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Microsoft's High School Opens in PA
Joopndufus writes to mention a CNN article about a Microsoft-planned high school, newly opened in the Philadelphia area. Funded entirely by that city's school system, Microsoft offered its management skills and personnel to design every aspect of the high-tech setting. From the article: "After three years of planning, the Microsoft Corp.-designed 'School of the Future' opened its doors Thursday, a gleaming white modern facility looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood. The school is being touted as unlike any in the world, with not only a high-tech building -- students have digital lockers and teachers use interactive 'smart boards' -- but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques."
Staff at the school were happy with how the opening day went, the pupils were welcomed in by a Brian Eno classic on the tannoy system.
This informed them that the tannoy system was working and it was now safe to enter the building.
However, once the day got underway things quickly went downhill in the English letter writing class.
"Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all,"
Meanwhile the gymnasium had to be rebooted twice after some children overloaded the basketball hoops.
Several pupils were stuck in the changing rooms for a few hours until the scandisk procedure managed to locate all the fragments of the key to unlock the door.
The music class was interrupted because someone brought in an illegal sample of a track in mp3 format and forgot to include a verification document from the parents of the original composer signed in blood.
On top of all these problems, the school is hunting for the person responsible for posting "goatse" on every single whiteboard, this shocking image appeared at 14:21 and remained on screen for 15 minutes whilst technicians located and removed it.
liqbase
"but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques"
Does that mean that students only get help on the first Tuesday of each month?
Does anyone else see a problem with modeling a school after a management style better at spin than substance? Or with MS managers telling teachers how to do their jobs? I wonder if the lockers will have DRM built-in? The sheer magnitude of bullsh*t this promises is nearly limitless, based just the amazing lack of common sense found in the idea. Its like modeling a operating room after a CPA office. They may as well model it after circus clowns, for all the similarity the two have.
Why not just give money to the school system? That way if things go south, MS wouldn't bear part of the blame. This way they do. I wonder if that little bit of management wisdom will find its way into the classroom along with heavy-handed DRM.
Seriously, MS really needs to replace Larry, Curly, and Moe.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has famously called high schools "obsolete"
This from the guy who also said nobody will ever need more than 640k of memory.
"-- and mental acuity is especially critical to Microsoft"
From the company that only thinks, if you can call it that, in term of covering up old problems with new problems - fix is a four letter word at MS. They just want the opportunity to shape impressionable minds in their mold. I wonder how free speech will size up at "MS High".
Worst of all, MS conned the PA school system into paying for their little experiment. They could have at least come up with part of the cost, as a show of good faith. I guess they'll kids how to be good con artists.
"The high school will use an "education competency wheel," patterned after a set of desirable traits Microsoft encourages among its employees. Officials, teachers and students are to be trained in dozens of skills, including organizing and planning, negotiating, dealing with ambiguity and managing relationships."
So, they'll graduate a bunch of MS employees. Will the graduation speeched extoll how great it is to work for Microsoft?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Do they offer crash courses? Do all the windows have blue screens? Does every student get a clippy to help with their homework?
Ok, i'm done.
today is spelling optional day.
"but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques..." too. many. jokes.
that open-source is banned in that school?
"Say, that's a nice school we helped build... wouldn't want any open-source in there, that would mean bad things, and we don't want bad things to happen, right?"
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
Maybe I've watched too many B movies, but I've got a bad feeling about this. I can't quite put my finger on it...something about creating monsters maybe?
--MarkusQ
The age old tradition of a knife fight will be replaced by a modern version of musical chairs.
"Today in the news, a new school in West Philly has burnt to the ground without warning due to a flaw in the new high-tech fire alarm system that apparently blue screened before it could sound the alarms."
Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became a student owned by Microsoft
In West Philadelphia born and raised
On Slashdot where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And writing some code outside of the school
When a couple of guys said "we're up in no good"
Started making trouble in my neighbourhood
I hacked into one little computer and my mom got scared
And said "you're going to that new Microsoft High School"
You forgot Chair Throwing 101.
It replaced their Communications courses.
$63 million
Supporting 170 students
$370,588 per student right now.
That's a lot of resources thrown at very few students.
The borgification has begun.
Your children will be assimilated.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think this will have loots of trolling...
Anyway, hwo much of you really wouldn't want to study at the school which is run by the world's biggest (I think it is) software company, which's products are used on 95% of computers?
Seriously. MS is trying to work in the ideas that made one of the largest most successful companies in the history of business. Sounds like there may be some carryover since making a good company is all about maintaining smart, happy employees. What have you done for education lately, besides complained about it? I applaud their effort, in the face of government and other big orgs who see 'business as usual' a fine mantra as our education system goes straight down the crapper.
"......also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques." Now thats some good learnin!!
Anyone here ever read the book "Jennifer Government". Basically in the near future everything is corporate owned and your last name reflects the company you work for. So like John Nike works for Nike ...
... and reading a story like this makes you wonder just how close we are getting to a world that more closely resembles the one in that novel. All this needs is for the kids to be walking around with the last name Microsoft and there you go.
Anyway in the book they describe how the main female characters daughter attends school owned and run by Mattel
Aaron
"Curiouser and Curiouser...." -Alice
I work in tech. support for schools and certainly our catchment area (171 schools) now successfully has an interactive smart board in every single class room. Also thanks to a goverment initiative, the laptops for teachers scheme means all teachers have a laptop which they can create lesson plans and produce teaching content on and then move around class rooms with to hook up to the smart boards. We also have an average ratio of 1 computer for every 4 students across all our schools too.
:p
Whilst not many schools here have digital lockers (lockers aren't popular here full stop like in the US) we do have things like card systems for pupils to register entry into the toilets with (kinda big brotherish I know, I'm against it but the technology is cool) so there is a paper trail if someone vandalises or smokes in the toilets. The cards double up as well as being able to provide dinner ladies with information on what kids don't need to pay for school meals and such due to their family being poor and on benefits, some schools the few that do have digital lockers - the swipe cards also work for these.
Certainly schools here in the UK have come a long way in the 8 years since I left, they were only just replacing blackboards with those nice whipeable whiteboards when I left!
As for a learning process modelled on Microsoft's management techniques, I've also seen evidence of this in the schools for kids with behavioural problems who are there because they've been expelled multiple times from elsewhere, the main evidence being that they've often threatened to "fucking kill me" and thrown chairs about the room
The joke is that out back they have a blackboard and chalk and some actual books that they'll use when the whole system crashes. See, its all just a return to the 3-R's.
And this gives highschool nerds ultimate power, to hack - disable and otherwise compromise other people's lockers. At least with my locker (back in the day) there were a limit number of very physical actions you had to take to "crack" or denial-of-service a lock. This just adds "oops, the machine just took a crap" to a longer list.
In other news, kids don't care - they just want to interact with their peers. - preferably not at school.
meh
I work for a small Local Education Authority where all secondary schools use interactive whiteboards, as do the majority of primaries.
There is a school in London that uses fingerprint-scanners at the classroom entrances instead of registers (a little more reliable than a perfectly portable ID card? I dunno.), and there are numerous examples of the effective use of decent technology to impact attendance and learning. Automatic texts to parents' mobiles or emails to their work accounts when the kids don't show in the morning is a pretty effective one that's gaining momentum.
And no books, just laptops? Look, I don't know about you, but that sounds like a really bad idea to me. I've heard of pilot "one laptop per child" schemes that came unstuck within weeks, because there is nothing that can prevent an army of bored, intelligent kids from completely hijacking and abusing any technology you care to give them. Now that may not necessarily be a bad thing in more more libertarian concepts of learning, but I really don't think it helps the class teachers one bit.
So what's really unique about this school? Apart from that it's a white building in Philly, I mean. It's the management system. Which comes from Microsoft. I don't need to add anything M$-bashy here, surely...
Prestigious this may be, but what a fucking awful idea of how to run a school! The use of technology in education is often a good thing, sometimes indifferent, occasionally bad, but certainly not new.
The only actual news here is that it's been designed by M$, and for that reason, I fear for the future of Philadelphia more than I ever did.
Meta will eat itself
"...a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques."
