[plug] WA Govenment iPads for year 1 and 2 students

[Gregory Orange]

On 9 February 2012 23:46, Euan de Kock <euan at dekock.net> wrote:
> Conversely, there is a pragmatic side to the schools decisions, when you
> see business users and trend setters rushing to get iPads it is not a
> difficult choice to want your kids/pupils to be exposed to what appears

When that observation is backed up by Apple's slick marketing, it's
hard to beat. When government gets involved it muddies it further,
because corporations are educating nearly everyone (in this example,
the vast majority for whom $variable is a mere tool, not a career;
variable = technology in this instance) on what to want. Then
governments might want to buy some votes - they'll pick what everyone
has been convinced to want, through slick marketing. Yep that's
simplistic but there's still some truth in there.

> Android may start to gain in this space now that Samsung can actually
> sell devices, but in a few years time we'll all be lamenting the lock in
> of a proprietary google/android/chrome platform.

When it comes to the above runaround, it generally requires a big
business with the money and the marketing know-how to change it. I'm
an armchair activist, so at the end of the day my influence is going
to be on my kid(s) and others very close to me. I lament the waste of
up front money, the shameful lack of backing a proven but still small
winner (XO), the missed opportunity of many kids to learn and engage
better with Free technologies, and a host of other issues. At the same
time, my kid will grow up wealthy, will hear about small proven
winners regularly, get opportunities to interact with Free tech, and a
host of other good stuff. Parenting is a full time job, but I can at
least give that approach to her tech ed.

Mostly not looking forward to the battles (and probable losses) with
schools "Yes the assignment is in svg/pdf format not pub/docx as you
specified, because..." "No we cannot install Publisher..." "Yes that
software my daughter gave to her friend is Free, legitimate, and
sharing is encouraged...". A friend went through that a couple of
years ago. He felt pretty defeated after a year or two of regular
incidents. Anyway this is now offtopic sorry. Next post: (Why it's
never) year of the Linux desktop, shamelessly plagiarised.

> It seems that computing is determined more along fashionable lines
> rather than savvy technical merit - it's probably always been like that
> to an extent, but now it's much more mainstream and visible.

It's not entirely fashion, and there does need to be some magic
element of 'just works', which is true for enough people with these
devices. Sadly though, the big issue of right tool for the job is
lost. "It just works" doesn't describe any of the applicability of a
locked down tablet computer, to a classroom.

-- 
Gregory Orange