ipads for schools

[Mr. Stupid]

Pretty bad move. They reck my head reading them. And it's pretty easy to jump to other apps such as facebook. Anyone I know who uses one a lot has the concentration span of a carrot.

Technology is an awful career choice anyway. You work way harder than most other careers and have little job security and compete with India who do things for a tenth the price.

'Technology' isn't a career choice--it's now a career prerequisite. In today's market, if you're not technology savvy, you're at an extreme disadvantage.

I'd spend more time providing evidence for each of your points as to how misguided you are, but your username suggests it wouldn't be worth the time.

No you are not. The best jobs, law, medicine, public sector, physio, dentist, pharmacist, accountant require about as much technical skills as a dog. Woof.

Technical careers are bloody tough going. Most Irish people don't want jobs in technology even thou there are thousands. The reason is because you have to work way harder for your money and spend a lot of time keeping having to keep up to date. It is an ok career in your 20's and then after that most people burn out or freak out.

And besides if you think having an iPad for a school is a way to technically savy you are misguided. Go and learn Objective C and write an App. Then realise how little money you make for all your work and do something else with your life while you have time.

Apple are scam company and should be kept away from our education system. Sure they have people taking their own lifes the working conditions for these iPads are so bad.

[fred]

An update on the ipad situation for parents of kids starting in Community College this year..when you go into online shop they add up to over 800 euro!!

[Derek]

An update on the ipad situation for parents of kids starting in Community College this year..when you go into online shop they add up to over 800 euro!!

Fred, the school quotes iPad costs as below:


iPad 2 16GB = €380
iPad Case = €20*
Deployment & Induction Workshop = €20
Wriggle Service & Support (covers 3 years) = €36

I can't find a link to the online shop to see what it is saying - can you post one here please?

[fred]

Derek,once you go into parent information it gives you the link..when I added on the books it came to 811

[Pedro]

I've just been on the school website and really am surprised at how expensive the package is working out. I need to do some shopping around to see if it's worthwhile buying the ipad elsewhere. Just worried that by not buying through the school we end up with issues in the future

Obviously workbooks, copies etc will need to be bought, then uniform & tracksuit.... Think the good old fashioned books may have been a much cheaper option. Oh well, things change

[Mr. Stupid]

I've just been on the school website and really am surprised at how expensive the package is working out. I need to do some shopping around to see if it's worthwhile buying the ipad elsewhere. Just worried that by not buying through the school we end up with issues in the future

Obviously workbooks, copies etc will need to be bought, then uniform & tracksuit.... Think the good old fashioned books may have been a much cheaper option. Oh well, things change

What arrangements are in place for those that cannot afford this?

[Mr. Stupid]

I've just been on the school website and really am surprised at how expensive the package is working out. I need to do some shopping around to see if it's worthwhile buying the ipad elsewhere. Just worried that by not buying through the school we end up with issues in the future

Obviously workbooks, copies etc will need to be bought, then uniform & tracksuit.... Think the good old fashioned books may have been a much cheaper option. Oh well, things change

What arrangements are in place for those that cannot afford this?

I have to say I think this is an absolute joke. A clear example of the government and dept of education not having a clue about technology. I see no benefit to this what so ever. What terrible load of band wagon muppetry.

[diggerbarnes]

You would imagine the department could get cheap iPads for buying in bulk. Especially considering we allow apple to choose their own corporate tax rate.

[Ken]

It's crazy. A laptop would be more real world in terms of what they would use when they get into the work place. The iPad is a recreational device. If they really wanted to go for a tablet, an Android tablet would have been a quarter of the price.

What happens if parents cant afford one or two in some cases?

[Mr. Stupid]

What happens when they get stolen? When they get broken? When the batteries waste. Terrible. And imagine having to stare at that iPad all day long. Like you said it is a recreational device. One hour max. Imagine having to read for a few hours from the disguisting thing.

And what's stopping all the kids jumping onto facebook and twitter?

It is also a terrible device for taking notes on. Most tech heads scribble ideas on paper still. iPADs are horrible.

Could someone explain the benefit to this idea please?

[Pedro]

What happens when they get stolen? When they get broken? When the batteries waste. Terrible. And imagine having to stare at that iPad all day long. Like you said it is a recreational device. One hour max. Imagine having to read for a few hours from the disguisting thing.

And what's stopping all the kids jumping onto facebook and twitter?

It is also a terrible device for taking notes on. Most tech heads scribble ideas on paper still. iPADs are horrible.

Could someone explain the benefit to this idea please?

I'd like to see that explantion too! I have concerns about the kids being targets of muggers, fgs, my mind has gone into overdrive thinking of all the downsides of this plan.
I have been putting a few bob aside for the first year entrance costs and my budget was about 800 - 900 to include books, uniform, tracksuit, regulation coat, footware etc. The ipad and e-books will blow the bulk of the budget I had in mind and as I said before, there's bound to be a lot of other add ons required such as stationary, gear for practical classes etc. There is no incentive to buy through the school as the prices appear to be dearer than Argos!!!! Annoyed much!!

[pat mustard]

There appears to be no discount on the price of these Ipad 2's. Considering how many 10000's are being bought across various schoools, what cutehoor put this pile of crap sales plan together. I think the Celtic Tiger whimpered off a few years ago when we fell for all this stuff.

A new ipad 5 is due this year so why wasnt a better price gotten for the ipad 2's?.

ipad 2:
You can buy them for 320e ex vat from places like vikingdirect.ie for the wifi only model. The school stipulate it must be the wifi model as I suppose they can lock down access to other apps using their school network, fair enough. So if you have a 3G /WiFi one , forget it, from what I can determine its not allowed.

