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iPad vs. Chromebook at School - No Contest

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday August 13 2014, @11:42AM   
from the right-tool-for-the-job dept.

gewg_ writes:

Robert Pogson reports:

Recent news about the popularity of Chromebooks with schools may seem puzzling.

Schools in Hillsborough, New Jersey decided to make an experiment out of its own program. Beginning in 2012, 200 students were given iPads and 200 students were given Chromebooks. After receiving feedback from both students and teachers, the schools sold off their iPads and bought 4,600 Chromebooks.

After all, a keyboard is a great input device and writing is one of the three "Rs" but why not just [buy] a notebook PC? The answer is that the high cost of maintaining the legacy PC is too great. Keeping content on the server makes the job easier and with Chromebooks, schools don't even need to own the server.

...then there's the malware, the slowing down, the re-re-rebooting with that other OS.
That makes the ChromeBook a winner in education and probably a lot of organizations large and small, even consumers. Of course, they could get those benefits with GNU/Linux but it would take more technical knowledge. Again Chromebooks win.

See iPad vs. Chromebook For Students

• Chromebooks and thin clientsChromebooks and thin clients (Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:56PM

  by Subsentient (1111) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:56PM (#80935) Homepage Journal

  I went to a high school that literally to this day uses old Neoware thin clients. They connect via RDP and Citrix to Windows 2003 and 2008 servers and give us our desktop that way. The thin clients use a kernel 2.4 bastardized version of Red Hat Linux with the word Neoware pasted on top. They have VIA i586 and i686 CPUs and 128 to 256MB of RAM, with 100MB internal storage. I had a lot of fun jacking the thumbdrives on my keychain into the thin clients and booting up a Fedora desktop during break. I also replaced the failing internal power supplies of many of these little thin clients with 12V wall warts. I had dominion over the server room. At a point I was almost treated like a member of IT staff.
  
  I had no problem with the thin client setup there, and I have no problem with Chromebooks being used to the same effect, what I do have a problem with is the implication that because Chromebooks make good mobile thin clients for schools, we should all line up at the giant Borg cube for assimilation. I demand a real operating system with on-drive, no-net-required desktop apps. Anything else is a dangerous abomination for desktop users. The cloud has scared me since people started bitching about it back in 2008. At least back then, I simply was able to declare it a stupid idea and laugh it off.

  --
  "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti

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• "I demand a real operating system"(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:37PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:37PM (#80948)

  That has been done with Chromebooks many times before. [google.com]
  There is no need to keep Googleware on these if it is not desired.

  -- gewg_

  Parent