by I love Apple and their products, but this is beyond crass. Field trips to the Apple Store for your class! Parents with their American Express cards are also welcome.
When I first saw this advertised in the Sydney Apple Store last week, I chalked it up to the novelty of there only being one or two Apple stores on the entire continent of Australia. However, in an age where you have to dig for fossilized remains of field trips gone by, bussing kids to the mall to look at Apple products seems distasteful. Of course, all of this is at the school (or parents’) expense with Apple contributing nothing, but Skippy, the minimum wage sub-genius, to supervise the proceedings.
The real tragedy here is that educational computing in schools remains so immature and unsophisticated, that many schools will rightfully view this (commercial) opportunity as a way of enhancing their students’ education.
I’m sure ISTE is scrambling to figure out a way to make a buck off these field trips. Perhaps they’ll publish guide books, post-mall quizzes or standards for visiting the Apple Store.
——-
Read my recent article related to ridiculous field trips, Enrichment Programs: The winners win more at the expense of their classmates.
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.
It would make a good field trip for a business unit on marketing which we have in our fourth grade basal reading series. However, I suspect most teachers will use it as a day away from class. I’ve had teachers at my school taking field trips to Souplantation and Magic Mountain.
Might I assume that the field trip to the Souplantation was connected to the study of the civil war between the Campbells and the Progressos?
Hey Gary – I wonder if the field trippers thought about a trip to the “real” field – like the woods? Here’s how we do it – Terry from cadre 14.
http://www.smithclass.org/hikers/hikers.htm