My kids have school-issued iPads and type reports with the on-screen keyboard filling half the screen. They're totally used to it. They seem to prefer the iPad to using a chromebook.
Still? Maybe it's because I live in a nice upper middle class area and have nice upper middle class friends, but I don't think anybody, at any age, sees the iPad as a status symbol.
...they are learning how to use Linux? Not one bit.
I bought my kids cheap low-end chromebooks, and they also get chromebooks issued to them during certain classes. There's zero linux learning going on there. They can't go into developer mode. There's no more linux learning there than there is BSD learning on an iPad.
They are only learning the Google Docs ecosystem. It's awesome if indoctrination in software ecosystem lock-in is your thing.
"But let the kids go with their preference so they can be dumb wage slaves" -- Nice. Thanks for the implication that I'm a bad parent for letting them complete their schoolwork on the iPad as they are required by their teachers.
It's been a while since I was a student, but assuming that schools' attitude towards technology is still the same you'd probably get detention and your school-issued Chromebook confiscated if you tried to enable developer mode.
The vast, vast majority of kids don't know it exists and have no idea what they'd do with it even if it did.
Yeah, I'm sure there's the one kid who loves tech in the class that wants to use it, but they'd be just as interested in Linux/tech stuff whether or not the school handed them a Chromebook.
So they have school issued Chromebooks too? Or is that just supposition?