Slashdot Mirror
Technology and Society
nyquist_theorem writes: "MSNBC has an interesting article entitled Billy gets a laptop that covers the Harley-riding independent governor of Maine's take on technology and its role in government. While previous coverage on Slashdot covered the governor's plan to give his 7th graders laptops, this article offers a glimpse of that all-too-rare breed, the insightful, technologically aware bureaucrat - in this case discussing the sociological implications of the net in the wake of Sept 11th. The article also mentions some of the other measures the government of Maine is taking to use the net in ways that actually benefit its citizens."
I believe that technology should supplement a strong education, rather that be the basis of it. Give the laptops to the teachers; they can take them home and plan the next days lesson rather then passing out laptops in class and telling the students to quietly browse the internet while Mrs. Smith cuts her fingernails.
They don't even teach multiplacation tables to childeren any more. Okemos, MI is an example of a school district that left multiplication tables out of their students' educations. They stated that it was due to the fact that students have easy access to calculators and computers and don't need to remember these things. I say that the Okemos school district was using technology as a crutch to remove a rigorous and somewhat challenging (for the teacher) thing from the curriculum. Young students need to sit down and learn that some things you have to memorize or work for and their are not always easy shortcuts.
</end rant>
Perhaps this was a better rant for my 'angry old man' alter ego.
Keeping
The univeristy I got my first degree from, Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, gives all its students AND all its faculty IBM Thinkpads. It's a very small (less than 4000 students) but well-respected university a few hours north of Maine. Every residence room is wired with 100mbit ethernet to a decent internet pipe, as is every classroom, parts ot the campus pub, most on-campus hangouts, and the first two floors of the library. Even the town, with a population of less than 4,000 (not including the students) has both cable and DSL available for $39CAD (~$25USD)/mo. It's a wired place.
The students really do all use the laptops, and for more than ICQing from one side of class to another (although that's fun too). My fourth year, I was a teaching assistant, and one of my assignments was to moderate online discussion groups for classes on ACME (Acadia's online discussion and coursework system) - one of the things my professors and I found was that the students making the most intelligent posts online were often NOT the students making intelligent points in class - opening up online discussion allowed a lot of shy, nervous, or whatever people to come out and say their piece to the class in a forum that they were comfortable in. Professors really do reply to their emails, and students and professors alike use powerpoints and websites on a regular basis.
Also, because students were posting on a forum (like Slashdot), URLs and other methods of backing points in their arguments up was quite common, and helped to add a level of intelligence and legitimacy to discussions.
Overall, the Acadia Advantage, as it is called, works quite well - while there are some who criticize it, enrollment at the school is up substantially, and students are well-trained in internet research methodology, online collaboration, web publishing, and lots more regardless of their major. It works, and it gets a lot of attention in Canada (its why I chose the school in the first place). Hopefully the same benefits will be seen in giving the computers to younger kids, as the man from Maine proposes.
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
When I was in school, they had a "students with laptops" program - essentially, if you had a laptop, you could bring it to school and use it instead of books.
It ended up being the worst 3 weeks at school. It was quite a while ago, so my Laptop only had 1 hour of battery power - every other class I was moving my desk or trying to find somewhere with a power point. On top of that, since it was a 486, I spent 2-3 minutes just waiting for Word to open. Maths was impossible, and Computing Studies was ironically also a waste of time, since I was forced to use their dodgy programs rather than my own, not to mention that most of the CS Teachers were just other teachers who filled spots ("CorelDRAW? No, I'm sorry, you have to use Canvas, since it lets you draw lines").
It ended abruptly when my laptop was stolen. Fortunately it was recovered, but literally just before the kid who stole it was about to hand it over to someone outside the school for $$$.
While it might be different now (longer battery life, books online/net access), I still think in general it's a bad idea.