If Microsoft's management techniques is good enough for Vista, it's good enough for our children.
It looks like you're trying to record a video for yout^H^H^H^H MSN Funny Videos. Do you want to:
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Of course you can design everything to be the most expensive way when you don't have to pay it yourself. And I bet MS was the only one selling most of those wonderful shiny techs.
It it wasn't so sad for the taxpayers, it would be funny that this school will be outdated before the first students graduate.
Read the article. The library does not have books. It's all "digital".
That right there would be enough for me to avoid it.
Microsoft is great at MARKETING their products. They do not write great software.
And there is nothing to indicate that they know ANYTHING about education.
Say what you want about Microsoft and its management techniques (and plenty of jokes are already around) but I think this is a good thing. Whatever about Microsoft, they probably have better management techniques than most American school systems, and Bill Gates was right about schools essentially being obsolete.
There needs to be new ideas and new blood running things in the schools. Most administrators are former teachers, and just like good programmers don't always make good IT managers, so do good teachers have a spotty history at becoming good administrators. If this ushers in an era of trying new things to improve schools, then I'm all for it. Microsoft has the name recognition and technology chops to get its foot in the door, but other companies should give it a go. Imagine a GE-led school using Jack Welch's management techniques...
"looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood"
Wonder how long before they take a nice gift and graffiti and trash it into ruins. That's what tends to happen when you do any favors for people.
I found a picture taken from inside the school:
Microsoft High School
It looks vaguely familiar.
B: Yup.
A: When do you graduate?
B: I was supposed to graduate in 2002. But I got held back. Then it was supposed to be 2003, 2005, then 2006.
A: Yikes! Are you that dumb?
B: No, they just tried to teach me too much unnecessary stuff. They kept cutting classes out of the requirements hoping I'd make it.
A: So, when are you graduating?
B: Right now, they're saying 2007, but many think it'll be 2008 or later.
Unknown host pong.
Perhaps by School of the Future 3.0 they'll have them.
So if you try to transfer to another school does the vice-principal throw a chair at you?
[Insert pithy quote here]
"...a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques."
Based on these techniques, when can student's expect to graduate? Do they have to go through Beta year as a junior, then become a Release Candidate in their senior year?
The problem is, with Microsoft's track record, they'll have seniors that stick around for years. What happens when MS decides to change its techniques? "Sorry...you have to go back through four years of school to remain compatible."
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
not computers, not lockers, not doors, walls, buildings, or anything else.
Where's the Linux lab? :-)
Nothing like enforcing your monopoly like buying out the schools... or at least making them think you bought them out...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Now before you mark me down give me Kudos for not posting AC
The only real problem I have with Windows and Microsoft is that they have made going to market with a product that is half broken an acceptable practice. If other hardcore capitalists could do this they would. I bet a lot of them are very jealous of MS. I understand wanting to make a profit, but isn't it more important to break through to new horizons whether in computing, or science, or mathematics.
My point is that if you have Microsoft managers teaching these kids at probably THE most important stage in their education, are they going to take the lead from their teachers and not expect anyone to hold them accountable for their work?
BUT then again ever an optimist, they did build this really cool school in a poorer district, so these kids might actually stay in school long enough to get an education.
-You have been modded appropriately-
Thought you were the class of 2010 - well it looked like you neede more help so we are going to make you the class of 2015. Rolls off the toung better doesen't it?
Microsoft Management techniques.... does that mean its perfectly acceptable to hand in projects 6 years late (vista) with meeting none of the requirements and makeing no sense (Standards) and in the end just doing a poor copy of someone eles's work? (OS X)
Meanwhile, students at Drew Elementary, deep in the low-income area of West Philly, don't even have keyboards and mice for the few old iMacs in the library because they can't afford them (I suspect NCLB is to blame for that). I am part of a student organization in Drexel University called Tech Serv and we are preparing to donate around 31 computers to the elementary school, some of them Pentium IIs but it's better than what they had, which was nothing. Most of the machines will be donated with edubuntu, because the school can't afford windows licenses; we're trying hard to find a few machines with windows stickers already on them for the engineering lab, which plans to use Mindstorms to teach kids basic robotics. And meanwhile that school gets $63 million in funding because Microsoft had a nifty idea.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
The first 20 something comments are pathetic trolls all trying to make the same joke. Utterly sad and pathetic.
I miss the days when you could come on Slashdot and read interesting commentary, instead of the nerdish attempts at lame humour you find today. Get a life, oh wait I forgot where I was for a second there.
Do they teach the kids how to throw chairs?
MISSING - Sig file. 2 years old black and white and very funny. If found please email me.
Public, private and corporate schooling. The school uniform being freebie TechEd polo shirts.
Task Mangler
One of the major initiatives of the Gates Foundation has been improving high schools in difficult regions. Their first attempt was to fund smaller schools, where it was thought students could manage better. This had not succeeded so they are trying other things now.
High school must be reformed almost everywhere, so any change that involves better use of technology or different ways of teching (even for testing them) is IMO a good thing. The problems arise when this comes from only one company, incidentally the one that has good reasons to make people addicted to its products when they're still young. This will ensure choices dictated by corporate reasons, not better teaching.
I'd really love to see what their teachers will answer to the students who happen to have a full working Linux/BSD/Mac/Whatever-non-MS system at home and ask why they cannot see one in their school, or why they will be forced to use DRM plagued systems in their notebooks instead of something else that would read more file formats, has better quality public support and costs less.
The $63 million cost could of been spent on more schools and teachers then just 1 high tech one. The mainly low-income teens are more like to have the laptops sold / stolen then people who are better off and that may even more likely at times of the year when it is dark at 4:19 p.m.
Also using smart boards and digital lockers seem like overkill for school and if there a hardware brake down the kids may have there stuff stuck in there lockers and the teacher may have a hard time teaching with out the smart boards.
Instead of a cafeteria, there's a food court with restaurant-style seating. How long is there lunch? Cafeteria style lets you have more people in there at the same time.
Also in the high school I was at the food cards did not work that well and the kids where getting doubled billed and the system was down from time to time making the cafeteria workers take the id number buy hand.
Students have scheduled appointments with teachers, typed into their online calendars, instead of being limited to structured times for classes. Their laptops carry software that assesses how quickly they're learning the lesson. If they get it, they'll dive deeper into the subject. If not, they get remedial help. I like the idea but how many teachers do you need to make that work and there are a lot of state mandated things that must be learned.
In addition, students at the school must apply to college to get a diploma. Sounds like a good idea but what do you with the people who can't pay for it?
This sounds like a good program but public education funds can be better spend on brining all schools up to a better level then just having one real good one.
OK, so it opens to much fanfare. WHat about in a year, or two or five? Is this going to have legs or is it going to be abandoned? Who is going to measure the results, what methodology will they use to measure the results and where can we find the research.
Thand and only then will we know if it is just a marketing ploy or a serious attempt to improve education. And how successful it is.
Also, am I the only one that feels uneasy about using kids and their future as part of a large scale sociological, psychological and educational experiment? Is there an ethical problem here?
Just asking...
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Hello class my name is Mr Gates. Alright today we will learn about monopoly!
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Microsoft management practices, eh?
Sadly I doubt that the technologies that are actually be relevant to these kids' future -- Open Source, ODF, OS X, Solaris, BSD, basically anything not-MS -- will be represented in their computer labs...
But it's consistent with MS' time honoured motto: "Spreading Ignorance and Low Expectations."
you had me at #!
Sounds like public funds are being used to help MS pedal their crap - not good. Just as fast food corp's should stay out of the public school lunch rooms, so should MS stay out of the publically funded schools.
Because a company with virtually no accountability and the most infamous monopoly in the world and has essentially unlimited revenue is the ideal model for a taxpayer-funded cash-strapped public school system. Exactly what qualities are they planning to transfer from Microsoft's management to the school. Let's see
* The complete lack of vision and focus on imitation instead of innovation? (Copying is preferred to original thought)
* Operating in the absolute absence of competence?
* Treating your customers like criminals?
* The dancing, shouting spokesperson who embarasses beyond recognition of the point?
