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iPads On American Campuses? Maybe Next Year
Velcroman1 writes "Slashdotters have read extensively about the iPad pilot programs at colleges and universities: Australian schools are iPad crazy, we read yesterday, and thanks to the iPad's success, 2011 will be the year of the tablet. But on US college campuses almost half a year after the iPad's launch, it's a whole different story — at least so far this year. FoxNews.com reports that high-profile schools like Duke and Stanford are far more cautious about the device than has previously been reported. 'It definitely facilitates studying and recall because you don't get bogged down by all the paper,' noted first-year Stanford med student Ryan Flynn. But it's still a work in progress. 'The iPad isn't the best input device. Some people have gone back to paper and pencil.'"
College students on a budget would also have a hard time justifying the cost of a laptop or high-end netbook, while having only half the functionality. Ditto for universities looking to purchase them for students.
With the way most colleges and college students are going nowadays (as far as finances are concerned), this shouldn't be much of a surprise...
Living With a Nerd
Most people my age (I'm going back to school in the spring, at 24), are pretty tech savy. They're also pretty broke. Buying an Ipad means that they can't hook up their laptops to a TV to watch the legions of entertainment that netflix on demand/thepiratebay offers. not to mention the ubiquitous use of USB flash drives that people wouldn't be able to use.
If there was a tablet that offered the functionality of a laptop, I'd say sure. but college kids, as much as we love the newest gadget, will more often than not chose functionality over form when it boils down to what saves money.
Just as a replacement for expensive heavy books at the very least. Laptops are too cumbersome, I'm sure teachers dislike staring out at just the tops of students' heads cresting from behind laptop screens. (think grade schoolers lol) I really do believe that the right tablet at the right price will be the biggest game changer for education we've seen in a long long time.
If only they were not so over-priced ... Oh well
College student here btw
I suppose it's a good thing to see a locked down system like the iPad slowly displace relatively unrestricted computers in college. Convince everyone as they go through school that restrictive, vendor controlled platforms are the way things should be, and you'll make them all the more amenable to heavy DRM.
It's not only tablets. Try to efficiently draw a diagram or reproduce a table on a laptop/tablet.
If you want to write your thesis, fine, use either one. But if you study science or any other topic where notes are not only pure text, it's bound to be very limited.
I loathe anything forced onto me and as such, I'd not like to be forced to use the iPad. If anything, I would like to use one of the many Android devices or even Google's Chrome OS. Let's urge these many OEMs not to cede the educational market to Apple and its control freaks.
I was in university about 6 years ago, right during the shift when students were just starting to bring laptops (at least, where I went). I never had one, and I liked the fact that with notepaper I wasn't limited in any way: I can write, draw, colour, do whatever since a pen has no restrictions.
That said, the amount of paper I had to lug around sucked, so definitely an iPad or similar device would help. If I went back to school now, I can honestly say I would definitely try an electronic solution first, but if I felt any slower or that I couldn't get all the notes down, I would switch back.
One thing I never got is the students who recorded the whole hour lecture. I could barely even sit through them once... ah, who am I kidding, I often didn't :).
Glad to see that rational thought is shining through the morass of hype. It's a good tool - but just that, a tool.
Apple has done everything to get the iPad the most. I believe other things are better such as. Apple is overpriced and overspent. Why not go back to paper? You are too caught up in it.
I recently saw that that the a 'Restoring Truthiness' (Stephen Colbert rally) charity on DonorsChoose.org was requesting iPads.
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=439788&challengeid=39361
My students need iPads to assist them in English, Social details
Studies and Creative Writing!
Creating writing on iPads with one of the worst input methods among electronic devices? But it worked, they collected $10,000+. In some countries you can build a school with that instead of contributing to Apple's really fat margins.
Atleast with MS, you can run what you want, but with iPads? http://www.businessinsider.com/latest-app-store-rejection-outrage-apple-rejects-app-that-teaches-kids-to-program-2010-4
Sigh, the things that shiny baubles can get people to do....
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Yes, the writing is on the wall for companies like Samsung. This video shows much of what Samsung's tablet can do. Personally, I am impressed by it and joyous that I did not get 'infected' with heard mentality by buying the iPad when it was released.
Along with being able to distribute digital handouts, I hope teachers also like the whole class being on facebook, too. At least with laptops a lot of times it's pretty obvious that you're not paying attention. But, if everyone is looking at their tablet, who knows. Besides, it's much better suited for writing a status update than trying to take notes with it. With a touch screen you would have to stare at it while you take notes, so hopefully the prof isn't writing on the board, or anything.
... insert standard comment about mainstream vendors' lack of commitment to accessibility features for the differently abled ...
Can't "force" it on students who can't use it.
My friend Debbie Ann is so promiscuous, instead of an appointment book she needs a package manager
As a law student, at first I used a laptop to take notes in class. I had a 14-inch laptop and it wasn't light, especially when you factor in the power cord. I got tired of lugging the thing around.
This was years ago, so light laptops were quite expensive and there were no netbooks. One guy had a Palm and a fold-up keyboard. I thought of getting this but I couldn't justify the expense.
Then I realized I was making this way too complicated. I got a bunch of $2 spiral notebooks and started taking those to class instead. I could write a lot faster on a laptop, but I realized that having page after page of class notes was not really helpful anyway. Without the laptop and all the distractions it brought, I could focus better in class. In the end I was glad I had stopped using the laptop. My bag was a lot lighter too.
I think computers in the classroom could perhaps be helpful, but only if the professor actually takes steps to integrate them--maybe by teaching from materials that are online. Law school instructional methods do nothing to take advantage of laptops, so they just end up being a burden. An iPad is even less functional than a laptop, so I doubt it would be useful in most classrooms. I don't see how medical school would differ from law school in this regard.
Penny - plain text accounting
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369340,00.asp
Steve Jobs is busy selling too many of these to even bother about the education market.
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The price is absurd and honestly that's all schools care about. And why would they want a platform that the vast majority of students don't use at home and aren't familiar with? And good luck finding school IT staff that were trained in Apple technologies. Oh and trainig teachers on new technology is just oh so fun. I'd love to see a history teacher try and troubleshoot a network error on one of them or determine why a student can't send the document they just typed. I've seen listings for that on job sites here stay up for months and months. And kids can't even take care of textbooks let alone giving them some $500 piece of technology and telling them not to break it the entire year. So either the school would go far into the red on the whole project or the parents would get stuck with the bill and, let's me honest, strike that decision down before it's even considered. What? Tuition at my public school went from $50 to $550 this year? Hold on, I've got to make a picket sign real quick. This whole idea is idiotic and I bet Apple actually wrote that article.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/January/10-crt-030.html
"WASHINGTON – The Justice Department today announced separate agreements under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City and Reed College in Portland, Ore., regarding the use in a classroom setting of the electronic book reader, the Kindle DX, a hand-held technological device that simulates the experience of reading a book.
Under the agreements reached today, the universities generally will not purchase, recommend or promote use of the Kindle DX, or any other dedicated electronic book reader, unless the devices are fully accessible to students who are blind and have low vision. The universities agree that if they use dedicated electronic book readers, they will ensure that students with vision disabilities are able to access and acquire the same materials and information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as sighted students with substantially equivalent ease of use. The agreements that the Justice Department reached with these universities extend beyond the Kindle DX to any dedicated electronic reading device."
I've been tasked with writing a feasibility report on using the iPad in the college classroom. For reference, we're a small college (1,300 students). I think the biggest disadvantages are a.)the inability to easily incorporate figures into your typed notes; b.)the lack of wireless printing; and c.)the relative scarcity of e-textbooks. Not having a USB port doesn't bother me, nor does the lack of USB. As of right now, the iPad is more secure in terms of malware and viruses (though I am willing to be wrong, and told I'm wrong, on this point). The fact is, most students don't care about network or personal computer security past making sure their machine works and doesn't get stolen. Removing the USB port removes a virus vector that's been particularly nasty on our campus. Making sure the students get just the apps they need helps the faculty in that the iPad, when used in class, won't be bogged down with distractions. Now, there are a slew of other issues that must be considered (the students are allowed to buy other apps, music and such, will half of these end up in pawn shops in a week, do we have the capability to handle that many wireless connections at once), but there are a lot of advantages to the device.
