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.
Please (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Please (Score:4, Funny)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Nuclear_weapons [wikipedia.org]
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Please give one to Miss South Carolina too.
Yes, one that comes with Google Earth pre-installed.
Great Opportunity for South Carolina (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
Is this such a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this such a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're giving laptops to "low-performing school districts with limited resources", but surely to actually use those laptops in lessons, the schools will have to spend even more of their limited resources setting up an infrastructure and new teaching plans?
What's interesting about this is this part from the article:
The child must sign a document promising simply to try to "do something great" for their state, families -- and themselves -- with the laptop.
It doesn't sound like they're putting these laptops in the hands of the children for the purpose of teachers utilizing them as teaching tools. And of course, with such a bold new technology, I would expect the teachers not to use them at all at first. Then learn to use them as an augmenting learning tool. And maybe the final stage five years from now is to have the textbook on the laptop and all that jazz.
I know a school teacher in the Bronx and from what she tells me it sounds like all other attempts to improve the learning process have failed or actually deterred from it. She sounds like she'd be willing to try anything.
Keep in mind that these laptops are probably going to cost the same as a couple of new textbooks. Who cares if it fails? It'd be great if a few kids did do something great for their state and family with these laptops.
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Sounds like poor planning to me. It reminds me of when my local college lost its president, and a temporary man who given the job for about a year. The power went to his head, and he went-off and built a 50 million dollar building next to the student center. He had no input from any of the professors or staff - just create a big hawking building.
That building sat empty for ten years, filled with beautiful tables and chairs, but not used because it had no designated purpose.
That's exactly what's going to
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Do not underestimate the abilities of humans with still working creativity and freedom from false (learned) conventions. ^^
I'm sure they will have their fun with the machines. Even if they "only" play games on them, they will learn. I, for one, still think games are by far the best method of teaching.
Unfortunately, the "games" that are created for this purpose are crappy games, and most game developers are crappy teachers. I guess it's pretty hard to be good at both. Especially when most of those people are
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More likely these machines will experience the same flaw as when my school "gave" a bunch of Mac IIs to my teacher.
Nothing. They sat there and collected dust, except for two weeks (out of thirty) when we did some stupid reading-practice program. A gigantic and huge waste of taxpayer dollars, as the Macs eventually made their way to the junkyard. The truth is, you don't need computers to learn. All you need it a pencil, some paper, and a brain. And maybe a $1 paperback bought used off amazon.
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They're giving laptops to "low-performing school districts with limited resources", but surely to actually use those laptops in lessons, the schools will have to spend even more of their limited resources setting up an infrastructure and new teaching plans?
What's interesting about this is this part from the article:
The child must sign a document promising simply to try to "do something great" for their state, families -- and themselves -- with the laptop.
It doesn't sound like they're putting these laptops in the hands of the children for the purpose of teachers utilizing them as teaching tools. And of course, with such a bold new technology, I would expect the teachers not to use them at all at first. Then learn to use them as an augmenting learning tool. And maybe the final stage five years from now is to have the textbook on the laptop and all that jazz.
I know a school teacher in the Bronx and from what she tells me it sounds like all other attempts to improve the learning process have failed or actually deterred from it. She sounds like she'd be willing to try anything.
Keep in mind that these laptops are probably going to cost the same as a couple of new textbooks. Who cares if it fails? It'd be great if a few kids did do something great for their state and family with these laptops.
Parents who care and teachers who can actually discipline the students will do far more for the kids' education than laptops.
If we went to a voucher system the schools could set their own policies-- "Yes most of our students achieve very high test scores, and we will take your child, but you must sign this consent form that we will be providing consequences for your child if he is acting up and disrupting the class". If the parents didn't like it they can just send their kids to another school.
I admit I hav
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I admit I haven't thought about it much, but I have yet to see a good argument against the voucher system. It would help weed out the bureaucracy and spending on school stadiums and football fields, too.
The only argument in general I've heard against the voucher system has been from teacher's unions and Principles of 'bad' schools. "How would I guarantee any students come to my school?"
Exactly
No, but for real I've heard people say well that will make things worse because all the smart kids will end up together, and the bad schools will get much worse because you can't kick kids out of public schools. Which is why children need to be left behind, there needs to be academic levels. Kids need to fail or
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I'm skeptical of the apparent vagueness of the goal here. It's great to offer the world a tool that
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If the government school is broke, then you and the other teachers should join together, quit your jobs, and go-off and create a new startup company to teach students privately. That's how innovation happens in America (see Activision and Amiga as examples - both spinoffs of Atari).
