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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."
It would be pretty hard for MS to sell them IBooks. I assume other companies were competing with different products.
Apple has always gone out of their way to win school bids. I remember when I was a kid I wanted an Apple ][ just because that's what the school had, and that my friend, is what Apple wants!
Mike
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
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.
It's good to see schools diving into this technology rather than figuring out pressing educational problems or sticking to the "core functionality" of a classroom. Our children will be well-equipped to serve as marketing drones and politicians. Their quality of life will be greater than their parents', according to the trade magazines.
Why spend money on hardware that is harder to replace and more expensive than desktops? Aside from the very limited ammount of field research that schools do, desktops should be fine. The only reason they buy laptops is to seem more in tune with the 21st century, or whatever bullshit the school administrators believe in. My school just bought a bunch of laptops, and they're not very usefull considering their lame hardware. The money could have been better spent on desktop PCs which would take longer togo out of date (you can buy more powerfull desktop PCs for the same money as a less powerfull desktop)
Photos.
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
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Besides using macs, which IMHO is totally cool, The Maine Learning Technology Endowement itself is actually quite a progressive idea.
This is nothing new, Henrico County Public Schools (Richmond, Va.) started this year by issueing every 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grader with an iBook. According to various students, it has been a massive disaster, students using Instant Messanger all the time, hardware failures running rampant, the latches on those things just can't take the abuse of a teenager. That coupled with the low bandwidth estimates have constantly crashed the Airport systems. It's a great Idea in theory and I'm sure after a year or two it will do a great deal of good, but for now, we are just giving out Laptops to teenages for games and the like.
Contact me. My new name online will be: WFManiac47.
...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)
(Not a troll.)
Most people don't have wireless network connections and laptops. Why is it imperative that the government pay to buy luxury items for the schools?
I'm all in favor of spending money on education, but that means *education*, not laptops for stupid powerpoint presentations on Abraham Lincoln. (Bitter high school experience.) Why can't we buy the children better textbooks or pay the teachers more money. A laptop for every teacher and assuming ~20 kids per teacher is tens of thousands of dollars that could pay for more and better-qualified teachers and facilities.
*Sigh* Maybe I just miss the good ol' days of playing Doom in the high school computer lab -- the old fashioned way, with wires.
I believe Apple is selling the iBooks for $300 a piece (wish I could grab one for that price) so they are taking a loss on this one. Apple probably is betting that this will help them make a comeback in the school. It will be very interesting to see if they can pull it off (the other solutions that lost served up terminal apps and web pages over WAN connections) on a tablet type device. Unlike the other solutions however, I think Apple is doing the whole thing at a loss. As Mainers here know (myself included), this entire plan has not been without controversy. I for one think its a neat idea.
..this is but a fantasy..
If you have a desktop you have just wasted an entire desk. With the laptop you don't need a special desk just for the machine, plus you can put it away. And they can be much more easily locked away when not in use.
And as far as computing power... I think our software makers have a long way to go before they are limited by todays hardware. (You don't require 125 frames per second in geology class...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Apple has led the educational market for many years, and 38K laptops is certainly a big win for them....
However, with M$ and the ***Billion Dollar*** Settlement offer still floating around (looking however less politically viable everday)
What can Apple do to keep their educational position?
they need to be putting Apple products into the big city K-12 school systems....
New York, Chi Town, El Lay, Don't forget the Motor City...these school systems have orders of magnitude more students in them than the entire state of Maine..many future developers and other technologists will come from the Big City school districts...
One of the edges that MS has being a software centric company, is that "giving away" products like WinOS and Office and Visual Studio involves only trivial duplication costs...MS could burn "collections" of educationally aimed software on to DVD's and have "per byte" costs that are microscopic
Apple has to cough up genuine hardware that represents real (and very non-trivial) capital and production costs, which in its current market position is not an attractive proposition...
What will Maine (or any other state) do if MS comes along and offers them 50,000 low-cost XP laptops (bullied out of Compaq or Gateway or some other Wintel mfgr with big inventory excess problems) with Office, FlightSim, and Visual Studio pre-loaded for net net cost????
Maine would probably dump their Apple order in a second......
This is what happens when you have a monopoly position....
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
These aren't the toilet seat ibooks these are the ice cube ibooks.
The area where I live (Lewiston) has a high school that is tech heavy and accomodates other high schools in the region. We've found that computers help out education a lot. (Yes, I did say I'm a student. But I like playing with tech and get my hands all over everything). The laptops should be a further boost.
