Michigan To Purchase Record 130,000 Laptops

goombah99 writes "The Detroit FreePress reports that Michigan state is planning the largest single laptop purchase/lease ever, over 130,000 wireless laptops--enough for every 6th grader. And of course future purchases for each new class. The main competion is between Dell and Apple, with Apple having the edge in classroom integration experience. But price points will matter since the school districts may have to pay $25 per pupil. And the Gates foundation has a foot in the door. No word on what OS the Dell laptops would run. What would be your choice for middle school classrooms with minimal sys admin?"

Comments

do grade school kids really need computers?

[myc]

...particularly in the classroom? I can't really fathom a use for them at the grade school level. You're centainly not going to be teaching programming. You can use them for word processing and web searches at best. My opinion is kids need to learn how to write with paper and pencil first before learning to use a word processor; there is more focus on content than presentation that way IMO. Also, if you want to do web searches, why do you need a latop for every student? Just have a dumb term in each classroom running a webbrowser.

Maybe a paperless enviornment is a goal to work towards? But just imagine paperless homework...kids will learn to cut and paste from each other's work. At least with handwriting you have to copy the answers manually and maybe learn something out of it.

I would think that the money spent on purchasing laptops and related tech support would be better spent on better pay for teachers...