Re:Is this such a good idea? (Score:5, Informative)
A great deal of effort in both hardware and software design(ie. mesh networking, robust and easily repaired design, the bitfrost security model, the "school server" mechanism, easy system state restoration tools, etc.) was dedicated to making the cost and complexity of infrastructure and administration as low as possible. The system is designed to be usable without a class of dedicated technicians and network managers. With the mesh stuff, you can cut back substantially on access point density and ethernet cabling. With bitfrost, school server backups, and system state restoration, you can mostly leave administration in the hands to the students, with the option of easily blanking them if the student screws up.
I'm not saying that it is certain to work; but OLPC is designed with exactly those concerns in mind. Also, if a district is currently "low-performing" it already needs a new teaching plan, because the status quo isn't cutting it.
Re:Is this such a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
As a once poor-kid-from-a-poor-neighborhood, I'd have loved to get a decent laptop as a kid. I did get a computer at one point, and a few (pirated) disks with... yes, games but mostly apps and docs, and it opened a whole new world for me: audio editing, animation, multimedia, 3d modelling and architecture, movie subtitling, programming... That computer did more for my future than anything else I learned in my teens.
If they're given laptops with internet, the effect could be even greater. Just one thing... I really hope they don't let the kids get on youtube with these, and think that's all computers are for. Or worse, get some stupid school "learn multiplication with bingo" app, and think that's all their computers can do. If so, it'll be a detriment, rather than an aid.
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I really hope they don't let the kids get on youtube with these, and think that's all computers are for.
I have an XO (got it because I volunteered to write 4th grade math ed software for it) and I'll tell you that youtube does not work very well on these things. They do have a flash player, but when I go to youtube, the video never plays.
I think that's a good thing, personally.
BTW, the XO is the coolest little machine I've ever seen. It looks and feels like a toy (a solid, sturdy, well-built toy), but the damned thing is quite a powerful little computer, and the Sugar interface rocks. It's different en
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I think there's definitely room for more guidance from teachers/parents, and that this could mitigate the "youtube effect" somewhat. But yes, what you said is equally true, and the best solution is certainly a path between these two extremes.
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...
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My wife *teachers* here don't try to *incliude* *A* BEST these would be forced into *convoluded*
First three sentences.
Rather amusing that you are commenting on the quality of education. Even though you have good points, the presentation somewhat diminishes them.
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Sigh...
My wife *teachers* here
don't try to *incliude*
*A* BEST these would be forced into *convoluded*
is better-formatted
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A laptop might be a good idea if you want to save paper and ink...
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ebook readers (Score:2)
I would think ebook readers like the kindle would be a much better choice for schools. Notes and hand outs could be distributed as PDFs, students could easily have access to many more books, and simple yet necessary tools like a dictionary or full text search would always be available. For an even better deal, work out a simple educational discount on books and get the kids reading whatever they want. When I was growing up all we had were libraries and your parents had to drop you off. Then of course the bo
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.
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Let me sound like the big meanie...but bear with me.
WHY are they doing this? Schools that have limited resources do NOT need to be spending money giving ELEMENTARY school children laptops. That's a luxury--especially for that age. They'd be better as spending the monies on books or other supplies.
We're hearing anecdotal stories about teachers who are spending THEIR money to help educate their class because there's not enough in the budget (except for the highly paid administrators, but that's another story)
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I always find it funny that the politicians see these under funded schools filled with kids who are bright and eager to learn. And if you just give them the right tool they will outshine everyone.
What are they going to do with these laptops... Durring class when they are suppose to be listening and taking notes, they will be browsing the web, and IMing everyone they know, and doing everything but focusing on the class.
They are better off to give 1 Desktop per child so when they go home they have the same se
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but surely to actually use those laptops in lessons,
And here is the crux.
Where are the interactive video lessons complete, with recorded answers to all the common questions as well as more detailed explanation of subjects that can be more difficult for some to grasp? Where is the framework allowing teachers as well as students to jointly build upon these lessons? Where are the computer driven practice "books" for those same lessons? Where are the teacher applications that aggregates information from the above programs?
We are currently stuck in a system with
That is nice but why? (Score:2, Insightful)
I admit to liking the idea of requiring a donation so the laptops aren't completely free. It is well known that you value the things that cost you more then those that don't.