* The pouting, nigh Asperger's founder who cries at CEO dinners when he doesn't get his way?
* Avoid any capitalistic urge to play by the rules, rather simply being rich enough to buy out, or drown out by imitation and unlawful anti-competitive integration, all competitors?
* Do illegal things, even get caught, just have enough political pull to get off the hook?
Which of these is supposed to make the school better, again? What sort of models are we trying to set? The idea of Microsoft having influence over school children makes me very sad.
Jesus Christ, there are a lot of sharpshooters in here. Everyone knows the US K-12 system, particularly in big cities, sucks goats through a straw. Philadelphia and MS are trying something new. Maybe it won't work, but at least they're trying to do something to fix the problem.
If I were a kid lucky enough to win that lottery, I'd be happy to have the opportunity to go to a one of a kind, modern school. I'd feel like someone actually gave a damn about my education. Why are so many urban schools so fucked up? Part of the problem is that the facilities are ancient, crumbling edifices left over from the 1800s. I'm not suggesting that every school in the country be razed and rebuilt, but it's no secret that the physical design of schools is a huge factor in the overall learning environment.
Bringing modern technology into schools isn't enough in itself, but I think it's worth trying. As for Microsoft's involvement, if you're badmouthing it, when is the last time you volunteered at a school?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
As much as it concerns me that people would consider MS development techniques a good way to teach classes, at least they're trying something new. I mean, could schools in America do any worse than they do now?
Let's assume the result is exceptional graduates.
Are the grads exceptional because:
a) They've had all the latest tech thrown at them
b) They've had a ton of money thrown at them
c) The teachers were just better paid and motivated
d) They have a fanatical tech support team coporately motivated
The only "win" I can see is a Microsoft marketing stunt. They'll be able to truthfully say all of their "graduates" have at least applied for college. Anybody else will be swept under the rug.
???
Blue screen of death.
Being a resident of Philadelphia and knowing the city very well, I think this is probably the ONLY place in the US Microsoft could have done this and actually not stir up contoversy or much debate.
Everyone knows the New York City school system is the most pathetic, poor and inept one on the planet, even though it is the most richest city in the United States.
Philadelphia's system is similarly bad, since most people with any means raise their kids in private or parochial schools if they live in the city. Everyone else moves just outside the city limits if they can't afford to do this, so that their kids don't have to suffer the Philadelphia School District. With only two exceptions (Masterman and Central Philadelphia High School), the rest of the system is an absolute disgrace.
Anyone familiar with Philadelphia itself knows that the blight and decline is not in large swaths of the city, but it is in tiny pockets scattered around the entire area... like swiss cheese [with one exception: North Philadelphia].
The particular area where the Microsoft High School happens to be in is a heavily forested area near the zoo, which is closer to stately homes than it is to the actual hood of West Philly.
If this school is actually a success... I'd like to see Microsoft put its money where its mouth is and take over South Philadelphia High and at least one other school in "da hood".
Maybe Microsoft could also fix our subway system while they're at it.
And here's a link to the actual study.
"Okay learners, I want you to open up your MySpace profiles to page 85. Yesterday we left off at animated GIFs. Now, who can tell me the maximum number of animated GIFs one should use? That's right, Brad: it is a trick question - there IS no maximum! You get three shares of MSFT. Well done. Now, about Flash..."
wait until teachers start throwing chairs at students and threatening to "fucking kill" them ...
That is, the skills and know-how to work 80-hour weeks at slave wages.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Students will graduate a few years late, minus some promised features like English and math.
The valedictorian was chosen because he waited for a competitor to take the history final, offered to collaborate with him, then after breaking off the deal handed in copied answers.
The football coach screams "I'll fscking kill the coach at Foo High!"
The first aid class teaches how to cut off someone's air supply.
I'll be here all week...try the veal.
...so before they can sit down, the kids will have to search the school to find where their chairs have landed.
And the principal will steal the core information from all of the textbooks to be used, change it so it doesn't crash their custom curriculum, then pay off the original publishers when they threaten to sue.
Students will only receive homework on the first Tuesday of every month, and only if they can prove that they are genuine students by showing the teacher their enrolment certificate.
Nah, I got nothin'.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Old news. All the lockers in all the schools I ever went to were digital. They were either open or closed.
It's interesting how back 5 years ago Microsoft was angry that it couldn't sell Windows enabled PCs because Apple had Given them computers for free under the idea that they didn't buy PCs. Microsoft being all mad because this is kinda close to a monopoly decides "Fine you won't buy our PCs, we will buy you!" and here we our. Microsoft took it to another level and made a school.
What happened to back in the day when the government established that it was in control of its school s ystems and the learning process was equal and efficient..?
Interconnected digital technology means networks, and networks mean MS servers and MS boxes, which means internet, and the internet means hackers and hackers would no doubt like to say:
All your sk00l are belong to us!
Soylent Vista is people!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Who pays to upgrade the software licenses?
Who pays for the technical support?
Who pays for children who leave school able to compose PowerPoint slides but unable to divide a restaurante bill between friends?
Central High in Philly took a different approach:
g h/
http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/centralhi
Lie, steal from another company, wait them out in court until they go broke. Else settle out of court and have the records sealed. If it looks like you are losing have the Judges competency questioned.
Does that mean teachers were lacking in such skills up to now?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Is it me or do why does this remind me of "schools" run by a certain religious group founded by a very bad science fiction writer?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So, which New York City school did you graduate from? :)
Do they have deadlines on assignments?
Graduation was expensively assured in two years but it will probably take six or so. The graduates will have minor, mostly cosmetic, improvements and be as reliable and trustworthy as any other Microsoft release. Some students, like Bob, will never make it.
Attempts to dominate gaming will produce a few interesting plays but will ultimately be an expensive distraction.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Microsoft Reeducation Camps.
Does it run linux?
Nice. Arguably the worst O.S. company in the world gets to design high tech aspects of a learning institution.
Sigh...all is lost.
I love it when we use our kids as guinea pigs. What happens when Microsoft's teaching strategies don't work on kids this age? Is MS going to give them all jobs anyway?
Higher education!
B-)
A friend will come and bail you out of jail, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "damn that was fun!"
Every hacker in the world wants to pwn the school of the future. I can't wait for stories the teachers' 'smart'boards displaying pron.
I predict the CEO of the company which ultimately brings MS to its knees will be a graduate of MS High. Class of 2018.
a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques
Does this mean that all the kids will graduate six years late, and then need three rounds of remedial courses?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There are an awful lot of ways for this to go wrong. But no matter how else Vista or XP sucks, the computers treat everyone - black, white, rich, poor, male, female, short, tall, skinny, fat - the same. Hey, even rich white male CEO's get BSOD's! But despite the fact that the technology will treat these kids with the same respect that it treats everyone else, I didn't see anyting in the article that indicates this school will do any better at teaching kids personal responsibility than a regular high school. In fact the value of the technology in the building could turn out to be an "attractive nuisance".
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
What we really need is a Red Hat High or OLPC High. The school could be a remodel of an intercity school and could maximize the use of donated computers and systems. It should support the OLPC initiative by providing each student with an OLPC. Text books should be mostly replaced using electronic, open electronic text books.
This would demonstrate several items that contrast with the Microsoft school:
1) A very useful and functional school can be wired with very good, but donated/reclaimed gear at low cost.
2) Techniques such as Linux Terminal Server Project provide more value than Microsoft:
-- k12 LTSP
3) Open source can accomplish what Microsoft can't -- a technology-oriented school at a reasonable price
(no shiny new electronic whiteboards or brand-new Dell computers, just use modern white boards).
4) OLPC is very useful in the US (yes, it's not just for the 3rd world):
-- OLPC
5) Many digital texts and E-books are viable and ready for school use:
-- Wikiversity
-- Wikibooks
6) The cost to rewire such a school is more than made up through the use of e-books and through the
use of donated/reclaimed equipment.
7) The students can make contributions back to the education process (text books, software,
school architecture, etc.).
8) Open source can interoperate with those that have MS Word/Excel at home and can provide full,
unrestricted access for those that can't afford to pay for MS software.
