“A principal has called the move to switch students from books to tablets ‘an unmitigated disaster’ and has ordered new books for the first year classes,” Denise Calnan reports for Independent.ie.
“The ‘book to e-book’ move was deemed a disaster following major technical issues with the majority of the HP Elite Pad [Windows 8] tablet devices,” Calnan reports. “Families of students at the Mountrath Community College in Laois paid €550 for the devices at the beginning of the school-year. They did have the option to pay for the tablets in installments.”
“‘We had a number of issues with the devices,’ principal Martin Gleeson told Independent.ie. ‘In the meantime, we have replaced all the tablets with books for the students. The parents do not have to pay for these,'” Calnan reports. “Students experienced problems such as tablets failing to switch on, tablets spontaneously going into sleep mode, devices looping while performing automatic repairs, system board failures and issues with wi-fi… In a letter sent to parents, Mr Gleeson wrote, ‘The HP Elite Pad has proved to be an unmitigated disaster.'”
Calnan reports, “Principal Gleeson said it was ‘an informed decision’ to choose the HP Elite tablet. ‘A year and a half’s worth of research was put into choosing the right device for us.The memory of the HP device is 64GB, it far exceeds other tablets’ memory capacity.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It was “an informed decision?” We can all guess what informed that decision! Was it measured in pints or shots?
“A year and a half’s worth of research” – on a stool, leanin’ agin the rail.
Next time, Marty, don’t make your “decision” late in the evening on St. Patty’s Day.
By the way, Apple’s been offering 64GB iPads with an OS that doesn’t consume a huge amount of space, unlike Windows 8, since the original iPad was released on April 3, 2010. That’s right, Marty, there has never not been a 64GB iPad.
Let this serve as a sobering lesson to educators worldwide: You want real iPads, not random tablet halfassery.
[Attribution AppleInsider. Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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“…devices looping while performing automatic repairs…”
I have to admit to being completely dumbfounded at reading this… I haven’t been able to get my original 64g iPad to loop no matter how hard I’ve tried. I’m jealous.