L.A. School District's 30,000 iPads May Come With Free Lock-In 232
lpress writes "The Los Angeles Unified School District will spend $30 million over the next two years on iPads for 30,000 students. Coverage of the announcement has focused on Apple winning over other tablets, but that is not the key point. The top three proposals each included an app to deliver Pearson's K-12 Common Core System of Courses along with other third-party educational apps. The Common Core curriculum is not yet established, but many states are committed to it, starting next year. The new tablets and the new commitment to the Common Core curriculum will arrive around the same time, and busy faculty (and those hired to train them) will adopt the Pearson material. The tablets will be obsolete in a few years and the hardware platform may change, but lock-in to Pearson's default curriculum may last for generations."
Re:Crippled crap... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeap, also a nice little monoculture for Apple to exploit too, next up government subsidies for Apple directly, have they found oil somewhere. Meet the new MS of old, just twice as nasty.
Re:#1 reason this is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
what the fuck are you talking about?
Designed for entertainment?
Have you even used a tablet before? iBooks has educational content, the iPad has a lot of text editors and word processors. I've written many screeds on /. ON an iPad.
The thing about iPads in non-consumer contexts is that large entities like businesses, schools and NGOs can restrict what apps go on these devices and if you get the extra enterprise deployment gear, you actually CAN side load custom software on them.
Stop smoking crack. It's bad for you.
Re:wait what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Read TFA. Of that $1000, $678 covers the iPad, the educational software, a case, a three year warranty, and free replacements from Apple for lost, stolen or broken units. The rest seems to be for setup, training and support. TCO is always going to be higher than the initial hardware cost, and this seems like a pretty good deal for what they're getting.
Of course, in your infinite wisdom, I'm sure you'd just buy a shipping container full of $100 Chinese tablets, drop it on the school district's doorstep and say "You're all set!"
Re:Crippled crap... (Score:5, Interesting)
This line of thinking is some of the absolute DUMBEST bullshit still floating around on the internet.
Only if you're a big Apple fanboy, as you're known to be, but let me give your arguments a fair shake anyway, despite your foulmouthed rant.
Pull your head out of your ass and recognize that iPads are used in a LOT of industries as incredibly viable tools that increase productivity.
Erm like what? Bonus points if those tasks cannot be performed on a PC, laptop or Android tablet. Further, as I said it's good for grandmas and other folks, just not kids.
Furthermore, do you think, maybe, possibly, some of these kids might get excited about programming and decide, just possibly, to learn more about programming for iOS because of the iPads.
You mean like this? http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2010/05/programming-language-for-kids-banned-from-apple-app-store118 [pbs.org]
Ok lets see what a kid wanting to program on iOS needs to do.
1) Needs a relatively expensive Mac to even start. What chance is there that parents are going to buy one(if they don't have one) just because little Jimmy may want to dip their feet in programming, which may finally end up in nothing? Pretty close to zero. The cheapest Mac starts at $599 for a weak device on which Xcode lags.
2) Needs an Apple developer ID for which they need to be atleast 13 years ago and $99/yr subscription to test apps on their iOS device. Fat chance that many parents are going to get those for a kid who are known to get bored pretty quick.
You know, sorta like how all the old time geeks learned programming because of their piece of crap computers at their schools.
Seriously, pull your head out of your ass.
Steps taken by old time geeks:
1) Install any one of the hundred IDEs and/or runtimes and start typing.
Who has their "head up their ass" posting "dumbest bullshit" just because they outright worship a company?
Oh, I forgot there is no use arguing with folks like you because:
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-a-religion-neuroscientists-find-it-triggers-the-same-reaction-in-your-brain-2011-5 [businessinsider.com]