Apple’s on a roll today. Shortly after releasing a cheaper $229 iPod touch (sans iSight camera), they’ve lowered the price on another staple… at least for students. If you buy an entry-level MacBook Pro, it now costs $999, $200 off retail. That’s double the previous educational discount, and makes it as cheap as an entry-level MacBook Air. Nice!
WWDC is the best place in the world to go and learn how to become a better iOS or OS X programmer. Only problem is it’s really freaking expensive, and it’s hard as hell to buy tickets before the thing sells out.
To help students out with the $1599 price tag for one ticket to WWDC, Apple announced that it will award 150 WWDC 2013 Student Scholarships. All you have to do to get the scholarship is be a full-time registered student, and make a killer iOS app.
There are some people in China that will do almost anything to get their hands on a new Apple product. One guy even sold his kidney. But if you don’t want to sell a body part, Chinese students have decided to accept some truly horrific loan terms just to buy an iPhone.
Lexington School District One in South Carolina shows what it takes to roll out iPads to thousands of students.
Many school districts around the country are embarking on new territory this back to school season – deploying hundreds or thousands of iPads to students. Most of the deployments will be one-to-one initiatives where every student receives a school-owned iPad to use for this school year or their entire scholastic career. Planning such a roll out isn’t easy, but schools and districts making the shift this year have the advantage of looking what worked and didn’t work from counterparts that pioneered the iPad in the classroom last year.
One school district, Lexington County School District One of South Carolina, has served as a model for many other schools around the country. The district offers a lot of insight into the technical requirements, education policy issues, and roll out processes in such a colossal undertaking.
App and template designer Jumsoft announced a new collection of images and patterns for Apple’s iWork suite. The new package, known as Elements for iWork, is the company’s eleventh collection of professionally designed images, templates and stationary designed to help businesses, students, and consumers create stunning documents and projects using a range of Mac apps.
At $1600 bucks each, WWDC tickets don’t come cheap, and that ticket shock can be especially acute if you’re a student, slaving away on the app you hope will make your fortune between classes and barista shifts.
Apple’s sympathetic. That’s why they are again offering 150 student scholarships to full-time or part-time students who want to go to WWDC.
Following the release of iTunes U for iOS last week, Apple has introduced a new support section to its website that is aimed at students and teachers who are interested in adopting the new app. The support notes cover things like creating new iTunes U courses, creating course podcasts, and marketing your institution’s content.
If you thought there would be little interest in an Apple event that didn’t include new hardware, think again. Following the unveiling of iBooks 2 with support for textbooks last week, Apple saw an incredible 350,000 textbook downloads in just three days of availability.
With today’s announcement of iBooks Author and iBooks 2, Apple intends on making expensive, bulky textbooks and exploding book bags a thing of the past. But one thing they didn’t mention is that while an iPad 2 may be thinner than a traditional textbook, iBook textbooks gain bulk in a different way: the files are absolutely huge.
Apple has a new education page with the video that was shown today in New York City. The 6-minute clip starts off with a group of teachers talking about why they love what they do. Apple exec Eddy Cue then transitions into Apple’s approach to modernizing education.
Roger Rosner, another Apple exec who was rumored to have been involved with the announcement this morning, also talks about how Apple thought about designing iBooks 2 as an interactive learning experience. Cue then explains iBooks Author for Mac. The last part of the video involves two interviews with publishing executives from Pearson and McGraw-Hill. The Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District also talks about how Apple will have a pivotal role in shaping education.
You can watch Apple’s education video on its website. There are several other pages for exploring iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxZG2Nv4KA
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