-- OpenOffice
9) The ongoing costs to maintain such a school would be far lower than for Microsoft's proposed school
(text books, software licenses, hardware support, etc.).
Key points are: Availability, OLPC, free/inexpensive digital text books, student contributions,
lower up-front costs, and lower maintenance costs.
Of course, the down side is that much of the windows-only learning software won't run on Linux, like Magic School Bus (TM). Also, you can't play a DVD on Linux without illegal software (or is it gray-area software?).
Questions: How well do those applications run under Wine? What software really is required for a school?
Note, here in VA, we still have a school board rule that kids can be suspended for 10 days if they "alter, destroy, or erase computer data, or remove computer data or programs". They technically can't boot a computer (altering the logs), erase a file they created (destroying data), copy a file to a floppy (remove computer data), etc. Basically, the school board is clueless....
Personally, I think this is a great idea. Some software aside, Microsoft has some very talented software
and business people working for them (hate them or not, most company's can only dream of having that
marketshare).
That being said, since I don't see any other company even making the attempt nor do I see the US public
school system changing much, I say kudos to them. Furthermore, I notice a lot of posters saying
this is going to suck and other BS, I would just say, if you are willing to pony up the money or
even better, ***GASP***, teach these children yourselves, then let it be.
Let the first graduates be the litmus test of whether or not this is a good idea. True, past
performance can be an indicator of future performance, but as its a new idea UNTRIED, I think
it deserves it shot.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Good Guy!)
Regards,
MBC1977,
My daughter goes to a local private school and the cost per student is lower than the public high school down the road with a much higher percentile of students moving on to college (98% as of last year vs. the 60% from the public high school).
Providing teachers with a flexible teaching environment is just as important of not more so than having the same for students.
All we need is for corporate america to pollute one of the last areas of our society from this type of influence. Bill and Melinda Gates (and his foundation) are doing wonderful things and I applaud that. Bringing corporate culture into the classroom is big mistake. If this becomes a trend, then corporate influence is winning one battle at a time.
They have already polluted politics and this would just be one more stone overturned along the way.
IMHO
But that'd be a five year effort, and they did this in only three,. So I imagine that it'll be a goat rope with teachers, staff and students struggling with half baked and moderately disfunctional technology and an arrogant, exhausted, and thoroughly overwhelmed IT staff deathmarching toward arbitrary and poorly selected goals.
If this plays out as I would guess it probably will, what should be learned is that education is a complex and poorly understood process and that improving it requires serious analysis, experimentation, and lots of effort. But that's not a message that techies, politicians, and school administrators want to hear. So I imagine that there will be no winners and that the teachers, staff and students will all lose.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I'd wait for Service Pack 1, myself, before deploying.
....The new Haliburton High School of Foreign Policy has opened in Normal, Kansas. Subjects include Oil, part of the basic food groups, and Tarism, the key to getting ahead in business.
Does anyone else see a problem with modeling a school after a management style better at spin than substance? Or with MS managers telling teachers how to do their jobs?
As opposed to the modified Prussian "train obedient subjects" model we've known and loved for so long ...
This is the fallacy of the false alternative at work. So public schools are great now? You're assuming that the way we do things now makes any sense.
Just think of what a Microsoft-designed and managed school would be like!
- Students never have to hand in homework on time, although unfinished papers may be accepted as "release candidates".
- Textbooks contain physical DRM that prevents the students from learning at other school campuses, or at the homes of friends.
- Digital blackboards frequently feature an attractive new shade: blue.
- The school facilities are in a constant state of repair to fix "critical errors" that should have been caught during construction.
- Under the sports program's "Plays for sure" push, atheletes must show up for at least every third practice. Cheerleading chants frequently make embarrassing spelling mistakes, but school-wide spellchecking (like that elite school down the street has) is expected soon.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Don't forget the Steve Ballmer music appreciation and research course
:I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.
Google? What about Wikipedia? The mind spins at all of the things he might also include on the "bad list" until you realize that the "good list" is going to include nothing more than a few carefully selected M$ applications and Encarta. Microsoft hates everyone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
MS are currently donating a large amount of money towards the building/development of a new school campus that is to comprise of several amalgamated schools in the North Western suburbs of Melbourne (a low socio-economic area that I have lived in my whole life).
During discussions for location of said campus Microsoft had the final say on location of the school! This was directly against the advice of teachers and educators in the schools to be impacted. The plan itself for a massive education 'hub' is bad enough (consolidation will essentially lead to less resources for students in terms of facilities and teacher numbers, despite how it looks on paper), but Microsoft making final decision like that are ludicrous!
Of course, following this 'donation' from Microsoft I'm sure the Victorian Education Department will ramp up it's software acquisation. And the worst news is, outside of teachers and the government, almost no-one knows about these plans.
Throwing technology at a non-technical problem won't fix it. I like some ideas including more self directed study and the new class times (though I'd worry about traffic if this was done across an entire city). And as much crap as MS will get for this, I don't think they have evil motives at heart.
However, the real problem with schools is the insistence upon including everyone and teaching to the lowest common denominator. The more we can get the high achievers into more advanced programs where they spend time around other high achievers, the better. The entrance requirements for this school shouldn't have been a lottery, but a skills test and teacher recommendations. The best colleges in the country don't use a lottery for admission, and neither should the best schools.
I'm sure there are a long list of other things that could be done. For example, we need ways to find and reward teachers that engage students and truly educate them. I have a hard time remembering the teachers that taught from a book, but the ones that brought in dry ice and had us build model rockets are at the top of my list. The first management technique that MS should have brought to the table was the proper identification of what the problems are and how they can find and implement the best solutions. Sadly, this was more about money and publicity than it was about fixing a problem.
"a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques"
You'll probably get the education in the end, it'll probably work fine - just might find a few subjects get dropped as they were a bit harder than your teachers thought when they started teaching you and you'll find your graduation slips by a few years.
[In the sweet Cartman-esque voice]
Mmmooooommmm? Can I have a couple thousand dollars so I can get a Microsoft-certified Vista-compatible computer with Microsoft Office so I can do my homework? Pleeeeeaaaase?
[/voice]
Imgaine a high school that develops a major leak in the roof, and has to release a major patch to fix it, just to have the same thing happen again next week... what kind of education is that?
Sniper's Motto: One shot, One kill- If you run, you'll only die tired.
CLIPPY!! He can help coach the team!
BOB!! The yellow face from the BOB OS!
BILLY GOAT!! With a face like Bill Gates who couldn't love him!
DEAD PENGUIN!! Picture a penguin that's been fucking killed by certain CEOs
BLUE SCREEN!! Nothing scares opposing teams like a looming crash!!
THE ARROW!! The cursor can run around "right clicking" on the opponents cheerleaders, if you know what I mean.
I guess in gym class Steve Balmer will be teaching the fine art of chair throwing and using expletives.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I'm surprised I rememberd my password after all this time, anyways since I have been living this first hand for some time now I felt compelled to give some experienced input... long time listener first time caller?
Where I work the concept of interactive whiteboards and overflowing technology in every classroom is not a new thing. Granted there are several differences between this building and what Microsoft is trying to accomplish...
- High school students are limited to Juniors/Seniors and college credit classes are offered to both them and adult students.
- The curriculum wanders outside a normal high school where courses like automotives, engineering and simulation are taught.
- The majority of rooms have classroom computers, and those that have the interactive whiteboards also have your standard whiteboards so you have more than just a 60" screen to write on (the interactive boards are relatively tiny compared to plain old ones)
- Throwing instructors into technology is a learning curve for them as well as the students, and some of them still prefer to do things the old fashioned way despite whats available.
- I imagine the total student computer inventory here is at least 500 stations or so.
