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An Apple For The Teacher (4/25/01)
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We're starting to suspect that someone really wants his crown back. Rack up another initiative in Apple's both-guns-blazing push to get back the education market share it lost to Dell: as outlined in an official press release, the company's latest strategy involves a new program called the Apple Teacher Institutes, a bunch of "hands-on technology workshops" at which K-12 teachers can learn how "to effectively utilize technology to maximize planning and instructional time, expand their individual areas of expertise, engage an increasingly diverse student body, and discover new ways to individualize instruction." In addition, we're told that attendees will also learn the value of utilizing buzzwords and how to effectively split infinitives.
We're going to go way out on a limb, here, and assume that the "technology" that Apple plans to teach these educators to "utilize" will be-- dare we say it?-- Apple technology. (Try to contain your shock.) So when the web site lists "digital media, mobile computing, and the Internet," you can probably substitute "iMovie, iBooks with AirPort, and PowerSchool/iTools for Education." Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course; Apple's totally up front about its sponsorship of the seminars, and indeed, if the Apple Teacher Institute workshops focused on the deployment of Dell PowerEdge servers in K-12 schools of various sizes, we'd expect to see Cheryl Vedoe's head on a stick.
What's particularly cool about these seminars is that they're not actually going to be run by Apple itself; instead, teachers who attend will be "led by a team of educators who have effectively integrated these technologies into their classrooms." In a way, it's sort of the weeklong, non-retail, all-teacher version of Demo Days: Apple products demonstrated by real people who use them. And since "Apple will underwrite the cost of the seminar content and materials for all attendees," hopefully attendance will be high. It's a smart move; school districts may try to base their computer purchases entirely on cost, but if Apple can get enough teachers standing up and demonstrating how much better Apple technology is for the faculty and the kids, the school boards may eventually be forced to listen. Let's give it a year and see how it works.
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SceneLink (3014)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 4/25/01 episode: April 25, 2001: Gee, all these site outages just when speculation about Apple's May 1st press event is reaching a fever pitch; sounds like Steve's been busy. Meanwhile, dismal Cube sales numbers have some people concerned for the product's future, and Apple's latest plan to win back the hearts of educators is a series of free workshops called the Apple Teacher Institutes...
Other scenes from that episode: 3012: The Hands-On Approach (4/25/01) Man, Captain Steve sure has his covert black-ops ninja sabotage team working overtime these days. Regular viewers are no doubt all too familiar with AtAT's seemingly futile struggle to maintain a steady broadcast signal over the past few weeks, and judging by the contents of our inbox, more than a few conspiracy-minded viewers are looking askance at the sudden vaporization of Mac OS Rumors about a week ago, as well... 3013: Nothing Square Can Stay (4/25/01) Whither the Cube? Apple has expended an unusual amount of energy to insist that the slick but unfortunately slow-selling product isn't going away anytime soon. Steve categorically denied rumors that the Cube development team had been laid off, for instance (that's interesting in itself, since the company's policy is never to comment on rumors), and Apple has continued to juice its compact little hexahedron with better feature options, like a CD-RW drive and an nVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics card...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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