However I am still left with the unsettling feeling of why give laptops to children? The US has health problems because kids aren't getting out and playing and instead sitting in front of video games, TVs and what not and we are going to give away laptops? I understand why kids should be exposed and be familiar with computers but sho
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Maybe I'm just naive and old but I have yet to hear a good reason why children need laptops.
Agree. Maybe they don't need them, however that does not mean that they cannot benefit from them.
I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of this target population, but I've seen some pretty horrific 'family' situations through work & travel.
For many underpriviledged kids, school is a real 'haven', where they can gain some knowledge and competencies that - hopefully - will one day help them move on and up. Surely IT familiarity is a good one?
So, in the context of a carefully-(re)designed program, (agree with
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Re:That is nice but why? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like there will be a lot of cheap XOs on sale on eBay pretty soon - can't wait.
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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.)
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?
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.
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Whereas if you just flat out give it to them, you could more easily foster a sense of indebtedness and gratitude ("You did nothing to deserve this, take care of it").
I think AC's observation about volunteers is to the point: V
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? What is the point? Do they have any evidence indicating that getting a 9-year-old to make a promise will in any significant way improve his life?
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I imagine it'll work about as well as making a 9yo promise not to have sex before marriage.
Perhaps South Carolina feels that they don't have enough home-grown criminals? Or merely ensure the students remain mediocre? It depends on if the child goes for the opposite of "great" or the opposite of "for South Carolina".
Holding my breath (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Forgive me if I take a wait-and-see approach on this until I hear what MS's PR department has to say about the project...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sadly most of them seem pretty motivated to me because they're incapable of anything else.
Looking back on my education - especially the early years - I'm furious at how little teaching they did and how much of my time they wasted with busy work.
I got where I am today (a developer with a 4 year bachelor degree in CS) despite most of my teachers, not because of them.
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It's easier to make excuses for why the public schools are failing and why parents, especially poor parents, are often roadblocks to their kids' success ...
I'm always puzzled by this. Obama made the statement in a speech recently that the number one predictor of a child's success in the classroom is the teacher. We've all heard that before. However, he followed it up by stating the the number one predictor "outside the classroom" is the parents' attitude toward education (ie, involvement). That follow u
Re:The elephant in the room... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't even know where to start...
I agree with your overall assessment of South Carolina, having lived here for the past 15 years. There are clearly cultural issues that need to be overcome before any education initiative will be effective here.
South Carolina is strangely bipolar when it comes to education. The majority of the public schools seem to exist to maintain the status quo, teach to the PACT(1) test (or whatever its replacement is called), and keep the teachers employed through whatever means are leagal. South Carolina spends a very high percentage of taxes on education (as shown on the tax bills for property taxes as well as explained in state income tax booklets) yet we have some of the worst schools in the country. Apparently, Inez Tennebaum, our Secretary of Education for far too long, was publicly ridiculed on TV for her failures and she honestly thought she was doing a good job. Pretty sad, IMHO.
However, South Carolina also has some interesting charter schools - the good ones (e.g. Blythe Academy of Languages in Greenville) are in the wealthier neighbourhoods (no surprises there). There has been a large number of "online" charter schools lately. Unfortunately, the one we experienced with our son was run as effectively as a regular South Carolina public school. (In other words, it was pathetic.) I teach in an on-line program as well as on-campus at a large university, and I thought that the on-line charter school would be a good idea. I still think it could be, if done correctly.
There are many private schools in SC, catering to the wealthy. Some of them have tutions that are more than the state universities. (Surprisingly, some of the state universities in SC are very good, such as Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.)
Homeschooling is tolerated, barely. The majority of homeschoolers I have encountered do it for religious, rather than academic, reasons. We homeschool for academic reasons becasuse the SC schools are so bad. It is against SC law to segregate students (at least in the lower grades) by ability because someone decided it was discriminatory due to the fact that there were disproportionally fewer minority students in the advanced classes. Therefore, rather than look for a reason _why_ there were fewer minority students in the advanced classes they just decided that the practice of allowing gifted students to work at a more challenging pace without being held back by average students was racial discrimination.
I doubt those laptops will go anywhere but to public school kids.
(1) PAlmetto Achievement Test - the state created exam given to children every few years with the reported purpose of determining how well the schools are doing. Unfortunately, the teachers teach to the test instead of educating the children.
I find it interesting that the CAPTCHA for this post is "converse", which, beside its usual meaning, happens to be the name of a very good private all-women's college (Converse College) in Spartanburg, SC.