However, they (whomever thier IT staff is) need to be well prepared for the ensuing caveats involved with giving all these fun toys to high school students... and if these are all freshmen I cringe at the thought of what those computers will look like in a few months. The computers here take quite a beating on the operating system side and after trying to do all the standard tricks in keeping them in line we just went to where the most heavily used rooms revert back to a preset image on reboot. I cannot begin to describe what kind of spyware/viruses/adware gets on a computer that is set in front of a set of students who would rather play games than do anything constuctive all day. Granted, most students play nice and for the most part physical vandalism to the machines has been extremely minor. Troubled classrooms also get student control software (sold by the same company as the whiteboards, hmmm who could they be?) so the teacher may at thier discresion lock the workstations or observe if they are goofing off. Really this is all that it boils down to that the instructors maintain control over the students despite the technology at hand... even better when the majority of students are actually enthusiastic about what they are doing.
No idea if the Microsoft school has implemented or has any idea of what I just described, but when you dump alot of technology into your average high school and dont maintain control... all the students will learn is how to get really good at Trackmania and a bunch of flash games. I could continue going on elaborating about "well, you should have done this this and this to keep the students in line" but thanks to alot of educational software requiring administrator rights it becomes a hell of alot easier just giving them the keys to the car, except the car resets back to a new state every morning. Oh yeah, does the Philedelphia school district know that they will have to keep spending money on this school every 2-3 years as the technology is no longer up to date?
The children of typically wealthy parents that care enough about their child's education to go to the effort of putting them in a private school perform better in school.
They key phrase there being "parents that care" regardless of what studies show the problem has nothing to do with public vs private schools or teachers not performing the problem is with parents.
All of my cousins (34 or so of them my grandfather couldn't keep his pants zipped) went to big time private schools in NYC, I went to one of the largest and most poorly run public schools in NYS my entire life and I did better than all of my cousins in HS and in college. Why? Because my parents cared about my education just as much as theirs did and my parents desire to see me get the best education possible under the circumstances drove me to succeed as well. In elementary school when other children were watching TV or playing Nintendo during the summers my father handed me an algebra book and had my struggle to teach myself the material with no outside help. In HS when other children were out socializing on weekends my parents drove me to Stonybrook to take college courses (that were free because of some great programs StonyBrook has for underpriviledged kids) and at the time I absolutely hated every single minute of it but thank god my parents cared enough to force me into it. I am not here to boast about what I accomplished despite my past situation I am simply showing you that a parent that shows a high level of commitment to their childrens education will have a child who succeeds regardless of the school they go to.
Which brings me back to the question of why children in private schools perform better than children in public schools, in general? Easy, because the majority of parents who send their children to private schools care about their childrens education. To spend anywhere from 8K to 30K a year on private schools you have to care about your childrens education, despite what a lot of people think many parents of children who go to private schools aren't filthy rich they simply care enough to spend a very large percentage of their salary on their childrens future. Parents are the key to better performance in ALL schools not money, not teachers, not private schools, not microsoft. When there are studies done on children with parents who show equal levels of commitment to their childrens education in private vs pubic schools then I'll start listening.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Unfortunately, the school won't be able to open until late January of 2007. ;)
High School is scheduled for four years by may take as much as six years to complete. Also occational upgrades may be required to correct factual errors in the lesson plans. The information they are taught may not be compatible with the rest of the world but if Microsoft becomes the dominant educator it won't matter because everyone else will need to be compatible with them. Unfortunately the students are likely to get some teasing over their new school mascot, Clippy the paperclip.
"a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques."
I guess that means that the 4 year process will now take upwards of 10 years and have large portions of the curriculum removed to make the deadline.
Education in this country is broken, and this is a great attempt by a very successful software company to change the tide. It's sad that the bulk of the replies to this article are coming from MS haters who have nothing more to contribute than stale jokes about reboots, BSOD, etc. Why don't you catch up with reality? I haven't had a BSOD since I started using XP, and I only had BSODs under 2k when caused by lame ass drivers from third party hardware vendors. That is reality, whether you like it or not. Personally, I use FreeBSD on all of my personal machines and run Windows XP on the laptop provided by my employer, so keep that in mind when you come at me with the "he's drinking the MS kool-aid" rhetoric.
You LINUX sheep are so typical in your responses. Why can't you just love your distribution of choice and stop hating MS? There is nothing that MS can do that you can see in any other light than negative (at best) or illegal and malevolent (at worst). For all of your bitching about how horrible MS is, you likely haven't spent near as much time helping your local alma mater better their education processes. Typical armchair quarterbacks.
So, maybe this new antiseptic, all-digital approach isn't right, but who are any of us to sit here and say that it is worse than the status quo for education in this country? Do you have a better idea? I hear some say "just give the money to the school system, we don't need your management style", and I think that is about the most ignorant thing they could do. There is no shortage of money in the education system, though it is disproportionately focused on administration and not on the educators. Pumping more cash into the system will not help one iota, just as throwing money at any situation without a focused plan to use that money, and a way to make those in charge of those disbursements _ACCOUNTABLE_FOR_THE_USE_OF_THE_MONEY_, is a terrible way to manage any process, business, or endeavor in general.
I am excited to see some change in the education system in this country, and if it fails then at least they tried, hopefully learned a lot from the experience, and aren't too discouraged to not try again with an improved approach.
Mike O, KT2T
I too cringe at spending $63 million on a school while other schools fall appart. But two things distinguish the MS school: (1) its super-expensive equipment, and (2) other areas of innovation such as starting classes at 9:15 because studies show students do better.
Especially with no-child-left-behind, we have a school monoculture, and we know that in general those schools suck. So despite (1), I see a lot of value in experimenting with areas of innovation that are largely cost-indepenent, such as start/end times. Because if MS has enough prestige to get &63 million out of the Philly school system, then maybe MS also has enough prestige for other schools to copy the cost-neutral good ideas (like school start time) that are showcased in this particular school.
a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques.
Is this the "flying chairs" model?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
People should get over this stupid notion that Apple and Microsoft are at war. Apple is not big enough to be a threat to Microsoft, but they provide an excuse for Microsoft to say that they aren't quite a monopoly. Furthermore, whatever business Apple may take away from Microsoft, they get back with Office for Mac.
Microsoft didn't spend anything, the state payed everything, yet Microsoft get to shape the school how they want it to be.
The state used a really really huge amount of money which is overkill. Yes, lucky students who go there, it probably is a good environment there, but it was way crazy expensive.
The whole infrastructure will be dependent on proprietary Microsoft software that they will have to be dependent on and rely on, and upgrade from time to time and Microsoft will get money.
The kids who goto the school, will be learned proprietary software and will grow up in vendor lock-in. They will be teached that open source is bad. All the programmers will be using Visual Basic and be locked down to only be able to develop software for one operating system. The kids will only be teached a single operating system, namely Windows.
You know, it IS possible for a publicly funded school to do a good job educating students. It comes down to funding, if you prefer to spend all of your money on debt maintenance and the military then you will find that your schools will suffer. Other industrialized nataions don't seem to have any problems with publicly funded education systems. Some countries even find a way to send more than rich kids and ex-servicemen to post secondary schools. None of them see the need to turn over public education to a corporation. I wonder what level of input the parents have on the new teaching model that Microsoft has developed for them. If schools are run by corporations, where is the recourse for the parents and students? You can't vote for corporate leadership, unless you buy your way in through shares. What's the point of a democratic country when the people you elect are not the ones that control the things that affect your life?
joke. Gotta say, of 200+ posts, 75% appear to be the same, tired MS jokes, over and over. Each time, the poster believes (s)he is the only person on the planet clever enough to have come up with a remark about Clippy, Steve and the chair or missed ship dates. The weird thing is, the quality of most of these posts is somewhere around the 6th grade level. Given we have a bunch of 6th graders here, I'd expect ample opinions on the state of schools.
I'm not under the illusion that technology alone is going to fix our wildly broken public schools system. Frankly, the problem is a larger social one. In failing schools, the majority of problem students are on free lunch and come from single parent households. This implies they live in poverty and their home support systems are weak. Typically, these students lack examples of success or sufficient motivators to make the effort required to get an education.
That said, tightly focused research typically solves short-term problems with short-term solutions. I suspect the collaboration with Microsoft is going to yield some unanticipated results which may prove very valuable in solving the schools problem without fixing society or pouring endless amounts of money into education.
