Summary: Los Angeles school district implemented a $1 Billion plan to provide iPads for the ~650k students in the district's 1k+ schools because 80% of those students come from low-income households. However, officials had to confiscate and update the iPads' security features because students were bypassing them to play games and use social media in class.
Analysis: What a waste of money. With that much money they could've gotten updated textbooks, better classrooms and actual school materials especially since they were only planning to use the iPads to access an online textbook anyway.
Source: http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/los-angeles-students-ipads-classroom-play-video-games-173850244.html
I agree. While an IPad is a vital resource for the classroom, the money that is used to buy one could be spent in so many different ways more beneficial to the students. And what exactly did they think they were going to do with it if it didn't have any security restrictions? I know I would much rather prefer playing candy crush over my math assignment
ReplyDeleteI wonder if next we'll get an article about how one kid didn't log off his apple account so he gets a bill for like a gajillion dollars ha
DeleteHow do they expect a bunch of free minded, young people to be responsible enough to handle ipads appropriately? Im sure they wanted to trust the students and I bet it sounded like a great idea to open up more opportunities to them but when you think down to brass text, this really wasn't a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the " actual school materials," bit you mentioned. It would seem kind of silly for a school to have horrible materials and outdated books, but real neat gadgets. How are the students supposed to "learn" if they're distracted by a shiny device the school spend lots on?
ReplyDeleteI am sure the school had the best intentions, but I think the money could have been more effectively spent. Even if spent on technology, at least it could have been spent on an economically smart and useful gadget, instead of the pretty but pricey iPad.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree $1 billion dollars is A LOT of money and it could have been spent a lot of different ways instead for some children who dont deserve and appreciate them.
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