South Carolina To Give 1 Laptop Per School Child 279
ruphus13 sends in an OStatic article outlining the plans of the state of South Carolina, inspired by the One Laptop Per Child project, to provide laptops to local elementary school children. "The South Carolina Department of Education and the non-profit Palmetto Project have teamed up to get a laptop in the hands of every elementary school student in South Carolina... The OLPC/SC hopes to distribute as many as 50,000 laptops this spring to eligible students. The effort is underwritten and managed by the Palmetto Project, whose mission is to 'put new and creative ideas to work in South Carolina.' While low-performing school districts with limited resources are a special focus for the OLPC/SC, the group is adamant on one point: There are no free laptops. In order to receive a laptop, children need to give a small monetary donation — the project coordinators say a dollar or two is sufficient."It's not obvious from browsing around the OLPC/SC site what software the XO laptops will be running; but by following links one gets the impression that they will be powered by Linux, not XP.
Curious phrase - "dollar or two" (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that just to avoid the laptop being "free" for political reason, to give it some value to the child, or is it the consideration needed to make the agreement a contract?
Too Bad (Score:1, Interesting)
As a computer professional, someone who has been involved in technology for decades, and the father of two elementary aged school children, all I can say is that if my children were offered computers, I would politely decline.
There are so many things that are better for young kids than sitting in front of a computer screen. I actually spent a lot of money sending my kids to a private school in their early years that explicitly kept computers out of the school -- they actually did art, played outside, and took long walks in the woods...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
So... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Curious phrase - "dollar or two" (Score:5, Interesting)
You see the same phenomenon elsewhere: People are often willing to do volunteer work for a wage of zero dollars; but would refuse to do the same work for an insultingly low wage, even though, theoretically, if you are willing to do something for $0/hour, you should be more willing to do it for $1/hour. A similar effect is seen with cash vs. non cash transactions. It is easy to get friends/students/volunteers to do things in exchange for, say, pizza, that they wouldn't be motivated to do in exchange for the value of the pizza given to them in cash.
Re:The elephant in the room... (Score:1, Interesting)
I just want to ask a clearing point: do the teachers suck because it is the only job they can do or because they have given up on teaching? The end results are the same but how you solve the problem is different. Either way you do make a very good point.
An education is only worth what you think it is worth. I grew up in a family with low expectation but high possibilities and decided to run with the eduction. My brother decided to screw all the girls that he could convince to drop their pants. I'm now posting on slashdot, he isn't even sure what a computer is.
Wow, where did they get the money? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Is this such a good idea? (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife teachers here in SC, 3rd grade. I PRAY they don't try to incliude these things in lessons in any way!!! A BEST these would be forced into convoluded lesson plans. The applications ("activities") available on the XO are not really classroom usable. Sure, it can access Wikipedia, but that's not exactly something we need to be doing in a classroom when they typically already do that in the computer lab. These also don't run true Linux or Windows without being hacked, so using them to connect and interact with the smartboards, run applications the school curriculum teaches to, heck even using a traditional word processor is not viable.
What we're really doing here is simply giving each of these kids a basic educational toy. It;s somthing they can play with to learn on their own outside of the classroom, and to interact with other kids. They have very little interactive classroom value.
Also, advanced kids will hack them, so having them fully able to do what a teacher wants when they plan a lesson is questionable at best.
It's GREAT that they're giving these things to kids, but if the SC school board thinks they can use this as a marketing springbourd, and ask teachers to 1) learn a new OS, 2) learn the associated apps, 3) update their lesson plans to accomodate these systems (In SC each teacher writes their own plans, nothing is provided by the district or state, it's a MASSIVE amount of work!), then they're going to have a lot of teachers quit on them, or damand compensation or assistance.
