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Microsoft Losing the School Markets To iPads and Chromebooks
dkatana writes Microsoft's licensing scheme, the high cost of support and difficult management of devices are the key factors making schools drop Windows for better alternatives as iPads and Chromebooks. Google is making a dent in the education market with Chromebooks. The internet giant has been promoting the use of Chrome OS with specific tools for schools to manage the devices, their apps and users. Its Chromebooks for Education program is helping schools deploy large numbers of devices with an easy management system. While Google is successful with Chromebooks as school laptops the clear winner on tablets is Apple. iPads are a the preferred platform for schools deploying tablets as digital learning devices.
Here here. I'm not a fan of either MS or Apple but I'm even less of a fan computers in the classroom. Computers do have their place for research and writing papers but I just don't think they need to be used every day in the classroom.
Now I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I still haven't seen conclusive evidence that they make learning any easier or better.
But that's only my 2 cents.
I've seen studies that have shown that they interfere with learning, but none that showed they improved learning.
Warning, anecdotal evidence ahead:
I regularly volunteer at my kids school, and have worked with their "special needs" kids, including several autistic students. These are kids that have difficulty with human interaction, and don't do well in a regular classroom. But they seem to interact well with tablets, and there are some apps that are specifically tailored to autistic kids. So tablets do seem to have a niche. But for "normal" kids, I agree that tablets are a distraction and a waste of resources.
Schools pay less than corporate customers; but (at least when I was doing IT for a school district) there was still a significant gap between 'less than corporate' and 'what our budget could absorb without pain'.
Yes, for certain consumer/BYOD scenarios, on rather crippled devices, MS has succumbed to the inevitable and cut prices to the bone. However, if you still want things like 'laptops with keyboards' or 'Active Directory for credentials handling and some semblance of management', it's a punch in the wallet. More so if you go for a full Office/Exchange setup, and if you need to go into System Center, or a third party equivalent (Altiris used to kick ass; but Symantec purchased it and has been ruining it lately) for imaging and more robust control than pure AD.
MS doesn't have the pricing power of Big Blue in the Days of Yore; but even with educational discounts it adds up uncomfortably fast.
Chromebooks are, admittedly, rather limited; but chromeOS + Apps for Education can do credentials, a fair amount of configuration, and get students typing away impressively quickly and cheaply compared to the alternatives. There are things you simply can't do, full stop; but within their scope those things are damned efficient.
iPads are slick, and have all the 'apps' and iBook-only textbooks and similar stuff; but management might as well have been designed to remind you that Apple hates enterprise and institutional customers. They aren't as bad as they used to be; but even with a full MDM setup, it's a massive pain in the ass(Though, while chromeOS is absurdly better, Android is even worse).
Actual OSX devices are much better behaved, as are Windows systems with enough licenses in place for a full AD setup; but the hardware is either more expensive or less portable and doesn't offer the exciting finger-painting action that users crave for some stupid reason.
I'll weigh in on two different thoughts.
First thought: iPads vs. Chromebooks vs. Microsoft. At a recent technology director's conference, there's nothing but moaning & groaning about managing iPads. It's four year's running now, and Apple just does not get Enterprise management. No central management of Apple IDs, App management is terrible (Apple Configurator is lousy, buggy, and doesn't push apps, and 3rd party management tools keep breaking w/ every new version of iOS), the list keeps going on. And there's nothing but good things being said about Chromebooks. Affordable, simple, easy enterprise management, no more need for file servers...the only criticism is that they eat bandwidth. And Microsoft? Yesterday's news.
Second thought: regarding the criticisms about 1-1 and flooding schools with digital devices. I in much part agree that there's not a direct -need- for student digital devices. But digital devices do enhance learning by providing greater opportunities to communicate, manage classroom content digitally and make it accessible outside school, create video lessons and "flip" the classroom, and provide formative assessments (i.e. frequent quizzing that is used to guide instruction & provide mnemonic enhancement) that have been proven to be a very effective learning tool. But these are all -instructional- changes that need to start and continue with the teacher. It's foolish for a district to follow a blind "build-it-and-they-will-come" strategy of flooding a school with digital devices and utterly failing at supporting instructional changes. If districts aren't willing to provide both continual funding for a 1-1 program as well as instructional support to teachers, then they're wasting their money. But we all need to recognize that schools are responsible for teaching students how to effectively use the internet in the pursuit of knowledge. The internet is the new information paradigm of our society, making it a necessary part of the curriculum.
Economics fail: analysis of probabilistic expenses need to factor in the probability of occurrence. Expected cost = (multi-thousand dollars in medical costs) * (near-zero odds of such an accident occurring) $600. And don't forget the alternate risks of mugging you're subjecting children to by having them carry around a $600 thief-magnet rather than some books nobody wants.
And your use case may sound good, but we all know what will usually happen is that most students will spend their time chatting online, playing video games, etc. and get less out of the experience than if they had no supplies at all. And what's wrong with carrying a paper and pencil and an applicable textbook? Much cheaper when inevitably lost or destroyed, and they'll even get a bit more exercise in the bargain, and lord only knows they probably need it.
There may be a niche for integrating computers computers into general education for normal children, but it would probably have to be a purpose-built machine: everything I've seen to date is worse than useless for the purpose.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Chromebooks ... There are things you simply can't do, full stop
As a school oriented laptop that is probably a plus. Email, browser, google docs, ... plus the education focused classroom stuff ... that sounds highly capable. Being "locked down" doesn't seem like a negative here, probably solves more problems than it creates.
Having worked for a school district, I can tell you that licensing was a major issue but, not for the reasons that most people think. It has nothing to do with cost even though the licenses were pricy. The problem was the technical solutions that Microsoft instituted to try and enforce their licensing that was the issue. We either had to do limited activation licences that were use and loose which is a major problem when you're doing network imaging as you burn through the licences like they're tissue paper or you had to run clunky and unreliable "activation servers" with severe technical limitations and were even more problematic with people with laptops. In the end, we had to do a hybrid solution on both methods to try and keep our copies of Windows and Office activated and even then it wasn't 100% effective. We were looking for ANY alternative to this nightmare that we could make work; even if it wasn't ideal.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
well if you don't want them stealing your kids iPad, buy them Microsoft Surfaces instead. Problem solved.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!