It only the Daily Mail but an interesting article nevertheless.

[m25man]

School that spent £500,000 giving its pupils iPads admits that HALF are now broken School that spent £500,000 giving its pupils iPads admits that HALF are now broken | Mail Online via @MailOnline

[Arthur]

Pupils will never take good care of things that they don't own/have paid for themselves.

[CyberNerd]

He added: ‘Exam results at the end of our first year of using tablets were the highest in the school’s 48-year history.

‘Attendance has risen and we’ve seen our lowest rate of fixed-term exclusions for ten years.’

 

It would be interesting to see if this is quantifiable - say compared to spending £250k extra per year on getting better teachers. £250k would barely pay for 5 "excellent" teachers and wouldn't lower class sizes that much in a school of 1200. It would only cost £160k to provide them all with a nexus7 at a 50% breakage rate thats only £80k per year - or the cost of a deputy head. If the exam results, behavior and attendance really do improve then thats quite a good investment. But it does need to be quantified properly.

[Tallwood_6]

Not surprising, lets see the evidence that the devices themselves are responsible for the better results at all.

[Andrew_C]

Kids <16 will seldom look after anything, whether they have paid for it or not. Accepted that this is a generalisation... The ones at my school are remarkably good, perhaps they do understand that their parents are paying a lot for what they get.

 

Could be quite hard to get a real feel for the benefits.

[synaesthesia]

Certainly can't imagine it being directly linked - however I can believe that even some "placebo" effects may have some account purely by the pique of interest and related boost of moral such a scheme may have. I've often personally wondered if encouraging BYOD is more effective as it's then their device and they would have a far greater degree of responsibility. However that has it's own well documented problems outside of technology (bullying, thieving etc).

 

Both obviously have their pros and cons, but I suspect in the next few years they with both be entirely moot, either with the onslaught of smaller and tougher devices, or the eradication of reliance on mobile devices some schools have. The topic has been done to death, and it was only a matter of time before someone sent a FOI request to check up.

 

One thing that's becoming more apparent though which isn't as often discussed, is the schools that are academies - run effectively as a business and better results look better on the relevant sponsors/companies. It would be those sponsors/companies involved that would decide whether such a venture would ultimately benefit the results and therefor how they look (yes, that's a slightly cynical view of the Academy but one that must not be overlooked)

[m25man]

I had to give four to some "trusted" adults whom absolutely refused to wait until the Otterbox protective cases arrived... they dropped and broke 2 the next day thats 50% damage rate.

 

I have had a Mk 1 and a MkIII myself and never even marked them yet alone damaged them, however Im now wearing an elbow support bandage everyday as I have an iPad RSI injury, I have only myself to blame/claim from.

 

How many Students/Teachers will be queuing up to file compo claims against their respective schools after they have lost the use of an arm to tabletitis...

Great devices they may be but I think the real costs of tablet computing is yet to be realised.

 

BBC News - How to avoid RSI from using mobiles and tablets

[teejay]

Typical Daily Fail article. The devices are insured for accidental damage, so the ones that were broken have been fixed at no extra cost. They also learn't their lesson on cheap cases and now have a much lower failure rate. The cost savings in other areas with be pretty big, for instance reprographics, printing, projectors, smart boards, etc etc which offset against this.

With tablet type devices it really does need to be a 1:1 deployment to get the full benefit out of them, yes you could argue that a cheaper tablet would be more cost effective, you could also argue that the bling factor of having iPads means they are getting more use.

Can't believe I'm defending use of fondleslabs, but I actually think this school has gone about it the right way and I applaud their courage to take some undoubted flak over it.

Edited January 1, 2013 by teejay

[teejay]

Another thing, how much would the government have spent on some research project looking at the use of tablets in schools, several million as a large underestimate. It's far cheaper to let a few schools forge ahead and go for it with these devices, from which the experience and knowledge learnt can be passed onto other schools.

Look at all the expensive failures from central government projects over the years, even if this is a big failure, then £500,000 is relatively cheap.

[Arthur]

Great devices they may be but I think the real costs of tablet computing is yet to be realised.

Everyone's going to end up with Spondylosis from looking down at smartphones and tablets all day long.

 

iPad Screws Up Kid’s Neck

According to NdDaily (via MIC), a seven year-old boy in China experienced severe headaches and neck pain after spending too much time playing his iPad.

 

The boy spent long stretches of time playing games on his iPad, even falling to sleep with the device in his arms. After complaining of neck pain, the boy was taken to the doctor and had x-rays taken.

 

The boy was apparently experiencing a type of bone deformation called spondylosis in his neck due to the position of his head while playing with his iPad.

 

Reports state that the child needed three to six months to recover. Perhaps he can pass the time with an iPod Touch? (Source)

Edited January 1, 2013 by Arthur

[mossj88]

To be fair it was all covered by insurance and they've bought new cases now that look like they are doing a better job (although time will tell)...

[Theblacksheep]

It's that careless attitude that pushes up insurance prices.

 

£500,000 in terms of government spending is cheap. £500,000 for a school is an incredible amount of money to play with.