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An internet-connected computer is one of the best possible gifts for a child in a poor and education-hostile home setting. It would allow the student to reach out to people around the world, rather than being exposed only to the proudly ignorant community he is surrounded by in RL. The child could pursue intellectual curiosities with the encouragement of the peers he finds on the net, whereas, locally, he would find only discouragement.
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...fixing the problem by introducing more competition and making an education more critical to just being able to get by in America.
Do you realize just how much bitching and moaning would occur if people were forced to do anything to get by in this country? You don't need an education, welfare will take care of you. You don't need to procreate responsibly, welfare will take care of your kids. You don't need to watch your weight, you'll get disability pay and nobody will dare blame you for it. Hell, you don't need to take care of yourself at all - modern medicine will strive to keep you ali
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I've lived in SC for more than 20 years, work in vocational education, and strongly agree with you.
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Sounds like what happens in Idiocracy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)
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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.
I'm confused as to what your point is, what do you and your brother do now? Sure you post on slashdot and he might not know what a computer is, but if you're posting to slashdot from your mother's basement while he's out on his private yacht with even more girls then you really haven't accomplished much. Unless of course your goal in life was to post on slashdot from your mother's basement...
From your post it seem as if you're equating not knowing how to use a computer with failure and lack of intelligence.
So... (Score:3, Interesting)
First things first (Score:5, Insightful)
I, and my kids, like the XO (Score:3, Insightful)
I got an XO second-hand from someone who had bought it from the G1G1 program, thinking she'd be getting a cheap, full-sized laptop, and was extremely disappointed.
I gave it to the kids and they absolutely love it. They use it for playing around with the paint program ("activity"), some music stuff, etc., Not exactly the "learning" experience a school kid might have with it, but at least they'd rather play with the computer and explore than watch tv.
Frankly, I'm *glad* it doesn't have XP on it; my 4 yo figured out how to do stuff on the XO without having to ask. It uses metaphors that a kid "gets". Do I care she's not "learning what she'll need in the real world?" Can you imagine still hitting the "start" button to do something in twenty years?
Plus I don't have to buy an anti-virus program to install it it. :)
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She's 5 feet even, so I guess she figured it would be full-sized for her. She also bought it because she saw it as another way she could "help growing humanity" (her words) so whatever her misunderstanding of the physical specs of the machine, I give her props for her charity.
Shaking Down Their Milk Money (Score:2)
Why is the dollar or two necessary to pay? Some kids don't even have enough money to eat properly every day. An extra dollar or two means skipping an (inadequate) meal or two. Why should they have to go hungrier? What's the point of extracting that dollar or two from them? What goes on in South Carolina that pressures the OLPC suppliers to be
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Why is the dollar or two necessary to pay? Some kids don't even have enough money to eat properly every day. An extra dollar or two means skipping an (inadequate) meal or two. Why should they have to go hungrier? What's the point of extracting that dollar or two from them? What goes on in South Carolina that pressures the OLPC suppliers to be "adamant" that kids pay a dollar or two they don't have?
I think the idea is to give value to the notebook. Unfortunately, when many people are given something for free, they consider it worthless since they gave nothing of "worth" for it. By asking for something in return, it gives value to the notebook.
However, I do understand your point about a dollar having a much greater value to someone who sees dollars so rarely. With the school lunch program, that dollar could mean the difference between a lunch and 30 minutes of watching others eat. Still, I hope the
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Each kid gets one. How does that have anything to do with what you just said?
From money to computers (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like we've gone from throwing money at the problem to throwing computers at the problem.
Too bad they can't afford to give kids... (Score:2)
...their textbooks as this is a prevalent problem in South Carolina. It's not dead last (usually) in education in the US because the kids don't have laptops, it's because they don't have the textbooks they need, enough teachers to go round, and half the schools are forced to use trailers for many of their classes due to the poor infrastructure; so, hurray, let's throw out 50,000 laptops to make things better. These are, of course, vast oversimplifications of the problems in education in South Carolina, bu
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View of a SC Public School IT (Score:4, Insightful)
Howdy, I do IT work for a fairly rural school district in SC. There are so many problems with this idea I don't know where to start.
Firstly, we've just recently had our fired/not fired meetings owing to the current budget crisis. The idea of giving up to 50,000 laptops to school children is noble, but the money would be better spent retaining teaching positions that are either being cut or lost due to attrition. I realize that's an apples-to-oranges comparison since this is more of a grant, but the truth is that most school districts are flooded with initiatives like this, Title 1 funding, etc. that can only be used for very specific purposes. Priorities need to be examined and these programs need to be reorganized. Federal funding is great and all, but it doesn't make much sense that a network closet that 20 computers run back to has 10 brand new switches in it while the school can't afford to retain its current teaching staff.
In addition to that there are a ton of infrastructure problems that need to be examined. Most schools in the great state of SC (and, I assume, most places) were built before the advent of widespread computer adoption in education. Power is a major issue. All the sudden the room that really only needed power to a TV and maybe 4-5 computers now needs to have the power capabilities to also handle 20-30 laptops as well. This is not to be underestimated.
How about network connectivity? Are we going to install network jacks in these classrooms for these laptops or put in WAPs? Who is going to pay for this new equipment/cabling?
How about all of the volume licensing agreements? Agreements for OSes, anti-virus clients, patch management systems, etc. are all done by volume. Who is going to pay for the additional licenses for these systems?
Maintenance? Is the grant going to give us enough spare laptops to cover for children while they're laptops are down for repair, students who forget laptops, etc? What about the increased workload of an already-thing IT department covering the additional laptops that will, in all likelihood, break more often?
And as for the Linux? I'm a FOSS advocate, run nix at home, etc. But you have to realize that *most* school/district IT departments are staffed by folks who were the most technologically proficient users at the time the equipment was installed, e.g. the librarian who knew how to install MS Office got promoted to be the head of the district IT department. Sorry, but supporting (or even running) Linux for a lot of these folks is over their heads.
Is all of this worth it to give young students laptops? Will this really foster that much additional learning?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that someone is trying to promote the technology. Unfortunately there are a lot more pressing matters to take care of in SC schools and a lot of issues to tackle before this could be successfully implemented.
rural IT FOSS in education advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Countries in the developing world such as the African nation of Rwanda [about.com] don't seem to have any such problems. As neither does Brazil [olpcnews.com].
"it doesn't make much sense that a network closet that 20 computers run back to has 10 brand new switches in it while the school can't afford to retain its current teaching staff"
Retraining FUD
"All the sudden the room that really only needed power to a TV and maybe 4-5 computers now needs to have the power capabilities to also handle 20-30 laptops as well. This is not to be underestimated"
I thought laptops ran off of batteries
"How about network connectivity? Are we going to install network jacks in these classrooms for these laptops or put in WAPs? Who is going to pay for this new equipment/cabling?"
The laptops utilize mesh networking so they can still provide functionality even without a central gateway.
"How about all of the volume licensing agreements? Agreements for OSes, anti-virus clients, patch management systems, etc. are all done by volume. Who is going to pay for the additional licenses for these systems?"
There are no 'volume licensing agreements', the XO isn't susceptible to such things as viruses
"I'm a FOSS advocate, run nix at home, etc"
You sure sound like it
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I hope the laptops have to stay at school (Score:2)
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I know all about the dangers of the Internet. I have a brilliant, beautiful, innocent, obedient, *GOOD* 10 year old daughter, who would LOVE for me to get her a netbook. Pink, of course. I'm terrified at the prospect of turning my little girl -- smart and good as she is -- loose on the Internet.
If she's old enough that she doesn't require full time supervision as with younger kids, maybe just having her account for where she's been and what she's been doing would suffice. For that, simple access logs would
keeping the kids safe (Score:2)
Going on the requests for how to bypass websence on 'Yahoo Answers', I would assume the school network is locked down to approved sites.
one good advantage is (Score:2)
Laptops are a waste... (Score:2)
Having taught a class at a university where they hand out laptops to every student, I'm convinced it's a huge mistake and counter-productive to the goal of providing a good education.
All these laptops do provide a huge distraction, and I teach a class where we need computers. As I walk around the class I'll notice them closing chat windows or minimizing browsers.
Having grown up around computers I know first hand how distracting they can be in the class, and we didn't even have anything like the internet at
laptops are a huge distraction (Score:2)
Tell them not to use their laptops while you are teaching
Done nationwide in Portugal (Score:2)
n Teachers per Child? (Score:2)
Pessimism (Score:2)
While I hope the Linux thing is real, let's follow two different scenarios and see which one is cheaper to implement:
1. Buy laptops with Windows installed
2. Pay lots of money
or...
1. Announce plans to buy laptops with Linux
2. Raise the attention of Microsoft
3. Get free or super-cheap Windows from Microsoft, who's willing to lose money on this deal in order to keep their monopoly entrenched and give bad press to Linux
Seems like an easy choice.
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 pag
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Can we please drop the Balmer throws chairs joke?
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I'm a big fan of laptops replacing textbooxs in the poorer regions of the world where kids cant get the books, but I dunno if it makes much sense in this situation.
Re:Suprises (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Suprises (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is a bit of educational heresy but some subjects just aren't
that dynamic. The "tragedy" of having old textbooks is not really that
severe. Even stuff like "recent events" history could be covered by
supplementary materials.
Punctuation rules and the laws of motion don't change that much.
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in California we keep having to get new textbooks to meet new government regulations. But this is the price we pay for legislating social re-engineering projects.
Re:Suprises (Score:5, Insightful)
That's true. When I was a kid my mom gave me a bunch of old textbooks from my grandmother (1940s), and I devoured them. Frequently my teachers or classmates would ask, "How on earth did you know that?" For example: "How did you know the alternate name of white blood cell is corpuscle???" Well. I read it. Things haven't changed that much, especially in the areas of biology or astronomy. And math and spelling is identical. Having an old textbook certainly is not ideal, but it's not a tragedy either so long as the student is learning.
Contrast that with a laptop. Will a laptop given to a 4th grader today still be any good when they graduate (2018). Heck no. That would be equivalent to me graduating this year with a 100 megahertz/ 16 megabyte machine. You'll end-up spending thousands of dollars trying to keep your students up-to-date with new machines, and poor schools can not afford that.
Governments keep throwing money at the education problem, and lack-of-money is not the problem. It's equivalent to a patient coming to me and saying "my head hurts," but instead I start stuffing her pockets with dollar bills. The problem is not being addressed.
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Considering the extremely limited use schools make of computers, a 100mhz 16mb machine would be more than adequate... We used much lower spec machines in school, mostly to do simple stuff like type out textual content and print it.. Schools today use much higher specced machines, but pretty much do exactly the same thing on them but with less efficient software..
Using older machines in schools would actually decrease the level of misuse that occurs, where school computers are used for general internet brows
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 wit
Problems: searching and carrying around (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's much worse.
Two problems: digital data is *much* more compact than paper and your searching ability is limited to the index.
I have an 8 GB pendrive, which is by no means very spectacular these days, but a King James Bible has about 5 MB of data. Have you ever tried carrying 1600 bibles in your pocket?
When in doubt, I google for an answer, or look into wikipedia for a clue. How do you index your paper books? Before the internet, I used to look it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (again, a BIG volume of paper), but too many things do not have Britannica articles.
If you think from a very limited viewpoint, paper books are OK and are much better than illiteracy. They are better than computers in many aspects, reading in bed, they do not need batteries, are easier to annotate, you can dogear them. I do have a big "dead tree" library.
But paper is no substitute for a computer. I think we must learn how to extract the most intelligence from both media, the ideal learning environment would be one that has both paper and digital data. Let's keep the printed books, but don't belittle the worth of computers either.
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How do you index your paper books?
I had a lesson at school on how to use the index of paper books.
1) Look at the "subject index" in the library. This gives you the Dewey Decimal code for the section you need. Computing is section 000, Computing - Data Processing 004, Psychology - Subconsious and Altered States 154.
2) Find the shelf labelled "000-006" (or whatever).
3) Find the books with the correct stickers on the spine. There's all the books on the subject, in order.
I assume the Library of Congress system is similar to use.
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I think it's obvious that they don't understand what it means to provide an education. Just because you give kids some technology doesn't mean that they will be any more effectively taught than without the technology. In the end, these laptops are just a tool, and if the schools and teachers are not prepared to effectively use that tool (I doubt they are), it will all be a big waste of money. This is just another case of people having this idea that computers run on fairy dust.
How can you provide an education on technology without providing the tech to the student? How can you be considered educated in a technological society without learning to use the technology? How can a society participate in the global market without citizens who understand technology?
The technology is both the tool for learning, as well as one of the subjects. Sure you could learn all your other subjects with decades old textbooks, but not how to use a word processor, spreadsheet, web browser, file fold
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i mod the parent insightful or the very least interesting...
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I expected the M$ proxies to mod the comment down, it's what they get paid for. By modding it down it becomes filtered out to some users, which helps censor the post.
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Nice to be wealthy (Score:2)