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South Carolina To Give 1 Laptop Per School Child
ruphus13 sends in an OStatic article outlining the plans of the state of South Carolina, inspired by the One Laptop Per Child project, to provide laptops to local elementary school children. "The South Carolina Department of Education and the non-profit Palmetto Project have teamed up to get a laptop in the hands of every elementary school student in South Carolina... The OLPC/SC hopes to distribute as many as 50,000 laptops this spring to eligible students. The effort is underwritten and managed by the Palmetto Project, whose mission is to 'put new and creative ideas to work in South Carolina.' While low-performing school districts with limited resources are a special focus for the OLPC/SC, the group is adamant on one point: There are no free laptops. In order to receive a laptop, children need to give a small monetary donation — the project coordinators say a dollar or two is sufficient."It's not obvious from browsing around the OLPC/SC site what software the XO laptops will be running; but by following links one gets the impression that they will be powered by Linux, not XP.
Please give one to Miss South Carolina too.
Wow, im surprised they actually considered the idea instead of just sticking to what the textbook companies tell them is most important. A pleasant surprise, along with the possibility of linux.
They're giving laptops to "low-performing school districts with limited resources", but surely to actually use those laptops in lessons, the schools will have to spend even more of their limited resources setting up an infrastructure and new teaching plans?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I am QUITE sure that MS has about 100 ppl already surrounding all the pols and money (millions) is flowing VERY FREELY into re-elect campaign funds.
Just out of curiosity, does anybody know what chair balmer likes? I would like to buy some stock in them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This seems to be a good initiative, it would be better aimed at high schools though surely? Primary school aged children are less likely to need their own laptop.
Laughter is the best medicine, except if you have a broken rib.
I admit to liking the idea of requiring a donation so the laptops aren't completely free. It is well known that you value the things that cost you more then those that don't.
However I am still left with the unsettling feeling of why give laptops to children? The US has health problems because kids aren't getting out and playing and instead sitting in front of video games, TVs and what not and we are going to give away laptops? I understand why kids should be exposed and be familiar with computers but shouldn't the elementary schools be focusing on the basics such as reading, writing, arithmetic and learning to be social at such and early age? Give them the computers when they are older and hopefully more responsible.
Maybe I'm just naive and old but I have yet to hear a good reason why children need laptops.
Sounds like there will be a lot of cheap XOs on sale on eBay pretty soon - can't wait.
is a maintainence nightmare. My guess is the schools will have piles of bornked OLPCs in a hurry.
Is that just to avoid the laptop being "free" for political reason, to give it some value to the child, or is it the consideration needed to make the agreement a contract?
Why? What is the point? Do they have any evidence indicating that getting a 9-year-old to make a promise will in any significant way improve his life?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
It's not obvious from browsing around the OLPC/SC site what software the XO laptops will be running; but by following links one gets the impression that they will be powered by Linux, not XP.
Forgive me if I take a wait-and-see approach on this until I hear what MS's PR department has to say about the project...
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
"Hey mom, could you give me a hand updating my kernel please?" On an equally serious note, will they be disallowed to use WINE until they're of legal age?
As a computer professional, someone who has been involved in technology for decades, and the father of two elementary aged school children, all I can say is that if my children were offered computers, I would politely decline.
There are so many things that are better for young kids than sitting in front of a computer screen. I actually spent a lot of money sending my kids to a private school in their early years that explicitly kept computers out of the school -- they actually did art, played outside, and took long walks in the woods...
Most of the teachers suck at what they do, and in poor places like South Carolina there are many parents who discourage their kids from being successful. Case in point, when we lived there, my mom tutored a kid at my school. You know what happened when he got an A on a test? His piece of shit excuse for human trash mother said to him "you actin' white now?" Technology is no solution for bad schools and students with parents who pull them down because they have ego or race problems (both apply in the case of the black mother who ridiculed the kid my white mother was trying to help succeed).
There is so little incentive now to get an education AND for schools to compete to hire people who have an education in something more than "education." Throwing around millions of dollars to buy laptops for kids who can barely read is more likely to have the state subsidizing the gaming, movie and porn industries than actually teaching these kids anything.
