LA schools math quiz: $500 Chromebooks or $700 iPads for students? A technology-for-schools deal touted as a huge win for Apple will become a head-to-head competition with arch-rival Google. The web ad giant has won the rights to sell Chromebooks to schools as an alternative to iPads, The LA Times reports, citing the Los Angeles Unified School District. This will turn around what had been a …
That, along with their low cost, will make them much less likely to be stolen than iPads. I wonder what percentage of the school supplied iPads will still be around and in proper working order three years from now? Even if the Chromebooks break easily and must be replaced yearly, they'd still end up cheaper than the list price of the iPad (though I have a feeling Apple would give them a pretty hefty educational discount)
Considering both an iPad and Chromebook require net connectivity to be complete, other than the keyboard replacing the touchscreen, how are they really different? A dumb terminal is still a dumb terminal regardless of the UI. They both offer web and email access as well as some form of OaaS (office as a service) and media playing ability. The apps are about even (no, it really doesn't matter if one platform has 10 times as many fart apps since the functionality is fairly equal) so really it's little more than price, form factor and UI.
I have a toshiba NB 200 NetBook, I considered buying a chromebook but to save beer vouchers I decided to buy an extra gig of ram + SSD for the old Tosh. Added Mint XFCE edition and chromium. This is now my go too carry on. Unlike my mk 1 iPad the browser don't crash and I can upgrade to a later OS. Give me a chromebook over an IPad anyday. I also read somewhere that a computer lab of twenty five or so kids can share one mac pro from chromebooks with special software at a one off cost per seat of a few bucks. How much does 25 MacBooks cost eh??
Yeah, I mean what school would want a machine that costs a fraction of the price of an iPad, a battery that lasts the whole school day, no need for servers or licensing, can be locked down, if it breaks can be swapped for another and you carry on where you left off, does not get viruses, does not need backing up.....? :-)
Chromebooks are revolutionising education...
"At the time of this reply, and going by upvotes/downvotes, 13 would whereas you are the only one who wouldn't."
Make that two who would not ever, ever, go for a chromebook. Heck I have a work-supplied Windows RT tablet that I could probably do *most* of my work on, but I still take my own Atom based baby ultralight because it does *all* that I want (with a few disadvantages that I can live with, namely battery life and weight).
Friends don't let friends use Chromebooks.
Does the money come out of their budget, or out of some district-wide fund? I imagine the choice will be different depending on that answer. In fact, if it comes out of their own budget most schools would choose to give them neither, but the district will mandate whatever it wants and the schools have to go along with it whether they actually have software/lesson plans for the iPad (let alone the Chromebook)
I understand that it's the school's budget but that even iPads were considered justified because the third alternative is textbooks, which are even more expensive. California, like the other states I'm aware of, requires that textbooks be approved before schools can purchase them, which creates something of a captive audience for the publishers and gives them significant extra costs to defray (especially in terms of risk).
Which seems to be similar to the process for hardware but I guess the fact that Chromebooks and iPads have a huge external audience limits price jacking.
"and Blackboards and chalk??"
Blackboards and chalk were phased out decades ago due to ongoing concernes with respatory issues due to the chalk dust inhilation.
Today they're using whiteboard markers - getting high on the solvents. See? We've progressed since then.
The district should consider giving the students raspberry pi's. Not only are they 1/3 - 1/4 the price of the Chromebook and less than 5% of the price of an iPad, but they'll also be using a real computer with powerful software, no vendor lock-in, and unlimited potential. In other words, it's a device that allows them to learn how a computer actually works, compared to both the chromebook and the ipad which can give only a superficial understanding of how a computer works. Plus they're practically disposable!
I know it's a hopelessly lost cause and this comment is a total waste of time but a man can dream!
"The district should consider giving the students raspberry pi's."
I see where you're coming from.
But you forgot to factor in the cost of the screen, keyboard, mouse, PSU, SD card, case and lack of portability. Oh, and double up on the keyboards, mice and PSUs so the kids can use it home (assume they all have an HDMI TV they can use too or supply another screen for home use?)
> But you forgot to factor in the cost of...
Still a lot cheaper than a tablet.
But not as cheap as textbooks, which could be re-used year after year and kept in a library. Not only that, but you can open them and see two sides of A4 at one time and the DPI is great.
Maybe you could approach a teacher or university lecturer and offer them 400k to write a book for you which you then own. Put it into epub and kindle formats as well as printing them, and maybe put them on a wiki open to academics and viewable by all.
Stop forcing up the cost of education with unnecessary, expensive and fragile gadgets.
Would be nice but LAUSD is looking for a more drop in and be done with it portable solution. Also something that garners favor with the vendors I'm sure.
I was annoyed when I first heard about the ipad deployment since it was essentially no-bid, 2nd when in the trial run the students "hacked" the devices by deleting the MDM profiles so they could browse facebook and install apps.
-Annoyed Los Angeles resident.
Maybe something Raspberry Pi-based, but not a bare Raspberry Pi.
Reasons:
- no screen or keyboard (thus no portability)
- electrostatically sensitive
- fragile (pins/connectors could get damaged)
A Raspberry Pi in a suitable case with battery, screen, keyboard, touchpad and a breadboard area where students could connect components to (electrically) protected pins could work and would be a good learning tool, however even then I can't help but think the Chromebook is a better option for about 90% of the classroom work they'd do.
1. It's not to teach pupils about computing. It's to provide a tool to dispaly text books, do internet seraches, read and write as with pen and paper (well, type, sadly). i.e. a general tool.
2. Software and compatibility with other computers: What software is available that is comprehensive and is compatible with existing systems and does not require complete retraining of teachers and pupils?
Your approach is to assume that using paper and pencil required knowledge of the paper manufacturing, graphite/lead mining and forestry industries.
