California university providing iPad Air bundle for 35,000 students

Up to 35,000 first-year and transfer students in the California State University school system will receive an iPad Air bundle to use throughout the entirety of their undergraduate program.

The new program, dubbed CSUESS (which stands for California State University Connectivity Contributing to Equity and Student Success,) is designed to create more equitable conditions and opportunities for students at CSU.

The university points out that half of all CSU undergrads receive Pell Grants — grants that are awarded to students who display "exceptional need" — and nearly a full third are the first in their family to pursue a bachelor's degree.

"CSUCCESS will assure that students have immediate access to innovative, new mobile tools they need to support their learning, particularly when faced with the lingering effects of the pandemic," said CSU Chancellor Joseph I. Castro. "The new initiative will establish a foundation for their achievement and has the potential to play a key role in eliminating stubborn equity gaps among our talented and diverse students. In addition to truly addressing equity and access, we see iPad Air as a powerful tool to prepare our students for their future careers."

Apple's Vice President of Education and Enterprise Marketing, Susan Prescott, spoke on the news of the initiative as well.

"At Apple, we believe that education is a powerful force for equity and opportunity, and that technology can empower all students to achieve their goals," she said. "We're thrilled that iPad Air and the incredible education apps in the App Store will be central to the experience at CSU campuses across California, and will play a part in the learning and career development of students from Humboldt to San Marcos."

Students who register for the initiative will receive an iPad Air, Apple Pencil, and a Smart Keyboard Folio. Students must be first-year students or transfer students coming to one of CSU's eight campuses.

In 2020, Apple highlighted how the iPad can help students of all ages overcome educational challenges. The tech giant showcased a school that used the iPad to teach eighth-graders how to tend to the school's community garden.

School staff in West Virginia recently convinced the Berkeley Board of Education to begin the switch from school-supplied Chromebooks to iPads. The board unanimously voted to provide the school system with 180 iPads distributed to teachers as part of a pilot program.

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12 Comments

lkrupp

said about 2 years ago

We have been told by critics and analysts that Apple has lost its mojo in the educational market. Chromebooks are the go-to choice for schools now. So what’s up with this story? There’s another story mentioned here about a school district switching from Chromebooks to iPads.

I remember the good old days when parents would demand their school district buy Windows computers so their kids would learn how to use a REAL computer, one they would use in real life work. When my oldest son entered the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana the engineering lab was exclusively Macs running Mathematica. That must have been a shock to those parents and their kids.

prismatics

said about 2 years ago

I found the iPad to be useless for study except for very certain specific apps, but I frequently needed a desktop computer along the way. Maybe other study subjects are more suitable to be "consumed" on an iPad, but engineering/computer science is definitely not one of them...

iPad is not a real computer, it is unsuitable for general purpose computing. A windows computer or macOS computer is; However the decreasing quality of scientific applications on macOS or simply that they don't exist for macOS above 11.0 seems to discourage usage of macOS for study of engineering subjects at the place I am working at it seems. The Silicon transition leaves this field of computation completely behind, leaving Windows or Linux-based distributions the only choice.

But iPad is brilliant for content consumption in the evening or simple relaxation while passively watching a lecture.

amar99

said about 2 years ago

If by "equity" they meant a mediocre experience for all, I'd say they nailed it. And device aside, I don't understand how education has sunk so low as to teach things which are tactile, real-world skills, using a digital device. Why not go out into the garden, get your hands dirty, and teach by example? This means the teacher has to actually know something, rather than being a stooge pointing to a device. The idea that they "...teach eighth-graders how to tend to the school's community garden" using an iPad...just sounds sad. Maybe I'm wrong.

dewme

said about 2 years ago

Wow, what a sweet deal. I would have loved to have had this type of tool available to me for undergrad electrical engineering. The iPadOS 15 Quick Note feature along with the Pencil and Smart Keyboard should be very popular. Being able to take snapshots of whiteboards/chalkboards and have the lecture notes, reference material, and textbooks available in electronic format rather than trying to write stuff down during lectures would be totally awesome. Having access to all manner of calculators, scientific, business, graphing and conversion tools, drawing tools, Microsoft Excel, Word, Pages, etc., ... definitely a huge improvement over what we had back in the olden days.

rob53

said about 2 years ago

amar99 said:

If by "equity" they meant a mediocre experience for all, I'd say they nailed it. And device aside, I don't understand how education has sunk so low as to teach things which are tactile, real-world skills, using a digital device. Why not go out into the garden, get your hands dirty, and teach by example? This means the teacher has to actually know something, rather than being a stooge pointing to a device. The idea that they "...teach eighth-graders how to tend to the school's community garden" using an iPad...just sounds sad. Maybe I'm wrong.

We're talking about college, not grade school. The assumption, which is usually wrong, is that most of your actual education has already occurred in K-12 with college being where you focus on "higher education." For me, this was true. College wasn't much more than regurgitating what I already learned in HS, including suing the same physics textbook. I did learn new things in my major but the rest was worthless. I went to college in the early 70's but at least back then there were technical classes beyond science ones. Now, I believe almost everything is non-technical, focusing on MBAs, legal degrees and things that really only need access to existing information, which can be found on-line. This doesn't include most science programs although many of those also have on-line resources that don't require local computing power. Even AutoCAD has web-based access and every single business program has web access to every database you want to learn about.

Your comment about "teaching by example" started to go away when I attended college. I learned how to set type using an old Linotype machine along with hand-setting type. My computer class required a card-punching typewriter. Neither of these are in use or even available anything in high schools much less colleges. I felt I was born either 20 years early or 20 years late because I went through the hell of staring with old technology and having to learn on the job all the new publishing technologies. Forty years of constant change blew my mind and nothing I did in K-12 and college really helped me get through those forty years, except reading, writing, and of course the other "R" arithmetic (stupid person who came up with the three R's who couldn't spell).

Fast forward to 2021 and it doesn't really matter what tablet or fake computer you have, almost everything can be taught using on-line resources. This also means students don't have to purchase over-priced, professor-written, worthless textbooks you can't resell. For those people who want to be artists (open your mind to what an artist actually is), college isn't always the place to go. In fact, it was a waste of money for me, my parents, and the scholarships I received because the year I got out, I started working on electronic publication systems (this was prior to Macs and PCs), fixing the hardware, then managing a large scale in-house system that nobody in high school or college even dreamed about. What really makes me mad is kids are still pushed to waste money on college when the piece of paper they get doesn't get them a job that will pay off their college expenses. I actually think more current high school students are better prepared for the job market now without going to college and just learning on-the-job or taking specific on-line courses for the job they're working at. As for all the college graduates who end up working at food service and similar jobs, college really was a waste.

Time to think differently about so-called higher education.

disclaimer: Of course scientific jobs benefit from higher education as long as the college has lots of money to support their labs.