News Corp unveils tablet device for education

Jul 23, 2012
The News Corporation building is pictured n New York. News Corp. said Monday it would launch a new tablet computer with AT&T aimed at the education market to bring "digital innovation" to the classroom.

News Corp. said Monday it would launch a new tablet computer with AT&T aimed at the education market to bring "digital innovation" to the classroom.

The media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch said the effort would come from its division which is being renamed Amplify.

"Amplify is dedicated to reimagining K-12 (elementary and secondary) education by creating digital products and services that empower students, teachers and parents in new ways," the company said in a statement.

"It is our aim to amplify the power of digital innovation to transform and and to help schools deliver fundamentally better experiences and results," said Joel Klein, chief executive of Amplify.

"Amplify will introduce new products in a thoughtful way, so that technology can finally live up to its promise to advance learning and augment teaching for students, teachers and parents everywhere."

Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility, said the effort would include "a 4G mobile tablet-based experience that we believe will significantly enhance teaching and learning for grades K-12."

Amplify "is creating new digital curricula that reinvent teaching and learning, beginning with English language arts, science and math," the statement said.

The materials are being developed by a team at Wireless Generation, with educators from the University of California at Berkeley and Lapham's Quarterly magazine.

The two companies will launch a pilot program in US schools in the upcoming academic year in which AT&T "will provide 4G tablets, device management and technical services, and connectivity."

Last month, Murdoch said he would move forward on a plan to create separate companies for the huge entertainment division and the struggling publishing business, which includes the education unit.

Explore further: Digital revolution bypassing UK education

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gmfr
5 / 5 (5) Jul 23, 2012
Does Rupert Murdoch shaping the curriculum of students seem like a very bad idea to anyone else...?
Vendicar_Decarian
5 / 5 (2) Jul 23, 2012
NewsCorp is one of the most corrupt corporations on earth, and Libertarian/Randite Murdoch is equally corrupt.

Education would be best kept away from Libertarian Corruption.
rwinners
not rated yet Jul 24, 2012
Geez. Murdock and Co developing curriculum???? Dangerous! Were I a school official, I wouldn't touch this with that proverbial pole.
GSwift7
not rated yet Jul 24, 2012
My daughter's school district bought an IPad 2 for each student in all four of their high schools last year. They are going to do the same for the middle schools this year. So far, the things have been a big waste of time and money. There's almost zero approved classroom material available on the tablets. Some text books are available, but the licenses require the school to purchase the paper books for each electronic copy they want. They did create a global address book which includes all the kids and teachers in the district, which is somewhat usefull. The kids can do video chat with anyone in their classes and work together on homework, though some might consider that cheating. It was really good for her current events classes though.
GSwift7
not rated yet Jul 24, 2012
One big thing hold it back is that not every kid has a wireless internet connection at home. To be fair to the kids that don't, they can't assign stuff that requires the kids to really use the tablets at home. In most of the classes the teachers have decided to just not let the kids take them out of their backpacks, because they are more of a distraction than anything else. Also, there's no way to monitor what they use them for. You don't have all the control on a tablet that you would have on a computer hooked up to a company network.
Vendicar_Decarian
not rated yet Jul 24, 2012
The place for computers in the school system is in the library.

Apple has a long history of scamming school systems by pushing their products to education when there is little to no benefit from having these devices in the classroom.

This is another fine example of how Capitalism has destroyed America.

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