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In my last few years at high school, our district replaced a 1:1 laptop policy with a 1:1 iPad policy. The results were mixed. For my creative electives like ph

In my last few years at high school, our district replaced a 1:1 laptop policy with a 1:1 iPad policy. The results were mixed. For my creative electives like photography it was pretty handy, but the lack of keyboard made it a slog to use in writing classes. Then there were the engineering classes... for my Javascript and CAD electives the iPads were entirely useless, and the most it did in math class was run the Desmos website. IMO, people are too trigger-happy adding technology to schools. If any district wants to do a 1:1 iPad program, they should keep the iPads on-prem and use them as tools rather than stopgap replacements for books/paper. If schools want any chance of their students focusing on their work (especially in a K-12 environment) they should treat computing as a situational solution.

thehappypm 4y ago
Amazing that high schoolers are casually learning CAD and JavaScript!
- smoldesu 4y ago
  My CAD class was awesome, run by an engineering dude in his 40s who's sole interest was spending as much district funding as possible. By the time I graduated, he had surrounded himself with a room of 20x Quadro/i7 machines and a half-dozen 3D printers. It makes me happy to imagine how much joy that brings him and his current students these days. Unfortunately the computer science class is no longer running at the school I attended. Between the low demand for the class and the difficulty of teaching programming on an iPad, they decided to pull the plug and focus on providing other STEM classes. Truly a tragedy since I look back on that class so fondly, but I guess the next generation of software developers will need to be a bit more self-motivated.
- seized 4y ago
  I learned both in the late 90s. AutoCAD and think JavaScript, might have only been CSS. They were elective courses but still.
musicale 4y ago
> Javascript and CAD electives the iPads were entirely useless In my experience the iPad is great for JavaScript, but you need a keyboard! There are CAD apps for the iPad that are compatible with AutoCAD, Solidworks, etc.. Touch controls and Apple Pencil support seem like good features.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  They're nice concessions, but the iPad is just not made to do these things like a desktop machine. It's not even worth running a CS class if your students are all learning how to operate iPads at maximum efficency.

thehappypm 4y ago

Amazing that high schoolers are casually learning CAD and JavaScript!

smoldesu 4y ago
My CAD class was awesome, run by an engineering dude in his 40s who's sole interest was spending as much district funding as possible. By the time I graduated, he had surrounded himself with a room of 20x Quadro/i7 machines and a half-dozen 3D printers. It makes me happy to imagine how much joy that brings him and his current students these days. Unfortunately the computer science class is no longer running at the school I attended. Between the low demand for the class and the difficulty of teaching programming on an iPad, they decided to pull the plug and focus on providing other STEM classes. Truly a tragedy since I look back on that class so fondly, but I guess the next generation of software developers will need to be a bit more self-motivated.
seized 4y ago
I learned both in the late 90s. AutoCAD and think JavaScript, might have only been CSS. They were elective courses but still.

musicale 4y ago

> Javascript and CAD electives the iPads were entirely useless In my experience the iPad is great for JavaScript, but you need a keyboard! There are CAD apps for the iPad that are compatible with AutoCAD, Solidworks, etc.. Touch controls and Apple Pencil support seem like good features.

smoldesu 4y ago
They're nice concessions, but the iPad is just not made to do these things like a desktop machine. It's not even worth running a CS class if your students are all learning how to operate iPads at maximum efficency.