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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."
were it's own fault. The Wall Street Journal had an article last year about it. It said that in years past Apple used to sell to schools through resellers and other middlemen. But then they got greedy and tried to get it to themselves. Of course the middlemen had the relationships built with their customers and started selling them PC's with Windows. And now Apple is playing catch up.
with airports.... the laptop's will be the ultimate note-passing machines
I work in the It department for my school and all the teachers have laptops. They break the screen, break the dongles, drop them, one actually ran over his with his car, and these are all PhD's, imagine what these kids are going to do with these things!
It's not the OS it's the user that sucks. If it's user friendly, you get stupider people. - clinko
...State of Maine wastes $38,600,000 of taxpayers' money.
But seriously, does anyone really, REALLY think that $38.6M couldn't POSSIBLY have found better uses than buying laptops? Like, some textbooks maybe? Or hiring teachers that made better than a C average in college?
Though I suppose Maine may not have these problems to the extent Colorado does. In that case, I suppose the money is better spent buying iBooks than building prisons or installing street surveillance cameras... (though I contend the best use of any "government money" is to refund it to its rightful owners)
I believe Apple is selling the iBooks for $300 a piece (wish I could grab one for that price) so they are taking a loss on this one. Apple probably is betting that this will help them make a comeback in the school. It will be very interesting to see if they can pull it off (the other solutions that lost served up terminal apps and web pages over WAN connections) on a tablet type device. Unlike the other solutions however, I think Apple is doing the whole thing at a loss. As Mainers here know (myself included), this entire plan has not been without controversy. I for one think its a neat idea.
..this is but a fantasy..
Why are schools focusing on this? Learning how to use MS Word and Internet Explorer is not something schools should waste effort or money on teaching. Schools also should not be the ones teaching these things. Kids can learn them on their own. I did. They do not, in any way, aid teaching. It is also pointless to teach these things. Giving each kid one of these won't give them a better education. This is a growing problem in our schools: replacing time that could be well spent on learning with playing with the latest gadgets. We use calculators now instead of teaching kids multiplication. Sure, using a calculator is convenient, but do kids even understand that multiplication is anything more than pushing a few buttons on a tool? In addition, I expect a good part of school time will be wasted on fixing problems with the computers that arise. Exactly what is so important about macs that nessitates buying 40000 of them? What will be replaced in the school budget to pay for these items?
Granted, computer science classes may be beneficial, but I hardly think that is what the 40000 computers will be used for, especially in 7th grade. Besides, if they're going to learn programming, networking or system administration, why Macs? Use a UNIX or at least (I can't believe I'm endorsing this) Windows.
If you have a desktop you have just wasted an entire desk. With the laptop you don't need a special desk just for the machine, plus you can put it away. And they can be much more easily locked away when not in use.
And as far as computing power... I think our software makers have a long way to go before they are limited by todays hardware. (You don't require 125 frames per second in geology class...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Bill Clintons "A computer in every classroom" was brilliant. It sounded great to the public and it allowed him to pay back the millions the tech industry had invested in his campaign.
"We should have kick-ass laptops, but no one else needs them." - seems to be the tone here.
;-)
Plenty of schools have plenty of laptop programs. They work. They have roughly 5% overstock for the repair stream. Remarkably few ever get run over by cars. iBooks don't need no stinking dongles 99% of the time.
The kids do a higher level of work. Remember when your only vehicles for expression were book reports and clay-filled shoeboxes? Wanna go back to that? This is the direction the world is going. Once again, some want the kids to be last in line.
There is no best way to teach, there is no best way to outfit a school. This you learn only by experience in a school. There are plenty of good ways, and this is one of them.
I've been in education for 20 years. I've been running Mac & Win labs fo the past ten. Never had to unload a teacher machine because it was full. Kids, on the other hand, overdrive any machine you give them, and that's without games contributing to the fray.
The guns or butter arguments don't wash either. If you weren't harping about spending school money before, don't do it now.
Plenty of schools don't have laptops and still have lots of problems that - surprise - aren't being solved by anyone of their critics.
Only thing that worries me - they'll lose these shiny white boxes in all that snow... tsk.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
>not ugly graphics of Xfree
Wouldn't that be a problem with the window manager, not the program that simply interprets what dots are to be drawn on the screen?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Laptops will allow more kids to use the computers.
Before you think of "That's what the computer lab is for!"... as somebody else mentioned, there is often times no space for computer labs. Classrooms are packed full and no over-populated school is going to set aside a perfectly good general classroom just to put in a computer lab.
I think it's very good news. It's the first example that I've heard of school systems doing something like this on a large scale. It's no doubt going to give a lot of students access to something they normally wouldn't be working with. It could also have a very small effect on the industry. Afterall, that's at most 38,600 more people using a mac platform. I bet at least a quarter of these kids would be buying a mac later on if they purchase their own machine. More importantly though, other school systems may follow suit and do something similiar, depending on the success of Maine's program.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Hey, you said it. Let's not discount colleges (and even my sisters' private high school) "providing" students with laptop-which means, "We just increased your tuition by $2000, and you don't get to choose what computer you get."
In my experience, implementation of computers and particularly the Internet has been excreble, especially outside the college level. At my sister's school, they got to pay $2100 for a Compaq that feels like a 486 (supposedly a Celeron, but it's the slowest POS I've ever used).