And here's the thing. People will crawl out of the woodwork in most cases to attack comments like mine about how I'm unfairly judging the public schools or am a closet racist for saying such harsh things about that black bitch who tore her poor son down everytime he succeeded. It's easier to make excuses for why the public schools are failing and why parents, especially poor parents, are often roadblocks to their kids' success than to start making hamburger out of the sacred cows and fixing the problem by introducing more competition and making an education more critical to just being able to get by in America.
More kids will be encouraged to go to myspace?
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Some of the schools in the "Corridor of Shame" are falling apart so badly that they have to beg private companies for basic furniture. The education department should at least get the basic facilities of the schools functioning before they start getting this extravagant. There are schools in the lowcountry that still don't have air-conditioning (in a state where it can get into the 100's, and a wet heat to boot) and have holes in the classroom walls you can see daylight through.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I got an XO second-hand from someone who had bought it from the G1G1 program, thinking she'd be getting a cheap, full-sized laptop, and was extremely disappointed.
I gave it to the kids and they absolutely love it. They use it for playing around with the paint program ("activity"), some music stuff, etc., Not exactly the "learning" experience a school kid might have with it, but at least they'd rather play with the computer and explore than watch tv.
Frankly, I'm *glad* it doesn't have XP on it; my 4 yo figured out how to do stuff on the XO without having to ask. It uses metaphors that a kid "gets". Do I care she's not "learning what she'll need in the real world?" Can you imagine still hitting the "start" button to do something in twenty years?
Plus I don't have to buy an anti-virus program to install it it. :)
Why is the dollar or two necessary to pay? Some kids don't even have enough money to eat properly every day. An extra dollar or two means skipping an (inadequate) meal or two. Why should they have to go hungrier? What's the point of extracting that dollar or two from them? What goes on in South Carolina that pressures the OLPC suppliers to be "adamant" that kids pay a dollar or two they don't have?
--
make install -not war
Can someone explain to me why what operating system these laptops run on is relevant to this story?
Looks like we've gone from throwing money at the problem to throwing computers at the problem.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
...their textbooks as this is a prevalent problem in South Carolina. It's not dead last (usually) in education in the US because the kids don't have laptops, it's because they don't have the textbooks they need, enough teachers to go round, and half the schools are forced to use trailers for many of their classes due to the poor infrastructure; so, hurray, let's throw out 50,000 laptops to make things better. These are, of course, vast oversimplifications of the problems in education in South Carolina, but most assuredly the lack of 'laptops' per child is not an issue.
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I live in South Carolina and already have to pay an extra $25 road tax on top of my vehicle taxes and watched my property tax double twice in the past 7 years with the complaint that our state doesn't have enough money to maintain it's services. Where did it get the money for this and why doesn't it go to lowering our already outrageous taxes that keep climbing every year?
Howdy, I do IT work for a fairly rural school district in SC. There are so many problems with this idea I don't know where to start.
Firstly, we've just recently had our fired/not fired meetings owing to the current budget crisis. The idea of giving up to 50,000 laptops to school children is noble, but the money would be better spent retaining teaching positions that are either being cut or lost due to attrition. I realize that's an apples-to-oranges comparison since this is more of a grant, but the truth is that most school districts are flooded with initiatives like this, Title 1 funding, etc. that can only be used for very specific purposes. Priorities need to be examined and these programs need to be reorganized. Federal funding is great and all, but it doesn't make much sense that a network closet that 20 computers run back to has 10 brand new switches in it while the school can't afford to retain its current teaching staff.
In addition to that there are a ton of infrastructure problems that need to be examined. Most schools in the great state of SC (and, I assume, most places) were built before the advent of widespread computer adoption in education. Power is a major issue. All the sudden the room that really only needed power to a TV and maybe 4-5 computers now needs to have the power capabilities to also handle 20-30 laptops as well. This is not to be underestimated.
How about network connectivity? Are we going to install network jacks in these classrooms for these laptops or put in WAPs? Who is going to pay for this new equipment/cabling?
How about all of the volume licensing agreements? Agreements for OSes, anti-virus clients, patch management systems, etc. are all done by volume. Who is going to pay for the additional licenses for these systems?
