julianc

Hi Ben, Have you or anyone else managed to get iPods to work with RM's Easymail using the built in email app on the touch? best Julian

True but you can buy eclicker for£5.99. The client is free. Your iPod Touches then become voting systems. This is where the iOs eco system saves schools money. Quizdom suddenly becomes a one dimensional investment. iPads and iPod touches are a luxury item as a one off purchase, but Apple's model is very cunning. The more hardware you buy, the bigger the cost saving with apps. In these new post Labour spend times, the iPad and Touch take on the curious position of being both a cost saver and yet desirable luxury items. Not intending to spark a big debate here - but these are very interesting times.

We've put 30 iPod Touches into a primary classroom in Oldham (back in September) to see what would happen. FriezlandiPodProjectLive After a week, the staff were talking about using their whole ICT spend for the year on Touches. The 30 Touches are running through the LA filtering system, the pupils are as safe as they would be on a computer. Staff are searching the iTunes store for apps, although they find Youtube a better place to find info about apps and of course demo's. The Apps and ease of access onto the school wireless system are at the kids and staff like. No booting up computers, wheeling laptop trolleys, migrating to the IT suite. Sure, you are not going to edit a video or design a poster in a3 format on a mobile device, but for easy/unobtrusive access to data it is very compelling. There will always be some animosity to Apple. As very pro Apple Educator and ex Apple Employee, I'm fully conversant with all the arguments for and against. However, there are over 100,000 apps many of them are free or 59p. One purchase can be installed onto multiple devices. It is incredibly cost effective. The key player here (and increasingly so) is the end user. People buy and use the Touch and iPhone because it is a good user experience. 3,4 of the pupils parents have now gone out and bought Touches for their kids. Over Christmas my guess is that this will increase. Good user experiences promote an appetite for learning; this has to be a good thing. Julian

This has been an interesting thread. Over the last few years I've had to deal with a lot of Heads who get the Mac bug. As a self employed Apple ADE and an ex Apple employee, obviously I'm very pro Apple, but common sense needs to reign here. There is no point schools trying to do stuff on Macs like SIMS when a decent PC will do the job. There's no point doing a whole bunch of stuff on a Mac, if a PC will do it as well and cheaper. OK so you can Bootcamp a Mac, but if it's only going to be used to run Windows then its a waste of public money (if you are in a state school). However, Schools want Macs predominantly for iLife and the experience/empowerment that this brings. It's hard to imagine this when you use a computer and make stuff everyday, but for many inexperienced teachers the process of recording and editing a podcast and adding music and effects is mind blowing and far more satisfying in say GarageBand than the bleak GUI of Podium or the clunkness of Audacity. The fact the GarageBand is in fact Apple's Logic Pro with a Fisher Price skin is why Macs are more expensive. It is impossible for the Windows to produce a product like because Apple own the Hardware, OS and Application. Apple spends so much time and money on R+D. Sure you can run Premier Elements and Photoshop Elements (both fine apps) but it is the integration of the creativity apps that makes the work flow a breeze. Also more importantly it just works. No special builds to run Premier or tweaked configs to run Cubase on a PC. Any Mac straight out of the box will run not only iLife but also Express and Pro (Logic/Final Cut) apps. No tweaks no fuss. As for spares - RAM and hard drive upgrades are the same price as they would be for a PC. Obviously if you go to Apple directly they won't be. The days of PC techies upgrading piles of older computers school are numbered. The TCO of Macs is possibly lower, but with all kit there's variables. Any Apple dealer will tell you that Apple's Pro hardware has a much lower failure rate than the consumer Macbooks/iMacs. Most schools will by consumer hardware. The licensing costs for server/client are very attractive when stacked up against Microsoft. I think an all Mac school however, would be as grim as an all PC school. The most recent BECTA report pushes for a mixed platform approach. I appreciate that many people don't have much time for BECTA, but they do gate-keep/sign off so much in terms of Academy and BSF visioning prior to procurement - and now there is a clear move to encourage a sensible mixed platform approach. So Macs are going to go much bigger in schools. ICT Technical folk IMHO should be encouraging teachers (and possibly in the future parents/students) to choose their own devices and be working towards a mixed economy. The iPhone version of this site being a great example of this (Well done whoever did it!). It sign posts the future which isn't 100% mac or PC its all about integration and common sense!

