Ondrej Holzman At the beginning of April, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, through the Education for Competitiveness Operational Program, published an interesting call for primary and secondary schools regarding the integration of information and communication technologies into teaching, which in this case primarily means the use of mobile devices. However, the call had one major catch until yesterday – it excluded iPads from the selection.
The Operational Program Education for Competitiveness, which is co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic, and its Challenge 51 is supposed to bring 600 million crowns to primary and secondary schools, which are to be used on the one hand for training principals and teachers in the field of modern technologies and their use in teaching, and on the other hand for the purchase of selected tablets, netbooks or notebooks. It was presented by the Minister of Education that schools that sign up for the program and succeed will be able to choose the platform and technology themselves.
But the documentation showed something else. The recommended requirements for the technical side of the device completely excluded iPads from the possible selection. Reason? iPads do not have 2 GB of operating memory, as was required by the Ministry of Education for tablets. A rather absurd request when we realize that devices intended for teaching are selected, where high performance is definitely not the highest priority. On the contrary, aspects such as user-friendliness, ease of use, connectivity and – most importantly – the suitability of the product for its implementation in teaching should be addressed.
It is the suitability of the product for its use for study purposes that is absolutely essential, because you can buy students the most powerful tablets, but if the children cannot comfortably read a textbook or run an appropriate application on them, the implementation of technology in schools will be ineffective. And quite objectively, we can say that Apple is far ahead of the competition in adapting its product for use in education. Its iPads offer both a huge range of educational applications (including their simple creation) and simple control, both by the student and the teacher.
Not that competing operating systems such as Google's Android are completely unusable in schools, but Apple holds most of the trump cards in its hand with its ecosystem. That's why there was a big wave of anger on the Internet (see <a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1932/8043/files/200721_ODSTOUPENI_BEZ_UDANI_DUVODU__EN.pdf?v=1595428404" data-gt-href-en="https://en.notsofunnyany.com/">here</a>, <a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1932/8043/files/200721_ODSTOUPENI_BEZ_UDANI_DUVODU__EN.pdf?v=1595428404" data-gt-href-en="https://en.notsofunnyany.com/">here</a> whether <a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1932/8043/files/200721_ODSTOUPENI_BEZ_UDANI_DUVODU__EN.pdf?v=1595428404" data-gt-href-en="https://en.notsofunnyany.com/">here</a>) , when the promoters of apple products in education - and that every year they are increasing significantly in our country - complained that it was absurd that iPads could not participate in such a program.
Jiří Ibl even sent open letter to the Minister of Education, where he draws his attention to this imperfection of the call and asks him to revise the requirements, and wonder of the world, the Ministry of Education listened to the request. Yesterday, the documentation for Challenge 51 was changed, and tablets are no longer required to have at least 2GB of internal memory, but half of it. That means iPads are back in the game.
The wording of the operating system requirement has also changed. Now it is necessary that the tablet contains a "corresponding operating system", which, however, should not be a problem with iOS, as Jablíčkáři revealed Ing. Petr Juříček, the main contact person of the call. He also specified that the maximum product price of 15 crowns should also include VAT for the tablet (this information is missing in the document), but this is not a problem for lower iPad variants.
It is positive that even Czech bureaucrats are able to realize their own mistake, which they have made, especially when in this case correcting it can contribute positively to the modernization and improvement of Czech education, even if this will require much more than just 600 million from Challenge 51.
"although much more than just 600 from Challenge 51 will be needed for this." - above in the article it is stated in millions of CZK, so what is correct?
It's 600 million, thanks for the heads up.
"And we can say quite objectively that Apple is far ahead of the competition in adapting its product for use in education"
I call that a completely objective opinion
Someone probably paid for that again
I think they're right, because I find the iPad more usable than Android tablets after losing the software. I'm comparing the iPad3 and the Note 10.1 2014. Not to mention the iPad Air comparison.
I can compare it at work, when a colleague has a Note 10.1 2014 and I have an iPad
I'm already looking forward to the iPads in our school for me... tss put it all in Prague, as is the custom
Children…
Pensioner?
Buying tablets or netbooks (notebooks with consideration) is a waste of money and a waste of stupid brains... #education goes to waste.
Why tablets? If they replaced textbooks... imagine yourself, at school, how instead of 3kg (+MacBook I'm dragging) you only drag an iPad (+MB) :)
math textbooks cost approx. 98 CZK and if the teachers consistently check their condition every year and try to prevent their damage, they will last 5 years easily, even a workbook. The tablet costs about 10, and who would bet that it will last longer than 5 years. IT technologies become obsolete too quickly. In my opinion, not enough music for a lot of money. Although we are a fan of technology, in this regard I am of the opinion that the classic paper textbook is irreplaceable. Children are children, and not every child is careful, so you also have to take into account that once in a while the tablet will simply fall to the ground. By writing notes by hand, they also practice typing and not just tapping on the display. For it to make any sense at all, every child would have to have their own personal tablet to take home. Unfortunately, not all families can afford something like this, and even if they could, it would be a considerable financial burden for them. And if the school paid for the tablets, how would such a destruction of the tablet be dealt with? Again, I'm alluding to the fact that some child will accidentally break the tablet and the parents won't have the money to pay for it. And the idea of constantly handing in and returning tablets before and after classes seems completely wrong to me, because the children also need the textbooks at home for homework. I consider the purchase of textbooks and tablets to be an unnecessary waste.
600M, i.e. 46100 iPads without discount and packaging + million service. I wonder how many you end up buying. (textbook performance is enough booohate already x years ago with new ipads)
there are 4122 schools in the Czech Republic, that's a lot. 11 iPads for school = you can't get all of them, and they could give the covers for free :)
If anyone remembers the year 2010 when the first iPad was released, he said, "the problem is, netbooks are better than anything..." irony, of course, in the following sentences and later he stated that I'll condense it all into one sentence... Netbooks are miniaturized laptops that are useless. If a school buys netbooks for the purpose of teaching, I wonder how far behind they will be in teaching, they are slow devices, with a poor resolution and do not perform well. I guess :-)
I think (and I have already defended it in one discussion) that it is not about how many tablets are bought for school. The main thing is that content will finally be created for schoolchildren. My daughter is not in school yet and she already has one iPad. Not that I bought it, but I bought new ones. And since I buy one every two years... And nowadays it's not such a problem to buy a tablet.
So there are enough tablets, but no textbooks!