The idea is NOT to replace desktops, but to give people decent usable computers that they can carry. Nighmares will happen - they'll get dropped, stolen, broken, maimed, abused, and dead. What we want to see is if we can keep that to a minimum. And if it works, the wireless networks that are being planned should prove interesting. And if it doesn't work, then other states can save themselves the cash. I really believe it will work. And we're ready for it.
SIG: HUP
"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
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?
These laptops are totally unnecessary. What a waste of money. The vast majority of teachers don't know what to do with the computers in the computer lab down the hall. How is that going to be improved by putting them in every backpack?
Sure, computer literacy is important in the modern world, but so is writing and math. In fact, computer literacy without both of those to back it up gives you nothing but slashdot trolls. This is just as bad of an idea as letting kids use calculators in pre-algebra, and for the same reasons. How are kids ever going to learn the basics of anything if we keep handing them machines to take care of the basics for them?
Computers in schools are great. I remember the first computer I ever got to use, a Commodore PET with a cassette drive that lived in the corner of my 4th grade classroom. You had to reserve it ahead of time to play games on it during recess. Unfortunately that's all we ever did with it. A few years later we had a lab with some Apple]['s that we could use to type up our essays, and by the time I got to high school those were replaced with PCs. Were they useful? Did I learn from using them? Sure, but not enough to justify giving every kid their own. 10:1 is a perfectly acceptable ratio, probably even less in more upscale neighborhoods where everyone has a computer at home.
There was recently that linked the rise of the modern word processor with the decline of writing skills in college students. My fear is that these programs are just going to produce more of the same. Kids need to learn how to do stuff themselves before we hand them tools that do stuff for them.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Wow.. that'd make an interesting.. beowulf cluster? (/dr evil)
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The is absolutely no reason that you need a computer for education. I mean, I passed the AP Computer Science AB exam with flying colors, and the only time I touched my computer to learn that stuff was to find out that the College Board web site sucks. (The AP Computer Science AB exam has nothing to do with programming -- it's all logic and computer science, the way it should be.) Why couldn't these schools buy another computer lab? I doubt that everyone needs to be on the internet at all times.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
38,600 computers is a pretty large public purchase, so ya, its news worthy.
But in other news, Bob bought a ibook too.
You know, when it was Microsoft giving computers to schools, they were evil monopolists. Now Apple is doing essentially the same thing, but I hear no vehement protest. And as other people have written, the Apple presence in schools did have a considerable effect one what computers they wanted at home. Of course, Microsoft was using the offer to get out of the anti-trust suit, but the impact on the future consumers (formerly known as kids) is still there...
Another testament to the bias of Slashdot, I suppose.
________
"And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion...." -- J.S. Mill
In the greatest school expediture disastor of all time, 36,000 pre teens where beaten up on their way home from school and had there iBooks stolen.
laptops, please. not neaded, easily breakable.
how about we spend the money to teach children how to think?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Now where did that unbiased journalistic integerity go?
- The Amazina Llama
You sir are correct, They could save MILLIONS. Just give each kid a stick and a sandbox...
But really.. 1000 bux per computer is a good buy, and they do include aircards, so the schools can save money on network wireing costs. The macs are also low maintence, so its easier for the teachers.
I posted regarding this story back when it was first announced. I still stand by my assertion that this money could be better spent to pay teachers/repair schools (but that might just be because I'm majoring in English with plans to teach).
But, if Maine wanted to go with a laptop solution, I'd have to say that the iBook was a wise choice. I own an iBook, and I can say that this thing would be my primary choice for a situation like this (except for maybe Panasonic's Toughbook, but those cost far too much). Take note school districts:
1) Durability - While I haven't actually dropped my iBook, it does live in my backpack when it isn't in use. I have dropped the whole backpack (no damage), and it has flown off the passenger seat when idiots pull out in front of my car (still no damage). I have walked with it under my arm in a hard rain (no damage).
2) Heavily integrated - yeah, this isn't a good idea most of the time, but broken dongles will no longer be an issue. Neither will stolen NICs/Wireless NICs.
3) Lightweight - As far as I know, the iBook has the lowest weight for a laptop in its price range. $1,299 retail for a 4.9 lbs. laptop is a helluva deal.
4) Sort of bastardized security through obscurity - 95% of these 1337 7th and 8th graders don't know enough about Mac OS/mac hardware to cause serious damage. I can just see some jerk setting BIOS passwords or messing with clock frequencies or IDE device settings on little Suzy's PC laptop when she got up to go to the bathroom.
5) Useable UNIX - escape the MS tax AND teach the kiddies some UNIX all at the same time (that was my requisite karma whoring). I could actually see this being fairly useful, though. Only give the kids user privileges in OS X, and make them find someone with root access in order to install programs. "Okay little Billy, tell me again why you need Starcraft for school use...". This also solves any problems that might stem from some jerk trying to erase important parts of the system.
Overall, I think buying laptops is a waste of money, but I'd say that iBooks are probably the way to go.
Now I'll back that up with what I think is a better argument against the purchase of these systems: Wouldn't the money be better spent on things like teachers' salaries, improvements to the classrooms, programs that promote the learning of basic subjects like math, science, reading, etc.? While I'll be the first to line up with those who say that throwing money at education isn't necessarily the best solution (take a look at California's test scores), if the money is going to be spent, I think that it ought to be spent where it will make the most difference.
Let's also consider the issue of support for these computers. Who's going to take care of them when they get dropped, when the screen cracks, when software gets deleted, when the network connection isn't working...I could go on and on. Is the teacher going to fix the computer? The student? Does the school system have to hire network administrators? A whole new IT department?
While I think that knowing how to use a computer has become an important part of American life, somehow I think that too many people have decided that computers are some sort of panacea for the classroom. I disagree. I think that an extra $38 million spent on education in a state the size of Maine could provide a significantly greater return by creating new and exciting programs designed to captivate and encourage children to learn. And establishing ongoing programs like these provides a benefit to more than just four years' worth of students...the kids who follow will benefit, too.
Put simply, I'd say that while this program sure has a great gee-whiz factor, in the end, I suspect that it won't amount to anything.
-h-
Will someone please explain to me how you can read the headline, "Maine buys 38,600 ibooks for Public Schools" and infer that they were giving them away!
Also they did not sell laptops, they sold the entire solution, with networking, hardware, and support. If a company wanted to put in a bid to provide a solution using Linux laptops they were more than free to do so, but there are several advantages Apple had in a contract for wireless labs:
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
Let's put this in perspective--This is a GREAT thing for Maine. Maine is, and has always been, one of the poorest states in the union; their major industries are logging and fishing (which are by no means big money-makers, at least for the laborers), and tourism, which is seasonal. Maine's proposal is not, as some have conjectured, to fill schools with laptops that would be "checked out" to the students -- no, Maine is GIVING every middle schooler in the state a computer, in a state where most families can't afford to buy their own. When the idea was initially proposed, some state legislators jeered that the money would be better spent putting a chainsaw in the hands of every schoolchild. But, despite the cynicism of those who believe their children have no hope of being anything but low-wage laborers, the state is equipping its students with one of the greatest tools they can have for success in a modern business environment. We should be celebrating!
\
As long as they equip the machines with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, and Number Munchers, everything should be golden.
Ahhh, memories...
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Maybe not.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I cannot imagine what kind of nightmare this will be when it comes to issues like non-technical hardware failure and theft. Does the state buy a big equipment insurance policy? Do you suddenly demand that every kid's parents become liable for a $1200 laptop, even if they haven't requested the item? I think this is going to cost Maine big-time when it comes to replacement of broken and missing equipment. And if you think libraries are under fire to protect internet-using kids from everything not-so-sanitary... hoo boy. You know those lame "perfect attendance" awards and whatnot they give out at the end of the year? Maine middle schools will have to add a few more:
- First kid to destroy his laptop while beating up another kid and get a free replacement.
- First kid to lose his laptop and get a free replacement.
- First kid to realize he/she can fence his/her laptop and get a free replacement.
- First kid to organize the use of 38,600 state-owned laptops to launch a DoS attack.
- Kid who maintains the most heavily-trafficked node on the private gnutella network (can you imagine the sheeite 7th-graders would send around?).
- First kid who gets the FBI coming to a school because he/she lent his/her laptop to a l33t older sibling.
Any other suggestions?
It is assumed to be next spring; if you remember Steve's clock metaphor that is when midnight will be and the transition is supposed to be complete (so I had better have my Photoshop 7, Adobe!) and assumably when Macs will start up in X by default. If is also thought to be when 10.2 will be released, although recently it has been rumored that 10.2 won't be until summer and we will see 10.1.2 and 10.1.3 first, but we know how reliable rumors have been since the second coming of Jobs ;)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
around 90% of the computing world runs M$ software, what service is this school providing by giving these children something that will do them little good in the "real world"
again its just Apple trying to muscle into the market by going through the school system...
heres a hint apple, open up your hardware and reduce your price, THEN you can compete...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Now kids are carrying $1500 laptops? Isn't this dangerous for the kids?
... are the parents held liable for the replacement cost like they are for books? I can remember losing a schoolbook or two back in my school days. I've worked with people that have lost notebooks. Ouch!
What about irresponsible kids
This seems like a luxury some families can ill afford. I don't know how I feel about this trend yet.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Why? Because this would have a very strong effect of breaking the operating system stranglehold. Plus, they might even go for it since it has the benficial side effect of increaing their office mind share.
But, please let them be loaded with MacOS X. This way at least the kids have a chance of seeing Unix, and all that extra users sure would help the unix software cause....
Okay, my mother is a 6th grade teacher in Ohio. And let me say, that because a corrupt state senators daughter was 4 when the law was passed, our schools got computers in the classroom starting with kindergarden, and worked their way up.
Ludicrus as it sounds, not even the 6th grade classes, who now have SOME conmputers, use them for anything. The kids type reports, and play video games..... and surf for pr0n when my mother is not looking.
Now they want all of our kids to have laptops?!?!?!?! What is it about our society and laptops. I own a laptop computer, I am a programmer, and I have poor handwriting, I use it quite often. And as a laptop owner, I feel qualified to state that very few people on this planet have any need to own one. There are many misconceptions about laptops that just drive me nutty. And the truth behind them them all are great reasons why laptops in elemantary and high schools is a really dumb idea.
In our society, laptops are cute, small, handy computers. WRONG! In reality, laptops are small, slow, hard to handle, hard to service, and EXPENSIVE AS HELL. A touchpad is not like a mouse folks, that keyboard takes some getting used to, and they aren't exactly the most rugged pieces of machinary. Add all that togther, plus a complete lack of need in our schools for each student to have the ability to get his daily pr0n fix when he should be learning geomtry, and you have some politicians way of getting relected, at the taxpayers' extreme expense.
I'm sorry, computers in schools right now barely get used, laptops will get misused, and mistreated, and eventually become worthless paperweights..... all at the taxpayers expense.
Call me a complainer, cause I am.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
At my school we have 4 computer labs that get checked out by classrooms for research and things. 1 computer classroom for things like web development, school paper, school tv show, etc. Then we have a mobile lab that uses iBooks and Airport that is a bring the lab to the classroom type of thing. I've never had the lab come to me, but the biggest use I've seen is in the library. They have all sorts of books and no room for computers, so there's only about 16 all-in-one's. So you can check out an iBooks and take it to a regular reading table. Good stuff.
Yay, I called that one. Damn lemmings here on /.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Someone in a local school thought it was a brilliant idea to buy a bunch of laptops for a high school class. They started getting "lost" within a week and by the end of the year there were only a couple left.
Bad idea. Laptops sprout legs.
I work for a school system in Ga that will be running several pilot programs in this upcoming year. Both Dell and Apple laptops with wireless capabilities will be bought. Both companies will be providing complete solutions for these "portable labs" that we plan on implementing. We already have 3 Dell portable labs that are in place, and their success is mixed.
Our school system is very experienced in terms of technology, with every classroom consisting of at least 4 desktops and several computer labs placed throught the schools. There are approximately 50 schools in our school system with this setup. Every computer is on the network, every computer is used for educational purposes. Educational software is not compromised of Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, and Word 97, as most readers tend to think.
We use over a dozen software suites (most which run on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems) that allow for students to enhance and evaluate their reading, analytical, and mathematical skills. This software allows a child to be interested in reading, and be motivated to learn new mathematical concepts. The software is varied as the grade levels progress, and new skills are picked up by the student.
With over 10,000 workstations in our network to support, adding many more laptops into the mix will allow students to be able to learn new skills while being able to work in a more comfortable environment. The initial testing will be with portable wireless labs that will several teachers to use the laptops. Pending the results of our pilot program, potentially every student will have their own laptop to use. No, the students will not get to keep the laptop, but they will be turned in at the end of the school year.
I do not think that what Maine is doing is a bad idea, but if they cannot control the situation on how laptops are distributed, how the laptops are used, and how they are implemented to enhance the learning process, their program will be deemed a failure.
"If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet"
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.
However, even more importantly Apple is a serious player in the education market, and a lot of educational software in K-12 is made for the Mac and the Mac version is better than the Window's ports --- so this isn't as strange of a decision as it sounds.
It was an open bidding process, so Apple won this bid fair and square based on the merits of their bid (the software, the training, and the hardware).
I'm so sick of hearing: a) its not MS so its a good thing and b) Apple is small so no one should ever use them. Its very important to use the right tools for the right jobs. And, in this case Apple legitimately sounds like its the right tool for the job.
Apple's iBook is a tough little computer with all of the connectors built in so that there are no dongles & with integrated wireless networking, this deal will end up saving all the schools in the State of Maine a ton of money not needing to pull cable to each desk in each classroom in each school across the whole state.
So, Congratulations to Apple. I hope that competition like this causes them to keep making better computers and make better deals.
---
"Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that."
But smart people sometimes have to get past their egos and realise they don't know everything.
Worthy advice, that the collected members of slashdot need.
...that no one who is saying that giving laptops to schools is pointless would be dancing in the aisles is they had been notebooks running Linux. Oh, wait, this is Slashdot. Silly me.
But yeah, the concept of giving every student computer access at their own desks is a no-brainer. I'm not even going to try to imagine what all those kids in Maine are going to do with their new toys. God, I envy them!
Hmm, what's the difference between Maine and Silicon Valley? Maine has more trees and SV has more programmers. Software startups go where there are programmers to hire. In a few years nobody will be saying those laptops were too expensive!
Which is better: a student using a mouse to draw and color, or a student actually cuts-n-pastes and colors with (God forbid) crayons? Schools are lacking more in such hands-on activities.
Probably because they are lacking in crayons too.
That means $11,580,000 is being spent at a time when teacher shortages are happening everywhere. I would rather have a smaller class size with or without the laptops than a crowded class with technology being used ineffectively.
Agreed. However the teacher shortages have more to do with most potentially good teachers' inability to tolerate the bureaucracy and nonsense that goes on in the "education establishment."
In addition to that fact, roughly 75% of the money spent on education in this state at least is spent outside the classroom, and not on teachers. THAT is the problem.
So very true. Homeschooling solves the problem.
Yes, if your force your kid's world view to be a proper subset of your world view, then you will be guaranteed to be compatible. Never mind if your kid turns out to be an intellectual bonsai kitten.
I'm just preeching to the choir here. I've never installed it, if I had an iBook it'd run OpenBSD or OSX, but this is slahsdot, and it was just meant to be funny.
And come on, they're eight graders, give em a break!
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
They ship with both; it will be interesting to see which one the school chooses to teach, or if they let the kids pick most of the time
Too bad, however, that Star Office/Open Office never came thru with a mac version...you bet you boots Microsoft will want to "give special deals" to those schools as part of their settlement.
Well, it is possible to run OpenOffice on a rootless XFree86 in X, but I doubt many schools will opt for that. But the iBooks do come with a software bundle, so they will already have AppleWorks (which should be more than they need already); hopefully they will not waste the money to get MS Office. Why districts shell out $249 so that they can have some features most businesspeople, let alone middle-schoolers, will never use.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
From reading through the posts on this you can get a sense for the age of most of the people posting. Somewhere between 14 and 17 who think they're 1337 for installing Linux (or probably just using Windows and bashing Microsoft). You can tell because their first computer experience wasn't with an Apple IIc they learned to write BASIC on. I also get a kick out of all the "Macs suck" posts. What is it exactly that is wrong with Macs?
Apple won Maine's bid fair and square and I think it will work out pretty well. The iBook is a sturdy little worker that can connect to just about anything you can think of. Not only is it pretty durable but it is really light and easily fits into a backpack or messenger bag. As for the software, there's little MacOS can't do that Windows can do, especially OS10. It will connect to just about any sort of network you want to connect to, shit you can base your whole backend on any Unix system you want and OS10 will talk to it with no problems. The iBooks need not Microsoft because AppleWorks 6.1 and up read and write Office documents and will suit any sort of educational purpose you use it for. If you've ever cared to look which I can tell few of you have, there is a literal ton of educational software available for MacOS. Nearly all computer interfaces are pretty much the same damn thing. Whether the GUI is called Explorer, Finder, or X doesn't mean crap. They all act pretty much the same way. You press buttons and things do different things on your monitor. Web browsers and e-mail clients work the same way, there's little real difference between Lynx and OmniWeb when you get down to it.
There are others who think giving laptops to kids won't help them learn anything. Have you seen Maine? It is a pretty damn rural place. I bet a good portion of the kids getting the iBooks would have never had gotten a computer at home. Giving kids the laptops is pretty cost effective if you sit and think about it. The demands of educational software aren't really changing a whole bunch past the "multimedia" phase. It has a moderate level of interactivity and a pretty small memory footprint. Thus it can be used a really long damn time. The 8th graders getting iBooks this year can probably still use them when they are seniors in high school. Besides longevity it isn't a particular OS you learn it is the computer concepts that are important. For an area not rife with computers in the home laptops for students makes alot of sense. Any assignment involving computers can be continued at home without much hassle. There's alot more to increasing teacher salaries than just diving up a lump of cash. Bitch to the unions about teacher's pay.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Apple won a bid to provide iBooks? I bet the competition was really fierce.
sulli
RTFJ.
Teach them on something superior to indows.
Let's face it: the only reason indows is at the top is because Microsoft lied to the public, who didn't know enough to see through the transparent fraud that Microsoft has committed over the years. Because of this, they believe M$'s lies about performance, compatibility, stnadards-compliance, and such.
So raise a generation to know better, and Microsoft will be relegated to the oblivion it so richly deserves.
The above poster meant that the computers were not facing the blackboard, so they did not block anyone's vision.
Still doesn't solve the desk-space issue though. I'd actually say Laptops with wi-fi could be better then desktops though, especially if you give them to the students individually, rather then handing them out at class time.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
OK, so this is a reply to a lot of comments here. I've just been reading the article and noticing that about half of the people here have something negative to say about this.
This comment mentions that they aren't figuring out "pressing educational problems." I would personally say that they are: having been in schools where they had computers that were avaliable for everyone to use (even if they were just computer labs) they did many things to help the students, thereby alleviating some of the issues that seemed pressing at the time:
Sure, some students don't do their work. Some don't do it because they find it overly difficult, others because they aren't good at it, and some out of pure laziness (such as my brother). Others didn't do it because they found the pencil (or pen) and paper based approaches too difficult. Writing becomes much faster when sitting in front of a computer. Research becomes easier - Google is an excellent research tool (honestly - enter anything you happen to want and it comes up, and the most relevant stuff happens to be sitting right there). Much of everything seems to become easier because you aren't spending so much time dealing with the issues of, for example, copying an entire paper because you need to make 3 or 4 changes to it. Pop it up in your word processor, make the changes, print it out. Voila, done.
Of course they can't - they're human too. Do you expect everyone to know everything?
I'm sure it's expensive. But giving students access to technology provides greater benefits than it really costs - see #1. Sure, the machines aren't PC's. But does that mean that they aren't going to know how to use a PC when one is placed in front of them? Remember that most (all) of these students have been around computers (or at least have known of their existance, and have used a few) all of their life, and could most likely navigate their way through Windows 3.1 just as easily as they could through MacOS, and just as easily as they could through KDE. The fact that they're not PC's is a non-issue. And the fact that they happen to be running MacOS is also a non-issue. See here for someone else's comments on the topic. And as for support, it's been done before.
As for comments that claim that this whole thing is pointless, they aren't pointless. See #1 in the previous section for some reasons why they aren't pointless. Beyond that, some other reasons:
- "... vast majority of teachers don't know what to do with the computers in the computer lab down the hall. How is that going to be improved by putting them in every backpack?"
- "...computer literacy is important in the modern world, but so is writing and math..."
- Children who are intrinistically inclined to writing or other creative activities which can involve a computer will do more of it. All of a sudden, your hand doesn't get sore from holding a pencil for too long. The keyboard and mouse becomes your digital paintbrush and you can do whatever you want with it. And you didn't like what you just did? Oh well, that's what the undo button is for.
- Children who are intrinistically inclined towards mathematics can do everything that they would want to do with a computer (besides for things like chemistry and other things which still have physical reactions and the like, where, at least I personally prefer holding the instruments and doing everything else rather than having it simulated on the display), and will likely start writing their own programs because they can do it (and, since writing code requires some mathematical knowledge, as a result they will still get their math skills).
- "... recently that linked the rise of the modern word processor with the decline of writing skills in college students
..."
You aren't the only one. MacOS has always been a good operating system of choice for school desktops and laptops:Well, now the teachers, at the very least, no longer have to compete for lab time: I know that while I was in high school, and we had access to many computer labs, the teachers would generally find some use for them. English classes: we would go type our reports. It was easier for the teachers to read and grade (because they didn't have to deal with illegible handwriting, which computers didn't help, but it's still no worse than it was originally to begin with), and easier for us to type as opposed to write because we didn't have to go through the repetitive steps of write, copy, copy, copy, (wash-rinse-repeat, you get the idea).
Well, given that you really don't have computer literacy without either of the above in the first place...
And furthermore:
Maybe true. So go back to text editors. Or use older word processors that don't try doing everything for you.
Everything you would want to configure is right there. Open up the Control Panel, and you get access to everything that would need to be configured for the machine. That's not enough? Every school that I've ever been at that uses Apple systems (post-Mac of course) has plenty of software to safeguard the system from the students so that they don't do things to the system to make it unusable for everyone else.
Everything has a standard interface. Going from one program to another is easy, because they all follow the same UI guidelines. There isn't anything difficult to use about a Mac. They're designed for people who aren't necessarily the best with computers, but can be used by even the most knowledgeable people with little hassle and do the job well.
Keeping in mind that plenty of schools have them, there happens to be all kinds of educational software for the Mac. Nowhere near as much as for Windows or Linux. Sure, one could use Windows for it, but now you've got machines that are suitable for word processing (and if they're trying to use ancient hardware with the latest software, barely suitable for that even) and little more. Same goes for Linux.
And, sure, there is no need for computers in education, but not only are they helpful to the teachers (every teacher of mine from 9th grade on up used a computer for everything from preparing lesson plans to keeping students grades to doing presentations for the class), but they're also helpful to the students (see #1 in the first section of this comment).
Anyway, that whole long-winded comment is my 2c for this.
Dogma: Dead (mostly because your Karma ran it over)
How many old-fashioned dead-tree school books cost $400? Can you see a ghetto kid coming back home after breaking his laptop?
I don't see how this can work for everybody. Seems like another gimmick-perk for the suburbs.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
...since those little lappies will run several different open source OSes...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You're probably thinking of FrEdWriter.... which, I believe, stood for Free Educational Writer. More info on this great program can be found here.
I remember typing papers up on that in 5th grade.... and being all happy that we'd gotten the latest version of ProDOS. Every once in a while I get a FrEdWriter flashback when I'm using pico... heh.
------------
"...and Maddest of all, to see Life as it Is, and not as it Should Be."
Teacher: Today kids, we are going to start the month-long process of reading Hamlet...
Student: Couldn't we just watch the movie in two hours instead?
Techer: No!
There is plenty of potential for technology to revolutionize the education system... Of course it is NEVER used. Television, VCRs, they are a joke in the classroom. It's what you use when you don't want to teach. I think that the laptops will be just the same.
I happen to recall a class I had in high-school. It was called 'Honors' Computer Science. Strangely enough, the technophobic computer department had the systems locked down with Novell, giving us only two items, Netscape and Microsoft Office. Lo-and-behold, the teacher decided that because of the internet access, students weren't getting their work done, so the my teacher unplugged the ethernet, and left us with $2000, Top-Of-The-Line typewriters.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"Kids, on the other hand, overdrive any machine you give them, and that's without games contributing to the fray. "
... fun!
When I was at school we had BBC Bs and Sinclair Spectrums. The rich kids had BBCs at home, us working class kids had Spectrums, and the poor kids just didn't have a computer at home. From memory a spectrum cost about a years pocket money!
On the whole the rich kids were crap with computers, but they were all too busy watching their dads satellite porn, and about 50% of us with spectrums could write BASIC programs to do stuff like draw spider patterns, calculate the stats from the football on a sunday morning. Actually, one of our best programs was an early version of HotOrNot where we rated all the girls in the senior classes out of 10 for Spots, Tits, and Legs. Should ahve patented it! Damn!
Anyway - all kids should have computers. BUT - Office software is not enough. These machines should all have as many development platforms as possible on them. Even with shitty spectrum BASIC we learned a lot of programming technique, that GOTO was just stupid, and that this was
iBoks ship with OS 9 and X, so they get a full gcc and gdb envinronment included, as well as project builder, Cocoa and Carbon.
If they pick up RealBasic too they'll be all set
On a frivolous side, there will be lots of kids with laptops that the will carry and show around. And they will see them as a gift, so they won't hold them sacred.
I expect a lot of customization in the cases. People pasting logos, pictures and spraying the machines. And some may even be interesting to look at!
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I had an Apple II and lots of other Macs through the ages, and a number of them were possible due to educational discounts. Donated my Apple II to my old school (kinda wish I had it now tho').
I believe the smooth, beautiful Mac user interface (doesn't have to be OS X) is superior to Windows because of its smoothness and ease of use (it was developed with cognitive science lessons heeded) and also because it has less of a corporate feel.
In other words, the same reasons designers prefer Macs is why kids should use them too. But there is *no reason on earth* why there should be *any* Microsoft software on those computers. This could be a great time for digital teaching materials, ebooks, and open source software to make waves.
The render exention is struggling to do something that Windows and OSX do with ease.
Until Xfree86 can do basic tasks via the render extention, theres no way its going to ever get to the point where it can do the genie effect of OSX or advanced special effects. Forget about it.
And even if we do somehow by luck get to that point within the next 5 years, it will most likely be for enlightenment not gnome or kde. I'm talking Enlightenment
IF Xfree86 were not so complicated, more people would be able to help develop it and it wouldnt take 5 years to get genie effect, 2 years to get alpha channelling, and 2 years for anti alaised fonts.