In my home town (Fort Collins, CO), the school district got a similarly crazy idea - build a brand-new, $36 million dollar high school. It was expensive, it was controversial, but in the end it had a far better idea: spend more now to spend less later. The new school, Fossil Ridge, was designed to be highly energy efficent - it is expected to save the district almost $60,000 per year in energy costs. Since the school is likely to be in service for 30+ years, that adds up to a substantial savings. The district also recieved substantial grants from the Feds for building an eco-friendly school.
Oh, and Fossil Ridge has SmartBoards too - but only in a few rooms. The lockers are manual, students aren't given laptops (although there are 180 laptops in "mobile labs" that teachers can bring to classrooms, and nearly 700 desktop PCs), and the rooms don't have plasma TVs. And, of course, students still use textbooks and good old pencil and paper.
In a district that has budget problems (as this PA district apparently does), building a "super-school" that costs 3x as much as a conventional school just doesn't make sense. In the real world, we have a term for that - incredible waste.
The principal holds a lunch meeting, and runs out on stage shouting,
"EDUCATORS! EDUCATORS! EDUCATORS!"
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
The real problem with the school isn't necassarily Micro$oft's managment techniques it is the lack of choice.
Everyone can make a "funny" at the Redmond Crew and that is well and good. But Mico$oft's involvment in any school system, no matter how well intentioned it may seem, is no laughing matter because it just furthers their cause of a complete monopoly.
Do you think Bill Gates gives a rat's ass about the kids in Philly, or anywhere else for that matter?
If you do you are fooling yourself. Billy Boy's interest is in future consumers of his company's product. If he really gave a damn about education he would support an unbiased technology base that included open source products and other OSes besides his own.
This my disillusioned friend is more about market share than education. And to believe anything else is just plain stupid.
If they're basing their educaitonal strategy on "a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques." then that means that they should be teaching the kids how to run other successful students out of the class room based on intimidation and monopolizing the teacher's time.
Sheesh! School of the futuer?? Sounds more like "How to be Hitler 101"
2 cents,
QueenB
HDGary secures my bank
Sensors in bathrooms have been around for years and years. It might impress the kids, but it's nothing new and, as you indicated, it will do nothing to advance their education.
... every year ... and the percentage of failures will INCREASE each year that they're used.
On the subject of laptops, that's another thousand or so dollars per student. And that's not all. If the students get issued one laptop in high school, what use will a 4 year old laptop be to a senior (issued as a freshman)?
Technology of that kind SUCKS because it needs to be maintained and it becomes "old" too soon. A film projector can last 20 years, but a laptop from 10 years ago is worthless.
THINK FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE!
A traditional school will still have working blackboards and textbooks and lockers.
This school will suck in money EVERY YEAR just to be able to power up the e-boards and e-books and let the "learners" into their e-lockers with their e-keys. Some of the hard drives will fail
Dammit! The library is down again. We lost two drives in the array. We'll have to reload from backup. Sorry kids, you'll have to spend your time trying to bypass the filters to surf porn again.
another multi-billion dollar corporation sucking at the government's teat while providing service of dubious value to the taxpayer. Corporate welfare at it's worst.
I have never understood why people are so opposed to Prussian style schools?
When you start using severe discipline from early on, the children will get to used to few basic ideas: 1) to shut up and 2) to concentrate. Having a silent class room where students are concentrating on what teacher says to them is the key foundation for learning. After that you just have to keep up the pace, divide people to different difficulty levels based on their success, and voila you have real results, pupils with that have learned something.
On a note, severe discipline doesn't mean expelling from school, but different forms of punishment from basic shame punishments to extra work, like cleaning toilets after school.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought
If you take the Windows licenses out of the equation what's left? Some techo/marketing socialspeak.
now the corporations are directly designing the school systems? why aren't we tattooed with a sponsor logo at birth?
He went to a superb private school so it's an understandable mistake. But read a little about the intellectual history of today's public school system and see where it came from and what it's for.
Look at your own life. Did you learn how to do your job in school? Did you learn how to cast an informed vote in school? How much of what you use every day is from school classes and how much is from your parents or from your independent reading?
This project somehow reminds me of those "car of the future" and "home of the future" projects from the 30s or the 50s that end up decayed and forgotten.
But does it run linux?
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
You are a moron barely worth responding to. I'll tell you one thing I've done is not kiss Micro$oft's ass. How about looking at the big picture? Do you really think Bill and Co. really care about American education beyond what it means to his market share? Get the kids hooked on his products now and then when they are decision makers it will be even easier to pawn off crap like Windows Me. But I'm guessing either you are still enamored with that OS or you're the kind of MS Cronie that can't wait to line up for their latest release of anything. But don't worry while you are eating Bill's table scraps people with real intelligence are finding the security flaws in all things Micro$oft and either fixing them or exploiting them.
And as for what I've done? I have worked as a teacher in a school teaching grades 3rd through 12th. And during that time I tried to show those kids the truth as I introduced them to other ideas and concepts in technology (I mean beyond Micro$oft is good because they're every where, so they must be good, right?).
If Bill is so well intentioned why doesn't he volunteer his time teaching programming? That would be a far greater cause than creating future Windows addicts.
Please, think before you speak!
I never could figure out why they make kids get up at the crack of dawn to go to school. You don't have to be a genius to realize people learn better when they're awake.
It's like some kind of holdover from farm days or something.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
But are Microsoft's management techniques really that good or just a product of their monopoly that doesn't apply to real life where you don't have the luxury of doing it wrong and getting away with it?
I've known more than a few people who have worked for Microsoft and the typical pattern of their work is that they're bored senseless for days at a time and even play games at work during work hours. But during crunch time, you're expected to give up your life and work insane hours. Most couldn't take the polarity and left.
Do we really want to teach our children that mindless slacking off and last minute cramming is only way to live?
From my experience, people who have gotten ahead and are happy are precisely the people who are the hardest workers and the ones that are passionate about their craft. People like Linus and many of the open source world are far from slackers. There's no way you can cram to be a Linux kernel Guru. It took a lot of hard work, experimenting, constructive play, and far sightedness to get them where they are today.
>You can't teach an interest in learning.
You don't have to! Watch a kid sometime. No unopened box is safe from them. Their talk is an endless stream of "Why does ___?" and "How does that work?". Ever tried learning a second language? Hard work, right? Kids learn a first language quickly and fluently without anyone coercing them into "language school". They watch every move that adults make and try it out for themselves.
You can stop them from learning, by keeping them so hungry or abused that higher brain functions shut down. You can communicate that some places are not for learning, by turning those places into Lord of the Flies. But fundamentally "interest in learning" is something hardwired into all mammals and especially humans.
Education in this country is broken, and this is a great attempt by a very successful software company to change the tide. Agreed. A change does need to occur within our current educational framework. And I believe that this is an interesting approach, as not only is Microsoft attempting to give support to a decrepit public school system through innovation, but it is trying to twist and fashion a new culture in education. IMO it is the culture of the education system which so desperately needs to change. I agree with previous posters that money is not the answer, that administration takes the largest cut of funding and that educators are the real victims within the school system. In part I feel that this is due to a degraded culture in the public schools. Microsoft is a "lifestyle company" and in large part developed much of what we consider corporate culture in today's high tech firms. I work in high tech and have worked for mostly lifestyle companies in the last 3 years. I for one feel that I get more done, am more productive and am better appreciated for my work as well as seeing a lot less overhead spent on administrative costs/processes. Everyone has mindshare. It is collaborative. We all go home thinking "how can I make this company's ideas work" and its fun. If we can put a bit of that mentality into our school's culture, I think we can see a revolution occur from within. Caveat: I do fear the looming concern that this is all a ploy by Microsoft to engender consumer loyalty in our youth. However, I do think that this could go horribly right as well. I for one plan to reserve judgement until this pilot matures and has some long term outcomes to prove or disprove the effectiveness of this approach.
/* somewhat functional - fix later */
http://www.countryday.net/
WiFi on campus - check
Laptops for everyone - check
Virtual textbooks - they're being used in the junior high but haven't been adopted by the high school
Smart Boards - My teacher uses on for math class but he's the only one
Admittedly, Cincinnati Country Day is private and this is a public school but this has been done before and it worked reasonably well.
From the fine article: In addition, students at the school must apply to college to get a diploma.
WOW! Just wow.
Microsoft gets sued for it's "management techniques"!
Those would be just the ticket for running a hi-max prison, so long as we didn't mind the escapes during blue screens. But for a school? That's child abuse! Hell, that's teacher abuse!
Washington DC public schools burn through $12,000 per student per year (http://www.schoolsk-12.com/Washington-DC/Washingt on-DC/index.html). Put more money into bad schools and you get expensive bad schools.
Well-funded schools that get good results tend to be in places where parents are educated and where parents think schools are important. Funding and results are correlated because they have the same cause in so many cases.
Smart boards aren't anything special at all. It's very good technology, don't get me wrong. You display your computer's screen up on a board, and you can write on the board / click buttons / etc, and it all works correctly.
However, it's nothing new. The high school my mom teaches at in Jasper, MO has had them for about 5 years. They have a graduating class of around 30 each year, and the students are often late to their first class because it took longer than usual to feed the cattle that morning. They have never had a single non-white student. They are that far behind the rest of the country, and they have these Smart Boards. The school I went to in Neosho, MO is slightly larger, with 250 kids in my graduating class, and we have the Smart Boards as well.
MO schools have them. It's not specials that M$ schools would.
Isn't this just a publicly funded showroom for Microsoft products?
Will the pupils be allowed to outsource their homework to developing countries?
And pupils will not be required to meet any deadline for their assignments.
If they were planning to use the school for one year and then tear it down, sure. But I don't think that's the plan.
Let's take a quick moment to analyze the situation a little more rationally.
The freshman class will consist of 170 students. Let's assume that the school plans to admit 170 freshmen each subsequent year. Given that the school eventually plans to serve 750 students, this assumption would be conservative, as 170*4 = 680 < 750 and since some freshmen are likely to drop out before they become seniors and graduate.
Neglecting that last fact for a moment, we find that the school serves 170 students for 4 years each.
Let's give the school a 20 year life starting from when the school opens.
680*20 - 170*3 - 170*2 - 170*1 = 12580 student-years
20 years with 680 students, adjusted for the year with no sophomore, junior, or senior class, the year with a sophomore class but no junior or senior class, and the year all but the senior class.
$63000000 / 12580 student-years = $5008 per student per year. All the sudden, we're not spending that much money.
- My locker crashed
- I've been stuck in the John because I couldn't remember my password
- The white board "BSOD" before I could write down my homework assignment
- My notebook was hacked
- MS High school is closed all week due to flooding. (AKA: Denial Of Service Attacks)
I can't believe how many comments there are (and have been modded up too) that think M$ should have given them money and left the teaching to the same old union-backed teachers and administrators. We've been trying to solve this problem with more money for years and there has not been any significant return (i.e., increased learning) on that investment. The following numbers are from the US Dept of Education statistics site (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt0 4_365.asp) (in thousands of current dollars)
1970 4,625,224
1975 7,350,355
1980 13,137,785
1985 16,701,065
1990 23,198,575
1995 31,403,000
2000 34,106,697
2002 46,324,352
2003 57,442,854
2004 62,864,595
Note that this is federal spending. There are billions more collected at the state and local level. For example, the estimate in 2003 was nearly $450 billion nationwide. That's just for K-12. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS.
Democrats and Republicans alike have both tried to throw money at this problem for a loooong time. Increases in education spending far exceed inflation or personal income. The problem is not money! You can google those facts all day long.
Microsoft may or may not be an answer to the problem, but the fact that they're getting in there and trying to fix the problem should be embraced.
I encourage you to poke around www.schoolmatters.com, which is a free service provided by Standard & Poors. They specifically ask that you don't take numbers out of context, so I won't post anything here. It's better to see then in context anyhow.
Is it just me or is the whole idea of this school flawed.
First off, *THE BUILDING*; In this day and age of networks
why would you need to spend money on a school building when
the same school network could reach the kids home.
Now, to be honest, I understand the need to warehouse the kids
during the day while both parents work at thier four, 18 hour,
low paid jobs. There is also the question of socialization of
children and the desire to promote the group dynamic. These
things can be done in much better ways, that are far more
productive and wholesome that the current 'factory' method.
The problem here is that Microsoft has used traditional linear
thinking to design this school. There is no lateral design going
on here. A blackboard, which is completely unnecessary by the way,
may be electronic but it's still just a blackboard.
How about this system as an alternative:
a.)The kids get laptops and a high-speed connection at home.
b.)There are no schools per se, just testing facilities that
allow testing of attained skills at all educational levels.
These facilities also have regularly scheduled socialization
events for various school ages that *must* be attended.
Those found not to be socializing at these events are truant.
Two events per week for pre-teens, one event per week for teens.
c.)Students are required to meet with instructor/counsellors
once each week, online, to make sure everyones education stays
on the rails.
There are benefits of this type of system.
The number of school buildings required by the community drops
by factor of ten. This reduces the amount of money required
to maintain property, as opposed to maintaining educational standards.
The amount of *negative* social contact kids get from schools is
minimized.
The positive aspects of school are strictly monitored and
standardised.
The use of open coursewares, where standard curriculum is
designed and agreed upon by qualified people can be promoted.
(ie: opensource school curriculum)
It removes the parents ability to blame someone else for
'Johnny's' behaviour problems. Some weaker parents will step
up to the plate for a change.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these
Drexel is actually managing tech, not MS. All MS has done, on the admin side, is provide 1 consultant to assist with installing all the BETA software they are focing the school to use. It's nice and amazing, but there's also quite a bit of self interest in this, MS requiring a production site to use beta software, as opposed to software a few patches deep.
Why did the original MS-funded "High Tech High Philadelphia" change to Mastery Charter School?
Error, locker not found. Please hit anyket to continue.
I hope I don't get modded down for that joke.
On another note, I have this to say. I hope all the technology doesn't add stress to the students' lives. The key issue should be learning. You can have all the high tech stuff you want, but it's nothing without well-learned teachers to explain things.
You mean the teachers sweat like crazy, jump up and down, and scream "Give it up for me!"?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-48604837
If the whole school goes BSOD and your a Senior does that mean you have to go back to being a Freshamn for the restart?
Art is not a business.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
It's interesting to note the difference between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs here. Gates' solution for education is technology. Jobs' solution is the opposite:
"I absolutely don't believe that. As you've pointed out I've helped with more computers in more schools than anybody else in the world and I absolutely convinced that is by no means the most important thing. The most important thing is a person." (Steve Jobs, 1995, from here)
"The argument is that the low pay attracts people who really WANT to be teachers. I do not wholly buy that argument"
Actually the above is just the slashdot "do it for the love, not the money" party line that makes a frequent appearance when outsourcing or "I'm thinking of becoming..." is discussed.
It really rests on the latent hostility this place has for anything not organized by geeks, as well as simple self-interest. Nice to know this forum puts it's pants on the same way as everyone else.
They did an episode of the Simpsons similar to this story.
;-)
The school system ran out of money (for what reason I cannot remember), so some "private organization" took over the school and had a new way of teaching. Turns out, this organization was actually a big corporation in sheeps clothing and they were using the children as market research.
Hopefully this will turn out better.
Right. Because I'm sure every family that can't afford to send kids to private schools is poor because the parents are dumb and lazy. And we should condemn their kids for the parents' financial problems by not letting them go to school, because that's the best way to make them self-sufficient and able to get and hold a good job.
On the offchance that you're not just trolling, you ARE being astoundingly naieve about the weaknesses of capitalism. The change you suggest would make the economy and the entire country far worse off than it already is. Certainly there are problems with the public school system, but the solution is not to abolish it.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
I believe that you have to have the P.O.s or the receipts for each of the systems that have Windows stickers. The stickers on the machines themselves will not let you survive a BSA raid.
Microsoft has a web site for this project. (Requires Macromedia Flash)
The building layout seems inefficient. There are only 19 general classrooms. The classrooms are perhaps a third of the building space. There's a big auditorium, with all the bells and whistles, including 100-seat sections on turntables. And of course there's a big "Interactive Learning Center". There's a "Food court", which seems to be lifted from a mall design.
