Is the Apple Store Really the Right Place for a School Field Trip?

Early last month, Apple unveiled it’s new ‘Field Trip’ programme, which puts the computing and presentation resources of its Apple Stores at the disposal of groups of visiting school kids. John Gruber was quick to jump in with some uncharacteristic round-about criticism of Apple:

“I think it’s downright sickening that any school would consider a trip to a retail store as a legitimate field trip.”

More recently, the Uk’s own Fraser Speirs — photographer, Cocoa-head and, most importantly, teacher — has published his reflections on the day children from his school spent learning the Apple way:

“The teacher in charge considered that the lesson had been very well designed from an educational perspective and was very appropriate for the age and stage the children were at. I might add that this is in stark contrast to many trips we take where the educational content is poorly designed and presented.”

So here we have the two opposing sides of the argument presented by equally vehement Apple supporters (who also happen to be parents). Speirs speaks as a teacher who faces the problem of finding educationally-valid excursions for his pupils. But he also equates Apple’s scheme with the “stuff for schools” campaigns run by various supermarkets. I think this is a bad comparison. While there have been cases of schools soliciting pupils to cajole their parents into participating in these schemes, they are generally aimed at the buying habits of adults. I don’t think there can be any doubt that these ‘Field Trips’ are aimed at educating the next generation of Apple buyers.

Another question arises as to the educational value of these trips. They typically involve using Apple’s iLife or iWork productivity tools to produce a project of some kind. In the case of Speirs’ trip this was a podcast. While this is fine for primary school children, where learning typically involves this kind of unfocused discovery, you have to question what secondary age pupils stand to gain from the experience.

But maybe I’m just bitter because all we had in my day was Shape Shooter on the Beeb.

• Fraser Speirs’ Blog
• Apple Store Field Trips