Educators working on the side for Apple: report

[redfish]

http://www.thelocal.se/45474/20130107/

Educators working on the side for Apple: report

Published: 7 Jan 13 17:03 CET

Local education officials in Sweden are moonlighting for an Apple-supported project which promotes the company's products in Swedish schools, leading to concerns the extra gig presents a conflict of interests.

The project, called T?nk om ('Rethink' or 'Imagine' in Swedish), has direct ties to Apple's marketing efforts in Sweden and often employs teachers and education officials as consultants.

According to an email reviewed by Sveriges Radio (SR), Apple representatives say the company has invested "substantial sums" in the project, calling it a Swedish version of the Apple Professional Development Programme for K12 Education.

A review by SR found that public servants in several Swedish municipalities receive additional income from T?nk Om - and the list of people with potentially conflicting interests includes teachers, principals and IT coordinators.

"You should be buying the best education materials, not the ones tied to your income," public administration profssor Olle Lundin at Uppsala University told SR.

"This clearly risks denting the public's trust in the system."

To make matters worse, it appears that several educators feel pressure to stay silent on the matter despite niggling doubts.

A principal, who wanted to remain anonymous, told SR that both Apple and T?nk Om had been in contact after they questioned whether it was appropriate for educators "to sit on two chairs," the Swedish expression for a person who has potentially conflicting interests.

Apple refused to comment on the dilemma when contacted by SR, stating it had no official spokespersons.

Experts told SR that Apple currently commands around 40 percent of the market for school computers in Swedish, which is estimated to be around 1 billion kronor ($153 million) annually.

The Local/at

http://www.thelocal.se/45474/20130107/

[n_K]

"To make matters worse, it appears that several educators feel pressure to stay silent on the matter despite niggling doubts."

So like all apple staff then.

Doesn't surprise me, when I see a school full of macs I can't but help it'd have been better to get budget PCs and spend the rest of the money (there would be a lot left) on improving the kids food or books or something else that's productive.

[rfirth]

"To make matters worse, it appears that several educators feel pressure to stay silent on the matter despite niggling doubts."

So like all apple staff then.

Doesn't surprise me, when I see a school full of macs I can't but help it'd have been better to get budget PCs and spend the rest of the money (there would be a lot left) on improving the kids food or books or something else that's productive.

At LSU, we have a corner in one of the dining halls with several Macs. No idea why, but they are there. Big, expensive looking 27" iMacs, something like that. Nobody uses them. They just sit there looking pretty.

Then they charge us about $10.50 for dinner... not very affordable for poor college students.

[Growled Member]

Oh well, it's all just business. ;)

[DeadEndAccount]

"To make matters worse, it appears that several educators feel pressure to stay silent on the matter despite niggling doubts."

So like all apple staff then.

Doesn't surprise me, when I see a school full of macs I can't but help it'd have been better to get budget PCs and spend the rest of the money (there would be a lot left) on improving the kids food or books or something else that's productive.

Reminds me when I was at one university where they had iMac's with Windows running on them. I'm not defending Apple but when OEM's spend absolutely no time talking to educators about their products, software etc. then why is anyone surprised that Apple swoops in and takes a section of the market so quickly? What the above article really shows is just how lazy OEM's actually are when push comes to shove.

[Praetor]

Reminds me when I was at one university where they had iMac's with Windows running on them. I'm not defending Apple but when OEM's spend absolutely no time talking to educators about their products, software etc. then why is anyone surprised that Apple swoops in and takes a section of the market so quickly? What the above article really shows is just how lazy OEM's actually are when push comes to shove.

when i was i college 12+ years ago, there was a bunch of iMacs G3 and the same number of Windows computers in the same room; the Windows computers were always occupied while the Macs weren't; the fact that few people knew how to operate them, that it didn't support floppy disks (some of the works we did were made in legacy apps that required floppies and pendrives were still expensive back then) and 95% of the college apps just didn't work in OSX. So why where they bought? i dunno.

More recently: i have a client that's migrating all their desktops / laptops for iMacs / Macbook Pro's...but they also run Windows on a VM because some enterprise apps just won't work in OSX or there's no equivalent (so it's a complete waste of money), but hey in their minds "OSX is more faster and secure than Windows", despite having their machines running slower because of the VM.