It's also four floors with only two sets of stairs, which will probably be a headache. All the classrooms are on the upper floors.
Money is not the problem. If you look at the per-student spending (~ $8000 according to the DoE) and multiply by class size (say around 25 students as an average) you come out with about $200,000 per year, per classroom.
Teachers may be underpaid (though if my former coworkers are any indication, some awfully ignorant/incompetent people are making 50K a year for baby-sitting services in public "schools") but the solution isn't (necessarily) more money per student. I'd guess you could double teacher salaries if you could just kill the graft and waste in a typical school district. On the other hand, as I mentioned, having spent a good bit of time in the staff room and other classrooms, I think a lot of teachers are getting paid more than they're worth. One of the things that drove me away from teaching (although I loved working with the kids) is the adult company I had to keep.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
WASHINGTON, DC--President Bush announced Monday that he'll encourage Congress to back his new education initiative, the Microsoft Bob Left Behind Act. "It is my goal to close the achievement gap in our schools with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind--except for Microsoft Bob of Redmond, WA," Bush said at a White House press conference. "By 2014, I plan to see a significant jump in the math, reading, and science proficiency of 99.9999 percent of America's students. The children, excluding Bob, are our future." Bush was inspired to leave Bob behind after the child threw up all over the merry-go-round last week. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32934
FTA, "[MS] didn't pay the $63 million cost -- that was borne by the Philadelphia School District"
Seems that Philly was just a paying beta customer of a MS designed education system.
If it succeeds, MS can roll it out in other districts and make $$$$.
If it fails, no skin off their back as all the risk is borne by Philly citizens.
You'd think that the B&M Gates foundation would at least put their money where their mouth is...
I don't see any other name for the school in the article... is the place actually called "School of the Future"? Like the kids are running around with letterman jackets that say SOTF on them? That seems almost too cheesy to be true.
>When you start using severe discipline [...]
...
>After that you just have to keep up the pace, divide people to
>different difficulty levels based on their success [...]
See, you're not going to get that. Unless you return the Prussian system of government, too
Uh huh. Unless you are a hermit living out in Alaska (doubtfull if you have internet access) you are a part of society, and anything that immesurably benefits society also benefits you, regaurdless of wether or not you have children that attend public schools or even if you have no kids at all.
Does anyone know whqat that is supposed to mean? (no juvenile flying chair jokes please.)
What if you're among the tens of thousands of kids NOT lucky enough to win a spot there? Would you be feeling resentful that someone gave a damn about other kids' educations but not yours, as you fetch your 20-year-old textbooks out of your rusty locker?
You make a good case for not trying to create a new, better school. It's better that all students should get fucked, rather than most of them.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
You do not give a corporation control over education...
Nothing in the article said anything about Microsoft doing the teaching. Teachers do the teaching at the school. Microsoft designed the buildings and the digital infrastructure.
This isn't Animal Farm. We're not talking about a revolutionary takeover here. Is Microsoft acting in its best interest by trying to push the education system in a way that produces better knowledge workers? Yes. Is this a bad thing for schools or for students? I don't think it is.
I wouldn't put it past them to make all software Microsoft based...
Think about the big picture here. There are more important things at stake than whether students are using Micrsoft products in their classrooms.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Take the 63 million dollar cost of the school divided by the number of students attending the first year...
And that is WITHOUT Microsoft charging for any of their "expertise..."
You say this as if there were something wrong.
emt 377 emt 4
i wonder why it keeps being referred to as "the microsoft school of the future" when all they did was throw some advisors for design and setup. they did not contribute and hardware or software, though i am sure we can all guess what software the school is primarily using! the school was paid for by taxpayers, as any public school would be. it is nice that they are not only taking students with the highest test scores (as many urban magnet schools do). they are giving all kinds of students and opportunity to try this new system. yeah, they are almost like M$ beta testers, and as scary as that is..... i am sure the school will be accountable to somebody with some integrity. with the rest of the urban school systems in such hell, this might be a great new thing. of note, the city said the annual operating budget for this school is no higher (per pupil) than any other school in the system. it's quite possible that giving a student one laptop with electronic textbooks is a lot cheaper than a ton of textbooks that may become obsolete in a few years.
on a definitely positive note, the school is using green building techniques. offhand i know it has a green roof, and uses captured rainwater to flush toilets. it should be a positive environmental building since they swiped a chunk of Fairmont Park to build it, and it is about a block from the Philadelphia Zoo.
Write an operating system that works on a dozen different processor platforms and license it for free use.
Thank you - where are my mod points when I need them?
People learn all the time in everything they do.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Seriously, I hope this works and is the guiding light that will save our public school systems.
Although when it does fail, why not do a Linux school?
Just imagine them peops being teached how to - throw chairs across the room - shout out "I will kill 'em all, I have done it before, I will do it again" Steve Ballmeresque management lectures being told, a society gone to waste. SCNR
...what if this test case caught on and more companies sponsored schools? Atlanta IBM High. Chicago Oracle High.
They've already taken the "public" sports arenas that tax dollars pay for.
What would be the impact of neglected children of ratrace consumers becoming even more spoiled?
You say it like it's a bad thing - tell me, do you enjoy such socialist things as a 40 hour (more or less) work week, child labor laws, and health benefits?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
These guys in Pennsylvania are screwed. They need to look at Detroit Country Day for a glimpse into their future.
Back 15 years ago or so, it was an expensive private school just beginning to get tainted by too much income. Then in 1999 Steve Ballmer, a board member of the school and alumnus, decided the school would be a perfect testbed for Microsoft products. He convinced them of low- or no-cost Office licensing and a grand scheme to rid the school of all of the perfectly good Macs (and even some Suns) in use at the time. Programming classes shifted from Pascal (then required for AP courses) and Java to Visual Studio-based C++ courses. Art classes stopped using Photoshop for inane Microsoft apps. Even the schools *clocks* and bell system was converted into an often-crashing Windows-based solution. ("Sorry class ran over today kids -- the bell didn't ring again! Time to call tech support!")
Teacher's salaries, among the lowest in metro Detroit at the time (though I can't say if that's still true) were ignored while a full time IT consulting and helpdesk staff was brought in from Analysts International's Sequoia Services Group and Microsoft itself for multi-thousands of dollars a week. At one point, I believe there were as many helpdesk staffers as teachers due to the incredible number of problems with both Windows and Dell Latitude laptops at the time.
Once one of the largest deployments of Apple branded machines in K-12 schools, the thought of losing a deal like DCDS that big made so much news Steve Jobs personally got involved. I know because I was there when the conference call came in from Cupertino to convince the school that even free products from Microsoft would cost the school more time and money than keeping Macs. Jobs went so far as to show a then "top secret" new computer to the Administration -- a pre-release iBook.
Today, DCDS is Microsoft-only, blue screen-plagued, profit-driven, and entirely unproductive with its Microsoft-infused corporate take on education. Students spend thousands of dollars in high school for laptop maintenance and thousands of hours fighting with the "high technology" environment when they should be learning. (I guess they are learning -- learning what to look forward to if they're forced to use Windows for their careers!) The school is still grappling with how to deal with piracy, pornography at school, cheating during electronic exams and quizzes, and how to keep the "high tech" culture running for more than a few class periods.
May God have mercy on these Philadelphians.
A great way to teach kids how to copy from their peers, bully others, and generally be unimaginative. Good idea...
I believe "Bush" comes from the long history of protitution.
No way.
This seriously smells like someone in state government trying to angle more Microsoft presence in Pennsylvania.
I mean, _public_ _money_ paying for this chance for Microsoft to experiment with kids at a far more intimate level than they already do. It's bad enough for Microsoft to mess with the kids' minds through their software.
This may be only a few hundred kids in a lower middle-class part of town, but think of the scars these kids will carry for life. Even though the kids seem to have to apply for the lotter to attend, do these kids deserve it?
Competency wheel?
M$ is doing this to be able to brainwash the next generation, pure and simple. Very low and easy investment in a very high payback: these kids will live, breathe and think only Microsoft.
At least with charter schools, these students are actually going to school.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock