

Apple is trying to rope 'em in early











The offer will reportedly run until August 31, 2013.





Source: The Los Angeles Times

Comments     Threshold


$678 per student isn't much...
By aliasfox on 6/19/2013 3:00:18 PM , Rating: 2
$678 per student isn't much when you consider that each textbook middle school on up costs $150. If each of these iPads has textbook material that can replace three years worth of math, science, and history texts, then I think it's money well spent - or at least not significantly squandered.

Let's not forget, Apple launched its interactive-textbook push a couple of years ago. These are (supposedly) textbooks with not only book text, but also interactive models, videos, and other functionality. I haven't seen these textbooks, but at least the marketing spin makes them sound like a solid advancement. If that's really the case, then Apple deserves sales for trying to push the envelope. If the interactive textbooks boil down to simply e-readers, then maybe not.

Of course, my opinion is that all of this is, regardless of technology or brand affiliations, is uesless unless there are small classes and motivated teachers. A good teacher can make difficult topics easy and motivate students in a way that reading a textbook, even a digital one, can't. Suffice it to say, I can remember my good teachers quite easily. The videos and technology they employed? Much less so.

RE: $678 per student isn't much...
By Nutzo on 6/19/2013 5:10:16 PM , Rating: 1
Except the digital books are not free. They will be paying more, for digital content, since it has to be purchased/licensed each year, whereas physical books can be used for multiple years.

This is going to be a massive failure on many levels.

Higher cost, fragile tablets that will end up broken or lost, kids will end up downloading p0rn or surfing the net instead of working.

Withing a couple months I'm sure we will read several stories of kids being robbed/mugged or even killed on thier way to or from school by some crook/gang member who wants thier ipad.

It's already happened in another school district, where a kid was dragged to his death because he didn't let go of the school issued iPad, when some crook grabed it and drove away.

The iPad does nothing for a school environment that couldn't be done on a cheaper laptop. This is just some apple iBots in the school district offices of wanting to do the trendy thing. It will be just as much of a failure as all the schools that rolled out netbooks and thenm dumped them a couple years later.

I gues the only good thing will be the flood of cheap used iPads on the LA market by christmas.

RE: $678 per student isn't much...
By Tone12 on 6/21/2013 9:39:28 PM , Rating: 2
nutzo, exactly. Bringing in these tablets and Apple's digital textbooks "looks" like a good move and that is all the administrators tend to care about. But it is unnecessary and more expensive than traditional methods.

