schools - page 2

There’s so much buzz around Apple and education in the U.S. these days, you’d be forgiven if you assumed there was a “One iPad Per Child” program officially in effect.

Case in point, a school said to have “shunned” Macs in favor of PCs makes news.

Then you read the story, and it turns out that Adam Gerson, tech director for Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City, is a lifelong Apple fan who opted for Microsoft servers after slogging through a decade of trying times while trying to keep a network of Apple servers running smoothly.

Remember those days when you didn’t want to go to school? Mondays. Rainy days. Exam time.

What if they’d told you it was “iPad Day?” You’d be up and atom with your lunchbox, pronto.

Teachers at three elementary schools in South Carolina say that thanks to the iPad, keeping kids focused on formerly “boring” subjects isn’t a problem.

The days of students lugging around massive backpacks loaded with heavy textbooks are numbered. According to a new poll of educational IT directors, signs are strong that within the next five years, all U.S. schools could adopt tablets, many as a replacement for textbooks. The good news for Apple is that in education circles (as with most consumers) the only tablet worth considering is the iPad.

Apple has partnered with the Teach for America program and donated 9,000 first gen iPads to teachers that work in impoverished and dangerous schools. The donated iPads come from customers that gave to Apple’s public service program during the iPad 2 launch.

Many consumers opt to resale their used Apple devices when a new generation is released, but the people that gave to Apple’s public service program have helped to give iPads to teachers working in low-income communities throughout the US.

A few short months ago, we wondered whether the wee ones should be learning their ABCs with iPads.

The answer appears to be yes: Fall 2011 brings a bumper crop of U.S. preschools launching iPad programs. From Maine to Tennessee, kids are saying teary goodbyes to their parents and being greeted in schoolrooms with sympathetic teachers (we hope) and Apple’s magical device.

Many of us first encountered Apple Computers in schools, but Apple’s once dominant position in the educational market has seemed to fade over the last decade. Now Apple’s setting out to do something about it, as they’ve just released a brand new sub-$1000 iMac aimed for schools and institutions.

It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.

The iPad is going to be very big in schools, predicts Professor Mark Warschauer, one of the world’s leading experts in technology and learning.

In an exclusive interview, Prof. Warschauer predicted that schools may soon start buying iPads in big numbers to replace not just desktops and laptops, but also textbooks and other reading materials.

“Until a couple of years ago, the majority of book reading — and a lot of magazine and newspaper reading — was done in print,” he said in a phone interview. “I think we’re going to see that change now.”

It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.

Apple had traditionally enjoyed 50 percent of the educational market, however a tight economy coupled with lower PC prices led by netbooks until recently depressed the Cupertino, Calif. company’s classroom reach to just about 20 percent. While the iPad is credited with many advances, it also sparked a comeback for Apple, making the $500 tablet competitive with PCs in the secondary and higher education markets, according to Needham & Company’s Charlie Wolf earlier this year.

Wolf’s prediction, made before the iPad really hit the street, has been confirmed again and again.

It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.

Cedars School in Greenock, Scotland, has become the first school in the world to deploy an iPad to every child in the age groups it serves (roughly 5 to 16 year-olds). We’ve mentioned this effort before, so Cult of Mac decided to check in on the project again for our Education special and see how they’re doing.

“The iPad has become far more embedded in our school day than I ever thought it would become,” Fraser Speirs, the architect behind the project, wrote on his blog.

This is the RM Slate, an 11.6 inch multitouch tablet running Windows 7, priced at £399 (about $630).