But some shower of shites are making a killing here... by exploiting kids and parents during the arse end of a recession.

CromeBooks or Androids should have been bought here not old model Apple products.

What next, Louis Walsh suits as school uniforms ? Not wholey blaming the school, but theres a giraffe generating style committee somewhere.

[diggerbarnes]

Yes, why iPad 2 and not a later version?
Folk are tech-savvy enough to be able to put forward arguements against this madness. While schools are of course the experts in education they are certainly not expert in such technology. There will certainly be parents who can easily make a laugh of this plan. Parents should boycott the idea and flat out refuse to buy them until something more sensible and economical is put forward.

[Mr. Stupid]

The same scam happened with school books. They would make tiny changes and make everyone get new books.

Now, Apple iPads are the scam.

Ok we have listed the disadvantages to this scheme:

1. Cost
2. Potential theft
3. Maintenance
4. Battery wasting
5. Can't take notes on them.
6. Potential facebook distraction
7. Difficult to read iPad for long period of time. Has anyone ever tried to read a book on iPad?
8. Another one - Maths has a lot of complex symbols that are easy to scribble but a pain to do on bloody touch pad.

I can't help feeling someone saw a scam and gave the dept of education and the school a pitch on the lines of:

"Technology is really important now. If you use an iPad you are going to understand technology". And because the Dept of Education and the School haven't a clue about technology they bought they nonsense.

It shows how freaking detached from reality some of the people are. Why isn't Estuarine on giving us the teacher angle.

Could someone know explain the advantages please?

[pat mustard]

typo, meant Louis Copeland (the Tailor) not Louis Walsh(the dull music generator)

[Pedro]

So far all I've seen are negtives on this topic

Are there any parents of first years on this thread? For me it's a case of, this is the situation, deal with it!!
It would appear there is no alternative.

http://www.donabatecc.ie/ipad-introduction/

All that remains for me now is to decide if the basic model is sufficient (will it become obsolete or clogged with data) and whether or not to buy from Wriggle

[micropoodle]

i'm a fan of technology and also a fan of reducing the weight a child has to carry into school on a daily basis.

the problems I see with this though are as follows:

1. being forced to use a company that the school has chosen to purchase these devices. Why?
2. as with most purchasing, buying in bulk should reduce the cost to everyone. In this case I assume there will be 100+ purchases this year alone from this one school of the iPad, resulting in an approximate €80,000 revenue for the company. Why has there been no haggling on price? It should be much much cheaper. Presumably this company is supplying many other schools as well.
3. €800 is an incredible amount of money for any family to fork out in one year for a child for just books. Have next years costs (2nd year 2014) been disclosed yet?
4. as with most technology, iPad 2 will most likely become obsolete long before the students reach 2nd year, thats even if the physical device lasts that long with daily use.

In my unqualified opinion (though I am a techie), its a badly thought out and put together decision made by non techie/non business people

[Pedro]

i'm a fan of technology and also a fan of reducing the weight a child has to carry into school on a daily basis.

the problems I see with this though are as follows:

1. being forced to use a company that the school has chosen to purchase these devices. Why?
2. as with most purchasing, buying in bulk should reduce the cost to everyone. In this case I assume there will be 100+ purchases this year alone from this one school of the iPad, resulting in an approximate €80,000 revenue for the company. Why has there been no haggling on price? It should be much much cheaper. Presumably this company is supplying many other schools as well.
3. €800 is an incredible amount of money for any family to fork out in one year for a child for just books. Have next years costs (2nd year 2014) been disclosed yet?
4. as with most technology, iPad 2 will most likely become obsolete long before the students reach 2nd year, thats even if the physical device lasts that long with daily use.

In my unqualified opinion (though I am a techie), its a badly thought out and put together decision made by non techie/non business people

Unqualified or not, some very valid points raised micropoodle!! Re point 4 - being extremely un-techie, do you really think they could be past their best in two short years?

[Mr. Stupid]

If all they are using the iPads for is for reading text, the iPad1 would suffice. However, I suspect they will tactically go out of date as soon as possible.

[Pedro]

The available options are here -

http://store.wriggle.ie/donabate-commun ... o-11#step1

Again, why confuse matters for those of us who are not tech savvy by creating choices

[Pedro]

Final tally with all bells and Wriggle whistles - €1,047.85 - there simply are no words!!!!

[micropoodle]

4. as with most technology, iPad 2 will most likely become obsolete long before the students reach 2nd year, thats even if the physical device lasts that long with daily use.

Unqualified or not, some very valid points raised micropoodle!! Re point 4 - being extremely un-techie, do you really think they could be past their best in two short years?

oops that was a typo. i meant to say 6th year!
realistically it will be obsolete by 6th year. My guess is that most students will need 2 iPads during their secondary school years.

Also a basic 16GB model isnt a huge amount of space for storing stuff.
I dunno what space the ebooks take up, so maybe if it was used purely for school and not recreational apps, then 16GB would be enough.

[Pedro]

Also a basic 16GB model isnt a huge amount of space for storing stuff.
I dunno what space the ebooks take up, so maybe if it was used purely for school and not recreational apps, then 16GB would be enough.[/quote]

Thanks micropoodle I looked at the 32GB (just to be sure to be sure!!)

[micropoodle]

i should add, there are many arguments for or against the use of iPads in schools.
My only real point is that there should have been a lot more thought put into the choice.

As someone mentioned earlier, I feel that laptops would be more suitable in the current environment.
An iPad is a consumer device and not used for programming/coding etc.
A quote I found online recently went something like this:

Give a kid an app and you inspire her for a day; teach a kid to make apps and you inspire her for a lifetime

[Derek]

Are the eBooks actually installed on the iPad or are they cloud based?