Maintenance? Is the grant going to give us enough spare laptops to cover for children while they're laptops are down for repair, students who forget laptops, etc? What about the increased workload of an already-thing IT department covering the additional laptops that will, in all likelihood, break more often?
And as for the Linux? I'm a FOSS advocate, run nix at home, etc. But you have to realize that *most* school/district IT departments are staffed by folks who were the most technologically proficient users at the time the equipment was installed, e.g. the librarian who knew how to install MS Office got promoted to be the head of the district IT department. Sorry, but supporting (or even running) Linux for a lot of these folks is over their heads.
Is all of this worth it to give young students laptops? Will this really foster that much additional learning?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that someone is trying to promote the technology. Unfortunately there are a lot more pressing matters to take care of in SC schools and a lot of issues to tackle before this could be successfully implemented.
The announcement was made that the Linux version wasn't suitable after all and they've decided to go with XP instead after a donation from the Gates Foundation? Oh, and the guy who forgot to bow to the M$ lobby in the first place will be quietly fired for some dubious reason.
Not only because of the risk of big brother hocking it downtown, but also for what I would think are even graver concerns. Take my situation, for starters. I'm a computer professional. I know all about the dangers of the Internet. I have a brilliant, beautiful, innocent, obedient, *GOOD* 10 year old daughter, who would LOVE for me to get her a netbook. Pink, of course. I'm terrified at the prospect of turning my little girl -- smart and good as she is -- loose on the Internet. Sure, there are lots of things I can do at home to protect her -- heck, I've even toyed with the idea of installing a keylogger on her system when I feel the time is right (ok, maybe that's going too far). And this is a kid I can TRUST! But what about when she's got her new toy at her friend's house? OK, ok, enough about my situation -- I think we can handle it. Now consider the situations of the children we're talking about today. (I'll be making a lot of assumptions and generalizations here -- please forgive me). No tech/Internet savvy authority figure at home. Heck, maybe not much of an authority figure at home at all! Peer pressures my daughter can't even imagine. Way too much unsupervised free time. A totally different upbringing than the one my kids have received. What's going to keep these kids safe? Oh well, I'm probably being naive and alarmist. And maybe for nothing, since the laptops will probably stay at the school anyway (no, I didn't RTFA).
I am not left-handed, either!
This is just like our own Magalhaes project ... and for what I read from the people above on this thread, it will be an equal fiasco, that is, if the objective is really to better kids education. ... the end result? Most kids are still not able to get the damned little computer, not even paying, although there are several of them already found in pawn shops and similar ... oh man so much to write, so little time and patience ... Obviously the comps serve mostly for playing, there was no class integration whatsoever, etc etc etc... Alas, imagine all the bad things that can happen in such ill-conceived plan ... that's the way things are happening. I won't even bother to tell the completely tortuous way the project started, with lies about being a portuguese computer (it's an Intel Classmate with a custom sticker on the lid!!!!), about the total favouring of ONE company with public funds, no other company allowed to compete for the project ... a shame.
On the other hand, maibe there, as here, the objective was quite diferent: making stupid PR in Iberoamerican summit, making PR about technology enhancements, PR, PR
ps: sorry for the errors, english obviously's not my language :)
you can update the text on a computer a lot quicker and cheaper than redistributing new text books made from paper.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Having taught a class at a university where they hand out laptops to every student, I'm convinced it's a huge mistake and counter-productive to the goal of providing a good education.
All these laptops do provide a huge distraction, and I teach a class where we need computers. As I walk around the class I'll notice them closing chat windows or minimizing browsers.
Having grown up around computers I know first hand how distracting they can be in the class, and we didn't even have anything like the internet at the time. Now, obviously it's far worse given how much these kids will have access to.
I certainly believe computers are invaluable and it's good to expose children to them early on. But students don't need their own laptops. What they need are good, current text books. A class with a focus on computers makes far more sense, or perhaps a couple of computers in each classroom for children to share.
Then there's the fact that most of these laptops wont survive the school year. College kids do a good job of trashing their machines it will only be worse with children.
Really what children need is a more challenging educational environment and more discipline needs to be imposed. And many parents need to be made more responsible for their children's education. Too many parents just don't care how their kids do in school or just accept the fact that their kids will under-perform. They don't discipline their kids like they should, but then get offended when a teacher tries to do so.
And I think there's too much fixation on trying to make education fun and approachable. Certainly it can be made entertaining and should be made so when practical. But when it comes down to it, it really is work. You're studying hard to get ahead in life, because it's your responsibility, not because you think it should be a game.
Americans seem to believe that throwing money at education will solve every problem. It hasn't solved anything and only aggravates the existing problems. The city where I live spends more per student, by far, than any other country on Earth and I'd say that the quality of education is sorely lacking.
"Howdy, I do IT work for a fairly rural school district in SC. There are so many problems with this idea I don't know where to start"
..
:)
:)
Countries in the developing world such as the African nation of Rwanda don't seem to have any such problems. As neither does Brazil.
"it doesn't make much sense that a network closet that 20 computers run back to has 10 brand new switches in it while the school can't afford to retain its current teaching staff"
Retraining FUD
"All the sudden the room that really only needed power to a TV and maybe 4-5 computers now needs to have the power capabilities to also handle 20-30 laptops as well. This is not to be underestimated"
I thought laptops ran off of batteries
"How about network connectivity? Are we going to install network jacks in these classrooms for these laptops or put in WAPs? Who is going to pay for this new equipment/cabling?"
The laptops utilize mesh networking so they can still provide functionality even without a central gateway.
"How about all of the volume licensing agreements? Agreements for OSes, anti-virus clients, patch management systems, etc. are all done by volume. Who is going to pay for the additional licenses for these systems?"
There are no 'volume licensing agreements', the XO isn't susceptible to such things as viruses
"I'm a FOSS advocate, run nix at home, etc"
You sure sound like it
Many of the school districts in my state have a contract with Gateway to provide laptops for the high school students. These laptops run Windows XP but are somewhat locked down. One of the problems is that the maintaining the laptops has hit a snag since the company providing the warranty repair on them has filed for bankruptcy so about half of the computers are unusable now.
I really don't see the advantage of having kids lug around laptops between home and school. Back when I was in school, computer labs were adequate and would be easier to maintain. Currently, it would be better to have laptops assigned to the classrooms and not to the students. The students should be using a flash drive for their personal files instead. In any scenario, using a Windows OS means dealing with malware concerns. Students could bring in bad stuff on the flash drives from use on infected home computers. I suppose the OS on the school laptops could be booted from a read-only source so malware could not be installed between each student using a computer. I am not sure how well that works for Windows since I have only done something like that with an Ubuntu CD.
I Cater to the Needs of Stupid People. - from a coffee mug Christmas gift
All elementary students in Portugal are awarded a small computer (a custom ClassMate, actually) and older ones can get a standard laptop with UMTS access to the Internet for about 150 â (free for students who can't afford it).
"All these laptops do provide a huge distraction, and I teach a class where we need computers. As I walk around the class I'll notice them closing chat windows or minimizing browsers"
..
Tell them not to use their laptops while you are teaching
"I'm terrified at the prospect of turning my little girl -- smart and good as she is -- loose on the Internet .. What's going to keep these kids safe? Oh well, I'm probably being naive and alarmist. And maybe for nothing, since the laptops will probably stay at the school anyway"
Going on the requests for how to bypass websence on 'Yahoo Answers', I would assume the school network is locked down to approved sites.
One wonders how much they could improve their student/teacher ratio if they used all that money on hiring more teachers instead.
...spell their names, brush their teeth, and learn how to use the toilet. Things that even some 5th graders in my wife's school can't do yet. This is SE N.Carolina (yes not SC but close enough). How do people expect them to use a computer when its covered in shit?
I work at a school which decided to hand out EEEPCs to all children in a certain year-group, which consisted of 15 and 16 year olds.
Bear in mind these devices run a version of Xandros Linux and (after a few security tweaks) provided wireless Internet access across the school, as well as OpenOffice and a few utilities.
I'd say of the couple of hundred given out, we've had around 40 break, another 40 which we've managed to repair, 40 or so PSUs blow up and another 10 handed back as the kids didn't want them. Going around lessons shows that the children are invariably unimpressed with them and (sadly for Linux fans) one of the main complaints is that they're not running Windows. Indeed, the only really enthusiastic comments I've heard were when some of the kids saw me playing with XP on one!
