Ipads for school.

beauf

I don't know exactly but something around 700 was mentioned to me, perhaps that's incorrect. I'm struggling to find details online.

Paying it off via Credit Union actually makes it more expensive (interest I assume).,

BailMeOut

I'd be furious if my kids school insisted on Apple devices. It should not matter if you want to buy Andoid or Apple and the school's choice on apps should require that the app is available on both platforms.

gctest50

dashcamdanny wrote: »

I truly think that there is no need to be going for the high end market on this. Which Apple is.

No consideration for parents . Just make them buy it. Same every year .. As long as Fallon are making millions

I wonder if the children in the UK even had to buy their Ipads for schools. Or the software. I doubt it.

Comes out of the council tax in the UK maybe ?

about 1500 euro a year kind of thing

a council could do a lot with 28 euro per house a week

Blaenau Gwent is the most expensive area where the annual fee stands at £1,695

Pembrokeshire has the lowest rates at £1,071


http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-35911630





Council Tax is a tax on domestic property collected by your local council. The council use it to pay for local services such as schools, rubbish collection, roads and street lighting.

sadie06

BailMeOut wrote: »

I'd be furious if my kids school insisted on Apple devices. It should not matter if you want to buy Andoid or Apple and the school's choice on apps should require that the app is available on both platforms.

Yes but the parents of children attending this school knew this before applying for the a place in the school. It is a new school.

The cost is roughly €700, which gets you the device, the books, the set-up, a one off workshop for kids and a separate one for parents, 3 years insurance and 3 years of tech support (reportedly very rapid and responsive) and a bulletproof case that they claim has eliminated breakages.

After the Junior Cert, you pay for a new batch of e-books, insurance and tech support to get you through to LC.

It's an awful lot of money, no doubt!

beauf

With the catchment policies parent often have no choice of what school a child is going to.

gctest50

sadie06 wrote: »

Yes but the parents of children attending this school knew this before applying for the a place in the school. It is a new school.

The cost is roughly €700, which gets you the device, the books, the set-up, a one off workshop for kids and a separate one for parents, 3 years insurance and 3 years of tech support (reportedly very rapid and responsive) and a bulletproof case that they claim has eliminated breakages.

After the Junior Cert, you pay for a new batch of e-books, insurance and tech support to get you through to LC.

It's an awful lot of money, no doubt!

What would the cost of books be ? about €30 ---> €40 each ?

sadie06

beauf wrote: »

With the catchment policies parent often have no choice of what school a child is going to.

Thankfully in the Naas area there is choice and flexibility at the moment, although schools are expected to come under a lot of pressure in the coming years.

That being said, out of the three mixed schools two now use iPads and the other one is a Gaelcholáiste, so unless your child went to a Gael Scoil you are looking at a single sex school for traditional learning methods.

gctest50

and you don't end up with this :





that just can't be good

beauf

I never understood why they make kids carry a tone of books to use maybe 20 pages during the school day.

jimmycrackcorm

BailMeOut wrote:

I'd be furious if my kids school insisted on Apple devices. It should not matter if you want to buy Andoid or Apple and the school's choice on apps should require that the app is available on both platforms.

Really it comes down to the availability of the apps for educational use and I suspect that Apple has a better choice.

I do also think that schools should allow readers like Kindles as replacements for books. I think of that every morning when in lift my kids bag to put his lunch in.

gctest50

beauf wrote: »

I never understood why they make kids carry a tone of books to use maybe 20 pages during the school day.

http://booksplits.ie/

beauf

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Really it comes down to the availability of the apps for educational use and I suspect that Apple has a better choice.

I do also think that schools should allow readers like Kindles as replacements for books. I think of that every morning when in lift my kids bag to put his lunch in.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Seems to me they aren't picking an off the shelf application but more of a all in one bundle.

0ph0rce0

My daughters school started using ipads 2 years ago.

Was 500 for the ipad, All the software and apps, books etc are loaded on by the school, They supply all the material, No extra cost.

They also have them restricted so they can't download games etc...

Millem

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

My daughters school started using ipads 2 years ago.

Was 500 for the ipad, All the software and apps, books etc are loaded on by the school, They supply all the material, No extra cost.

They also have them restricted so they can't download games etc...

€500 is good value. In my own subject we have 2 books + a workbook which would cost €50-€60 brand new. If a student takes 10 subjects their books could cost €500.
Do you need to pay more in 2nd year etc as students use a different maths/irish/language book?

blondchick

My daughters school brought in ipads when she was going into first year, she is in Junior Cert now. The initial cost of the ipad was €450 and then there was an additional cost of around €150/160 to download the books. In second year we needed to pay around €100 to download additional books. For her it has worked out well and she is keen to keep using it to leaving cert. I havent had any problems and she is doing well with her school work. However, I have several friends who have had to buy the books for their children as they just couldnt concentrate using the ipad to study. I also know of at least ten others who have said that they will be buying the books for leaving cert. My concern is that electronic devices do not last forever and as they are used 7 days a week, an average of 8 hours per day I would imagine we will have to replace them prior to completion of the leaving cert. The big plus is the children are not carrying around big bags of books but from a study point of view the ipad is not for everyone. Personally I couldnt see why a cheaper device or even an ereader/kindle could not be used.

beauf

eReaders generally don't do diagrams, or colour, photos etc very well. Or complex formatting. They can't handle a lot of web applications and things like that.

