Slashdot Mirror
Some Schools Ending Laptop Programs
The New York Times reports that schools are abandoning their laptops-for-students programs. It turns out that the expense of providing laptops, expense of repairing laptops, difficulties of school network management, and discipline problems stemming from pornography, cheating, and cracking more than outweighed the educational benefits. Indeed, a number of schools have concluded that far from improving student achievement, laptops either had no effect or actively hindered academic performance. Apparently, politicians embracing technology as a quick fix for social problems doesn't always work out.
You know what is interesting about this article and the article on slashdot concerning the VT shooting is the sheer ineptitude of your writing. This point of discussion put into the article is inflamatory at best and ignorant at worst. I work at a company that specializes in educational technology. We have worked both with institutions that have a 1-1 program and some that don't. Some 1-1 programs work, some do not. It all depends on the holisitic attitude in which technology is integrated into the classroom. The success most definitely depends on how willing the school system is to open the educational process to the creative inclinations of the learner. The problem of an institution adopting 1-1 is that they are an institution. They have invested in processes and philosophies that either don't apply or become of differing priorities in a 1-1 situation. So that you have an example of success we support a completely virtualized school system with over 9000 K-12 students that are full time enrolled and another 15000 part-time enrollements. This systems has been in place and running for the past 7 years. We recently completely revamped the LMS and CMS systems to great success. We provided more oversight for the educational institution and greater freedom for learners (teachers and students) inside the system. Their graduation ceremonies are so emotionally powerful and have such a great impact on the community they must rent an entire stadium of the largest university in the state to hold everyone. It serves those students that never survived the traditional system. Those students that are smart enough to get through school in short years, learn individually, or were not supported by their social peers. So this is my goodbye to /.. I'm afraid I'm off to find another news feed for technology. Not because of the technology (i.e. laptops or software) but because of the bully platform your using it for. The 1-1 programs are revolutionizing education where the implementation is smart enough to support education and the community is creative enough to find it's opportunities and capitalize on them. Where they are not, we are learning lessons as well. NO amount of money is too small to spend on education. I can think of hundreds of millions of dollars wasted by our government. I sure hope they waste more of it on education, technology, and the betterment of our nation than some of the other initiatives we have lately.