School Regrets Swapping Laptops For iPads

Barence writes "A school swapped all its staff laptops for iPads — and now wants to switch them back. 'Most staff are IT illiterate and jumped at the chance of exchanging their laptop for an iPad,' a teacher from the school told PC Pro. Now, however: 'the staff room is full of regret.' Difficulties editing old Word and PowerPoint documents, transferring work to and from the device without USB sticks, and problems with projecting the iPad's display to the classroom — bizarrely, using an Apple TV — have led to staff once again reaching for their Windows laptops."

Comments

Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[thammoud]

I love my iPad for reading and viewing stuff. Editing? Not so much. I dread the moment where I have to hover over, click on the right place and edit. Useless.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Spoken like someone who's never tried to write a research paper on a tablet/smartphone.
My wrists cringe at the very thought of having to do such.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[wonkey_monkey]

My handy Transformer does a solid job of editing documents, more so with the keyboard dock.

Isn't there a word for tablets with keyboard docks? ;)

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[immaterial]

I have one friend who is a 5th grade teacher and has been using his iPad in class for two years now, and another friend who has been a dedicated K-8 grade iPad technology manager (ie. he stands somewhere between the regular IT staff and the teachers; managing tech support for the tablets, researching and testing educational apps, coming up with iPad-based lesson plans, and teaching students and - most importantly - teachers how to integrate use of the tablets into lessons and workflows). I'm basing my opinions here on their experiences.

There is no question what an awesome tool the iPad can be for education. The ability to instantly interact with information in such a visceral and responsive way can be very powerful for the students. Touch, physical interaction, and instant feedback are fundamental to kids (and everyone else, but particularly to kids since they haven't mastered abstract thought). Live charts/graphs and other graphical representations can help kids better grasp what the numbers they're looking at are actually doing; the ability to explore and interact with a science "textbook" (not a useful word anymore) so the student can follow where her curiosity leads her is amazing. Etc. Etc.

But as you say, this is mostly reading and viewing; very little heavy editing. Tablets (especially iPads) are not particularly well designed for heavy-duty text editing (basic note taking or numerical input is fine though). Buying a bunch of iPads and attempting to use them as the only tool for the job is just as stupid as buying an awesome chef's knife and then tossing out all your spoons.

Based on my friends' experiences, the biggest roadblock to proper iPad usage is nobody is around to explain things or set things up. Teachers have a million other things to do in class, and often a school administrator decides "this iPad thing looks neat" and dumps the technology on them with no training whatsoever and zero support from IT, and suddenly the teacher has one more thing to try to figure out. Teachers that are already tech savvy (like my first friend) can do great things with them, but most are not. It takes a properly organized program (like my second friend is involved in) to get it working at a school- or district-wide level.

As to the nonsensical complaint about the AppleTV: huh? The article complains they could have done it "much cheaper" for ~$30 rather than the $99 cost of an AppleTV, but that small savings requires teachers to be tethered to a cord at the front of the classroom. The ability for the teacher to walk around the classroom and interact with students while streaming information and interactive results wirelessly to the class's screen is a HUGE advantage that is more than worth $69. The issues mentioned in the article are due to inadequate IT support and training.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[nedlohs]

The topic is content creation for a classroom not "in general". See the subject of your comment? Creating videos isn't what that is usually about.

And sure there might be people using voice recognition and bluetooth keyboard with tablets, but apparently a whole set of users (the article is about them) seem to be having trouble with it.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[PopeRatzo]

There are music creation apps people are using to write songs

I've tried them all. They suck really bad.

Companies that make pro gear for musicians bought into the idea the musicians are going to be using iPads and iPhones on stage and in the past few years came out with a ton of interfaces, apps, mixing consoles with iPad docks, etc. Even Apogee, a stalwart in the high-end AD/DA conversion market, came out with a large diaphragm condenser mic that plugs into an iPhone. It's a piece of shit and the first product produced by Apogee that is a ripoff (I'm a big fan of Apogee and have used their interfaces for years).

They are all being sold at close-out prices, according to my most recent Musicians' Friend catalog.

If you want to say that the iPhone-shot videos on YouTube represent some renaissance in art produced on computers, I think I can present a convincing counter-argument.

Finally, let's see moving forward what the walled garden approach does for art created on Apple products. I'm not optimistic. It's a platform designed for consumption.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus, how desperate are you? Yeah, lots of people upload short, shitty videos to youtube from their phones. If you want to call that "content creation", and lump all phones in with ipads, fine.

