Kids Taking Tablets to School...

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DonGould

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#91073 6-Oct-2011 09:12

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/5740911/India-makes-dirt-cheap-tablet-for-the-poor

Ok, so we've done the debate about kids taking iPads to school and the costs.

But check out these puppies! $60 for a tablet... now that's starting to make more sense.

Why should my New Zealand child be disadvantaged by having to pay 16 times as much for a tablet over kids in India?

How long is it going to be before these nations take the lead on information technology simply because every kid has a cheap device to empower their learning from a young age while our kids are waiting until year 9 before they're considered mature enough to have an expensive $1200 computing device?

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jonherries

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#529927 6-Oct-2011 09:34

There are 760,000 kids in school in NZ x $60 each - $45,600,000 (a pittance)

If we did this there would be no stealing of them, and they would have a MAC and a serial so we could trace them if they went on trademe.

I will vote for the political party that makes this a policy plank.

Jon

NonprayingMantis

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#529937 6-Oct-2011 10:20

Why are you comparing a shoddy tablet with an ipad? it;s not even remotely the same thing.

you can get tablets for as little as $300 in NZ from normal bricks and mortar retailers.http://www.telecom.co.nz/internet/mobilebroadband/tablets/telecomv9

even less if you are willing to buy off trademe or other parallel importer types.
e.g.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/pdas-handhelds/other-pdas/auction-411510997.htm

Whilst that is still more than $60US, it's not quite the picture you paint of $60 vs $1300.

furthermore, relative to income, I would say that $300 NZ is a lot less of an NZ household's income compared to $60NZD of an indian household.

wellygary

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#529959 6-Oct-2011 11:01

DonGould:
How long is it going to be before these nations take the lead on information technology simply because every kid has a cheap device to empower their learning from a young age while our kids are waiting until year 9 before they're considered mature enough to have an expensive $1200 computing device?

Kids could also have all got OLPC laptops too, but they haven't,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1, and we could all be driving round in Cherry J1s but we arn't

These are not first world solutions.

jonb

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#529960 6-Oct-2011 11:03

And that's without even getting into debate as to whether all this technology actually improves learning outcomes.

Kids, and especially parents, are easily swayed by things like ipads in schools, thinking what a great school it must be. But teacher's need a lot of training to get the most of technology and not just use it as a shortcut.

At my kid's school they recently spent a fortune on some vimeo (sic?) boards and they're just being used as whiteboards and projectors still, the full ptotential not being used.

Same with IT - using excel to do pie charts with no teaching of the mathematical concepts behind them.

webwat

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#530365 6-Oct-2011 20:58

jonb: And that's without even getting into debate as to whether all this technology actually improves learning outcomes.

Kids, and especially parents, are easily swayed by things like ipads in schools, thinking what a great school it must be. But teacher's need a lot of training to get the most of technology and not just use it as a shortcut.

At my kid's school they recently spent a fortune on some vimeo (sic?) boards and they're just being used as whiteboards and projectors still, the full ptotential not being used.

Same with IT - using excel to do pie charts with no teaching of the mathematical concepts behind them.

Thats what happens when Ministry of Education tells the school to get fancy digital white boards, but nobody sells the concept's potential to the school. Well maybe schools have some choice and these things aren't just imposed on them, but I would say lots of teachers need a deputy principal to champion the idea before they will have time to get trained up for them. Honestly I can't think what some of this teaching gear would be used for myself, so I expect a lot of training and support might be required to unlock the potential so that teachers can get on with teaching.

Time to find a new industry!

DonGould

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#530376 6-Oct-2011 21:25

jonherries: There are 760,000 kids in school in NZ x $60 each - $45,600,000 (a pittance)

If we did this there would be no stealing of them, and they would have a MAC and a serial so we could trace them if they went on trademe.

I will vote for the political party that makes this a policy plank.

Jon

Yes I totally agree Jon.

At $60 it's a totally inclusive technology and as you say, they won't be stolen and won't get broken to often and will delivery some considerable benefit.

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DonGould

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#530378 6-Oct-2011 21:30

NonprayingMantis:
even less if you are willing to buy off trademe or other parallel importer types.
e.g.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/pdas-handhelds/other-pdas/auction-411510997.htm

Yes thanks for that link too. I agree with you on that front as well.

$200 is a big difference to $60, but it's still very affordable and I can see some real benefit.

An Android 2.2 device in the hands of all school children next year. That really does make good sense to me on so many levels.

As for those white boards... yes... I don't know how well they work, I don't know how well they get used.

This is my point in part, we need to focus on teacher education as much as child, but personal development also has to be in the hands of those teachers as well.

I personally see tablets having far more value than white boards, but I don't sit in class rooms.

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Byrned

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#530457 7-Oct-2011 09:05

Personally, I think any who thinks:
a) $45,000,000 is a pittance
b) That they will not get stolen because everyone has one
c) It won't get broken too often
must be on drugs.

We complain when $1 is spent in this country, even though it might have a benefit of making $10. And on top of the initial outlay you will need to budget each year for new students, and lost/stolen/broken units.

Now I have no idea if I was a typical student, but I must have broken or lost a good 4 or 5 calculators over the years I was at school. Considering I didn't start using them until high school shall we say that I needed a new one every year. What would the yearly cost of this program be? $10m? $15m?

On top of all other arguments, if we were to spend an additional $45m on education, I would rather have an additional 800 teachers. Now this would get my vote, not some pie in the sky "give them tech, it'll fix everything" especially when I believe MOST parents COULD find a way to pay for this IF it was actually going to make a difference.