Get with it. Agree or not (I have very strong reservations), such computing equipment is the modern pencil, paper, text book and library, plus calculator and homework submitter.
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Nice idea if it were all about price, but the fact they were prepared to pay for iPads shows that initial price is only one factor. I'd suggest ongoing support, maintenance and 'managing' costs/issues are pretty relevant and the Chromebook (to a lesser extent also the iPad) beats a Windows machine hands down in that regard.
If you do Windows-based technical support for your family, extrapolate that experience into a school population and you may reconsider :)
My secondary school still used a BBC Micro during chemistry lessons as they had a range of programs that went with the sensors they had. Have the googleboxes the ability to be hooked up to sensors, store data for over twenty years and still be working? Plus we did our programming on 286's running DOS 3.3 . *sigh* The days before PHB.
okay..Chromebook is cheaper...but does that matter if the Apps that are required for the education are not available for it? yes, web browser. tick. yes all the usual document/spreadsheet stuff but the educational apps and bespoke image/sound stuff etc? THAT is surely what you look at?
You may be right, I'm no expert on these edumacation thingies.
It does strike me as possible, though, that given how asset-heavy and comparatively logic-light a textbook-style app is there should be a reasonably straightforward route to a web-based app or an offering via a publisher portal (I speak as a web/app developer) if there were a sufficient market to bear the costs?
I'd say whatever exists on one platform, it's probably easy to port it to the other one. I don't think educational apps are that demanding, for all the fluff they contain.
That said, it's not the first time a school buys a chromebook. Publishers probably exist already.
Surely there is no need to go through a costly evaluation and procurement process when there is already a computer designed in America for children? It's produced by the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) organisation and, looking at the images of it here, I can't imagine for a moment why it is not being adopted.
More to the point, OLPC is designed ground-up for education, in areas where Internet connectivity and mains power is flakey to non-existent. The machines themselves are highly ruggedised, with user replaceable parts, come with a large suite of applications for learning and can be expanded for teaching purposes.
This surely would make it an ideal choice.
In fact, it is the project that gave the world the netbook: the Asus Eee is a beefed up version of what they developed as a candidate for the OLPC project, when something different was chosen for the XO, they decided to up the RAM and CPU a little bit and release it as a commercial product.
Arguably, this makes them the ancestor to the ChromeBook and the iPad.
Apple has always "cut a deal" with schools for the simple reason: it's very effective advertising. Back in the early days, there were PC's in schools but not for student use. The kids got to use the Apples. The same kids who have grown up and now buy iStuff and spec out iStuff. Maybe they're throwing in a pile of support and apps?
Microsoft has always done exactly the same - offering schools Office licences for next to nothing, because if students are experienced in office and textbooks written for it, there will be a steady stream of people entering the workplace who prefer using it. It's just good business sense.
Google hasn't done this so much, but only because they didn't really have any products schools would want until they chromebook was introduced.
I work at a school. This is the procurment process:
1. A list of vendors is made.
2. A report is comissioned into the comparative merits and disadvantages of each.
3. The head skims the report, but decides that the school would look inferior if they went for a cheap option.
4. iPads sit in cupboards because no teacher can think of a use for them that couldn't be done better by an old-fashioned textbook, workbook and pen.
and in this article - point 3 - which I've seen elsewhere, echoes what most schools who have tried both find,: that the Chrome way is more collaborateive and easier to generate content.
https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-06-30-3-reasons-why-chromebook-beats-ipad-in-1-1-programs
disclaimer: I am a chair of governors at a primary (us. elementary) shcool and the previous Head bought iPad devices and I don't think they've been used for 8 months. I found myself doing the research on this subject after the event. I'm convinced that we should have gone Chrome.
Ever used a Chromebook for anything remotely serious? Ever used a "web application"? The sheer frustration of the inevitable network delays, the universal disaster through a minor admin. error ....
Anyway, computers in schools, of any sort, are grossly overestimated. It is most important that children learn to use the basics, producing and assessing without help - understanding calculations and the production of grammatically and semantically correct prose without the aid of calculators, spelling and grammar correctors. Too many can happily bash "2 + 2" into a machine, watch 3.3 come out and not spot that this is unlikely and check what they typed or even if the machine is correct.
The trick is not to learn how to build a computer. The trick is to understand the job the computer is taking out of your hands and develop a feel for what one is doing. Anything else is to be a slave of the machine.
@David Thanks for the link, it pretty much sums up the argument.
1. Use what you can get your hands on, it is better than nothing
2. iPads are not good for standard curriculum content creation
3. love them or hate them, google has the best web platform, though in your schools case the age restrictions need to be looked at for any public web service.
If you want a solution for the iPads at your school which does not involve anyone having to do extra work(which is normally the problem with any computer based project in schools IMHO) I have seen good results from groups of students using them to create video reports on subject matter, reports on historical buildings, local geology/geography that sort of thing, video essays can also replace some written work, the students seem to get really involved and the social interaction is good.
The other reason I have seen for iPads sitting in cupboards is they are viewed as high value(true) and nobody wants to take responsibility for them getting damaged/stolen. But that is just a risk that needs to be taken, they are worth sod all sitting in the cupboard :-) This is also a good argument for chrome books they are cheaper by a lot.
I've just deployed 150 iPads to one school, and all the staff have had them for the last year. The staff use them lots, and we know exactly what they want the iPads for.
This news is good though, keeps Apple on their toes, I'm all for competition, it should make the iPad an even better device, i love mine.
The software looks to be around $300 per student. That seems excessive given the huge number of students involved.
Maybe LAUSD should get some of their teachers to write courseware...it would be cheaper by far and also more useful. Of course, they could partner with other school districts that are doing this and save even more! And they could sell on the courses and create a good revenue stream to offset the cost!
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