Meanwhile, content creation is not moving to mobile in earnest. Very, very few people choose to write anything with them. All other kinds of creation that you can find are done largely as gimmicks. That might change some day, but it hasn't yet.

We have some idea of how these things get used. You're not going to just shout us into submission on the subject.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of setup and training seems to be the big issue here. People seem to think they were getting "cool touch-based laptops," they were getting a Tablet. The IT department didn't think about transferring files and the staff seems to have only used sneaker-net to get files from one device to another (dropbox? box.com? district local network storage?).

It was a poorly implemented mess.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[Anonymous Coward]

And my iPad does a wonderful job of editing .doc documents and .ppt power points in Pages and Keynote. I use a Bluetooth keyboard for anything more than minor edits. AirPlay to a AppleTV connected via HDMI is great for wireless presentations. Dropbox is great for file transfer. The teachers don't need to use USB memory sticks from their home computers on the school network anyways; one less attack vector to worry about. The mistake here wasn't moving to iPad it was getting the teachers tablets without the software or infrastructure to make them work. They didn't have to jailbreak them, but they did have to go a step beyond buying hardware for a new platform and expecting it to work without any transition. It's no different than moving from Windows to a Linux box and then bitching that your antique printers aren't supported, and that you can't run MS proprietary software on it. One doesn't buy a DVD player and complain their VHS tapes won't play on it.

Re:Forget about editing just old Word and PP

[immaterial]

So your recommendation is to save 30 bucks by dragging a 30-foot cable around through a sea of desks and children's feet all day every day? You're kidding, right?

If a school can get the same use out of a cheaper Android tablet as they can out of an iPad, more power to them. The sad fact is that a huge majority of the tablet-based educational software out there right now is iPad-only, and that currently tips the scales in Apple's favor.

What were they expecting?

[Anonymous Coward]

An ipad is a toy. A laptop is a tool. Idiots.

Re:What were they expecting?

[AaronLS]

This speaks to the fact that every time I hear someone wanting an iPad at the workplace, it is accompanied by a big grin. They want a toy. They are not even thinking through how they would accomplish their day to day work with an iPad instead of a desktop/laptop.

Re:What were they expecting?

[Anubis IV]

An ipad is a toy. A laptop is a tool. Idiots.

And as someone at a software consulting company that expanded from offering specialized, one-off Win/Mac applications for multinational engineering firms to also offering specialized iOS apps for those same firms and for many of those same purposes, I cordially disagree with your assertion that the iPad is not a tool. In fact, I'd say that you're very wrong. That said, it is not as general purpose of a tool as a laptop, nor should it be shoehorned into places where it has no business being.

At home, I'm a big fan of Apple products, and I love using my iPad for reading, e-mail, web browsing, and some light gaming, but when people ask me what to get in regards to any piece of technology, my first question is always, "What will you use it for?" It sounds like the person with the purchasing power in this story didn't start with that vital question, instead getting caught up in the hype. The result is a lot of well-deserved backlash from the end users. In plenty of other situations, however, the iPad can indeed be the correct answer for what tool best fits the situation.

The key takeaway should be that you should always use the right tool for the job. For what the teachers were doing here, the iPad sounds like it was not the right tool at all. That's not always true, but it oftentimes is, since the iPad has a specific set of limitations and advantages that make it a poor fit for many existing (particularly text entry) workflows, but make it a great fit for others.

A product is not a solution

[Bogtha]

Difficulties editing old Word and PowerPoint documents, transferring work to and from the device without USB sticks, and problems with projecting the iPad's display to the classroom â" bizarrely, using an Apple TV â" have led to staff once again reaching for their Windows laptops.

The general idea - that you get computer-illiterate staff away from general-purpose computers and onto more appliance-like systems is a good one. More flexibility in the end-users' hands means more difficulties supporting them and more spaghetti work practices.

The problem though, is that it sounds like they thought they could just dump the product on them and their problems would be solved. These people will have had deeply-ingrained workflows that frequently include all manner of hacks and workarounds that have glommed together over the years. If you're going to move them away from that, you need to move their workflows and content too, otherwise they are stuck trying to do the old thing with products that aren't designed for it.

I'm not sure what's so bizarre about using an AppleTV in that way though - it's designed for that purpose and it works great in that kind of situation.

Can Work Needs Planning

[0101000001001010]

iPads in the classroom can be a great tool. But here's the thing. You have to plan for it before adoption.

