Teacher’s have one of the hardest jobs in America… I should know, I was hell on my teachers growing up. Just ask some of my favorite teachers – Ms. Johnson, Ms. Stansescu, and Mrs. Schwartz. But today, Apple is trying to make their job easier, with technology. While I am a fan of what Apple has been doing with the iPad (I am using it right now to write this blog), I wish today’s event would have included a large donation by Apple to help Cities, Counties, and States help increase teacher pay.
Most schools are fighting to keep their best teachers, and while new tools like updated iPads, Class Management Software, and virtual badges all sound great from a marketing perspective, the biggest thing we could all do for teachers is lobby our local legislators to increase their pay. When I hear about teachers taking their sub-par pay and using parts of it to pay for pencils and paper so that students from poor families can take notes in class, there is something wrong with the system.
When I hear people complaining that they don’t have kids, so why should their property taxes go up so that schools have funding for STEAM programs, it makes me cringe. We’ve become very short sighted. We’ve lost the sense of community and shared responsibility that has made our education systems one of the best in the world (and I believe it is why now we are lagging). Moving funds from public schools to charters and private school vouchers continues to exacerbate this problem. (Yes for an individual family it may make total sense, but from a societal perspective it encourages a further bifurcation of those haves and have-nots).
If Apple can show some direct causation (not just correlation) of iPads and Courseware to increased teacher retention, improved test scores, and an increase in life long learning, then perhaps this would be a great offering. I am sure direct causation is nearly impossible to show, so how about take the profits from the new iPad sales for the next 5 years, and use it to directly influence out legislators to increase education spending (not on technology, but directly) on teachers and students in PUBLIC schools.
So what was announced:
- Upgraded and low price iPad 9.7inch – $299 (32gb) – And yes it supports the pencil!
- New iWork with major collaboration features
- 200GB of storage for iCloud accounts for teachers and students
- upcoming Classroom software for Mac’s
- better iPad management for students.. (any student can use any iPad, and it provisions in about 1minute – this is cool – would be great for a family use case too!!)
- Pages now can be used to created iBooks – (I will test this out)
- Clips and GarageBand have student friendly features
I am sure there is more… If you’ve not watched it – go check out the keynote available on Apple’s Special Event’s podcast feed.
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And one more thing (not announced on stage) you can now pay extra and get the cool space grey apple keyboard, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad