AppleInsider Staff
The Maine Department of Education is working with Apple to give some schools the option of trading in classroom-based iPads for new MacBooks at no cost, as teachers have found the tablets "provide no educational function in the classroom."
The findings come after an extensive survey of students and teachers in grades 7 through 12, according to the Lewiston Sun Journal. Some 89 percent of teachers and 74 percent of students said that laptops would be a better choice.
Teachers complained that students were using the iPads as game consoles, with one going so far as to call the rollout "a disaster." Others said that basic tasks like word processing were too difficult.
iPads "provide no educational function in the classroom," one teacher said in response to the survey. "Students use them as toys."
To help facilitate the switch — called a "Refresh" — Apple has agreed to lower the lease payments for its laptops. For the 2016-2017 academic year the computers will cost just $217 per student, increasing to $248 per student per year after that.
Pricing previously sat at $273 per student, which is above the state's $254 per student reimbursement level. That pushed schools toward lower-cost iPads, apparently at the expense of usability.
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60 Comments
Not totally surprising. The iPad, while nice, isn't something I'd want to use long-term in a classroom setting. I need a full wordprocessor, spreadsheet among other things and for that my MacBook Air is vastly better for me.
The iPad is just a tool. It's not Apple's fault if the Maine schools didn't have a plan for their effective use. Shouldn't they iPads have been secured sufficiently to prevent students from installing games?
Say, I've got a hammer to return to the hardware store because it doesn't serve any function in my home. Obviously it's a faulty hammer.
I agree. For students, a laptop is a far better choice than a tablet. Even as good as a tablet an iPad is, it simply cannot do what a student needs to get the job done.
When studying using a computer to do research, one needs to multitask between different apps - e.g. a word processor, a web browser, a data-storage/note-taking app, and others. You also have to store files and organize them. This multitasking is not easily done on an iPad. It doesn't have windows for apps you can easily switch back and forth. It doesn't give you access to a file system.
For anything other than drawing, a laptop is far superior to and far more versatile than a tablet.
For teaching computer science, an iPad is worthless since you cannot program on it like a Mac. And computer science is a necessary skill these days.
I have had two kids issued iPads by two different schools. Neither was an effective learning tool. The only benefits I saw were: (1) fewer books for the kids to carry around and (2) marketing ploy for the schools (both private).
When my kids had to do real work they had to switch to a full computer.