The new iPad advert......seriously?!

[MK-2]

Anything that engages a child just that little bit more than normal is a good thing as at the end of the day, as a teacher, having a classes attention is the path to them learning.

 

I saw a study about 5 years ago that heavily indicated (possibly proven now?) that IWBs in primary schools increased the overall grade of a class by a half of a grade... I will try and look it up...

 

edit - Using Interactive Whiteboards to Improve Achievement | doug woods

 

study has proven grades can increase by up to 16% when using engaging technology...

 

To me that is the point of these "toys"

 

With students requiring so much stimulation these days to match what is needed for their attention spans, surely anything that can get closer to gaining their attention for long periods of time should be treated with respect!

 

without going too far off the topic, the point then becomes integration and cost.

if a school has a windows network with smartboard whiteboards and a few other subjet specific titles in use, how do these integrate into the lessons? if a teacher books out a laptop trolley, chances are it will be going on the internet to research, or use office to type something up. if you are just replacing a laptop with a tablet, you arent really stimulating them, just replacing the hardware they use, and if said school already has say 60 laptops, do you then buy 60 tablets too?

 

also regardless of the tablet, it will need something else to integrate and be managed seamlessly. if it requires new server hardware or software, that has to be offset against the "gain" it might give. schools probably wouldn't be too happy having budgets slashed in departments just to pay for server software x and y amount of tablets unless a clear plan is in place.

 

just lastly, IWBs are a separate thing, they did provide a certain stimulus in that it made watching the teacher fun, it made them able to do things, to include kids in the lessons etc. a tablet in a lesson wont really include them or bring the lesson to life any more than a laptop would

Edited June 20, 2011 by MK-2

[penfold]

Anything that engages a child just that little bit more than normal is a good thing as at the end of the day, as a teacher, having a classes attention is the path to them learning.

 

I saw a study about 5 years ago that heavily indicated (possibly proven now?) that IWBs in primary schools increased the overall grade of a class by a half of a grade... I will try and look it up...

 

edit - Using Interactive Whiteboards to Improve Achievement | doug woods

 

study has proven grades can increase by up to 16% when using engaging technology...

 

To me that is the point of these "toys"

 

With students requiring so much stimulation these days to match what is needed for their attention spans, surely anything that can get closer to gaining their attention for long periods of time should be treated with respect!

 

The thing is it isn't the technology which is might cause an increase in grades, it's what you do with it. In your example the fact that an IWB can raise grades, doesn't prove that it was an IWB or the fact a lesson was more interesting because it was made more interesting. An IWB is not going to raise grades if it is only ever used to project on...and far too many staff ask for a projector and IWB when all they need is a projector. A good teacher can see the possibilities technology creates.

 

So these expensive "toys" can be justified if they raise teaching standards and childrens learning experience, but it is still down to good teaching to achieve this, not the device itself.

[Tony_Mc]

The thing is it isn't the technology which is might cause an increase in grades, it's what you do with it. In your example the fact that an IWB can raise grades, doesn't prove that it was an IWB or the fact a lesson was more interesting because it was made more interesting. An IWB is not going to raise grades if it is only ever used to project on...and far too many staff ask for a projector and IWB when all they need is a projector. A good teacher can see the possibilities technology creates.

 

So these expensive "toys" can be justified if they raise teaching standards and childrens learning experience, but it is still down to good teaching to achieve this, not the device itself.

 

Obviously.

 

The fact remains that people are finding use in them, you are not but you also haven't bought any and have taken exception to the advert showing them as usefull in a class enviroment.

 

If your head teacher came to you and said buy 100 ipads for all teachers, I am sure you would talk him or her down as it wouldn't work on your network or in your enviroment.

 

we have people here saying they can work and other saying it isn't worth it.

 

I would say the advert (remember, it is a way selling products) is accurate - you CAN use it

 

the real question is...

 

is it worth it?

[mac_shinobi]

This post reminds me of other things that you see on telly advert wise just like the windows 7 adverts

 

"Windows 7 was my idea" ..... etc, like seriously ??

