It seems that Apple and Pearson are about to shell out big bucks, $6.4 million to be exact for 
what appears to be a massive failure in supporting a tablet initiative in a thousand schools in Los Angeles:
The Los Angeles Unified School District has reached a tentative $6.4-million settlement over curriculum from education software giant Pearson that the school system said its teachers barely used.
The pact is the latest fallout from an aborted $1.3-billion plan to provide an iPad to every student, teacher and campus administrator in the nation’s second-largest school district.
The Board of Education is expected to vote on the settlement in October. The bidding process that led to the original contract is the subject of an FBI investigation.
This is from a piece in the Los Angeles Times: LA Unified to get $6.4 million in settlement over iPad software, that says that an FBI investigation is underway into the manner in which the contract was let. The writer also quotes an attorney for the school district, “one goal is to make sure schools are ready to use technology before they receive it.” Well duh!
I often say that forecasting technology applications is really tough, especially when it involves the future. We also know that we will be wrong twice… We will overestimate the near term and underestimate the long term. Although Pearson claims that their materials are being used effectively in many other schools, it seems that in this case these folks are in the near term of effective uses of tablet devices.
Hello:
Thought I would reply to the web site. You are indeed a rare individual who has gone back into
ET and presented a picture of your work and ET Magazine as a vehicle in which you
presented your idea in a formal exposure for the audience. I congratulate you for the
idea and devotion to your ideas. Larry and I worked on ET from early in 1961 through
his passing to provide a platform for the presentation for ideas that involved innovation
and creativity in the education and training setting,
It is a rare person who knows that I worked for all those years on a daily basis. I took my
name off the sheets in 1971. It is not a rare person who knows that Larry was at the
leading edge in providing a platform for the flow of ideas on innovation and creativity
that helped shape a formal flow of ideas.
Again, congratulations on your site creation.
Regards,
Howard C. Lipsite
edtecpbs@aol,com
Howard, thanks so much for your comments but especially for your devotion to Larry and your joint efforts with Educational Technology. What you both did constitutes an incredible and lasting contribution to the field!