This has been an interesting thread. Over the last few years I've had to deal with a lot of Heads who get the Mac bug. As a self employed Apple ADE and an ex Apple employee, obviously I'm very pro Apple, but common sense needs to reign here. There is no point schools trying to do stuff on Macs like SIMS when a decent PC will do the job. There's no point doing a whole bunch of stuff on a Mac, if a PC will do it as well and cheaper. OK so you can Bootcamp a Mac, but if it's only going to be used to run Windows then its a waste of public money (if you are in a state school). However, Schools want Macs predominantly for iLife and the experience/empowerment that this brings. It's hard to imagine this when you use a computer and make stuff everyday, but for many inexperienced teachers the process of recording and editing a podcast and adding music and effects is mind blowing and far more satisfying in say GarageBand than the bleak GUI of Podium or the clunkness of Audacity. The fact the GarageBand is in fact Apple's Logic Pro with a Fisher Price skin is why Macs are more expensive. It is impossible for the Windows platform to produce a product like it, because Apple own the hardware, OS and Application. Apple spends so much time and money on R+D. Sure you can run Premier Elements and Photoshop Elements (both fine apps) but it is the integration of the creativity apps that makes the work flow a breeze. Also more importantly it just works. No special builds to run Premier or tweaked configs to run Cubase on a PC. Any Mac straight out of the box will run not only iLife but also Express and Pro (Logic/Final Cut) apps. No tweaks no fuss. As for spares - RAM and hard drive upgrades are the same price as they would be for a PC. Obviously if you go to Apple directly they won't be. The days of PC techies upgrading piles of older computers school are numbered. The TCO of Macs is possibly lower, but with all kit there's variables. Any Apple dealer will tell you that Apple's Pro hardware has a much lower failure rate than the consumer Macbooks/iMacs. Most schools will buy consumer hardware. The licensing costs for server/client are very attractive when stacked up against Microsoft. I do genuinely think an all Mac school however, would be as grim as an all PC school. The most recent BECTA report pushes for a mixed platform approach. I appreciate that many people don't have much time for BECTA, but they do gate-keep/sign off so much in terms of Academy and BSF visioning prior to procurement - and now there is a clear move to encourage a sensible mixed platform approach. So Macs are going to go much bigger in schools. ICT Technical folk IMHO should be encouraging teachers (and possibly in the future parents/students) to choose their own devices and be working towards a mixed economy. The iPhone version of this site being a great example of this culture (Well done whoever did it!). It sign posts the future which isn't 100% Mac or PC. I guess it's all about integration and common sense!

This is an interesting thread that sums up exactly what is wrong with ICT, new syllabus directives, teachers/network managers, manufacturers and suppliers! complete disconnection! 30 Macs - no doubt purchased becuase there is a need to manage video or music technology en masse. Apple make great consumer experiences - but the actual granular info and access to knowlege for managing a suite like this is limited. It is quite naive to think that Apple will give you a freebie. In Wales you could hook with AT computers Having managed the Apple ASE's for a few years I know them all - AT can get you trained up and give you advice - But they will charge as they have specialist skills. My guess is that you will struggle to set your suite up esp if you want AD integration and iMovie projects being saved in a cute way. Schools need to plan effectively for the management of video files. You also have the impending stress of Adobe product changes (Photoshop prefs have been a problem for many) and the encroaching Leopard. Do you speak to the staff that have to deliver video/music/audio production? Do you understand their needs? Do they understand their own needs?! Do they have any idea how they will teach in the room? what the constraints are? what the possibilities are? I recently went to a beautiful new academy with mac suites and the staff had not been consulted or trained - even the data projectors were maxed out at 800x600 and wouldn't therefore display iMovie. This is fairly typical. IT has absorbed AV/Music but in most schools haven't upskilled IT staff to cope with this. IT departments need to face some harsh facts they need to pay to be trained up to cope with Apple or outsource it to a company that can do the business for them. There needs to be a lot more joined up thinking and a lot less asking for favours. Julian ex Apple Education (sounding grumpy!)