 

Some how I very much doubt it.

 

Either way I quite like the ipad 2's, maybe not as far as intergrating them etc but for personal use would be great

[sted]

what does any tablet add to an interactive whiteboard? surely the idea of the tablet is that its interactive and touchscreen. by adding that to a smartboard you then pass all control on to the smartboard and it just becomes a display drone.

plus unless smart or promethean have software that works on ios/android/blackberry/whatever then again all you are doing is showing content or running an app.

 

dont get me wrong, i've got an eeepad transformer and that has replaced my home laptop and ill use that at home all the time. but apple hating aside i could not see a viable and legitimate use in our school for any of these tablets other than as playthings.

if it cannot run IWB software, then the £450 may as well be spent on a PC which can.

 

i actually find im using it less ow the novelty facor has worn off. Having a touchscreen is nice but sometimes its just a case of why im beginning to think i should of saved the cash and bought a netbook. I find some aspects of it limiting and the latest 3.1 update seemed to seriousl reduce battery life in standby and it dosent like reconnecting to wireless after sleeping for a while

 

Im not sure i can see many educational uses for it and a singles user os does kind of limit your options

[MK-2]

i actually find im using it less ow the novelty facor has worn off. Having a touchscreen is nice but sometimes its just a case of why im beginning to think i should of saved the cash and bought a netbook. I find some aspects of it limiting and the latest 3.1 update seemed to seriousl reduce battery life in standby and it dosent like reconnecting to wireless after sleeping for a while

 

Im not sure i can see many educational uses for it and a singles user os does kind of limit your options

 

see for me the added keyboard means i dont tire of touchscreen as i use touchscreen as the mouse and type on the normal keyboard, so it keeps it fresh for me. i can imagine just using a touchscreen all day every day would tire though

[penfold]

Obviously.

 

The fact remains that people are finding use in them, you are not but you also haven't bought any and have taken exception to the advert showing them as usefull in a class enviroment.

 

If your head teacher came to you and said buy 100 ipads for all teachers, I am sure you would talk him or her down as it wouldn't work on your network or in your enviroment.

 

we have people here saying they can work and other saying it isn't worth it.

 

I would say the advert (remember, it is a way selling products) is accurate - you CAN use it

 

the real question is...

 

is it worth it?

 

Erm...No I haven't bought any, and I haven't taken exception to the advert showing them usefull in a class environment...I have taken exception to Apple's adverts telling me if I dont have an their products them I'm dont have their products. An advert to me is something to advertise how good a product is and why I should part with my money to have one. In my opinion their adverts don't do that...and no they are not the only ones.

 

And please dont judge me and my skills in my job by assuming I would talk down to people when they may present me with something I may or may not agree on. Like most people, I assess what is required, how much money we have and what is easiet to intergrate into what we already have. I dont make decisions on whether I like the adverts of companies.

 

I think you could have made your point about the real question being "is it worth it" without making the assumption about how I would handle new technologies suggested by others. The point being is that the advert does nothing to answer the question of "is it is worth it?".

 

Edit: By the way, I do own an iPod Touch, so I have experience in the uses it provides me, it still doens't mean I like their adverts and thats my personal opinion. But their adverts have nothing to do with influencing my choice in products professionaly.

Edited June 20, 2011 by penfold

[Earthling]

This post reminds me of other things that you see on telly advert wise just like the windows 7 adverts

 

"Windows 7 was my idea" .....

 

I've always thought it should be 'I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my fault.

[Tony_Mc]

Erm...No I haven't bought any, and I haven't taken exception to the advert showing them usefull in a class environment...I have taken exception to Apple's adverts telling me if I dont have an their products them I'm dont have their products. An advert to me is something to advertise how good a product is and why I should part with my money to have one. In my opinion their adverts don't do that...and no they are not the only ones.

 

And please dont judge me and my skills in my job by assuming I would talk down to people when they may present me with something I may or may not agree on. Like most people, I assess what is required, how much money we have and what is easiet to intergrate into what we already have. I dont make decisions on whether I like the adverts of companies.

 

I think you could have made your point about the real question being "is it worth it" without making the assumption about how I would handle new technologies suggested by others. The point being is that the advert does nothing to answer the question of "is it is worth it?".

 

Edit: By the way, I do own an iPod Touch, so I have experience in the uses it provides me, it still doens't mean I like their adverts and thats my personal opinion. But their adverts have nothing to do with influencing my choice in products professionaly.

 

There was no offence meant by my post, I obviously didn't put enough thought into the wording of it.

 

In my last role as NM in a school, I would have talked the head down in such a thought (buying ipads for teachers) unless there was a supportable function within the school. I think some establishments would find them usefull and other wouldn't.

 

personally the only adverts that really grinds my gears are the gocompare.com

 

I generally don't get wound up enough to post online, something I don't care about and will never use.

[MK-2]

 

I generally don't get wound up enough to post online, something I don't care about and will never use.

 

it didnt wind me up, i just felt the need to poke a little fun at. this actually came from my wife seeing the advert last night, and despite never using one, just said (as they got to the some parents would say" part) "some parents would say thats bloody expensive!"

 

so fear not, i'll neg rep my wife when i get home

[Tony_Mc]

it didnt wind me up, i just felt the need to poke a little fun at. this actually came from my wife seeing the advert last night, and despite never using one, just said (as they got to the some parents would say" part) "some parents would say thats bloody expensive!"

 

so fear not, i'll neg rep my wife when i get home

 

 

Let me know how that goes, I will need tips as my girlfriend can't stand any kind of makeup or hair product advert.

 

p.s. that last line in my email was also not meant to come out how it did, neg repping myself right now.

[MK-2]

Let me know how that goes, I will need tips as my girlfriend can't stand any kind of makeup or hair product advert.

 

p.s. that last line in my email was also not meant to come out how it did, neg repping myself right now.

 

don't worry about it, i only picked up on it for comedic effect

[Pottsey]

MK-2 said “To a doctor, it’s groundbreaking....if you think the ipad is groundbreaking, step away from the scalpel and practice a bit more on Operation”

But it is grounding breaking for many more reasons then I am about to right about here. It both created a market in the 10’s of millions of units now apprrocheing 100million and from a technology point of view it’s amazingly powerful for such a small device. No other notebook or tablet has come close to the raw power found in an Ipad 2.

 

Technology wise it has groundbreaking chips with the GPU power of an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 in a tablet. What’s even more impressive if the next generation of chips. The Ipad 2 was just a refresh; the Ipad3 is using a true new generation and will be massively more powerful.

[localzuk]

Love them or hate them, they are a ground-breaking device in many fields. Especially in medicine. Having instant mobile access to up to date records, results etc... from a handy sized device, including x-rays, mri scans, and all sorts of other things is nothing short of amazing for a doctor.

[MK-2]

MK-2 said “To a doctor, it’s groundbreaking....if you think the ipad is groundbreaking, step away from the scalpel and practice a bit more on Operation”

But it is grounding breaking for many more reasons then I am about to right about here. It both created a market in the 10’s of millions of units now apprrocheing 100million and from a technology point of view it’s amazingly powerful for such a small device. No other notebook or tablet has come close to the raw power found in an Ipad 2.

 

Technology wise it has groundbreaking chips with the GPU power of an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 in a tablet. What’s even more impressive if the next generation of chips. The Ipad 2 was just a refresh; the Ipad3 is using a true new generation and will be massively more powerful.

 

See, now if this was in the advert, it would at least tell you the selling points.

but that aside, i was on about the specific line that a doctor finds it groundbreaking, not that the device itself isn't (which i see localzuk has addressed)

 

my other point you have hit exactly on, the ipad2 was just a refresh. an apple insider has even said it was nothing more than a rehash of ipad1 and ipad3 will be the big boy. well if thats the case, why not hang fire on selling a unit that adds barely anything new, concentrate on the new ipad and make that groundbreaking. obviously sales figures mean more than customer loyalty and satisfaction (and this goes for many companies not just apple)

Edited June 20, 2011 by MK-2

[Earthling]

...is nothing short of amazing for a doctor.

 

Getting an appointment is nothing short of amazing for my doctor.

 

[MK-2]

Love them or hate them, they are a ground-breaking device in many fields. Especially in medicine. Having instant mobile access to up to date records, results etc... from a handy sized device, including x-rays, mri scans, and all sorts of other things is nothing short of amazing for a doctor.

 

how would they have up to date records, xrays, scans etc? do you mean receiving via email or actually having the ipad plug into a device in the hospital to show the scans? the advert would suggest that it is used in hospitals to view ultrasound scans, but surely that would need something from the ultrasound machine to plug into the ipad? so if it is purely the ability to receive emails/reports then it really isn't any different from giving a doctor a laptop

[localzuk]

how would they have up to date records, xrays, scans etc? do you mean receiving via email or actually having the ipad plug into a device in the hospital to show the scans? the advert would suggest that it is used in hospitals to view ultrasound scans, but surely that would need something from the ultrasound machine to plug into the ipad? so if it is purely the ability to receive emails/reports then it really isn't any different from giving a doctor a laptop

 

I mean - patient goes for an x-ray/mri/whatever, and then once back in the ward, rather than their doctor having to wait for the file to arrive, or them having to go sit at a PC to look for the stuff, they have it in their hands as soon as it is ready.

 

A laptop requires a doctor to sit down and find somewhere to use the laptop. It doesn't allow them to stand next to the patient, in their ward bed, with the stuff in their hands, and then allow them to examine the person there and then with the image next to them on the bed.

 

The form factor is important here. Not just that it is a computer.

[penfold]

There was no offence meant by my post, I obviously didn't put enough thought into the wording of it.

 

No problem, I'm having one of those days...

[MK-2]

I mean - patient goes for an x-ray/mri/whatever, and then once back in the ward, rather than their doctor having to wait for the file to arrive, or them having to go sit at a PC to look for the stuff, they have it in their hands as soon as it is ready.

 

A laptop requires a doctor to sit down and find somewhere to use the laptop. It doesn't allow them to stand next to the patient, in their ward bed, with the stuff in their hands, and then allow them to examine the person there and then with the image next to them on the bed.

 

The form factor is important here. Not just that it is a computer.

 

fair enough, point taken.

[GrumbleDook]

For most people (in this forum) they are a device manufactured and sold by a company they don't like ... so it gets slated.

 

At the moment they are the best device in their bracket. Excluding the flash-based stuff on the web they have a pretty good range of tools to be used, and it is nice to have something challenging the naff flash stuff which is out there, which so many people have slated in the past. In a number of schools it is not just engaging the children, but it is making staff think very differently about how they do things with technology, from blogging to the use of images, from IWBs to the use of personal devices.

 

If schools are any good (and if we are too) then we can learn a heck of a lot of lessons from this stage so that when other devices are of the same standard then we should be able to use them in similar ways.

 

Of course there will be downsides to them (implementation / storage / etc) but I would rather improvise and adapt than just slag them off for no reason other than the excuse of "They are more expensive than I like so they are bad" or "They are advertised and marketed very well by a company with a track history of pushy marketing" or "I don't trust them because they are not as open as they claim to be".

 

I agree with pretty much everything the ad says ... but also appreciate that it has a healthy dose of marketing spin, the same way that I understand that Lynx is not the answer to getting all sad, lonely nerds laid!

[ZeroHour]

Technology wise it has groundbreaking chips with the GPU power of an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 in a tablet. What’s even more impressive if the next generation of chips. The Ipad 2 was just a refresh; the Ipad3 is using a true new generation and will be massively more powerful.

 

No sadly its GPU is not anywhere near the 360 or ps3. You do get some good effects etc but no they are nothing alike in terms of power, not to say the graphics are bad, they are simply limited by obvious concerned such as battery life etc.