Basically, the kids don't respect them and they treat them like a toy. The most able children try and install packages and break our security, but it's only a couple that do that. The majority simply don't care, they just chuck them in a corner of their school bag and forget about them.
The latest plan is to keep the EEEPCs that remain in the classrooms, such that the kids use them during lessons then hand them in at the end. So far this plan works a thousand times better - the kids still don't like them, but at least they're not smashing them up or chucking them downstairs, or hitting each other's bags whilst the PCs are inside.
Maybe Miss South Carolina would be an advocate of using the XO. I grew up and was educated in South Carolina and it is a unique place. I had the opportunity to build an IT infrastructure for an urban district. Some of the kids would skip breakfast for the opportunity of free time on the computer. These aren't for people that have technology at home. If only 5% of the kids that get these laptops improve their lot in life it is well worth the cost (50K laptops at $200 is only $10 million). Do they have the infrastructure or teacher training to take full advantage of this? Probably not. Will innovative teachers and good, but poor parents take advantage of this? Definitely. Why doesn't everyone help? Go to laptopsc.org and give $5 dollars. If you live in SC volunteer some time to build the infrastructure. Sure you'll have to buck the bureaucracy, but try.
One to that idiot that thinks there are more than 57 states in the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws
One to his assistant that thinks FDR stopped the depression with a TV address.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AwjNvA-vUw
It's an easy way to say "We tried" without expending any real energy, losing brain cells or making any teachers mad.
What will it accomplish and how will the benefit be measured? I'm sure they are clueless.
Laptops could have a great impact on the classroom but we would almost have to forget everything we know about teaching today and most of the teachers can't handle it. Most likely teachers will handout the laptops and then tell their students to watch YouTube.com while they go to the break room.
I don't know what's less surprising- seeing South Carolina admit it's a third world country... or seeing SC throw more money at a conservative-run scam like OLPC.
I would think ebook readers like the kindle would be a much better choice for schools. Notes and hand outs could be distributed as PDFs, students could easily have access to many more books, and simple yet necessary tools like a dictionary or full text search would always be available. For an even better deal, work out a simple educational discount on books and get the kids reading whatever they want. When I was growing up all we had were libraries and your parents had to drop you off. Then of course the book you wanted was checked out so you had to settle for something not so great.
Yes, yes, this might sound like a knee-jerk reaction to government doing anything new. It may even seem like a troll. But do consider the history...
First we decided, that all kids are entitled to education — at the taxpayers' expense. Because some poor parents could not (or would not) pay for their children's schooling. It was believed to be an overall win for society, if all its members learned some basics. Ok...
Then we discovered, that getting to free school is a problem for some kids, and school buses got introduced — at taxpayers' expense, of course. Not so obviously Ok...
Then came school breakfasts and/or lunches — hungry children don't learn well somebody figured out. So, we have to feed them, otherwise we'll just be throwing out the money spent on teaching them, wouldn't we? WTF?
Now taxpayers are going to provide kids not only with the schooling itself, with means of getting to school, with food, but also with computers — all using the same illogic , that the State needs to be more worried about the children's well-being and education, than their parents are.
So, where does it stop? Clothing — ought the taxpayers not provide clothes for the pupils, so that nobody skips school for having nothing to wear? Unhappy parents affect children's school performance, no doubt — should the State begin sponsoring all people with school-age children to keep them happy(ier)? The same illogic can take us very far. In fact, it already did — public schools proved to be a "gateway drug". Innocuous in itself they made Americans happy to accept government assistance, which always comes with strings attached... Had the early advocates of them foreseen, how far it would go, they would, likely, not have insisted as much...
That the actual public schools continue to suck, despite gobs of money thrown at them, is not even that important to the point I'm making, although it sure helps support it: Not only is it wrong in principle, it does not actually work...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I think it's much worse.
Two problems: digital data is *much* more compact than paper and your searching ability is limited to the index.
I have an 8 GB pendrive, which is by no means very spectacular these days, but a King James Bible has about 5 MB of data. Have you ever tried carrying 1600 bibles in your pocket?
When in doubt, I google for an answer, or look into wikipedia for a clue. How do you index your paper books? Before the internet, I used to look it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (again, a BIG volume of paper), but too many things do not have Britannica articles.
