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Maine Laptop Program a Success
Myoglobinologist writes "The New York Times has an article about how the State of Maine purchased $37 million worth of iBooks from Apple. The article states that the kids have adapted quickly to the laptops, attendance is up, and there is even heart-warming testimony from some politicians that were opposed to the project." We've done several previous stories about this initiative (they were originally considering custom-designed thin client machines - probably a good idea to go with off-the-shelf systems), and it's interesting to see how it has panned out.
Actually, this has been discussed here long ago, but iBooks have a really good bang-for-the-buck ratio...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
About time school kids had more apples.
Omnis amans amens
All I have are 20 pounds-worth of big old books. Then again, though.. where I live, we might be expected to use bookcovers, since they are "iBooks"... *mutters about small country towns*
What happens come upgrade time? While there was a surplus when the program started, most states now have a deficit. Some of the schools in my state have resorted to turning off all hall lights to save money. Granted, Maine is better off than S.C., but the money has to come from somewhere.
there were lots of studies about factory workers and those that were given some attention liked their job more. put windows into the factory and morale goes up, production goes up. treat people nicely, and they'll feel good about themselves. nice to see the old tried and true is still being shown today.
btw. i can't read the article, the link only went to NYT front page, and the link from there didn't give me an article. anyone willing to help a guy actually read the article ??? hint hint.
I'm glad that we can all agree that actually providing kids with computers they can use, regularly, to help them in their education is considered a cheap political ploy. Hopefully, next time money will be diverted to something more beneficial, such as the military.
For those of you who don't want to register:
FREEPORT, Me., March 4 -- Attendance is up. Detentions are down. Just six months after Maine began a controversial program to provide laptop computers to every seventh grader in the state, educators are impressed by how quickly students and teachers have adapted to laptop technology.
In a language arts class at Freeport Middle School, for example, muted howls could be heard recently as students researched projects related to Arctic stories, including "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London. Following Internet tracks created by their teacher, Janice Murphy, some students, inspired by the story, were researching wolves.
"Look," said Doug Hoover, 13, double-clicking on a wolf site. "Here's a picture of the sound waves the wolf makes when it howls."
Here and at the 239 middle schools around the state, students, teachers and parents say they are finding unexpected benefits.
No one seems more surprised by the early success of the program than Angus King, the state's former governor. When he announced the plan in the summer of 2000, motivated by a $50 million budget surplus and a pressing need to attract new business to Maine, Mr. King was stunned by the vehemence of objections.
The statewide effort, the first of its kind in the nation, "was more controversial than abortion, gay rights or even clear cutting," Mr. King said. "People hated it. They thought it was extravagant; they thought the kids wouldn't take care of the computers."
An early opponent was Chellie Pingree, then the State Senate majority leader and soon to be the president of Common Cause, a government watchdog group based in Washington. "It was about the allocation of resources," Ms. Pingree said. "We were struggling with construction issues: schools needed to be built; there were leaky roofs and not enough books."
Though she now sees the program as a success, others still say it is misguided.
"The state was flush at the time the laptop program was inaugurated, when it should have been providing for the rainy day that we're living with today," said Sumner Lipton, a lawyer in Augusta and a former state legislator. "There's a certain degree of irony in giving all the seventh graders laptops in a day when we're talking about cutting state employees back to four-day work weeks."
Before the program began, legislators trimmed its cost and scope. Envisioned as a $50 million effort that would let seventh graders take the computers with them through graduation, the plan was limited to seventh and eighth graders.
Laptops will follow their users to eighth grade next year, while seventh graders will get new iBooks, for a total of 33,000. When students leave the eighth grade, they will turn them in.
The cost of the four-year program is $37.5 million, which includes leasing the laptops, installing wireless ports throughout schools so students are always connected to the Internet and training teachers. It translates to about $300 per user a year, said Tony Sprague, project manager of the laptop program, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative.
To bolster the program, Mr. King sought support from beyond the state government. The author Stephen King (who is not related to Angus King) toured the Freeport school and offered to teach an online writing course. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $1 million for more teacher training. The technology giant EDS pledged $400 million in software for Maine schools, the biggest gift the state has ever received.
Educators say that problems have been minimal, with little breakage, theft or loss. The rewards, teachers say, have been impressive.
"These laptops are changing the way learning happens and the way teaching happens," said Chris Toy, principal of Freeport Middle School. Such a transformation, Mr. Toy said, can happen only when each student has a computer. "We don't have a pencil lab or put eight pencils in the middle of the room and have kids take turns using them, Computers are tools, and when every child in every school has one, it levels the playing field."
Though an estimated 90 percent of the homes in Freeport, near Portland, have computers, the laptops go home with the students at night. "We needed to make sure that level playing field is extended to the home," Mr. Toy said. "Now, no one's computer is better or faster."
That sense of equality is felt keenly in the state's poor and remote schools. At the tiny elementary school in Pembroke, about 240 miles northeast of Portland in Washington County in the Down East region, children and teachers seem to be using the laptops as effectively as those in more affluent areas, the principal, Paula Smith, said. Washington County is the state's poorest, and Ms. Smith estimated that perhaps 35 percent of her students had a computer at home.
As at other schools, she said, seventh graders seem more focused and less mischievous. Last year, Ms. Smith said she handed out about 30 detentions to Pembroke's seventh and eighth graders. This year, there have been two.
Parents also welcome the program.
"When the plan was announced, a lot of people thought the money should have been put into buildings," said Alison Bennie, the mother of a seventh grader in Topsham, next to Brunswick near Portland. "My husband and I both work at Bowdoin College, and we see the rate of students bringing their own computers to campus. It's virtually 100 percent. So the sooner kids learn the language, the more adept they will be at computers in high school and beyond."
Ms. Bennie's point is critical. By some measures, Maine's public schools are considered quite good: the National Center for Education Statistics ranks Maine as having one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country. But when it comes to students going on to college, Maine ranks low in the region. And in term of Ph.D.s earned in the state, Maine ranks dead last among states and Puerto Rico, according to a recent report from the National Science Foundation.
Improved college attendance five years from now would be a measure of the program's success, but for now, educators are collecting all the information they can and are awaiting year-end test scores. In other parts of the country, smaller programs have had a significant effect: In Henrico County, Va., where 24,000 students in grades 6 through 12, have laptops, test scores have risen and dropout rates have fallen.
But many Maine educators worry less about how success will be measured than about what will happen when they tell ninth graders in 2004 to surrender their iBooks.
"Because I see their skills building, the biggest concern is what will happen when they enter high school and lose their laptops," said Diane Parent, the principal of the middle school in Caribou, more than 300 miles northeast of Portland in remote Aroostock County.
Teachers are crossing their fingers that schools will be able to secure funds to ensure that laptops stay with students through high school, as they do in Henrico County, Va.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
Here's an idea... Keep the laptop program, as it seems to be improving the system, and start funneling money away from some of the sports programs for a change. Three years' worth of my junior high and high school experience was hobbled by austerity budgets. Art students were forced to buy all of their own materials, books had to be shared, busing was cut back, and the music program was forced to fund itself. In the meantime, the sports programs, who were not exactly cranking out championship teams, flourished. They got new equipment, more trainers, upgraded facilities, and even a new team bus. At some point, we need to get that spending ratio back in balance. Kids are there to learn. Though I think sports are important for a well rounded development, I think the emphasis on and rewards for them are too great. The current state of education marginalizes anyone who doesn't want to be "Like Mike". The laptop program in Maine is an excellent way to level the playing field and raise the bar at the same time, if I may mix my metaphors and sling a few puns... I will now climb down off of my stump and allow the flaming and trolling over the fact that they were Macs to begin... LLLLLLET'S GET READY TO RRRRRRUMBLLLLLLLE!
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You know, the tools that you provide do not really matter until you reach a certain maturity when you view them as just that - tools. And middle or highschool is hardly the time when you'd view them so.
The idea that giving a bunch of laptops or palm PDAs or whatever sounds more like a political move than anything that would truly help an educational system.
Kids during middle and high school should be taught to work with pen, paper, their heads and their hands. Solving and analyzing puzzles and problems on paper. Thinking up innovative methods. Building stuff. Get them a million Rubik's cubes, Chess sets, puzzle books and yes, even Lego Mindstorm kits.
I have said this before and I'll still say this - by giving a computer at a very early age, you are curtailing their abilities to think all by themselves. Take something like graphics programming - the best ones that I know still do everything in their head and solve it on paper, before they sit and start coding. And in the process, they learn and discover new stuff. By giving them access to computers at this early age, you're not letting them do that! Its far too easy to sit down and use ready made tools.
Like the parent said, get good teachers! Get them good books, teach them to build things, to take part in science fairs and apply what they learn. On a board or on paper dammit.
The laptop program might be working in pockets in Maine, but it's akin to putting a new paint job on a delapitated vehicle that doesn't run. Maine's educational system is broken, and has been for quite some time; test scores are low, there isn't a standardized method of assesing performance of students throughout the state (don't tell me about the Maine Educational Assesment exams - they're fundamentally broken), and teacher pay and morale is low in almost all schools. Angus King, the previous governer, left the state holding the bag for the $37 mil proce tag, not to mention training for teachers, and a new curriculum to support the laptops. The state's education program is in dire need of funds for basics, such as books, buildings that aren't falling down around the students, competent teachers, etc. The news here in Maine for a while now has been how to get out of this laptop contract as cheap as possible. I'll give credit to Seymor Papert, and folks who would like to implement similar ideas, but until the most basic needs of students are met, laptops shouldn't be integrated into the curriculum.
I've spoken with a few teachers who deal with the laptops on a daily basis, and it's clear to them that the support network for the hardware itself is severly lacking. The issue of what to actually *use* the systems for seems to have been overlooked.
Bottom line: the money could have been better spent elsewhere. It's a valiant and forward-thinking idea, but not very pragmatic at the moment.
Pissed off because your family didn't have the money to buy a computer, bitter because your children (homeschooled) don't benefit from the program, and rambling about the state's right to taxation.
Almost feels like a Monday.
These aren't 'gifts.' The kids turn in the iBooks when the leave eighth grade. This is no different than buy computers for them to use in labs, aside from giving them a more personal stake and a sense of ownership. Any initiative which is actually *successful* in increasing children's enthusiasm for learning, increasing attendence, getting them to work...hell, that's worth at least a second glance. I question your character if you honestly begrudge children an opportunity to learn more effectively and with greater joy. You sound like you need a hug.
Two other points. The states' rights to taxation is documented rather thoroughly. Should you not like the way your tax dollars are spent, vote for a different official, make your opinions heard in a public forum, or (worst case) leave your region.
And secondly, before you sling his comments out of context, have you even *read* de Tocqueville? (Notice, for that reason, I don't quote him.) Just because he's trendy doesn't mean he's right.
OK, Since I was at least vaguely 'in the loop' on this at the time it started ...
The issue was a State initiative to increase higher salary high tech jobs in Maine. Diggin potatoes, pickin blueberries, and selling tourists McDogchow and T-shirts are basically minimum wage jobs. Data entry, programming, WP, and the like are usually more than Min wage. In a review of WHY Maine wasn't attracting more high tech the result was: little infrastructure and unskilled workforce.
Result, a 'bold' plan to increase workforce skill level over the long haul by integrating computer skills in the standard school curiculum and hopefully haul some fiber into the state, at least the southern part to start.
Running one off worker retraining was seen as too short sighted, the school plan ensured a 'steady stream' of skilled workers. The fiber issue was thought to eventually resolve itself but a one time kick in the pants to start it rolling was considered.
Unfortunately, I was 'out of the loop' by the time this thing actually started forward so I have no clue on the actual implementation, or where the initial discussions actually wound up.
I'm sorry, there are just some very *wrong* things being said about this program both by people who claim to be from the state and via those from "away." So to clarify a number of things that have been said elsewhere:
/rr
1: The money for this program was privately generated and tagged specically for this program.
2: No general fund tax dollars are involved in this project...that is, no money that would otherwise go to other educational goals was diverted fund this.
3: Apple absolutely loss-lead this project...there is no doubt where the future is heading and a successful project here in Maine will pay off when NY or CA rolls out the same thing.
4: There is money being spent on teacher training and on technology integration into daily education.
5: This is an issue of equity of access and equity of opportunity. As Gov. King so eloquently explained, [paraphrasing] "My family was wealthy, when I was in school my father bought an Encyclopedia Brittanica for the house. Every other student in my class had to share the dog-eared one in the school library. Did this give me an advantage, absolutely. As of this moment, every single 7th grader in the State of Maine has their own World Book Encyclopedia because there is one on every single laptop." This program is about putting the single greatest educational TOOL since the printed book in the hands of those who need it most. It is about creating a structure within which those tools can be utilized to their highest and best use. It is about, frankly, the future of education.
6: The argument that kids can not be responsible is bunk...they are the exact same arguments that were being made when the debates about whether kids should be allowed to bring their textbooks home in the '30-40's...they were wrong then and wrong now.
I, for one, am very proud of this program. A decade from now, kids having laptops as part of their education will be a non-issue...like not allowing kids to bring books home, we will wonder what all the fuss was about. Will it go smoothly at every turn, no...is it the right path to go...absolutely. Maine's motto is Dirigo..."I Lead." Welcome to the future of education.
--
I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them.
- Isaac Asimov
[I have posted this generally, but repeat it here as well:]
/rr
I'm sorry, there are just some very *wrong* things being said about this program both by people who claim to be from the state and via those from "away." So to clarify a number of things that have been said elsewhere:
1: The money for this program was privately generated and tagged specically for this program.
2: No general fund tax dollars are involved in this project...that is, no money that would otherwise go to other educational goals was diverted fund this.
3: Apple absolutely loss-lead this project...there is no doubt where the future is heading and a successful project here in Maine will pay off when NY or CA rolls out the same thing.
4: There is money being spent on teacher training and on technology integration into daily education.
5: This is an issue of equity of access and equity of opportunity. As Gov. King so eloquently explained, [paraphrasing] "My family was wealthy, when I was in school my father bought an Encyclopedia Brittanica for the house. Every other student in my class had to share the dog-eared one in the school library. Did this give me an advantage, absolutely. As of this moment, every single 7th grader in the State of Maine has their own World Book Encyclopedia because there is one on every single laptop." This program is about putting the single greatest educational TOOL since the printed book in the hands of those who need it most. It is about creating a structure within which those tools can be utilized to their highest and best use. It is about, frankly, the future of education.
6: The argument that kids can not be responsible is bunk...they are the exact same arguments that were being made when the debates about whether kids should be allowed to bring their textbooks home in the '30-40's...they were wrong then and wrong now.
I, for one, am very proud of this program. A decade from now, kids having laptops as part of their education will be a non-issue...like not allowing kids to bring books home, we will wonder what all the fuss was about. Will it go smoothly at every turn, no...is it the right path to go...absolutely. Maine's motto is Dirigo..."I Lead." Welcome to the future of education.
--
I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them.
- Isaac Asimov
I'm amazed that this got moderated up. First, can you point out any schools specifically that are falling down? Because I haven't seen any, and my company was the one that installed every single wireless network in the state. That covered every middle school. Second, training; they actually instituted a comprehensive training program for all of the teachers, which you would have discovered had you really "looked into it quite a bit." Third, why would we back out of the program in within five years? Apple bent themselves over a table for the pricing on this, and it was quite a gamble on their part. We asked them, they did it for us, and then some people in the state legislature asked about the possibility of backing out of a signed contract. After it had been approved and passed. And finally, laptops going home; each school is allowed to set their own policy on that. It is entirely up to the school administration, so rant at them. I do have one further question for you; was your spelling a clever political ploy to try to demonstrate to /. readers the state of education in Maine? Or was it legitimate?