 

Love them or hate them, they are a ground-breaking device in many fields. Especially in medicine. Having instant mobile access to up to date records, results etc... from a handy sized device, including x-rays, mri scans, and all sorts of other things is nothing short of amazing for a doctor.

 

Ground-breaking is far to generous a term, they are popularising that method, I personally saw a device used in hospitals etc a year before the ipad and it was more suitable as it could be literally washed to ensure sterilisation is maintained.

 

The iPad is good at certain tasks but be clear they were not the first or the most advanced, they just made mass market appear/ease of use which does deserve credit but no where near as much as some would credit apple for, and yeh the advert is not one I particularly like. Considering most hospitals had issues getting all things digital for the last few years the previous devices didnt have much of a chance of making an impact without the infrastructure and iPads cant be sterilised.

 

Thinking about it now, I can see the Sun headline "iPad's gave me iX disease" as its hard enough to get docs visiting wards to wash there hands between patiences let alone wash there ipad between people

Edited June 20, 2011 by ZeroHour

[Arthur]

My other point you have hit exactly on, the iPad 2 was just a refresh. An Apple insider has even said it was nothing more than a rehash of iPad 1 and iPad 3 will be the big boy. Well if thats the case, why not hang fire on selling a unit that adds barely anything new, concentrate on the new iPad and make that ground-breaking.

That's how Apple works. They get the fundamentals right and then make small iterative improvements from then on.

 

One example is Apple’s oldest core product: Mac OS X. It took four difficult years from Apple’s acquisition of NeXT in 1997 until Mac OS X 10.0 was released in March 2001. Needless to say, those four years were… well, let’s just say it was a difficult birth. But from that point forward, Mac OS X’s major releases have appeared regularly (especially by the standards of major commercial PC operating systems), each better than the previous version, but none spectacularly so. Snow Leopard is vastly superior to 10.0 in every conceivable way. It’s faster, better-designed, does more, and looks better. (And it runs exclusively on an entirely different CPU architecture than did 10.0.) But at no point between the two was there a release that was markedly superior to the one that preceded it.

 

Next, consider the iPod. It debuted in the fall of 2001 as a Mac-only, FireWire-only $399 digital audio player with a tiny black-and-white display and 5 GB hard disk. The iTunes Store didn’t exist until April 2003. The Windows version of iTunes didn’t appear until October 2003—two years after the iPod debuted! Two years before it truly supported Windows! Think about that. If Apple released an iPod today that sold only as many units as the iPod sold in 2002, that product would be considered an enormous flop.

 

Today you can get an iPod nano for $179 that’s a fraction of the original iPod’s size and weight, with double the storage, a color display, video playback, and a built-in video camera. Apple took the iPod from there to here one step at a time. Every year Apple has announced updated iPods in the fall, and every year the media has weighed in with a collective yawn.

 

There’s never been one iteration of the click-wheel iPod platform that has completely blown away the previous one, and even the original model was derided by many critics as unimpressive. The iPod shows, too, how Apple’s iterative development process doesn’t just add, it adapts. Remember those third-generation iPods from 2003, with four separate buttons above the click wheel? Turns out that wasn’t a good idea. They were gone a year later. Remember the iPod Mini? It had no new features, and wasn’t even much cheaper— but it was way smaller.

 

The iPhone is following the same pattern. In 2007 it debuted with no third-party apps, no 3G networking, and a maximum storage capacity of 8GB. One year later, Apple had doubled storage, added 3G and GPS, and opened the App Store. The year after that, Apple swapped in a faster processor, added a compass and an improved camera, and doubled storage again. The pattern repeats. We may never see an iPhone that utterly blows away the prior year’s, but we’ll soon have one that utterly blows away the original iPhone.

 

That brings us to the iPad. Initial reaction to it has been polarized, as is so often the case with Apple products. Some say it’s a big iPod touch. Others say it’s the beginning of a revolution in personal computing. As a pundit, I’m supposed to explain how the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. But I can’t. The iPad really is The Big One: Apple’s reconception of personal computing.

