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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)."
The MBA program I attended used electronic versions of books a lot. I hated it. A lot of times I wanted to highlight a section or makes notes in the margin. You just can't do this without a real book. Some people printed theirs out. The cost of doing this is ridiculous versus just buying the book in the first place.
And even better, use free (as in freedom) text books from wikibooks on the laptops.
;-) ).
Wikibooks has free (beer / freedom) books and textbooks that anyone can edit, by the makers of Wikipedia. A whole list of projects are found here at Wikimedia (yes they like the word Wiki alot
Amen. Give the kids a cheap external hard disk to take to class with textbooks and suchlike on that, then make a deal with a wholesale refurbisher for home and classroom desktops. The hard disk would be much less valuable if stolen.
I have a friend that attends a private military school, where they give laptops to each student there. The front is practically plastered with warnings about how this is not your laptop, and that you shouldn't steal it. One of them is about 3mm off the surface of the lid, and says that it has a tracker in it, and it requires 600+ pounds of pressure to remove. Needless to say, I imagine the plastic would break before you hit the necessary 600 pounds of force. Now, sure, they could just be saying that you need that much weight to scare you off, but another one of the labels say that there's a chip inside where if you wave a wand over the laptop, the chip sends back some ID number.
So, unless these crooks knew all about what to do, I doubt they'd run straight to the pawn shop, without stopping to clean up the laptops first. Do you think the pawn shop will really take in 5 laptops (or heck, even one laptop) that have 'NO THEFT' stickers plastered all over them. I think even the pawn shop people are smarter than that.
Another thought:
Are the teachers able to use and understand these machines?
And considering how completely inaccurate some stuff on Wikipedia is I am sure their education would be great. I think I'd rather stick to professionally written and edited material for my kids.
There's a reason why a lot of military personnel are from Texas, and it's not just Texans being unusually patriotic, or lacking other career opportunities, or liking Bush.
People in the military have a lot of freedom to decide where their permanent residence is in the US, since (especially if they're deployed overseas somewhere) they don't really "live" anywhere in the US anyway. But you have to officially "live" somewhere... and there's an obvious advantage to choosing a state like Texas that doesn't have a state income tax. You'll notice a lot of military personnel are from Florida too.
For similar reasons, there aren't very many military personnel from California or Massachusetts.
They say a set of childs textbooks is $350, so if the notebooks were $500, it would be cost competitive.
Admittedly its been a long time since I've been in school, but my textbooks were largely decades old when I was in school. They may be $350 a set, but spread out over 30 years, thats $15 a year per student.
We can barely keep an IBM laptop here at work running for a year before they break, and these are developers and sales guys, not 6th graders using them.
Even if the cost of the electronic versions was $0, I don't see how this is even remotely cost effective.
The article said a set of books costs $350/student, and they thought they could get a laptop for $500/student.
We all know laptops become antiquated within a few years. I find it highly unlikely that a laptop would last for 5 years, it's probable that at the 3-4 mark the school district would have to sink big $ into new software licenses, or just buy new machines.
I'm pretty sure I remember some of my school textbooks being pretty darn old... the signatures & dates of students being assigned to them were 10+ years on some books.
So how is buying laptops w/ ebooks saving any money?
With the low cost of printers, and a binding machine, why don't the schools print their own books?
love is just extroverted narcissism
With the rise in text book costs every year and the cost to maintain a decent library couldn't the school possibly save money? What if they have a digital library of books, no waiting in line, easy to maintain, no cost of replacing lost books, and they can convert the old library into a couple more class rooms. Im not saying the "test" program won't cost extra, but in the future it could mean savings.
The Surgeon General says sigs are bad for me.
A large portion of the 'graduates' in the Dallas school system can not read or write at the 3rd grade level.
I'm a graduate of the Dallas school system and I can read and write just fine. I'd like you to define "large portion" and provide statistics to back up your claim.
Couldn't your time be better spent on, I don't know, precise and accurate statements?
1. Laptops are to powerhungry
,DB-25 adapter,Protective flip lid .
2. Not child safe (what if it falls) ( you need some gameboy like build device )
3. Expensive
4. Overpowered for this situation.
The best thing to do would to build a custom ebook reader. That wouldn't be to hard I think. Just take an el-cheapo (older model) PDA (its engine) and but a bigger LCD screen on and maybe a bit more vram.
