Slashdot Mirror
Texas High School Gets iBooks
bigjnsa500 writes "Starting in December, high school teachers and students in the sleepy south Texas town of Pleasanton will be receiving Apple iBook wireless laptops. The school has installed wireless access points throughout the campus, including classroom buildings, the shop areas, gym, field house and press box at the football stadium. It will be first high school campus in South Texas to go high-tech." Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't that $2.2m over four years be better spent on books and teachers?
Especially since being a Texas HS means their football stadium already seats 10,000+ and has astroturf. No need to upgrade that!
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
I'm sure they've let some money for teachers. It's not mutually exclusive to spend money on technological resources and teachers is it?
Even though the computers are locked down (and Mac OS X is *nix so it won't be pseudo-locked like WinXP), kids will still be able probably to play Java games or the like. Or some industrious kids could boot up YD-Linux and do whatever they want.
At my HS, the most common use for TI-8* calculators is playing games. Who says there will be any difference with these computers?
How many of these are going to get lost/stolen/broken? I remember the hardback textbooks at my highschool had a tough enough time making it through the school year. I think a better computer lab or even laptops that are confined to classrooms would be a better idea.
In High-tech Heretic Stoll does a quickie calculation to compare the cost of computer installation (computers, network, software, maintenance) with the number of textbooks and general library books a school could buy. There's no doubt that books are a far better deal. Not to mention that books last a lot longer than any software or computer hardware will. I'm not saying there's no place for computers in school. My kids do some killer data reduction in science classes, but that doesn't mean flooding a school w/ laptops is a good idea.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't that $2.2m over four years be better spent on books and teachers? Only if those books do NOT mention the heretical "theory" of "evolution". Note to the humor impaired: I am totally serious. Really.
Theory and practice are the same in theory, but different in practice.
School districts are always saying that they are low on cash that is the only way they can get a bigger budget next year. That is the same with any other institution that gets government spending. Every year or so they show what they spend and then then show what they plan to spend next year. Now if they didn't use all the money the current year they will get a smaller budget next year. So they try to spend all the money on different areas (including $15 for a metal spatula for New York State schools (which is $4 at Walmart for a good one) So this year they had had some money left over so they cant give it to the teachers because next year they will want more and they may not have the same budget so they put in Computers will at least last for a couple of years.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
schools should be spending money on today...
My school bought new textbooks every 10 years... My senior year I had a brand new english textbook (exactly the same as the old one) and all the others were 10 years old... Government and Economics textbooks were both completely out of date (because they were poorly written... should be something that doesn't go out of date)
With computers, hopefully there exists (or will exist) a way of having new (well written) resources for all classes... updated to the minute.
Like anyone can even know that
From the article:
The students -- who expressed the most excitement about the CD burner and chat software -- will find that there are some limitations.
Their computers will be locked, meaning they cannot download any additional software, Hindes said.
Any Web sites deemed objectionable will be blocked, and the district could shut off the chat software if messaging between students gets out of hand.
Losing a laptop or having one stolen carries a $125 penalty, he said.
In addition, the district has software that tells administrators exactly what the students are doing on their computers, he said.
"We're entitled to monitor it and we will be able to do that," he said.
Is this legal ? Does giving a computer for free allow you to monitor and filter whatever you want ? Isnt'it similar to public library computers ?
Whatever the law says, such a deal sucks. The poor guy will have a big-brother computer while is wealthy friend will buy a spyless one.
--
Go debian!!!
Why? Well, I'm not an academic, but I think they forget that learning is something you do, not something that's done to you. You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn, isn't ready to learn, or whatever. Conversely, you can't stop someone from learning who really wants to. Teachers are all well and good for the middle third of kids, I suppose... but give a kid a computer and odds are they'll learn something without you having to tell them to do so.
>Also, i've only mentioned the software.
That was supposed to be
Also, i've only mentioned the hardware.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Besides books can be issued on the iBooks. More pressure needs to be applied to the publishing companies to make all books available via PDF. Every kid in America should have an iBook!
Peace
Some of your other questions aren't as easy to answer, but you did ask why a laptop vs desktop, which is a no-brainer - portability.
Laptops move from classroom to classroom. Laptops move into the lab then back to the desk. Laptops can go home (!) then back to school. Kids aren't fixed in place in school - they wander from room to room during the day.
With a desktop system, you'd waste a couple minutes a period (maybe 5-10% of their class time) logging in/out of accounts. Plus - then you'd need to worry about network home drives, which is going to require hiring at least 1 administrator, plus additional hardware, possible upgrades to network equipment, etc. There's something to be said for simplicity.
As for why iBooks rather than x86: as has been said many times before, Apple laptops are very price-competitive with name-brand x86 machines, which is what a school district is going to be interested in. Apple's currently selling iBooks for $849/each to schools (if they buy 20): 800 MHz G3, 256 MB Ram, 30 GB HD, OS 9 & OS X 10.3, and a wireless card. With a G4, the price is $1083 without a bulk discount. I checked Dell's website - with Texas education pricing, comparable laptops were $1000 - $1200.
What you say is true, but kids will play games with anything. When I was in school, we folded paper into triangles and played football. We played hockey with quarters. We had races on inclined desks with erasers. And when calculators were first introduced into our schools, we played games with the calculators. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Saying kids will play games with something is always true, and is not a good excuse for not doing it. (Not that I think computers are necessarily a good idea.)
As someone who is somewhat familliar with school financing, I have to say you are way off base.
School districts in CA (where I teach) are required by law to put forth a balanced budget every year. In most cases, they must put forth a budget for the upcoming year using "soft" numbers, usually determined by projected enrollment for the upcoming year (x# of students *x$ per student). In most cases, school districts do not have firm numbers to work with, and yet have to come up with a balanced budget that will carry them through the next year.
The STATE determines funding (at least in CA), not the school board/administration. Schools don't tell the State "yeah, we spent 2.2 mil last year, now we need 2.3 mil, yadda yadda yadda". Instead, the State says "here's the money we promised you, sorry it is less than last year, and oh, BTW, you have to carry out all these unfunded mandates that the legislature passed last year."
And don't get me started on Federal funding--that is an even worse nightmare.
No way! We'll drain the Rio Grande (screw you, Mexico) before we let our precious players touch that stuff. 100 yards of pure, green, thirsty burmuda. Yup.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Well, if you don't update the text books often, McGraw-Hill can't change them to meet their latest revised version of history. Think of the children...what if they learned something about Ancient Rome, or that Jefferson was a great man, or that the American Civil War was ONLY 5%, if that much, about slavery? What if the story problem characters in algebra are never named Jamal? Think of the children!
That's not funny. It's sad, really. Your joke sounds a lot like what I heard in high school... from my biology teacher!
I had always assumed that the people who spoke out against evolution were just a bunch of cousin-kissing yokels that just stayed on the farm. No sir. When I wanted to write a paper on evolution in my english class, my teacher decided to have a talk with me. She told me to write about something less controversial - like abortion. I shit you not. That's when you know that you've got to move away after graduation.
I still love Texas, but it's getting tougher and tougher to proud of this place. Religious nuts. Bush. Gun nuts. Bush. Houston (at one point it had the fattest people and the worst polution, thanks Dubya!).
Sigh.A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
the are 950 studens in the school system. this mean each student would get about 0.5% more teacher attention. Assuming an average classroom size of 30, that's about 15% more teachers per classroom, or one hour per day more of supervision. Or to put in plainly, one daily course.
personally I think immersive computer education is equivalent to an extra course, probably more so. Thus I'd say the trade off between books and computers is acceptable.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Don't feed the trolls. Move along.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
In the American suburbs, just about every young child, male or female, plays soccer. The term "soccer mom" became a generic term for suburbanite married women with children, who tend to have slightly more conservative values than the single, urban feminist. The stereotype is a reasonably prosperous middle-class thirtysomething woman who drives a big SUV or Minivan to take her kids to soccer practice.
While most urban women in recent decades have tended to vote as a block for one party (Democrats), the "soccer moms" are considered to be important swing voters, and both parties have been spending a lot of time, money, and energy trying to win their votes in recent years. (Bill Clinton did very well with the soccer moms, much to Bob Dole's surprise and disappointment.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Actually, I guarantee you they won't be able to boot into any other OS BUT Mac OS X. They won't be able to boot from a CD. A FireWire drive. NetBoot. Nothing. They won't even be able to drop into >console.
/see/ the (hidden) admin account.
/tight./ You can't even yank the RAM and zap the PRAM to reset the OF password because of these nifty little anti-theft strips that cross the AirPort card and top EMI shield. You can't remove the AirPort card to get to the RAM, and if you DO remove the strip, you get this nice little tattoo left behind by the sticker that means "hahapwned" to administrators.
Why?
Lock-downs. If this town is smart, they'll lock down the machines the same way Henrico County Public Schools did in Virignia. (After learning the hard way.) Firmware locks, linking >console to dropping into the "/dev/null" shell (wink wink), etc. The kids will get their own account and will never even
I work for a repair depot that services the county, and lemme tell ya: These machines are
Hopefully, Texas is going to implement similar measures. If not, they're going to have baaaad headaches.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
When Henrico County near Richmond, Virginia did this, they initially had considerable problems with systems breaking. Part of that was educating students in how to handle the systems properly. Part of it was underestimating the support needs of 25,000 laptop users. Even if 1% of the systems break each year, that's still 250 repairs a year. Initially, the county didn't have an on-site repair shop; machines had to be shipped to DC to be fixed.
Interestingly, after two years of iBooks in schools, the issue has generated enough controversy to be an issue in school board elections. The results? Two incumbents were voted out - including the chairman.
Education spending is done mostly by state and local governments (this is why you get nicer schools with larger budgets in wealthier towns). So this 2.2 million is most likely coming from local property taxes (or corporate taxes if there are any major companies headquarted in this town).
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals."
Perfect Price Discrimination explains why we pay so much for textbooks here in the US, while in poorer nations, the prices are so much lower. We are willing and able to pay the higher prices, while people in say, Ghana, can't. Schools could save tons of money by simply ordering textbooks from international distributers over the internet and having them shipped in to them. I have a friend who makes tens of thousands of dollars a year at his university by doing this fro kids there, which also saves them money.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals."
"Hi, it looks like you are trying to cheat..."
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yes, but "high school spends $2.2m on teachers and books" wouldn't have gotten mentioned on /. (or in any other media source, for that matter.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Please. Tell us. What are the "outrageous salaries" that are being paid in your community? Have you ever worked as a teacher in a public school system? Or, are you one of the "armchair administrators" that see this as a simple problem?
The problems of educating EVERYONE (no matter what their inclination to learn) and being forced to accept all sorts of abberant behavior (no matter what the parents' willingness to get involved may be) are among the more difficult things that my wife (who's been teaching middle and high school for 21 years) must deal with on a daily basis.
How many times have you been threatened at the workplace, and found the perpetrator of the threat RIGHT BACK in the workplace the next day? This happens to schoolteachers all the time. Are metal detectors necessary in your workplace? Is it because of the risks of someone in the room with you pulling a knife or gun and killing a co-worker? Again, this is a way of life for many schoolteachers.
I'll be the first to admit that simply raising taxes and throwing money at schools for higher teacher salaries and better facilities isn't going to fix our educational system. The system is (IMHO) fundamentally broken, and requires dramatic overhaul and review, from the top down.
Unfortunately, this would also mean that a large percentage of the population would lose the "free day care" services of the public schools, because revamping the system would also mean that many students would be deemed "unfit for the classroom," and would be directed toward a special education program (which is even more expensive) that increases supervision levels for the students, or left out of the public school system entirely.
Then again, we can just take the approach it sounds like you're suggesting. Tell the teachers to stop their incessant whinning about the environment they work in; insist that the rat-infested buildings some teachers use are still "perfectly acceptable"; cut back on extra-curricular activities that are typically funded 80% or more by fundraisers and parental involvement.
Great idea!
Tim
Most schools thrive on education grants from the government and other organization to help them fund programs. When a grant is received, it is to be spent on a particular field. I just granduated from a South Texas school (Los Fresnos High School, just north of Brownsville, west of South Padre) a couple years ago. The year before I started there, they had no technology on campus, there were 486s that were not connected to anything but power. We received a very large grant and bought countless computers, switches, routers, servers (Linux back then), and had the entire campus hardwired. The Brownsville school district gets grants extremely fast and have done everything except to hand out notebooks but since many students already have computer at home, and every class room has a computer or to plus a computer lab per grade. There is no need for notebooks.
I think that before we continue spend the amount of money that we do anywhere in the country on computers for school, we should decide what they should really be used for.
Have you even been to Texas?
The cost advantage of Windoze machines would completely disappear the first time an email virus strikes all of the machines on campus.
Yes.
I have one product to mention to you. Apple Remote Desktop. I want to see a simliar product with unlimited seats that is as easy to use to adminstrate hundreds or thousands of machines. You'll need a decent number of techs to deploy the same level through SMS and Active Directory, which has a high learning curve. If they have to get computers I'm glad they're laptops and that they are Mac iBooks
With computers, hopefully there exists (or will exist) a way of having new (well written) resources for all classes... updated to the minute.
There is, but if your school could only afford new textbooks every ten years, they're not going to be able to afford it. Think of a laptop as a MUCH more expensive wrapper for the textbook's data. Yes, laptops have the advantage of being able to update that data, but all you've saved is the cost of the materials in the textbook--you still have to pay for the cost of the information (which is the larger share of a textbook's cost.
Now, you may be able to use alternative sources for the textbook's data (like MIT's open university thingy), but most states are VERY specific about their curriculum, and the trend is to be even more so, and textbook companies have an advantage there that they're not going to squander.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Um. So?
Henrico County, Virginia, USA. Been there, done that. Hope you have a nice raincoat, you're going to get drenched..
Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
As I said in a post that got moderated "Troll", it could be worse, I think that $2.2M mark is about the budjet for the school systems for the entire state of Florida.
. as p?rid=1043
Now if you think this is a troll, you obviously know NOTHING of the Florida school systems - they are the worst in the country! I grew up in Michigan with excellent PUBLIC schools, the ones down here in Florida are an insult to this country's capabilities! I can give TONS of examples... most of which can be found with google.
Don't believe me? How about something from the research channel to back me up?
http://researchchannel.org/program/displayevent
Florida was dead last when it came to the most BASIC questions of science: What causes the seasons?
So for the moderators who think this is a troll, think about if for a second - you should either find it informative, or humorous. Unless, of course, your a typical Florida moron who thinks he/she's actually well educated! (now that's funny!)
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
I'm sorry.
I know a good therapist, do you want his number?
Buttsex.
He was joking dude. (Don't know why it was modded interesting)
Random is the New Order.