englands Biggest 1:1 iPad Scheme

[Brimstone]

Well done Oasis, very forward thinking...

 

https://www.oasiscommunitylearning.org/news-videos/news/news-details/~board/oasis-news/post/oasis-community-learning-to-provide-an-ipad-to-every-pupil-as-part-of-its-horizons-programme-to-enhance-learning-for-all?fbclid=IwAR39tgPkB_vLAi-jg9UNhqEJhbl_WiuJ4Vf69i5rIlBv5Eq3MCF0kXnwb_c

[3s-gtech]

I thought this sort of scheme was dead and buried? Not heard much about these large roll-outs for years, and certainly not with iOS devices.

[Brimstone]

Dead and buried...?

 

You must be joking, there are more very big iPad schemes to come.....

[synaesthesia]

Yay, that'll get them the headstart they need in whatever industry they choose. Assuming of course they wish to work in a "genius bar".

[hardtailstar]

Well done Oasis, very forward thinking...

 

https://www.oasiscommunitylearning.org/news-videos/news/news-details/~board/oasis-news/post/oasis-community-learning-to-provide-an-ipad-to-every-pupil-as-part-of-its-horizons-programme-to-enhance-learning-for-all?fbclid=IwAR39tgPkB_vLAi-jg9UNhqEJhbl_WiuJ4Vf69i5rIlBv5Eq3MCF0kXnwb_c

 

When I started working in Education IT Support over 10 years ago, the primary school had a laptop 1:1 scheme.

 

This isn't new, Its probably the biggest ive seen. Also I think many schools in my home town do this with laptops too.

[3s-gtech]

Dead and buried...?

 

You must be joking, there are more very big iPad schemes to come.....

 

1:1 by all means, I just thought that it had shifted far more to Windows and ChromeOS laptops. Just surprised that when looking at the trends, benefits, usability, costs etc that iPads came out on top. Perhaps with a keyboard it’s much the same really, though I’m not sure the ecosystem is as good.

[andy_b]

If an iPad is reported missing it can be locked remotely, and then have its location tracked.

 

Its a minor aside, but I hate this.

 

Comments like this give people the expectation that I can find any iPad anywhere and in any state (e.g. completely discharged). Without "cellular" this is limited.....

 

Rant over lol

[free780]

I think Covid has pushed 1:1 even more.

Now the budget is needed and the chnage in mindset to look after equipment.

[RLR]

Would not want to be the tech guys for these at the moment. We hand out about 300+ ipads every year in our 1:1 scheme and probably have 98% of them setup correctly but then there are some that don't enrol properly (even though they are exactly the same as others with prestage enrolments), randomly get stuck at installing apps and the biggest issue at the moment is Apples Licensing is broken: https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/36662/pending-application-is-not-available-to-install

[bald_pig]

Oasis have closed schools for not being financially viable, surprised that they are willing to spend money on such a scheme!

[dmj]

1:1 by all means, I just thought that it had shifted far more to Windows and ChromeOS laptops. Just surprised that when looking at the trends, benefits, usability, costs etc that iPads came out on top. Perhaps with a keyboard it’s much the same really, though I’m not sure the ecosystem is as good.

 

I think the education marketshare at the moment is about 60% chromebooks, 20% apple and 20% windows.

[mthomas08]

Well done Oasis, very forward thinking...

 

https://www.oasiscommunitylearning.org/news-videos/news/news-details/~board/oasis-news/post/oasis-community-learning-to-provide-an-ipad-to-every-pupil-as-part-of-its-horizons-programme-to-enhance-learning-for-all?fbclid=IwAR39tgPkB_vLAi-jg9UNhqEJhbl_WiuJ4Vf69i5rIlBv5Eq3MCF0kXnwb_c

 

"We have no money to employ teachers, to improve classrooms or expand our schools. We're in the process of making redundancies"

 

Also..

 

"Lets provide every child with a very expensive iPad".

 

Sorry but I dealt with a scheme for years and this is wrong on too many levels. If a school wants to make sure all children have access to a device at home, similar to the DFE laptop scheme.. this makes sense. We believe around 5-10% of our kids don't have something at home and the laptops sorted most if not all of them. This is where the money should be going if you want to help the less fortunate. And some of our kids have better devices compared to their broadband connection. A few of them had actually upgraded during the shutdown... again this is where we should be helping them.