For instance:
1. To save development costs on the hardware and OS and tools we will use the: Palm IIIc Handheld. Which has 256 colours and costs $79. Mind you this price is also including all the extra's like warrenty, batteries, small LCD and Synchronizing HotSync cradle and battery recharger (120 VAC, 60 HZ), Metal stylus, Palm Desktop organizer software, Handbook , Lithium ion rechargeable battery (internal)
So without all of that we will pay Palm $60 for the hardware and OS.
2. Just slap on a slow (not watching video or playing games) and cheap LCD of 800x600 that costs about $60 (in mass quantities). Example here
3. Bluetooth module $5
4. Casing $10
A total price of $60 + $60 + $5 + $10 = $135 for hardware and OS. Now add some $$$ for development costs and accessories and profit and the price will be about $209,95.
Optional: Touchscreen, newer hardware, faster wireless networking etc.
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
Havong worked for a company that both resold, and serviced notebook computers sold to 5th and 6th graders in Michigan, I can say that while there did seem to be a higher percentage of notebooks deployed to students coming back, (as opposed to ones issued to teachers,) but I can't be sure, I have no hard numbers on total deployment.
Out of somewhere on the order of 2000-3000 notebooks sold, we would usually have only a couple come in every day, and maybe once a week one that was a non warranty repair.
The package we sold, included a 3-year extended warranty with once-per-year for so called "End-User Abuse" repairs.
I think a lot has to do with the design of the notebooks.
I think the mode we handed out in '01 was much better than the one in '02, which had screws that secured the screen's plastic back to the hinges, that should have been installed with Loc-tite [SP? I've never had to use the stuff, really.] because they were working their way loose, causing loose displays, that would wiggle before the hinge started moving, occasionally causing damage to the plastic housing of the display.
I think from a durability standpoint, the notebooks design and weight matters more than anything else. Apple style slot load drives would have been a big improvement.
As I recall, the children were regularly told to back their work up to the network, (though not all of them did it) because if they ever had a problem, the first thing that they always did was re-image it to rule out any software problems, (and because the Mfr. would only pay us for working them if a part had actually failed.)
In the case of the program I worked for, the parents purchased and owned the laptops, (financial aid was availible,) and there were two "Special" notebooks, for visually impaired students, (one purchased by the district, one by the parents)
In summary I think the success or failure of such an inititive depends on the specific implimentation.
This is definitive tunnel vision.
_nfotxn
I used to get dententions for not covering my books (i kow, very lame of me). What the hell kind of punishment are these kids gonna get for not properly treating their ThinkPads? In School suspension for not going to windowsupdate weekly? A day with the principal for installing malware? Writing on the chalkboard 100 times "I will defrag weekly"? I think they are putting a little bit too much faith, trust, and responsibility into these fifth and sixth graders.
Th
When I was in grade school the books where all well used and outdated. For some books this is hardly a big deal, math for example hasn't changed too much. But my 6th grade history/geography book still had Germany as 2 countries. The wall came down when I was in second grade. This is where electronic books would be awsome, always up to date. Of couses laptops for kids just sounds like a nightmare.
It would be great if when you walked into class the homework would automaticly be downloaed, and all assignments would be turned in. The teacher could check to see if you really did read a chapter, how long you spent on it, any notes you made. If this is how it is done then by all means do it, but what I fear is that these laptops will be fully loaded and unsecured with an icon on the desktop called homework right next to the one called Counter-Strike.
In my mind these laptops should be striped, no cd-rom or floppy, just a keyboard with a screen. Why? Because then you can't install software. All updates would be done by the school over the network (wireless would be perfect). Also just have the eBook reader software loaded and it runs on startup. If these are textbook replacements lets make sure that they are used as textbooks.
You might want to go back and look at how thick the books are, and how many books.
Keep the computers in the schools, I say. Give the kids books to take home. .
I could not possibly disagree more. Given the ridicules volumes of text books being pushed on children, this is a good alternative.
Every year, some text book salesman shows some board of teachers how his book has more information, more details, more color glossy pictures, and converts the school to a new book. But the salesman and the teacher don't carry them home on their back, the kids do. Now, some on dollys with wheels because the weight is so high.
I say don't give them books, or laptops. Give them a little book of DVDs and a couple USB drives to hand in reports. Get rid of ALL that junk they carry.