If you think from a very limited viewpoint, paper books are OK and are much better than illiteracy. They are better than computers in many aspects, reading in bed, they do not need batteries, are easier to annotate, you can dogear them. I do have a big "dead tree" library.
But paper is no substitute for a computer. I think we must learn how to extract the most intelligence from both media, the ideal learning environment would be one that has both paper and digital data. Let's keep the printed books, but don't belittle the worth of computers either.
Anyone want to take bets on how soon until pawn shops and eBay are flooded with these things?
While I hope the Linux thing is real, let's follow two different scenarios and see which one is cheaper to implement:
1. Buy laptops with Windows installed
2. Pay lots of money
or...
1. Announce plans to buy laptops with Linux
2. Raise the attention of Microsoft
3. Get free or super-cheap Windows from Microsoft, who's willing to lose money on this deal in order to keep their monopoly entrenched and give bad press to Linux
Seems like an easy choice.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
It's nice that you are wealthy. I do all right myself, and enjoy the benefits it gives me, but don't kid yourself. There are plenty of places right here in the good old USA that kids are WAY better off sitting in front of a computer than playing outside and taking long walks through their neighborhood.
After watching this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw no chance in hell these will help without some real change..
I don't care if they use Windows, Linux, or OSX. This could actually motivate students to learn on their own, a concept rarely taught in grade school.
When I was in Jr. High I was fortunate enough to take a keyboarding class. The final project was to make web page summarizing what you learned in the class. I didn't learn much until I began making the web page. A few of us in the class were enthralled by how it works and instead of using FrontPage, we used the internet to learn basic HTML and designed our pages from scratch.
Many kids, like me, continued to expand our new found ability to create on the computer. We all individually learned JavaScript, C, Perl, and other languages all on our own and without each other's knowledge. I ended up learning about this come senior year in high school when we were all talking about the CSC, EE, and CPE degrees we were going to get in the next four years.
Four years later we all have degrees and all attribute our affinity for learning with that first, open-ended project in Jr. High. Its something like a laptop that can open a kids mind to how easy it is to learn, and how rewarding it can be. I am happy for the small handful of kids these laptops will inspire and hope that parents and teachers let their kids learn.
They are giving low-performing computer equipment to low-performing schools.
Just another fine example of the "logic" employed in South Carolina.
Just an FYI: The XO logs everything done on the machine in the "notebook" (I think it's actually called something else but I don't have one with me). It's the first program that starts and I don't think it can be killed.
You'd be able to find out what s/he's done and where s/he's gone pretty quick.
Maine has had a similar program for the past 7 years. They use iBooks: Maine Learning Technology Initiative
The main argument against a voucher system is that it would take away money from students who now go to public schools. Basically, kids who now go to private schools, and who are not getting money from the government for it, would now get money for it, which means there's less money left for those who are now in the public school system.
BTW, that is actually the main motivation for vouchers. Parents whose kids go to private school want money from the government :). If you don't believe so, see how many people would support a system where schools who get vouchers CANNOT charge anything extra from parents.
Another argument I see is that it would actually diminish the proportion of the population who goes to public schools and so it would diminish the impact of a shared experience. I *like* the idea of my kids going to good public schools and prefer to try to improve them rather than dismantle them.
There isn't one student in that state who is struggling in school due to the lack of a laptop.
Computers don't make people smart, it's parenting and genetics.
Are they promoting the Singularity now? Thought it is mainly Google.
First, you don't need to provide 1-to-1 PCs. Second, your infrastructure will only extend to a handful of rooms. Third, you can invest in higher end machines with better software. Fourth, you can also afford real IT support. Sixth, you can more easily monitor how computers are being used by teachers in lesson planning. Scheduled computer lab time means that teachers can create simple atomic lessons rather than being pressured to integrate computers into the everyday teaching experience. Seventh, you can keep your PCs secure without worrying about theft or mommy taking the kid's PC to the local pawn shop for beer money.
