| Tablet-Computing Initiatives Suffer Major Setbacks |
| Posted by: Susan Einhorn |
| Two large-scale efforts to put digital devices in the hands of students, including the largest deployment to date of the much-publicized Amplify tablets, have been halted because of a variety of problems. In the 73,000-student Guilford County, N.C., school system, officials announced this month that they have suspended the use of tablets and related equipment provided by Amplify, an independent subsidiary of the global media conglomerate News Corp. According to a news release issued by the district, \"about 10 percent of the district\'s 15,000 devices have been returned to Amplify due to broken screens,\" and there were also reported problems with some device cases and overheating battery chargers. In Texas, meanwhile, the 70,000-student Fort Bend school district scrapped a 19-month-old initiative to deliver an interactive science curriculum via iPads issued to students, dubbed iAchieve, after a consultant found that \"the program fell short of its mission due to a combination of unrealistic goals, insufficient planning and project management, lack of consistency with existing FBISD curriculum-development standards, and poor contract-management practices.\" |
| Source: Education Week (USA) | Published: October 15th, 2013 |
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