Seems both American and Australian universities are launching a few trial programs with the iPad; however, yesterday's story seem to spin it that the iPad was taking over schools whereas today's article has a different slant.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Right. Because notebooks, textbooks, projectors, smart boards, et. al. sure didn't take off on campuses.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Edit: Looks like 10k was asked, not given, and the school is classified as a high poverty school...
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Are these campuses also distributing physical keyboards? The iPad is neat and all; with its lickable beauty and whatnot.
But when 'typing' on one there are only two choices (natively): hold it in one hand while finger typing with the other, or lay it down flat and attempt to type while looking at the screen at a 90 degree angle. Either way, a person will eventually develop pain and/or numbness from such awkward movements or positions.
It would work for quick notes, but trying to write a thesis or take detailed notes during a lecture would be problematic. Perhaps these institutions will also provide a keyboard solution. If not (which would be more likely IMO), I wonder if/when colleges that have compulsory iPad usage policies will start getting RTI injury claims and the inevitable litigation proceedings.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I think a lot of folks miss the point of what makes the iPad attractive for organizations. Bottom line; there's little-to-no need for IT support. It is nearly impossible to corrupt or otherwise screw up the OS. If a user gets lost, there's a single button on the faceplate that takes them back 'home'. The functions of the iPad could be replicated by any number of competitors, but as of right now the most compelling aspect of iOS is in its simplicity. Which is a little ironic because most /. readers are going to consider the limited functionality of the OS to be the iPads biggest drawback.
One guy had a Palm and a fold-up keyboard. I thought of getting this but I couldn't justify the expense.
Got through both my studies in Medicine and in Bioinformatics using such setups.
It really, really helped me because, unlike plain paper, Memos on Palm are searchable.
I could write a lot faster on a laptop, but I realized that having page after page of class notes was not really helpful anyway. Without the laptop and all the distractions it brought, I could focus better in class.
Well it all depends on how you take notes : if you're the "write down absolutely everything down", "hands directly wired to the ears, skipping the brain" type of notes, a laptop, a Palm or whatever won't help much more than a voice recorder sitting and recording passively the lecture.
If you take notes, i.e.: take time to digest the content of the lecture, extract key points and write down a few keyword a few sentences that you reworded to your liking, to help you remember the most important stuff - then no matter the support, notes are going to be much more helpful.
Paper notepads helped you because, apparently, you don't scribble as fast as you type. And thus you *have* to write down a condensed version of the lecture material, and thus have you brain active during the process.
Myself, I got used to re-word what's being said from secondary level, and the move to Palm for university wasn't much a change. Except perhaps that quickly drawing figures isn't that easy on a Palm and therefor I had to do even more reprocessing of the information before writing it.
I don't see how medical school would differ from law school in this regard.
There's a huge amount of available applications for PDAs, some dating back as far as the Palm era, with lots of useful information for med students : Drugs databases like "Epocrates", or e-books like "5min Clinical Consults". Carrying arround said information in paper form would require much more pocket space than available on the average trouser.
Also, I don't know how lectures are organised in your law faculty, but the problem-oriented teaching in our med faculty made rather useful to be able to perform a quick keyword search to exatract some notes you took one and a half year ago at another lecture or while reading scientific literature.
Not everyone around me back in med school was doing note-taking directly on the palm as I did, but none the less, lots of them used palm to carry around reference material in a practical form factor.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Basing things on the current iPad price is not realistic. We are very early in the iPad's lifecycle and Apple is probably still pricing things according to the willingness to pay of early adopters. As manufacturing ramps up and the regular public becomes the expected audience there will most likely be models that are far less expensive than we see today.
Also there is the potential for the cost of a tablet to be offset by saving from going to digital textbooks.
