On Monday , Apple announced a long horse - under-$1000 training - only iMac . As the news show report recite us , this 21.5 - inch iMac carry a less - powerful CPU than its $ 1199 sibling as well as half the other Mac ’s RAM and storage . While it may be short on specs , the new education - model iMac ’s $ 1000 price get it a tad more alluring for schools that are infinitely strapped for hard cash . And , with schools adjust to go into academic term in the next month , the timing is correct .
I have to think , however , that there are mathematical group within Apple as well as in the educational activity residential district that shake their collective noggins when considering the rightness of this computer for schools . In many ways , this iMac is too much and too latterly .
Too much
If you have school - age tiddler in public schools you ’re aware that the schooling your child attends is anything but bloated with John Cash . In today ’s political and economic climate , teaching has been kicked to the check , as reflected by school budgets being slashed and then slashed again . “ Extras ” such as the arts were forsake old age ago in all but the most affluent districts . And for those districts that do n’t come equip with a sizeable revenue enhancement base ( or parent capable of making up the deviation ) , more vital element — small classes , libraries , school nurses , paid aids , teachers , and mid - flat decision maker — have been jettisoned .
Given these circumstances , what would you await your local school board to do about computer research laboratory when it number time to buy fresh equipment ? Offered the choice between a $ 1,000 iMac or a $ 500 window 7 PC , what decision would you make ? Capable and attractive though an iMac may be , at this metre , it ’s beyond the budget of many public schools . Those that have Mac - base computer labs will certainly regard upgrading if they have the money . As will third-year - college and university that have more financial leeway . But for today ’s distinctive elementary / high - school ? Too expensive .
Too late
Last yr I had the opportunity tospend some fourth dimension with Dr. Bill Wiecking , an instructor at theHawai’i Preparatory Academy(also the theatre director of the school ’s Energy Lab ) . In addition to providing some insight into how engineering science can help with sustainable living , Dr. Wiecking provided me with a new linear perspective on how technology can and will be used in the classroom .
Without put too fine a point on it , a science lab full of desk - bound computer ai n’t it .
To begin with , they ’re an inefficient resource in wish to metre . You have to march a classroom full of kids to the research lab , allot the tiddler out to their computers , teach what you need to learn , and adjoin them out again . The research laboratory then sit wild until the next group comes in ( and all Nox and over the weekend ) .
And what about the time pass with the estimator ? Is enough allocate so that students can get some literal use out of the computers , or are they simply being used as gin - up typewriters and encyclopedias ?
Now , deliberate data . file generated by the students stay on the reckoner unless you put up them with a transcript on a key crusade or place it on a server that the baby can get at from home ( provided their home has a estimator and that estimator can read the files they ’ve make ) . If you ’re in a military position to mandate that students ’ homes have a computer compatible with their schoolwork , great . But this is n’t an option for many school day and families .
mutual though school computer laboratory may be , they ’re a token of a retiring age and , in some ways , this iMac caters to the yesteryear rather than the present and future .
So what, then?
That present and future is represented by laptops and portable devices such as the iPod sense of touch and iPad . Their portability ensures that students have access to them everywhere in the school ( and , ideally , at nursing home ) , not just in the box of a schoolroom or in a room under lock and Florida key . Students then have the opportunity to populate with the engineering science and incorporate it into their studies and life , thus have got the clock time to research the noesis available to them rather than simply put together PowerPoint presentations and wait up the occasional Wikipedia reference .
Beyond mere portability , devices like the iPod touch and iPad present different ways of interact with info . For object lesson , rather than looking at a composition map of the celestial sphere , a student can discharge up Star Walk , channelize their iPad at the sky , and see what pass on overhead . Or spot a bird out the windowpane and quickly identify it and gibe its range with iBird Explorer Pro .
With such devices at hand , learn indigence n’t be completely scripted . “ Teachable moments”—making a lesson of something happen at the moment — is as important in education as it is in parenting . Having a portable resourcefulness such as an iPad can not only increase the oftenness of these minute , but make them more meaningful . Instead of extend a “ Let ’s keep that in mind for afterward ” answer , teachers and bookman can alternatively pull out their iOS twist and directly look for answers and entropy .
And then there ’s communication . When I attended primary school , I was assigned a penitentiary chum from a foreign land . Other than practicing the cursive writing I ’ve long since abandon , I obtain little from the experience . It would have been a totally dissimilar topic if I could have spend some time on FaceTime with that scholar and taken a video tour of their home and community .
And yet how do you conciliate too much and too later ? While a $ 999 iMac may be a portion of money for a strapped school ( in particular liken to a seemingly corresponding PC ) , at least it can answer multiple student . An iPad may be half that monetary value , but to be really effectual , you ask more of them .
My fervent hope is that Apple is well cognizant of this — that the fellowship sees the Department of Education iMac assomethingto satisfy schools that must equip computer labs and classrooms with desktop computers . But that this iMac is the last of its credit line — a computer designed for an inefficient eruditeness environment . In the futurity Apple will push portable in the manakin of less - expensive laptops and iPads as the way computing machine can really help contribute to education .
[ Christopher Breen is a senior editor with Macworld . ]