I worked in school district that ran on this model. Additionally, each teacher had a single PC in her room. The only caveat I'd add is that students should also have access to computer labs on their own time; mornings, lunch, after school. This lets them explore a bit and increase their familiarity.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I've been saying the same thing for quite a while. I do think there are some serious problems with some of the public school districts that require funds to address properly. These, as others have noted, tend to be infrastructure-related, though. Some of our city schools I've been through have leaky roofs, broken air-conditioners, and windows that won't stay open on their own, anymore.
If you're going to hold school in a building, the building has to be functional, first.
Other districts have a problem with not enough money for teacher salaries. But overall, we're talking more of a resource distribution issue than one of simply needing MORE funding.
I can drive 10 minutes from one of the schools in the most disrepair and with the most disgruntled, underpaid teachers, and find another "public school" that's practically new, with the latest technologies installed in it. Often, you'll find they just approved some expense in the multiple $10,000 range for a new scoreboard on their field, or a new Olympic sized indoor pool, or ??
Obviously, this discrepancy occurs because of the boundaries between the municipalities and their corresponding tax districts. Yet the students attending probably cross those boundaries constantly, throughout life in our city.
I often wonder if it really makes any sense for a particular municipality to be so concerned with making THEIR school superior, vs. worrying about the "health" of the public schools in the surrounding areas, on the whole?
usually have to be copied and distributed. Can you say "copyright infringement"? I knew you could. (Oops - dates myself, doesn't it )
Can't wait to see the blog on 101 ways to turn your free piece of crap laptop into a crack pipe.
Punctuation rules and the laws of motion don't change that much.
While I agree the "tragedy" of having old textbooks is not really that severe, punctuation rules and laws of motion don't make up all of education either.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
As long as they have in the contract a steady supply of spare parts for things such as failed screens and batteries there really isn't any reason why they can't be using these in 2018 EXCEPT...
I don't recall when, maybe a few months ago, slashdot had an article saying school kids were being taught to repair XOs, Asus's, or another cheap laptop.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Ya, I know this will blow your mind, but my dad grew up without computers, and managed to learn to use one. So having the technology in the school is not a prerequisite to learning about said technology.
If only practical application worked the same as theory. As a kid my dad had an interest in electronics and technology, but ask him to build a radio and he couldn't. I built my first radio with copper wire wrapped around paper towel, or TP, roll. Radio Shack has made a lot of money selling educational kits. As a review, because it's been many years since I've done any of it and my memory is bad, I bought an electronics learning lab from them.
Giving the students laptops is stupid; that's what computer labs are for. Low end desktops with the software you describe will be cheaper in the long run... because the computers will stay in the school and be available to the incoming students.
Desktops can't be taken home whereas laptops can. And as others have pointed out a cheap laptop running Linux should last years, with the student using the same one. Issue one to a student that student will use throughout school from one grade to the next.
Of course breakage can, and will, happen. They can also be stolen or lost. Some tyme back there was an article about how a class of students were trained to repair them. This combines two good things, schools can have laptops repaired cheaply. And the students gain a valuable skill. Of course this isn't relevant for primary school students, but it can help jr high and high school students. I first got into electronics when I took an electronics class in 7th grade. In 9th grade I took a class on small engine repair. My high school had an auto repair workshop.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The reason these districts (and not just in SC) are "low-performing" is NOT because they do not have computers.
If kids can't read in the first place, giving them laptops isn't going to solve that problem. If kids don't want to learn, giving them laptops isn't going to solve that problem either.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
that child needs to be given the opportunity and proper instruction to succeed, but if the child doesn't do their homework and the parent spend no effort they need to see that they can fail.
My problem in school was I didn't do much homework myself.
I'd really like to see classes broken out by child's ability (Fast, medium, and slow learners).
And this is why, I was bored. I did homework when I was challenged but that's about it. One of my favorite teachers in high school told me I'd be a straight A student if I only did the homework. This was either an English Comp or American Lit class, now in my science and tech classes I did some homework, I wasn't bored.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There are so many things that are better for young kids than sitting in front of a computer screen. I actually spent a lot of money sending my kids to a private school in their early years that explicitly kept computers out of the school -- they actually did art, played outside, and took long walks in the woods...