As for half the functionality, add a blue tooth keyboard and you get a lot of that missing half back and are not too far from a netbook type device. At least with respect to basic browsing, email, word processing, spreadsheet and presentation functionality. Obviously some majors that have more specialized software demands will need a more traditional desktop/laptop, comp sci, chem, etc.
Its way too early to make predictions as to whether tablets will be a win or a loss for students.
"If there was a tablet that offered the functionality of a laptop, I'd say sure. but college kids, as much as we love the newest gadget, will more often than not chose functionality over form when it boils down to what saves money."
And by watching video's downloaded from TPB/netflix, I was talking about hooking up your computer to a TV. because having 6 people in the same room huddled over a 11 inch screen sucks.
That's why I mentioned the upcoming Android tablets with HDMI outputs.
My brother is a freshmen at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and all students there were given iPads as part of their enrollment (price included in tuition). As to how much it's used in the classroom, who knows, I haven't talked to him much since he got there.
I can get a really decent laptop for what the iPad runs. I'm lugging around a pretty but huge Dell Vostro laptop to class, which makes me drool over the tiny netbooks. They fit on the desks easily and can run more then 2.5 hours without hunting for a power outlet.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Meh. Fox News sucks anyway...
...and here comes my -1 flamebait. i can smell it from a mile away
Just as a replacement for expensive heavy books at the very least
You'd need both a VERY good reader software and for the textbooks to actually be available in ebook form.
As long as one entity is in control of the content being delivered on the platform, you will only get what said entity deems as appropriate. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has been smoking too much of the Apple kool-aid.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Naysayers keep missing a critical point about the iPad: the iPad is NOT a computer/notebook/netbook replacement. It augments.
The iPad is designed as a peripheral to a computer. 'tis obvious it lacks the mass storage, big screen, rapid input, etc. of a full-blown computer - it's not supposed to, so stop harping on that. While it may spend most of its time unconnected, it still relies on a host computer.
Some 20% of what you do with a computer (YMMV) is hardcore computing requiring full keyboard, nuanced/specialized input device, big/multiple screens, mass storage unto terabytes, etc. - stuff which either requires an all-out desktop computer or severe compromises for a notebook. The remaining 80% is lightweight stuff which can be done, and you want to do, anywhere anytime in a superlight package - THAT is what the iPad is for. By breaking out the 80% from the 20%, you no longer have to compromise the 100% into a tiny under-capacity notebook.
Put your textbooks, email, browsing, and suitable lightweight apps on the iPad so you can take info & access everywhere easily. Use the iPad's microphone (! hey naysayers, ya didn't know it had one, eh?) to record the lectures while you focus thereon and Dragon Dictate (or some such) them into editable/searchable text later. Work on assignments whenever/wherever you find a few minutes to. ...and when you need to do "real work", go home, sync up, and do the work on a real computer. [insert notebook-vs-desktop type parody of naysayer rhetoric here]
Stop bashing the iPad for not being what it isn't.
If a product doesn't do everything you want, then - brainstorm! - maybe it's not for you.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
I think that's right: orgs like the perceived (and maybe real, TBD) low support costs relative to all the other platforms available. The novel form factor is just candy. It suggests that a netbook-format ipad/netbook mashup running iOS might be pretty f'ing popular too.
Let's face facts. Most college kids are going to use these iPads to dick around. The college where I taught a course a couple of years back had given MacBooks to all their students. If I wasn't standing over their shoulders they'd be happily chatting away with friends or wasting time on some other site. It was routine to be going over something with them and have a chat window pop up. What was especially ridiculous was that the classroom, like many others around the campus, was equipped with desktops so there was no real need for these laptops. But it certainly was more convenient that they worked on their own machines.
I suppose in retrospect I could have demanded they close chat programs and browsers. But then, we're talking about a university class here. If I wanted to babysit a bunch of children I'd go teach in an elementary school. And if you're teaching a class with upwards of 20 or 30 students what do you do then? You could demand they keep the computers turned off, but then the school provided the damn things.
It would be nice to see universities expend this much effort on controlling costs. Why the hell is a college education so damn expensive anyway? The professors I've encountered seem to have a carefree attitude towards spending, something I had never experienced in the corporate world. What incentive do they have to care when there's a steady stream of income? They can endlessly raise tuition and nobody seems to care.