They also set up a wireless network, which allows students to IM each other (when their computers work.) IT sucks up a huge amount of budget, as the assheads had to set up an on-site repair shop in the high school just to keep the Compaqs up and running.
How are the laptops being put to use? PDF versions of textbooks are replacing their paper counterparts (I could understand for searching/indexing purposes, but who wants to read 50 pages of PDF?) Other than that, nothing.
The Internet (and computers in general) have been hailed as next great tool in education, just like the TV was before it. Let's not forget that implementation makes all the difference. Forcing students to carry around a laptop doesn't help anything.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I just installed OSX on a used iBook that I picked up, and is it ever sweet! I've been a Linux die-hard since 1993, but I gotta say Apple has done what Gnome and KDE barely hint at -- OSX is a beauty. I have jotted down a few notes about it at www.genema.org/osx.html in case anyone is curious.
I am happy to see someone makes choices based on the merits of the technology, and not just follows the Redmond lemmings. It does kinda make me wish I was still going to school...
Now where did that unbiased journalistic integerity go?
- The Amazina Llama
Well, it could actually be that it is cheaper to go wireless than It would be to hard wire every desk in the school.
Or, it could be that the kids go from classroom to classroom all day, and it's better for them to be able to take their computer with them... And wireless prevents them from having to deal with snapping connectors in (and off) all the time.
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
Apple won a contract, they are selling laptops to Maine public schools. They had to respond to an RFP with a bid and beat competing bids (that most likely involved laptops using Windows). They won the bid based on technical merit and cost (by law).
Microsoft offered to give (as in 'dump') software to public schools in exchange for settling class action suits against them. This has the effect of a) getting rid of a bunch of potentially expensive law suits, b) paying damages based on retail value of a bunch of MS software, and c) freezing Apple out of the competition for equipping a large number of schools.
Big difference!
[Insert pithy quote here]
Don't forget "d) giving Microsoft a HUGE tax deduction at the end of the year."
Because there's a difference, a gaping chasm, in fact, between responsible and effective use of technology and a wasteful "technology for technology's sake" approach. This is the latter. Transportation is important, too. We need our government to maintain roads, not give everyone a car.
I understand the concept all too well. The responsible and ethical thing to do would be to say "Thanks so much, but giving children laptops is not a productive use of $2k or so per student." As a taxpayer, I don't really care whether the money spent comes from my state or federal tax return. I care first whether it's something government even has any business being involved in, and second, if they're performing their role responsibly and with at least some semblance of efficiency. You don't have to be perfect, but you'd better not buy $800 hammers. Kindly stop looking at this as government money. It isn't. It's the money of thousands of hardworking taxpayers who had numerous productive uses they could have put the money to had it not been taken from them for this wasteful pet project.
I disagree. The complaints you hear are from people (like me) who don't think using a computer is such an integral part of schooling that every student needs a computer 24x7. That's the wasteful part, and that's where it gets needlessly expensive. Computers simply don't add as much to the educational experience as you seem to believe. There are select exceptions (CompSci, some mathematics), and for those exceptions, "Students, please take a laptop on your way in to the classroom." or "This will be your laptop for the semester. Take care of it."
It's hardly a drop in the bucket. Educating a student costs $4k-8k per year depending on your school system. Spending $2k or so on *each student* is therefore a rather massive increase. If it's justified and warranted AND we have the money, fine. When there's no established return on investment, I find it wasteful. I care when it happens elsewhere because other unwise politicians will emulate it.
No it won't. Zero sum doesn't apply. Whine this year for laptops for everyone, whine next year for a raise. Voters have a hard time turning down more money for teachers. I happen to agree on that point. Most teachers aren't paid enough.
Schools are not vocational education centers. They should teach you the academics. In other words, here's how to write a quality paper, not here's how to type in Word.
You're still missing the point. It isn't about dollars, its about effective use of a limited resource. Books remain a more friendly medium. It's easier to read a book, you won't get repetitive motion problems from a book, you won't get a headache from staring at a book all day. We have a nice, long history of students learning effectively from books. If you want to throw them out in favor of something else, PROVE (do a peer reviewed study) that something else works at least as well FIRST. Once you've shown that, only then do I even care whether it costs more or less.
"What is the sense in providing children with an education on a piece of hardware that they will probably never see outside of their classroom (or maybe their home)?"
Ha ha.. you make me laugh. Do you really think that anyone will use the same computer system in 7:th grade and when they are employed, some 10 years later? And.. It's probably a really good thing to learn stuff in school of witch you'll never else get the opportunity to learn. Hey.. everyone have a Wintel box at home.. why must they learn the same thing in schools? That would really be a wast of money. By exposing kids to different ways of doing things they might learn something about the benefits of diversity.
Or.. why should we learn anything about other countries, or even other states. Most of us probably wont go there anyway. Most of us wont have any use of chemistry skills och even a second language, but hey.. it's a good thing to know of these things anyway.
The reason why these kids get computers in school is so they can use the Internet, learn to communicate with students in foreign countries, learn to create digitally, learn to write, to cooperate with peers, learn the value of property and responsibility, learn an independent way of doing things, and inspire to higher education.. They are not getting computers so they can learn Windows XP, Frontpage or Office XP, in 20 years time those skills would be as useful as stenography or planting crops.
So.. the key is "computers", not "Dells with Windows XP", and everything the students have on their curriculum is doable on Macs, in Windows or even Linux.. Apple supply the whole package.. hardware, software, education, and support. I don't know any one else who can pull that off.
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -