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Microsoft challenges Chromebooks with $189 Windows 10 laptops for schools
Microsoft is making a bigger push to keep students and teachers using Windows this week. At the annual Bett education show in London, Microsoft is revealing new Windows 10 and Windows 10 S devices that are priced from just $189. The software giant is also partnering with the BBC, LEGO, NASA, PBS, and Pearson to bring a variety of Mixed Reality and video curricula to schools.
Lenovo has created a $189 100e laptop. It's based on Intel's Celeron Apollo Lake chips, so it's a low-cost netbook essentially, designed for schools. Lenovo is also introducing its 300e, a 2-in-1 laptop with pen support, priced at $279. The new Lenovo devices are joined by two from JP, with a Windows Hello laptop priced at $199 and a pen and touch device at $299. All four laptops will be targeted towards education, designed to convince schools not to switch to Chromebooks.
JP apparently refers to JP Sá Couto.
Also at Windows Blog, Engadget, and ZDNet.
Related: First ARM Snapdragon-Based Windows 10 S Systems Announced
(Score: 5, Interesting) by vux984 on Tuesday January 23 2018, @07:31PM (3 children)
Anecdote to anecdote -- my kids elementary school gave out ipads for a year; teachers found them an interesting way to engage students in things, but consensus of teachers and parents was that tablets didn't encourage learning the way a real laptop did. The school district also had a laptop program where they gave students older macbooks (the white plastic ones). The consensus all round was this program was generally worthwhile.
In highschool, the school has office365 for education. Most students provide their own laptop (whatever they want, my kids have dell latitude education series units with windows 10), the neighbor's girls had macbook airs. The school also had a set of older loaner units for students without that they could 'checkout' like a library but I think nearly all the kids have their own, plus a computer lab that students could drop into, print from etc, or if they've forgotten or broken their laptop etc. It actually works pretty well. The kids can switch units pretty trivially between onedrive etc. And even linux is supported to the extent the kids can use the online web applications. few assignments have ever required installing anything; and the one that did was a science thing for simulating basic circuits that was java based and ran on pretty much anything. Overall I have no complaints about it.
I think the kids are getting more real world application from it than they would from google apps and school issued chrome books. The complaint that they are being indoctrinated into microsoft is valid, but they have to use *something*; and google apps is no better. And its not like they are teaching courses in "Microsoft Word 2016 for Windows 10 Pro"; nothing the kids do is particularly application specific -- they probably could use OpenOffice if they really wanted.
The main point of it is to give all the kids a school cloud email, folder sync/storage, and access to some productivity apps for assignments.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Tuesday January 23 2018, @07:40PM
I agree. I would add to that the following: in the most cost efficient manner possible. I'd rather spend the money on the teachers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:31AM
The MS stuff is not cross platform. MS released a python library to access "one drive", but it turns out there is the version of one drive that MS offers to the public (which their library works with), and the one drive that is bundled with o365 subscriptions which is incompatible. So, unless you have windows or mac in your house, no shared file storage for your kids.
I think any proprietary offerings should be forbidden from publicly funded educational settings. A company's services should stick to standard protocols and file formats, or that company should not receive public money.
o365 for education is just an attempt to program young minds into "choosing" microsoft products later in life. Same reason Coke and Pepsi pay hundreds of thousands of dollars (in come cases millions) to get vending machines into schools.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @03:11AM
your standards and education on this subject are too low and your kids are just being trained to be slaves. please investigate why FOSS matters for your kids' future and get busy raising hell. the tech ed of US students should be a national shame.