Wednesday, September 25, 2013

I'm Shocked--Shocked, I Tell You!

Why would students want to do this?  Are they not satisfied with the new educational vistas laid before them with the advent of the iPad?
It took exactly one week for nearly 300 students at Roosevelt High School to hack through security so they could surf the Web on their new school-issued iPads, raising new concerns about a plan to distribute the devices to all students in the district.

Similar problems emerged at two other high schools as well, although the hacking was not as widespread.
Officials at the Los Angeles Unified School District have immediately halted home use of the Apple tablets until further notice.

The incident, which came to light Tuesday, prompted questions about overall preparations for the $1-billion tablet initiative.
LA Unified wants to spend one billion dollars--that's $30 for every single person in California--on a program this easily bypassed?  Anyone else willing to predict some possible outcomes of this program?

Assuming they thought at all, what did they think was going to happen upon issuing iPads to students?

Idiots.

4 comments:

pseudotsuga said...

Wow--did they get all those iPads for free? Or was that money just lying around?
And why iPads (other than the fact that they're iCool) when other tablets are cheaper?

Mr. W said...

Teachers at our school feel that LA Unified, all by itself, makes all teachers look stupid.

Seriously, who is their tech people there? All they had to do was delete some profiles and say they weren't students...really?

PeggyU said...

How do they deal with the issue of broken, lost, or stolen iPads?

Ellen K said...

Our district issues Ipads to first, fourth, ninth and tenth graders last week. I have already had to stop kids from playing games, watching movies and getting on social networking sites during class. It's only a matter of time before worse things appear. I understand why administrations make this choice-it's cheaper than buying and warehousing and cataloging textbooks. But they do this on the assumption that these "digital natives" understand the implications of accessing and revealing information to any and all. What is especially disturbing is elementary students being given internet enabled tablets that offer little in the way of security for these young students.The silly thing is that they only issued these tablets to some of the students. So those of us who teach classes with multiple grade levels involved can't use the tablets for assignments. What is more, the tablets do not work well with existing programs since the tablets are Apple based and the rest of our software is PC based. I heard one elementary teacher talking about how they had removed ALL desks from her classes and replaced them with rugs, cushions and couches. I'm sure my teens can't wait to slouch on a couch and play Madden Football while pretending to do work. And fact it, it's 30 or more students vs one teacher/facilitator. Who do you think will win that battle?