Thanks for the feedback of peoples experiences its all very informative. Especially how it suits different people differently.

sadie06

This gives you an idea of what en e-Book package is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd9aenP1PAQ

The_Valeyard

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

They also have them restricted so they can't download games etc...

Give it a couple months and they will all be rooted/jailbroken, very easy to do even on restricted tablets. Not to mention there are apps to give 'false' appearance and hide your real apps

Exiled1

As a former secondary school principal (who is highly IT literate etc), I deplore the race to be seen to be a thoroughly 'modern' school by making students use iPads etc.
Despite the vast amount of bilge, especially from Microsoft, there is very little evidence of their educational value. These tablets tend to be educational resources rather than learning tools.
Books are indispensable and anybody thinks this is other than a middle class wheeze to a great extent has very limited educational vision.
Given the obvious lack of basic numeracy and literacy skills, it is ironic we seem to be heading in this direction.

gctest50

A Chromebook or similar might be a better bet - they'd be seen as more "work" than "play"

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/whats-the-best-device-for-interactive-learning/375567/

Other iPad pilot teachers came to see the benefits of laptop capabilities, too.

“At the end of the year, I was upset that we didn’t get the iPads,” said seventh-grade science teacher Larissa McCann. “But as soon as I got the Chromebook and the kids started using it, I saw, ‘Okay, this is definitely much more useful.’ ”

0ph0rce0

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Give it a couple months and they will all be rooted/jailbroken, very easy to do even on restricted tablets. Not to mention there are apps to give 'false' appearance and hide your real apps

I know that sure shes knows the way round it, I have the password to unlock it. I just bang it in when shes done with the homework so she can do what he wants on it.

0ph0rce0

Millem wrote: »

€500 is good value. In my own subject we have 2 books + a workbook which would cost €50-€60 brand new. If a student takes 10 subjects their books could cost €500.
Do you need to pay more in 2nd year etc as students use a different maths/irish/language book?

We didn't have to pay any more in second year, Same again, school provided them.

enzo roco

Exiled1 wrote: »

As a former secondary school principal (who is highly IT literate etc), I deplore the race to be seen to be a thoroughly 'modern' school by making students use iPads etc.
Despite the vast amount of bilge, especially from Microsoft, there is very little evidence of their educational value. These tablets tend to be educational resources rather than learning tools.
Books are indispensable and anybody thinks this is other than a middle class wheeze to a great extent has very limited educational vision.
Given the obvious lack of basic numeracy and literacy skills, it is ironic we seem to be heading in this direction.

Good post. I will be repeating this, when in a discussion about the issue.

blondchick wrote: »

Personally I couldnt see why a cheaper device or even an ereader/kindle could not be used.

My thoughts exactly.

gctest50

enzo roco wrote: »

Originally Posted by blondchick
Personally I couldnt see why a cheaper device or even an ereader/kindle could not be used.

My thoughts exactly.

Chromebooks are cheaper, seem to work elsewhere

Unless Ireland is a special snowflake

http://www.pcworld.ie/category/chromebooks/396.0.3

enzo roco wrote: »

Originally Posted by Exiled1
As a former secondary school principal (who is highly IT literate etc), I deplore the race to be seen to be a thoroughly 'modern' school by making students use iPads etc.
Despite the vast amount of bilge, especially from Microsoft, there is very little evidence of their educational value. These tablets tend to be educational resources rather than learning tools.
Books are indispensable and anybody thinks this is other than a middle class wheeze to a great extent has very limited educational vision.
Given the obvious lack of basic numeracy and literacy skills, it is ironic we seem to be heading in this direction.

Good post. I will be repeating this, when in a discussion about the issue..........

Why would you just parrot it ? It's mostly drivel

dashcamdanny

I got an Ipad Air 16g in Tesco Naas yesterday.

The have them reduced from 406 to 327, and used about 50 euros worth of clubcard vouchers and a 12 euro supervalu voucher.

Cost in and around 260 ..

It pays to shop around like this I think..


I think I might be able to do better with the case as well by shopping around a bit.

beauf

gctest50 wrote: »

Why would you just parrot it ? It's mostly drivel

The stats thus far would disagree.

beauf

dashcamdanny wrote: »

I got an Ipad Air 16g in Tesco Naas yesterday.

The have them reduced from 406 to 327, and used about 50 euros worth of clubcard vouchers and a 12 euro supervalu voucher.

Cost in and around 260 ..

It pays to shop around like this I think..


I think I might be able to do better with the case as well by shopping around a bit....

Thanks for this.

sadie06

enzo roco wrote: »

Good post. I will be repeating this, when in a discussion about the issue.

Why? The person is not talking from experience, just voicing an opinion from the outside looking in.

Millem

dashcamdanny wrote: »

I got an Ipad Air 16g in Tesco Naas yesterday.

The have them reduced from 406 to 327, and used about 50 euros worth of clubcard vouchers and a 12 euro supervalu voucher.

Cost in and around 260 ..

dash €260 is a great bargain well done

2RockMountain

As often with IT projects, there does seem to be a rush to spend money on hardware, with knowing what particular benefits will arise, and without matching investment on software and supports like training.

I also wonder if schools consider the needs of current or future students (or indeed teachers) with disabilities when they choose what technology or apps or books they are going to use.

gctest50 wrote: »

A Chromebook or similar might be a better bet - they'd be seen as more "work" than "play"

I really wonder if any tablet device is appropriate for secondary school. Surely students should be working on reasonably lengthy essay-type questions at that stage, and need a proper keyboard with keys - such as a Chromebook or traditional laptop.