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Maine buys 38,600 ibooks for Public Schools
Anderson Silva writes "I just found this piece of news on MacSlash, and since I live in Maine, and I own an ibook, I thought I would pass the word along: The Maine Learning Technology Endowment has announced today that Apple has won the bid to provide Maine 6th, 7th and 8th graders with Apple iBooks and Airport wireless connection points."
As a "Real World" educational technology person, I'll toss in my 2 cents on why we think it doesn't matter what OS kids use.
In my experiance, kids can move between platforms (Mac OS 8-9, 10, Windows 9x, 2K/XP, Linux) with no problems at all. In fact at my work we in the IT group think it's better for the kids to be exposed to mulitple platforms because it assists them in learning how to deal with different things.
For the Middle School grades, a Mac makes more sense than Windows for a number of reasons.
1. iMovie - Easy as pie DV work.
2. Office 2001/X - Works better than Office for Windows
3. AppleWorks - Nice, easier to use "light" Office Suite for younger kids.
If you think giving a Middle School kid an iBook will do them little good in the "real world", that's just FUD. A computer is a computer, what a 6th grader will be using when they get to the "real world" in 6-10 years isn't going to be what they are using today. Windows, Mac and Linux have changed a great deal since 1995 (5 years ago - when a 12th grader was in Middle School).
If anything, concentrating on one OS through a child's school career will, if anything make them unable to deal with changes. In short, they will end up like the majority of thier teachers.
As for the tired old "open Apple's hardware" speech...IDE, USB, Firewire, AGP, PCI - It's as open as most PC vendors, and alot more open than offerings by Sony or Compaq.