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Alabama Schools to be First in US to Get XO Laptop
CountryGeek passed us a link to a story in the Birmingham News, saying that schools in the Alabama city will be the first US students to make use of the XO laptop. The piece touches on a bit of the project's history, and seems to indicate the Birmingham school district is ready to make a serious commitment to these devices. "Langford has asked the City Council to approve $7 million for the laptops and a scholarship program that would give Birmingham students with a C average or above a scholarship to college or tech school of their choice. The City Council has not yet approved the funding. The rugged, waterproof computers will be distributed to students on April 15, Langford said, and children will be allowed to take them home. If a computer is lost, the school system can disable it, rendering it useless, Langford said. Students will turn in their computers at the end of their eighth-grade year."
There are a ton of kids in Maine who have spent the last few years proving this assumption -- that young kids don't learn anything useful on computers -- is wrong. Their program gave Powerbooks to all middle-school students and has produced remarkable results. It was recently renewed by the state legislature and is being expanded to additional grades with state $$, which is no small feat in a state under a lot of budget pressure. See link for published studies, etc. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Maine decided to go for OLPC's for the younger-then-middle-school set.
The primary problem in Maine's one-powerbook-per-child program has has come from backwards teachers like your Calc prof who won't adapt their teaching to the new technology.
Etc. etc. I have no doubt there are plenty of smart, healthy, wealthy, open-minded folks there; however the statistics tend to suggest that overall AL (like much of the deep south) has a pretty unhealthy, uneducated and poor population.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Talk about a worn out stereotype. statemaster.com defines the lynching statistic cited as Number of total people killed by lynching from 1882 to 1968. Per capita figures expressed per 1 million population.
Hardly relevant or timely but thanks for promoting the racist stereotype.