 

Majority of what we need is office based or online. We have online storage areas which the kids can access without logging on, they all have access to email, we convert PPTs to video and chuck them on YouTube and we've got a few more things in the pipeline.

 

Surely that money could have been better spent........

[paulkerton]

I think the education marketshare at the moment is about 60% chromebooks, 20% apple and 20% windows.

Not in the UK, but the market is certainly Chromebook heavy in America, Spain, Nordic Countries and New Zealand in particular.

[FN-GM]

It does seem the norm for every student in Australian schools to have an iPad. The UK does seem to be behind with 1:1 devices.

[dmj]

Not in the UK, but the market is certainly Chromebook heavy in America, Spain, Nordic Countries and New Zealand in particular.

 

I meant the BYOD education market really. I think the UK is a bit more windows heavy overall because of the SIMS effect and the desire to keep to a single platform.

[synaesthesia]

I hope it's more to do with common sense. As long as schools still have availability for proper devices and teach the basics on them then 1:1 on ipads is fine. Otherwise, the schools might as well teach them Latin for all the good it'll do.

[paulkerton]

I meant the BYOD education market really. I think the UK is a bit more windows heavy overall because of the SIMS effect and the desire to keep to a single platform.

Yes, SIMS has created a lock-in effect, and a general intransigence to let go of what people know, I find.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Otherwise, the schools might as well teach them Latin for all the good it'll do.

 

But... but... they're shiny!

[synaesthesia]

But why do you think SIMS has that sort of effect?

Is it not possible that schools with some modicum of forethought believe that their pupils might benefit from learning to use something they will use in the future for SO many jobs? Or are they writing all their kids off as likely to work with nothing but tablets when taking orders from customers at MaccyDs or Starducks?

[paulkerton]

But why do you think SIMS has that sort of effect?

Because I see the logic of:

Teacher need Windows because SIMS

Students have Windows because teachers do.

 

We also need to be aware of our history, as the BBC Micro, and later the Acorn and Archimedes machines were dominant until their collapse in the late 90s (before it morphed into ARM). The only viable alternative when that happened? Microsoft Windows. Remember, when Acorn finally collapsed at the beginning of 1999, the iMac was only 5 months old and it was Apple's hail Mary attempt to stay afloat.

Is it not possible that schools with some modicum of forethought believe that their pupils might benefit from learning to use something they will use in the future for SO many jobs? Or are they writing all their kids off as likely to work with nothing but tablets when taking orders from customers at MaccyDs or Starducks?

 

Well, I think that's presuming that we need to replicate what industry uses across education, which is one of the biggest fallacies in EdTech.

 

We teach students (especially up to KS4, FE and above is a different debate) transferrable skills.

Word processing - not Word.

Presentation - not Powerpoint.

Photo editing - not Photoshop.

Video editing - Not iMovie, Final Cut or Premier Pro.

 

and in some schools, like alternative provision establishments, vocational skills like

How to fix cars - Not how to fix Fords.

How to cut hair - Not how to do one particular style.

 

Whatever platform a school chooses, it needs to be because it works best for their school. Windows, Mac, iPad, ChromeOS or Ubuntu Linux. I don't think the platform is, or should matter. Especially in this decade where the chances are people are using Android more than any other OS on a daily basis. We also seem to be assuming that the jobs outside of MaccyD's or Starbucks that these students will be going into will be desk based working on Office software, which is a massive assumption to make. Many of them will be using Managment Information Systems. Financial Software. Bespoke developed platforms.

 

The best future workforce will be adaptable, because the OS and the platform they use at school will be irrelevant to the job they're doing. They'll have the skills to be able to move seemlessly between them.

 

My problem is that a lot of the time, iPad and Apple are chosen because of the "magpie effect" on those in charge, rather than because it's the best platform for your school. Let's face it, the moment you buy iPad you're instantly going to have to augment it with G Suite or Office 365, which then begs the question - Why didn't you go for ChromeOS/Chromebooks or Windows 10 instead?