The fonts and very very basic alpha effects (not true alpha channeling) are availible right now.
However we are a long long way away from OSX and still trying to catch up to Windows2k.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Its how you spend the money not how much you spend.
Notebooks arent as good as Laptops.
You can use a notebook to take notes, and most kids with bad handwriting dont take notes much, or the kid can hit record and not have to take notes.
The teacher can be telling the kid to research blah blah for homework and the kid can research it while the teacher is telling them.
The homework can be done before the class is over.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Teachers with good grades in college dont make them good at teaching, it makes them good at academic work.
As far as textbooks, why buy more if they havent been working all this time? Thats why the school system needs improvement.
Why keep spending money on the same things year after year with no improvements.
The laptop idea is good, now kids who want to learn have no excuse! Bad teacher? doesnt matter, the laptop will be the teacher.
Notebooks? why buy new notebooks every year wasting millions when you can reuse the same laptops.
Why even waste time taking notes when you can record the teachers voice?
If laptops help people in college, and people in harvard all get free laptops (well not free technically but they are required)
why the hell should highschool students be using stone age tools to learn when the best tools are electronic?
Instead of a student worrying about bad spelling and handwriting (stuff which doesnt matter anymore)
Now a student can actually focus on learning how to WRITE.
A student can learn to read best by READING via the laptop, not by reading some silly book and answering some stupid questions.
A student can learn to THINK, by being forced to think, not by following some rules in a text book "The rules of how to properly think" and then pass some test which says if they fail they cannot think and can never graduate.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Thats right you heard me, pay LESS>
Teachers who dont work for the money and actually care about their job are the best teachers.
There will be less teachers, but really better to have a few great teachers (it works in college)
than have a bunch of crappy ones making kids drop out.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
A bad teacher cant figure out how to use the computer and lets the kids figure it out.
A good teacher tells the kid to type an assignment in word, and tells them to make a powerpoint and tells them what to research.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"Intellectual Bonsai Kitten". God you are a genius, Mr/Ms Waffle Iron. I'm going to use this expression for *years* to come.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Lets see, they go online and come to slashdot and read your writing. I suppose they would not learn how to read and write.
Hold up, I thought the internet was all text??????? How can they not learn to write if they are writing all the damn time? And how do you use a computer if you cant read?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Macs are always the better investment when you factor in two things:
1) Longevity. Macs remain usable (by non-geeks) much longer than PCs do. Take a look on eBay, and you'll see Macs that are 5 and 6 years old still going for quite a bit of money. A 5 or 6 year old PC is either a doorstop, bookend, or Linux box (hence my 'non-geeks' comment above).
2) Cost of maintenance and upkeep. Macs break less and are much easier to troubleshoot. I can tell you that because I'm an integration consultant who specializes in Macs, and I have clients who can go for months without needing me. Most Mac problems I'm called in for require an hour to fix, worst-case, and I'm usually done and gone in 15 minutes. I need to support Windows crap to keep a roof over my head and food in my mouth. Most schools that use Macs don't have full-time support staff, the teachers are able to maintain them in their spare time. Schools that have gone Windows have incurred tremendous support costs and often must hire staff dedicated to supporting the PCs.
Here's a link where someone in the education trenches explains this, so don't just take my word for it.
~Philly
Where do you get $2k per student? An iBook retails for $1299. It's one of the best buys I know of, especially if you throw Linux on it. :) Considering Apple heavily discounted these, I think you need to cut your estimate by 67% or more.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
No wonder america's kids get dumber with every generation. Our education system is braindead as hell.
yeah, that public schools prevent us from becoming introverted militia members in idaho is a real shame.
and let's see who's revealing public schooling dirty little secret - John Taylor Gatto? The same one who in 1992, "...was named Secretary of Education in the Libertarian Party Shadow Cabinet"? That one?
leftist...? have you even been in a public school? have you thought about how far left the center seems when you're all the way to the right?
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
Uh, because people are allowed to have opinions? Moderating it as a Troll wasn't appropriate, I called it because that's the hip thing to do when you don't agree with the majority (even though that's NOT what moderation is supposed to be used for-- engineering the visible opinion to match yours).
The only "fucking moron" here is you and the dipshit who modded me down because he didn't AGREE with me (nothing I said could be read as "Trolling", unless you're fucking paranoid)..
Shrug.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
I guesstimated costs for software, support, etc. The physical box is only part of the costs, and given the drop in hardware prices across the board, generally they're not even most of the cost.