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Obama Wants Broadband, Computers Part of Stimulus
damn_registrars writes "President-elect Barack Obama announced in his radio address that his administration's economic stimulus package will include investing in computers and broadband for education. 'To help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.'
He also said it is 'unacceptable' that the US ranks 15th in broadband adoption." No doubt with free spyware and internet filtering. You know... for the kids.
It would be great if the local cable or phone company could run their lines just 1 block further from my nearest neighbor so I could get broadband.
Maybe Obama can make it happen!
Or Obama can help find where that 200 billion dollars went.
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
You can't pay money to Intel, AMD, ATI, Dell or Microsoft without buying some hardware to Asian manufacturers because this is their business model to have manufactures in Asia. In today's world, it is hard to stimulate one country's economy without stimulating another one. There are some fields where it is possible (construction, restaurants...) but most are tied to foreign manufacturers.
Note that if giving job to China is an issue, one could prefer Taiwanese makers. I believe the difference is more important than it seems : one is a democracy, the other is not.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Well, despite being an Obama supporter (as am I), Taco is being pragmatic. Eric Holden could be his Attorney General, and he's all for net censorship. Plus this is the Democrats we're talking about; the old guard is salivating at the prospect of getting all their old nanny state legislation back on the plate.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
No offense, but if you think that you can do Math on a calculator, your arguements for better education are kinda weakened. Calculators (yes even graphing ones) are a way to get around the tedium of simple arithmetic, a way to skip past the dark ages and get to the meat of critical, logical thinking.
I analyze water flow patterns as it relates to insurance risk for a living... a mathematical job to be sure. When calculating the trajectory of a projected river overflow, I grab my scientific calculator, and I think back in sympathy for my 4th grade self, who was tortured by moronic ciriculum focused on creating mindless times table memorization, which I could not do...
The main advantage humans have over other animals is that our history and our technology make it possible to learn in one lifetime what could not otherwise be possible in a hundred lifetimes. "Back to basics" is how humanity self-destructs. Give them a pile of computers, have them teach the teacher.
The exact issue is that the school system is modeled after the one room schoolhouse. The entire concept of grades K-12 needs to be thrown out, and instead just have each student advance in each subject at his/her own pace. In this way, a student who is good in English but needs math help does not get held back or even looked at strangely.
Every student will have strengths and weaknesses, so it should be the norm to be several "grades" higher in one or two subjects, and possibly one or two grades lower in one or two subjects. When there is no stigma to having difficulty with a given subject, students will no longer have to hide the fact, and their needs can be addressed.
With this sort of system, the school system can finally improve. Throwing more money at a system that is clearly broken will not help, but replacing the system with something that will work and then moving students into that new system WOULD.
It is a sad thing when most people are more willing to replace an old but working computer than they are to replace a clearly broken system. The same applies to Social Security, health care, and everything else. Everyone keeps trying to fix something that is broken beyond repair instead of trying to figure out what to replace these old broken systems with.