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Notebooks Replace Textbooks in Texas
DrEnter writes "Yahoo! is running this article about an experiment at Johnson Elementary school in Dallas, Texas, which will provide an IBM ThinkPad to every 5th and 6th grader, each one loaded with electronic versions of textbooks and 2,000 other books. Apparently, due to rapidly increasing enrollment and long delays to get new books the school is trying to head off future problems. They also mention a similar program in Henrico County, Virginia, using iBooks and how some of these programs are affecting laptop design (like Apple replacing pop-out CD trays with CD slides)."
This was done in the Maine public schools a few years ago.
didnt read the article, and don't know how long the Texas job has been going, but the Henrico County job has been going strong for almost 3 years.
doesn't Apple have a contract with Maine school systems(or individual counties/cities systems) for the last year or so as well?
the history of the world
Look it up. :)
Try searching google.
DISD could make grade promotion easier
Plan proposed to help overage students
02/24/2000
By Linda K. Wertheimer / The Dallas Morning News
The young man with the mustache slouches in the desk chair, grinning disarmingly at teacher Theda Redwine.
Juan Garcia / DMN
David Saucedo, 16, is an eighth-grader at Quintanilla Middle School. He says the thought of getting a second chance to advance to ninth grade gives him hope.
Ms. Redwine, who tutors David Saucedo, doesn't smile back. David is a 16-year-old in the eighth grade at Quintanilla Middle School. He already has flunked two grades. He's barely passing now and is insisting that he has no homework to do.
David is two years older than the average eighth-grader in the Dallas Independent School District. Overage students like him are the motivation for a proposed policy school board members will vote on Thursday.
If the proposal passes, more than 1,700 seventh- and eighth-graders who automatically would have been held back in the past will get a chance to advance - if they make up course work in summer school.
Last year, students who failed three of their four core subjects - English, math, science and social studies - in middle school were held back, whether they went to summer school or not.
But if the school board approves the proposal, those students could be promoted as long as they pass two subjects in summer school.
With the proposal, Dallas is tackling a national issue: how to get rid of so-called "social promotions" but keep schools from filling with overage students.
In a district in which almost half of all middle-school students failed at least one core subject last year, the balance is a delicate one.
School district officials who worked with middle school principals on the proposal said the main goal is to get overage students out of middle school and into high school.
This school year, 22 percent of Dallas eighth-graders are 15 to 17 years old - the ages at which most of their peers are in ninth through 11th grades. In at least a few cases, 17-year-olds are attending class with 12-year-olds.
"These kids in middle school who are overaged, they get discouraged," said Dr. Donna Bearden , assistant superintendent of curriculum. "If we get them into high school, we have a better chance of getting them to stay in school."
Not reaching everybody
Even if trustees approve the policy, it won't reach all of the students who fail, based on last year's statistics. Last summer, only 46 percent of students who failed a grade went to summer school to try to earn promotion.
"It's by no means solving the problem," Dr. Bearden said.
Most states, including Texas, have instituted bans against social promotion in various grades, coupling new laws with summer school as the last chance for students.
Urban districts in particular have been hunting for ways to comply with new laws and help many failing students, said Dr. Gerald Tirozzi , executive director of the National Association of Secondary Principals in Reston, Va.
Studies have shown that when students are held back a year and returned to the same teachers, they often fail again, said Dr. Tirozzi, a former assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education.
"What Dallas is doing is a good idea," he said. "It's sending kids a message: If you don't master these subjects, we won't send you on to high school."
Dallas principals and teachers had mixed reactions about the proposal. Some fear that students who are already failing two courses will give up on a third, figuring they have to go to summer school anyway. Others say middle schools can't handle all of the overage students.
Tom Kelchner , principal at Marsh Middle School in North Dallas, said the proposal amounts to "loosening the promotion policy." He said the solution lies within middle schools, which can provide tutoring and create special programs fo
On a side note, I remember that teachers used to get pissed if the kids would take the cover and snap it in two over a desk.
Of course, I was the lowly nerd in high school and attempted to keep my books in good shape. However, that doesn't stop the kid a foot from your desk from grabbing your book and *CRACK*. While I admit, I'd laugh from time to time, it really wasn't my fault....
Karnal
I think I'd rather stick to professionally written and edited material for my kids.
Have you ever SEEN professional material on a computer? I'm serious, I've used biology and physics programs in class that were crippled with mistakes and drawn so crudely I wanted to puke when I was obliged to use them.
Material from books is really better and more accurate even if it's less fun for children.
It should be noted that the Henrico County, Va program ( where I live and know kids that have the computers ) don't supply electronic textbooks. Students need to carry all the text books plus the computer.
IMHO, Henrico County got the computers but decided on minimal support on the backend and little thought to how to integrate the computers into the learning experience. The students I know only use the computers for sending email through various unblocked email sites to their friends. They don't use it for writing papers because there were only a few printers to use at school and long lines meant being late for class. It was easier to just write the paper at the last minute like we used to do in the good old days. Teachers did not accept emailed papers because the teachers didn't have enought space on the file server to do that.
The students can't use it much to do research because the software is locked down and limits the sites you can visit. Its easier just to use your computer at home where it isn't blocked. Those blocks also apply when the laptop is at home, unless you use the modem to make a dialup connection.
Originally the computers were sent home without any lockdown, and no usable application, not even Apple Works. 6 months later, the school system was shocked to find teen age boyes with pornography on their laptops and locked everything down.
It's a 3 day suspension to add software yourself, or change your desktop picture, so the student mostly don't put any files on the laptops.
There have been some hardware problems with hinges, latches, and cdroms. If you turn it in for repair, it's weeks before they get them back.
The student I know think Mac laptops suck because of all these reasons and will never buy one.
It should be noted that the superintendant who implemented the laptop plan has decided to take a job elsewhere.
The problem of theif is address by epoxying large metal tags with ID numbers onto the laptops marking them as part the Henrico laptop program.
A Toshiba toughbook won't stand up to any abuse at all. A Panasonic toughbook on the other hand...
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
As a designer of textbooks, I am really interested in the ePaper technologies, such as the Sony Librie. In the near term these programs are experiements, but on the five to ten year term I see these products taking over the market. The teachers editions, which will likely see such products first, are at this point multi-volume 12" square, 600 page books, coming in around ten pounds apiece for 30 some pounds of book for a year. And, they don't cover the material. Imagine being able to tie low frame rate video for professional development, as well as the pupil editions, and typical content in a product of this size!
, 1200034,00.html).
The displays, as well as the various power draining components are what drive the cost of a $1000 notebook. eliminate much of this, mass produce it, and you have a great $250 solution for the same cost as the books.
Here is a review of current tech: (http://www.dottocomu.com/b/archives/002571.html) as well as a link to the Guardian article linked within (http://books.guardian.co.uk/ebooks/story/0,11305
The numbers are actually much worse, the above number do not include the drop out rate.
Stallman's masterpiece, right here I'm surprised nobody posted it yet.