I'm not quite sure why you seem to think we don't.
We have many iPads at the UW. We also have Kindles and netbooks.
They all work. They're all in use in classes.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Accessibility accommodations for all those materials are well known and currently in use. Try running a touch-screen device with a blindfold on sometime.
My friend Debbie Ann is so promiscuous, instead of an appointment book she needs a package manager
and can't find the damn power button. What good is a pad if you can't turn it on?
Naysayers of the iPad miss the point? Huh, here I thought that all the hype about desktop, laptops and netbooks being killed off by iPads was created by Apple fans.
A small sample:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9175600/The_iPad_is_the_future_for_home_computing
http://gizmodo.com/5506692/ipad-is-the-future
http://www.macworld.com/article/146038/2010/01/ipad_future_shock.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/ipad-future/
http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/27/ipad/
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Here's another school requesting $50,000 to buy 81 iPads on Pepsi's "Refresh Everything" site. And so far there's a good chance they might get it. What a waste.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
But seriously, if anyone has followed anything with the iPad and who is using them for what, it seems at least on the surface that people are using it as a light front end to a large back end. Colleges tend to have pre-existing large back ends, and it would seem somewhat natural that colleges might look at enterprises and what they're doing with the iPad and going "Hmmm, we could do that too."
Also, you seem to presume that such a scenario will fit for all. I never remotely indicated that, and I qualified my whole argument. So, back at you.
Accessibility accommodations for all those materials are well known and currently in use.
Really? So, how exactly does a blind person read the handwritten scrawl in my notebook? Half the time, I can't even read my own handwriting, so I'm not sure how somebody else, sighted or not, would be able to.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I got one this week for my college classes. I am not short on money, but I do have a near 2 mile walk from the inter-city bus stop to campus. That means I'd prefer to buy an expensive toy and load my textbooks, which all require online access now anyways, on the tiny device, than carry my biz law, and accounting books.
So far, I use pen and paper to take notes, but have had no problems using the device to look up pages in my textbooks, or even take online quizzes. It also entertains me in my downtime between classes. For me, it works well.
Great idea in theory, but:
Dragon isn't exactly cheap
Cheap/free alternatives suck
Dragon itself isn't that great
To make Dragon effective, you need to train it to your voice. Good luck getting your professor to spend an hour training your ipad. Although it would probably be possible for him to do it once and then share the resultant file with other users. If Dragon ran on the iPad, which I doubt.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Really? So this might be a case where, say, a resistive screen option with, you know, pressure sensitivity levels and an accurate stylus might actually be a good thing and not the Work of the Devil as Steve Jobs and his acolytes have painted it.
Da Blog
How much IT support do pen and paper need?
What?? I thought that 2011 will be the year of the Linux!
Hopefully as soon as possible.
I teach computer programming. I do all grading, program compiling/testing, etc with my iPad. By doing so anywhere anytime I can teach an additional class and thus the device has already paid for itself.
Why an iPad plus computer instead of notebook? Because the notebook is a limited compromise as well: you can't cram a dual monitor quad core multi terabyte computer into a 3-pound clamshell.
Some of us are willing and able to pay more for greater flexibility, and the iPad+desktop does so. If you don't want to or can't, fine - but quit bashing those who choose otherwise.
Sure you can get a netbook for half the price of an iPad - but then you'd have to use it.
Although by far the best "hack" (yes he had to manipulate it to make it do this) was Maple on an iPad. {...} (yes I am still trying to figure out how the hell he got java...ah whatever)
given that most campuses feature a good network connexion, very probably these softwares were running on a remote machine with more hardware oomph for the task, and was displayed using some VNC client (there are ipad VNC client, aren't there ? At least that's what we were doing back in the PalmOS era) and thus uses the ipad as a glorified thin client.
BTW that is also one of the proposed solutions for Flash on ipad, and was also proposed for playing big games on small portable hardware (Crysis on a NetBook). Except over the internet instead of the uni local net. (and thus more risks of latency problems).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]