 

Apple has released many new products over the last decade. Only a handful have been the start of a new platform. The rest were iterations. The designers and engineers at Apple aren’t magicians; they’re artisans. They achieve spectacular results one year at a time. Rather than expanding the scope of a new product, hoping to impress, they pare it back, leaving a solid foundation upon which to build. In 2001, you couldn’t look at Mac OS X or the original iPod and foresee what they’d become in 2010. But you can look at Snow Leopard and the iPod nanos of today and see what they once were. Apple got the fundamentals right. (Source)

[ZeroHour]

For most people (in this forum) they are a device manufactured and sold by a company they don't like ... so it gets slated.

Sigh... that is not the best of statements to make, it presumes that the sole reason people wont touch it is because it has a logo and not because of justified reasons as well as a dislike for apple. I dont particularly like apple but I still use there stuff so I am not in the *most* bracket there but no one should presume thats the sole reason. I would expect a lot of people would have good reasons too. Maybe its slated because it is not fit for their environment?

I am aware of several haters of MS that struggle to ever want that wares to touch their network but normally they have reasons as well as a dislike for MS, I would never presume they just slate it because its MS, that has little respect for the person or the profession.

 

At the moment they are the best device in their bracket. Excluding the flash-based stuff on the web they have a pretty good range of tools to be used, and it is nice to have something challenging the naff flash stuff which is out there, which so many people have slated in the past. In a number of schools it is not just engaging the children, but it is making staff think very differently about how they do things with technology, from blogging to the use of images, from IWBs to the use of personal devices.

 

If schools are any good (and if we are too) then we can learn a heck of a lot of lessons from this stage so that when other devices are of the same standard then we should be able to use them in similar ways.

 

Of course there will be downsides to them (implementation / storage / etc) but I would rather improvise and adapt than just slag them off for no reason other than the excuse of "They are more expensive than I like so they are bad" or "They are advertised and marketed very well by a company with a track history of pushy marketing" or "I don't trust them because they are not as open as they claim to be".

 

I agree with pretty much everything the ad says ... but also appreciate that it has a healthy dose of marketing spin, the same way that I understand that Lynx is not the answer to getting all sad, lonely nerds laid!

 

Yeh currently it is leading the way, limitations/problems aside, but then so is pen/paper limitations aside.... funnily if I forget about limitation/problems all things are really good (jk).

Although the problems are minor to your environment it should not be presumed they are not for others, neither should it be presumed people should ignore those points rather then wait a little before changing and seeing the lay of the land as it were. Rushing is NEVER the correct course of action and this device is only a year old...

Also some just say its too limited without elaborating, although its best to give a bit more I would never think its because of apple hating, we are all more professional then that!

 

BTW all, I love a good *debate* with GD on these things and I like to be the *other side* regardless of all my thoughts/opinions on the subject.

Edited June 20, 2011 by ZeroHour

[synaesthesia]

I hate Apple, pure and simple - how could I possibly trust a product by a company that survives and grows by basic level hypnotism and high level bullpoo (Marketing, with extra lies). However I can appreciate the abilities of the product in question and the possibilities tablets have in the workplace.

Is it groundbreaking? In my opinion, no. They're not the first tablets by a long way. They're only "the best" according to some people. I'm not going to make that judgement myself as I've only used one as far as setting up a wireless connection or explaining to someone in the art of "just doing it" why Flash content doesn't work. Tablets are groundbreaking - they have a "long" future in my eyes and we can do well to embrace them. I say "long" because they will of course be usurped by the next thing - perhaps it could just be all in one devices such as more powerful versions of smartphones or something else.

In education their application is going to be very limited by budget. I see absolutely no reason why an iPad would provide a class or teaching staff anything new above existing IT hardware ESPECIALLY when you take money into consideration.

If I was to design or just come up with an idea for an ideal educational package, it would most likely be a properly dockable tablet with full multifunctionality - basically something that would replace a classroom PC fully, cost effectively. Perhaps the dock might not even need to come into it if a decent wireless video standard can be finalised.