[synaesthesia]

Ah, but there is the contradiction. You're absolutely right these skills should be transferable and platform agnostic, but so many of them just can not be done on an iPad which is where I really dislike these particular schemes when not properly backed up with alternative provisions such as a suite or set of laptops for example.

Typing and general keyboard skills. Proper editing of media & files. Programming is a ballache on tablets but I don't see that as a particularly useful skill for GCSE level (but see the huge benefits in learning the logic behind it).

I worry that we fall into the same trap as the University Elites - places where people end up spending 5 years of their life to theoretically learn something then end up in the real world and have no idea how to actually do it (and then companies who won't even read your CV if you've not been)

It all needs proper thought and due process.

[supportman]

I totally get the "look modern" thing and why Senior decision makers think this is a good idea at first, but I always question what they are trying to achieve with 1:1 devices.

 

Talking with teachers in our school, their main issues are not with ICT access really. If anything those devices would be seen as a distraction here, even though we are massively into remote learning with Teams etc.

Edited September 16, 2020 by supportman

[mthomas08]

I meant the BYOD education market really. I think the UK is a bit more windows heavy overall because of the SIMS effect and the desire to keep to a single platform.

 

Not only SIMs but because most of our systems rely heavily on Windows software. We went through a phase of Android tablets and to replace any of our software required money. The free Apps at the time were not good enough.

 

We listed everything we used from the kids to teachers, did a lot of research and struggled to find alternatives that not only replaced what we had but gave us compatibility. It's not always about creating new files, it's opening the previous ones.

 

We have a ton of departmental specific software from Design Technology, Electronics, Art and Film Studies. To find App equivalent is going to cost a fortune.... money we simply don't have.

 

We're not "behind" we are more "business model" instead of BYOD/mobile devices.

 

Don't get me wrong, it can work but I said this ages ago - it requires a lot of work and doing a lot differently. We went down the route of Windows netbooks for years and even then a ton of software couldn't be used because they were network reliant (they came with the wonderful home editions...)... or required more punch power.

 

Considering what my annual budget is.. I don't know how any school can afford 1:1 iPads let alone anything.. for our 250 kids and even the cheapest possible cost of what? £200 each? that's still £50,000 a year...

 

What about cases?

Repairs?

Do you insure them?

Extended warranty?

Teachers will need to work on the same level so do they get iMacs?

[paulkerton]

Considering what my annual budget is.. I don't know how any school can afford 1:1 iPads let alone anything.. for our 250 kids and even the cheapest possible cost of what? £200 each? that's still £50,000 a year...

 

Parental contribution schemes will help with this, as well as (and this is massive, so a sentence doesn't do it justice) cultural change to reduce printing costs and divert some of that.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, if you will.

I went to one primary school whose yearly printing costs (single form entry mind you) were over £60,000 a year.

[Bev]

We initially had a class set of Chromebooks, which to be fair have lasted forever and have been good workhorses, but we went with 1:1 iPads about 4 years ago and haven't looked back. Our teachers use them in lessons, with lots of interactivity between the teacher and the children. Its a very different sort of classroom to what we had previously. I wasn't massively keen but I can see that they are used frequently and they were absolutely invaluable during lockdown.

We use a combinations of parental contribution / BYOD and school provided devices. Yes, we have insurance on parental contribution devices. BYOD are not insured.

Staff have iPads and access to Windows machines.

 

We use Google Drive / Docs etc which work on the iPads, and they also have regular ICT lessons in an ICT Suite with Windows desktops.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Bev

[Zammo]

Well done Oasis, very forward thinking...

 

https://www.oasiscommunitylearning.org/news-videos/news/news-details/~board/oasis-news/post/oasis-community-learning-to-provide-an-ipad-to-every-pupil-as-part-of-its-horizons-programme-to-enhance-learning-for-all?fbclid=IwAR39tgPkB_vLAi-jg9UNhqEJhbl_WiuJ4Vf69i5rIlBv5Eq3MCF0kXnwb_c

Thanks for sharing this, certainly very interesting and a big commitment financially from the trust. 1-1 is going to be the norm in many places (or close to 1-1 provision, even if not ran as a single device scheme)

 

It remains to be seen whether this is forward thinking, or just a rushed scheme. As we all know, procuring the devices is just a small part of the puzzle