I think the program is great. The computers crash, break, get lost, stolen..Well tht helps the kids learn responsibility. It als helps them get used to technology. Both kids are usually a lot more techno savy than me and Mom, but don't have the paitence to trouble shoot a lot of problems. I not only think it is a good thing to have kids get laptops, I think schools that don't provide them are gettting kids left behind. As far as the kids being distracted, the net access in the school is heavily monitored, and any linking to banned sites gets the pc's frozen and they must report to the help desk. I have no problem with the censorship for the kids, in this context censorship actually works. The kids as a whole are very ingenious, creating ways to get around attempts to ban im-ing and the like.
http://www.geocities.com/sethseekstruth/great_out
At Cincinnati Country Day School, every student from 5th-12th grade must have a laptop (usually a Toshiba Satellite purchased through the school). The outrageous price of such a program is not a problem for most of the students at the school, because compared to tuition it seems pretty insignificant.
The laptops tend not to be that useful in class. They don't replace textbooks, and they aren't used as an integral part of most classes (other than Digital Photo, I suppose). Certain lab science classes use them, but only because the school also purchased some motion detectors, temperature sensors, and other instruments that interface with the computers--this is pretty much just a novelty, as other, cheaper, things (like thermometers) could be used instead.
One theory is that the school started the laptop program in order to make it seem more "modern" and "in touch" with technology. Certainly one advantage is that by high school almost all the students are computer literate, having been forced to learn how to use their computers (or at least having been forced to learn how to properly reboot their computers after Windows crashes). And nobody is ever bored during study halls, thanks to the school-wide wireless network. But the laptops are still pretty much unnecessary.
Theft/loss/damage is also a problem due to the tendency of middle school and high school students to not be very careful with expensive stuff. The damage is easily fixed by the magic of reimaging and warranty coverage, but the theft is a little trickier.
Every other dead IBM I've seen was your classic faulty workmanship and/or materials.
Right now I have a fleet of about a few hundred Thinkpads and Desktops. Some moron sold out to IBM, probably got a free PC or two for his kids, and left us with a corporate directive to purchase IBM, and only IBM. Four years later, I'm still cleaning up the mess. I'm convinced that IBM equipment is designed to last for two years and eleven months. It is so bad, that if you tell me a particular model of thinkpad or ibm desktop, I'll tell you how it will fail, and when.
Let me count the ways...
It gets worse... When you're on a corporate IBM account, and you keep calling IBM about these problems, they go deaf. Once they realise that somewhere between 70% and 90% of the fleet of computers that they sold you is dead or dying, they stop returning your phone calls.
I made this list by gazing around the room in which I sit and ticking off the list of carcasses of dead, not-economic-to-repair, can't-discard-'cos-it's-an-assett IBM branded equipment that I have piled up all around me.
IBM equipment is high workload for techo's. Schools either don't have technical folks, or spread them very thin on the ground. They're going to be very busy cleaning up this mess. I wonder just how many parents are going to end up paying for dead IBM equipment that the mighty IBM repair department puts down to 'user abuse' to hide their crapola manufacturing!
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Books in Texas are used on average for 10 years. So that $350 per kid turns into $35 per kid per year. How long do you think a laptop will be 'usable' Four years would make $337 per kid per year. Only 10 times the price, what a deal.
I think what a lot of people are doing is there assuming 'biggest and best' with respect to the laptops that will be issued- but I think that's false; these are going to be a special run of ruggidized laptops that are not going to be top notch (and will probbally be overpriced for the components within them).
Consider:
Standard monitor 13.5", but replaceable
no HDD, instead a 2gb flash card (1.5gb for windows XP), or a 5gb HDD with extera padding
slide out CD-rom (where all books will actually be)
Spillproof keybaord
Shockproff the whole thing
Low end processor (maby 500mhz celleron)
$700 each
Now that's far more expensive then those components are worth, but at the same time, how else is a school board going to be able to get thousands if not tens of thousands of these things created exactly the same. As well since all the individual components are cheap, removable, and build with the intention of ocassionally being replaced the cost to the student for abuse is more minimal then the cost of having abused a textbook (With the exception of the screen I can't see a single component in that thing exceding $80; then again, loosing the whole laptop wouldne't be fun)
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
Oh. You can say that again. I got the CF-37 Toughbook, and nearly got a heart attack about six months ago when a tall glass full of water fell on it. The keyboard was drenched. I quickly disconnected everything and took apart as much as I could, and then I let the parts air dry.
And now I sit here typing this post in that very laptop. A mere two weeks after that incident, the computer turned on without any serious problems. (At first the 'n' key didn't work reliably after a few hours of operation). It's been a few months now and it works as well as it did originally. Now that is a Toughbook.