Projection: AirPlay, HDMI, or VGA?
Documents: KeyNote, Quicktime, PDF; or maybe go to something less prepared and more on the fly. It can be neat to have a blackboard in your hand that projects on the screen.
Storage: Internal cloud, iBooks/iTunes for education where you can create your own courses with files, Moodle.

etc, etc. And only after you've worked these things out, you then beta-test by having a few tech savvy instructors run courses with them. Collect feedback. Discuss. Revise.

For the love of gods, don't just buy a bunch of hardware, hand it to people, and tell them to go educate. How's that supposed to work?

IT Illertate Staff?

[wiegeabo]

So...The staff, a bunch of teachers, are IT illiterate. And, instead of TEACHING them how to actually use a computer, the answer is...to buy them iPads to try and avoid the issue.

No teacher has a right to complain about students not wanting to learn if they're not willing to learn how to use the tools required by their job.

And when are school boards and parents going to learn that throwing fancy new tech at a problem doesn't fix the problem...or even the symptoms of the problem? Changing tech doesn't fix things. Changing PROCESSES fixes things.

And the moral of this story:

[mblase]

Always test a deployment of new hardware within a single department, or smaller group, before implementing it throughout the building.

Restricted FileSystem and No Fine Movement Input

[ad454]

My biggest gripes with my iPad3 as a work device are:

One's fingers does not provide fine movement input like a mouse, touchpad, or fine tip pen/stylus (like the Samsung Note/Note2), which is needed for creating decent graphical design work. (It is far easier to move a mouse, touchpad, or pen/stylus by a single pixel, then my finger.)

Proper unrestricted filesystem that lets you locally share documents easily and securely locally across different applications, without handing over your unencrypted work to untrustworthy 3rd party cloud services. Why could I upload my personal document to Apple's iCloud and download it again, just to open it up in a different app?

And proper cut-and-paste of graphical (non-text) objects between applications. Why can't I click on an image, powerpoint/keynote diagram, etc, and copies these into the clipboard, and then paste into a word/pages document or e-mail message?

Re:Sounds like a training issue..

[graphius]

No, I would say it is a "not looking at the tool in question" issue. Ipads are not a replacement for laptops, especially for the uses the school seems to want.
This seems like jumping on a bandwagon before really thinking about what the new gadgets will be used for.

I would blame the IT department (without reading TFA) who did not explain the limitations of the ipads...

Yeah, I know, so much for my karma....

Re:Let this be a lesson

[vonwilkenstein]

The users of GarageBand would also probably disagree with you as well.

As a user of Garageband, I do not. I can not connect my firewire audio interface to an ipad.

It's a status symbol.

[khasim]

The iPad is GREAT for CONSUMING content.

It suck for GENERATING content.

So anyone with an iPad has more status than anyone who does their work on a laptop (which has more status than someone with a desktop).

And they get to watch movies and stuff on it at home.

Re:when real learning needs to be done

[mikestew]

It wasn't modded down, he has crappy karma and starts at -1.

Re:Sounds like a training issue..

[Spad]

Having been in this situation twice in the last couple of years, I would bet the IT department did explain the limitations of the iPads and were overruled by the teachers who wanted shiny toys they could show off to their friends.

A laptop is a toy. A desktop is a tool.

[Brannon]

A desktop is a toy, a workstation is a tool.
A workstation is a toy, a server is a tool.
A server is a toy, a mainframe is a tool.
A mainframe is a toy, a cluster is a tool.
A cluster is a toy, a supercomputer is a tool.

Idiots.

Re:Why did you tell me that?

[AK Marc]

He got modded down because he whipped out an e-peen to brag about, and didn't sound believable. I don't create content outside my house. Most here probably don't either. So to indicate that because the iPad goes with him, it gets the content created seems strange. Fabricated, even. I create content on one of two laptops. A personal one and an work one. Depending on where I am and where I plan on going, I usually have one or the other (or both) on me. A tablet wouldn't help at all because I don't create on the bus or at the park. I create at my desk at work or my desk at home (or the couch or elsewhere around the house). The tablet gets use for when I'm around the house mainly. It's easier to pack around, but I don't because there's nothing to do with it. I don't stop on random benches with the wish to create for 20 minutes, so it'd stay in my bag all the time anyway.

From the discussions I've seen, that's more in line with the actual use of the devices. They are handy if you go to lots of meetings and wish you had a laptop with you, but don't because the laptop is too unwieldy. But that's not what he was talking about. He was talking about his preference on creating contend on a tablet, rather than laptop. That's not what most people do, so itwill get dismissed as unusual.