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I worked in Education IT as my college job, and Apple provided zero value added with regard towards educational software. For every piece of software that instr
by kregasaurusrex 10y ago
I worked in Education IT as my college job, and Apple provided zero value added with regard towards educational software. For every piece of software that instructors requested such as stat analyses, whiteboards with note-saving capability, standardized test-prep materials, and math visualization it was often non-existent, cost-prohibitive, or a available as a free web app. Campus labs virtualized Windows 7 on iMacs to run side-by-side in order to allow compatibility with 90% of the tools educators need.
While I think that we're doing an excellent job at preparing tomorrow's teachers on how to educate kids; technology largely remains a point of friction in keeping kids focused because of the lack of good tools in the ecosystem. My high school district always received the short end of state funding and we never had any good tools available for physics simulations, art & design, CAD, or personal finance to name a few. Anything we did end up using was available as a web app with no OS dependence; and I see school districts pay extra for mac systems without any competitive advantages to the platform. It's largely a market mismatch that Apple's failed to address, and were largely being phased out because of this.