The school system can NOT afford ANY increased costs. They've already lost (thank to our asshole govornor) $250 million in assistance funds, and have on top of that experinced budget cuts that care eliminating nearly all special programs, dramatically cutting field trips, and cutting 3,000 teachers. As it is, teachers are expect to buy THEIR OWN classroom supplies (glue, paper, consumables for science expereiments, etc) My wife is limited to 100 pieces of printed paper per week, but is required by state regulations to hand out nearly tripple that amount in required tests, quizzes, handouts, and communications. We go through a printer about once a year simply wearing it out. We go thorugh 300-400 pages a week printing at home, and several hundred dollar in ink anually. We do NOT get compensated for that. ($250 a year total compensation, for 2008 I have receipts for $1700 in classroom expenses we filed on ourt taxes). If they're THAT tight, how do they expect to afford the infrastructure and man power including these systems will require.
Thanks for giving me something for free that will cost me more money than not having it...
Re:Is this such a good idea? (Score:4, Interesting)
My mum teaches in a school in the UK where some of the kids have free laptops (generally the ones that don't deserve them). She has to deal with
It's a while since I asked her about it though.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Interesting)
I know of a blind boy, who suddenly lost his sight at age 14. The state (social services department, I think) gave him a special mobile phone -- full voice navigation through menus, it read out text messages etc. A couple of days later and he complains to one of his teachers that his mum has sold it. How many parents are so mean that they'd take their blind son's special phone? (And they weren't so poor that they needed the money.)
Re:Too bad they can't afford to give kids... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great Opportunity for South Carolina (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though the the post says "...by following links one gets the impression that they will be powered by Linux, not XP", we better wait to see if Microsoft will yet find a way to sabotage this project by turning it into yet another promotion for One Microsoft Way. The higher profile this becomes, the greater likelihood Microsoft will step in and you will suddenly find all those laptops running Windows, and therefore your donations going to promote Microsoft lock-in.
Yay (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't care if they use Windows, Linux, or OSX. This could actually motivate students to learn on their own, a concept rarely taught in grade school.
When I was in Jr. High I was fortunate enough to take a keyboarding class. The final project was to make web page summarizing what you learned in the class. I didn't learn much until I began making the web page. A few of us in the class were enthralled by how it works and instead of using FrontPage, we used the internet to learn basic HTML and designed our pages from scratch.
Many kids, like me, continued to expand our new found ability to create on the computer. We all individually learned JavaScript, C, Perl, and other languages all on our own and without each other's knowledge. I ended up learning about this come senior year in high school when we were all talking about the CSC, EE, and CPE degrees we were going to get in the next four years.
Four years later we all have degrees and all attribute our affinity for learning with that first, open-ended project in Jr. High. Its something like a laptop that can open a kids mind to how easy it is to learn, and how rewarding it can be. I am happy for the small handful of kids these laptops will inspire and hope that parents and teachers let their kids learn.
re: money and education (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been saying the same thing for quite a while. I do think there are some serious problems with some of the public school districts that require funds to address properly. These, as others have noted, tend to be infrastructure-related, though. Some of our city schools I've been through have leaky roofs, broken air-conditioners, and windows that won't stay open on their own, anymore.
If you're going to hold school in a building, the building has to be functional, first.
Other districts have a problem with not enough money for teacher salaries. But overall, we're talking more of a resource distribution issue than one of simply needing MORE funding.
I can drive 10 minutes from one of the schools in the most disrepair and with the most disgruntled, underpaid teachers, and find another "public school" that's practically new, with the latest technologies installed in it. Often, you'll find they just approved some expense in the multiple $10,000 range for a new scoreboard on their field, or a new Olympic sized indoor pool, or ??
Obviously, this discrepancy occurs because of the boundaries between the municipalities and their corresponding tax districts. Yet the students attending probably cross those boundaries constantly, throughout life in our city.
I often wonder if it really makes any sense for a particular municipality to be so concerned with making THEIR school superior, vs. worrying about the "health" of the public schools in the surrounding areas, on the whole?