Pros and Cons of teachers using laptops or iPAD's in school...

[kennysarmy]

We've been trialling iPads for over a year now. Nearly half of all staff have them.

 

I've never had a complaint about a flash website.

The absolutely love them from the feedback I have received.

The VGA cable costs 20 quid Apple Dock Connector to VGA Adapter MC552ZM/B | Insight UK It really is no problem to buy them with the ipads which is what we do.

In the entire trial I have not had one maintenance request for an ipad. Literally not one at all.

 

Amazing devices that are going to change the face of education forever I reckon

 

I bet if I was to walk down the road to a local business and offer all their staff an iPAD they would LOVE them too

 

Where is your evidence it's increasing the teaching and learning??

Maybe you work in a private school and you can do what you want with your money.

I am spending public money and as such need to see a benefit....

[zag]

I bet if I was to walk down the road to a local business and offer all their staff an iPAD they would LOVE them too

 

Where is your evidence it's increasing the teaching and learning??

Maybe you work in a private school and you can do what you want with your money.

I am spending public money and as such need to see a benefit....

 

Try to ask why they love them?

I work in a normal school, iPads are actually cheaper than laptops

We have loads of evidence, we ran a proper trial for the last 6 months. Not one person has chosen a laptop this year above an Ipad which just shows the success. I see them used everyday by over half our staff in classrooms.

 

Registration is quicker and has revolutionized the accuracy and speed at which its taken.

Some of the apps used by our classics department are awesome. All ancient Greek interactive stuff, its amazing to watch.

Geography are using them in every lesson, imagine google maps zooming in on a projector. Prezy interactive presentations, switching to websites instantly. Interaction with the students.

Email is instant, people actually read them now!

They work perfectly on our proxy server unlike the androids we also tested

 

Saying all that I'm by no means an Apple fanboi either, I just think they have been an outstanding success for our teachers. I was more reluctant than anyone to introduce a "toy" it was first suggested by a member of the SMT. But I'm happy to say I was proved wrong.

Edited September 20, 2012 by zag

[jmak]

Connectivity to network and standalone printers

 

Try "fingerprint". You install it on your server and then the iPad treats all printers on the network as if they're AirPrint. Works really well.

 

I think that quite a lot of it is a mindset thing - if you expect an iPad to do everything a laptop does, it will fail. The question is what else are you going to get from them? Some of the capabilities they have for music production are fantastic. And I'm seriously looking at them to replace Smartboards. I think they could end up being far more interactive as well as quarter of the price. The cost model is also quite different - at the minute you seem to be able to legitimately buy one copy of an app and share it across 30 devices, so you might pay more for the device, but spend less on software.

 

They do seem to be very stable compared to anything with a MS OS.

 

On the other hand, am I desperate to integrate them into my network? Not really, tbh. Maybe that will improve once Apple has to compete with MS for the corporate market for tablets.

[tmcd35]

I think that quite a lot of it is a mindset thing - if you expect an iPad to do everything a laptop does, it will fail. The question is what else are you going to get from them?

100% agree, they are not laptops and comparing them is setting up for a full. This is something that I dont think Microsoft have really understood. Tablets require a different mindset to your approach in using them over laptops.

 

at the minute you seem to be able to legitimately buy one copy of an app and share it across 30 devices, so you might pay more for the device, but spend less on software.

 

I dont think thats quiet right. Im sure each iPad is supposed to have its own subaccount on the iTunes store. You gift money to the subaccount from a master account which is then used to purchase apps for that iPad.

 

On the other hand, am I desperate to integrate them into my network? Not really, tbh. Maybe that will improve once Apple has to compete with MS for the corporate market for tablets.

 

It'll never happen. Apple have never been interested in the corporate market. They used to be a prosumer company but that nearly bankrupted them. When Jobs returned in '97 he changed their focus to a very much consumer focused company - the original iMac, iPod, iLife and the whole "digital hub" idea. A bit of an understatement to say it saved the company and they havent looked back since. In recent years they have been slowly killing of their prosumer product lines.