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NOVEMBER 13, 2002 BYTE OF THE APPLE By Charles Haddad An Apple for Teacher Ain't Enough Neither is a Dell. A classroom computer can help, if a teacher knows what to do with it. At least here, Apple is trying
This is an important lesson to remember as computers flood into schools nationwide. Accompanying them is enough hype to make even the great huckster Phineas T. Barnum blush. To hear the computer industry's modern-day Barnums, PCs will make school so much fun, students will rush to class in their eagerness to learn. Not only that, PCs will empower teachers to regain control over unruly and overcrowded classrooms. Please. Anyone with school-age children knows such talk is nonsense. If only it were true that a bunch of chips could substitute for a well-paid, well-trained teaching staff, an interesting and relevant curriculum, or three meals a day for poor children too hungry to concentrate. CORE MARKET. As Stanford Professor Emeritus Larry Cuban showed in his book, Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom, no evidence shows that computers in and of themselves solve any of education's core problems. Apple AAPL is as guilty of hyping the power of computers in the classroom as Dell DELL or Microsoft MSFT -- and for good reason. Education has long been one of Apple's core markets. But its long-held lead is inexorably crumbling. Persuading schools that computers are as essential as pencils is a key part of Apple's strategy to regain market share. The PCs-in-school hype has some substance behind it. Apple has done more than any other company to make computers truly useful educational tools. And it knows that helping users get the most from the machines is a task that goes beyond hardware. Apple understands, for example, that a tool is only as good as the person who wields it. TECHIE TODDLERS. And teachers -- especially in elementary schools -- remain woefully computer-illiterate. Many of them are handed machines they have little skill or interest in using. Kids as young as six, already well acquainted with computers at home, are often well ahead of their instructors in this regard. That's why Apple is targeting teaching universities as well as public schools. It has persuaded the teachers' college at the University of Texas, for example, to require every student to buy an iBook and learn how to use it. The university, with Apple's encouragement, has incorporated into its curriculum instruction in how to use laptops to do everything from create assignments to control and monitor the laptops of students. From an OS X-equipped iBook, teachers can turn Internet access on and off, and see what students are working on. PACKAGE DEALS. Apple is pushing training in primary and secondary schools, as well. Today, a day's lessons for teachers comes as part of a package sale to schools. Apple isn't just selling iBooks, it's teaching educators how to use them for everything from math instruction to making movies. Schools can buy a prepackaged cart of 10 iBooks, each preassembled with curriculum software and connected wirelessly through an Airport wireless base station on the cart. The teacher rolls the cart into the classroom, distributes the iBooks, and then packs it all up when the lesson is over. No mess, no fuss. "We see ourselves as system providers, not just sellers of OS X or hardware," says Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice-president of hardware products. LEAVING THE FARM. It sounds great -- but maybe a bit too pat. After all, the law of unintended consequences rules supreme in the history of technology. Just ask Bill Gates, no slouch when it comes to divining future trends. Gates thought he could reverse population declines in rural America through a plan to wire libraries to the Internet, courtesy of his well-endowed charitable foundation. The idea was that people would be able to connect with the outside world without leaving town. As Gates conceded in a recent interview, however, the opposite occurred. The flight phenomena escalated as rural residents saw how much they were missing in the bigger world. NO SUBSTITUTE. This isn't to say Apple should stop selling iBooks to school. It can't afford to: It needs the business. But Apple and other computer companies shouldn't be so cocksure that computers will revolutionize education. They may make learning a bit more fun, especially when used for projects like making video of class field trips. But they're no substitute for a great teacher who inspires children to read or write.  Haddad, Atlanta-based correspondent for BusinessWeek, is a long-time Apple Computer buff. Follow his weekly Byte of the Apple column, only on BusinessWeek Online Edited by B. Kite Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | NOVEMBER |
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