You can do more than just one thing. In school, I took art classes as well as science and technology classes. I hunted and fished and spent hours in the woods. During my senior year I was torn between majoring in a Marine Science/Oceanography field or Computer Engineering. To save money, my family was poor, I went into the Army before going to college. My specialty had nothing to do with either field though, I was trained for and in the Infantry. And while in I was my army unit's photographer, having taken photography in high school I knew how to use the 35mm camera I owned. My CO, Commanding Officer, would get some film for me to shoot and after I shot it I'd go do to that arts and crafts center to make prints which I then shared with the unit.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
50,000 laptops? To kids??? Can you imagine what landfills in South Carolina are going to look like in a year when they go "out of style"?
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
If the parents don't value education, the kids probably won't, and all the laptops and talented teachers in the world won't make much of difference.
Though it may be rare teachers can make a positive effect on students. Jaime Escalante was one such teacher.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You may be the first homeschooler I've encountered that has openly admitted the difference in motive (academic vs. religious, I mean) which I suspect is because the ones I grew up around were interested in it for the latter reason.
This isn't the first who supports homeschooling for academic reasons. I've said for years that if I ever have children I want to homeschool them myself. For academic reasons, not religious. Actually I don't like religion. In school though I loved learning I didn't like most of the education I got in school. There were some sunny parts I liked but for the most part I was too bored and thought parts were stupid.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Many free things have no value. Give a child a toy and see how long it takes before it's broken. It won't last as long as it will if the child has to pay for it. Now, instead of making poor students pay for it what they could do is require students who can't afford one to volunteer, work, on a project that helps the community.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Those that can utilize this boon without assistance from teachers or staff will excel, those that are less intelligent or less inclined deserver what they're capable of too.
I agree this can be an opportunity to kids. However different people have different learning styles. Some can learn by reading a book, some learn by doing, and some need someone to help them.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Not only is it wrong in principle, it does not actually work...
Yea, public education is a waste. Only the wealthy should educated.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What about the kids in South Africa and Iraq?
They just need more maps...
I'm from South Carolina. i go to a public high school. Several Weeks ago, there was a budget cut to all the schools (i'm not sure whether it's in the district or the states).
for awhile, we could not even afford computer paper-- teachers hid and hoarded it just so they could print their tests; no worksheets were handed out.
how the hell can we afford laptops if we can't afford paper? i think that the government needs to get its priorities sorted out.
also, it may be worth noting that Governor Mark Sanford (R) accepted stimulus money in everything but educaiton. instead of taking a proactive approach to fixing the schools, he's basically let our educational system go to hell.
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
but by following links one gets the impression that they will be powered by Linux, not XP. :) .. carolina looks like a testing ground before launching it to the third world , I think third world deserves a better OLPC with more features ;)
Glad to hear that
Anyways
That could be fixed by simply allowing students to go to any public school they want, with no additional expense. It is their natural human right to get the education they paid for, and if the local school is falling-apart, then that right is being violated.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Learning to share is a valuable lesson. In fact it's one of the first things you learn in engineering school, albeit it's called "team learning", because in the real world there's never enough resources for everybody.
I agree team work is good but my teacher didn't have us work in teams. He had us do most of our work with pen, er pencil, and paper. After a while he set it up so we could use the dumb terminals in the library so we could try our programs outside of class. The problem with this though was that in class we used cassette tapes to store our programs and there was no way we could save what we were doing on the terminals. When we used them we had to write stuff down, or ask a librarian if we could print something out, and they didn't always let us.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You would have to read the whole book and understand more than just one factoid that may or may not make sense in all cases. Yes, searching is great when you need a detail, but education needs to cover all the material, not just the definitions in the homework assignment or that one test question.
Will these be taken home, or left in school? If the former, it will be interesting if one household has 2 kids in the same school (grade 2 and grade 3). Will the parents purchase a 2nd machine? Will the bios be locked, to prevent tampering with? If not, mom and dad will be there to try a newer linux version, a eBook mod, or even a competing distribution installation. This project must be well thought out. I am believing that it will take two or three years to iron out the wrinkles. And I hope there are no lawsuits to kill the project. Litigious suites for those worshiping the god of profit.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I handed them the nice little instruction book filled with pretty pics that came with the motherboard. The only question i got was "How do you tell which screws go where?"
Smart kids.
Computers really are pretty simple to work on now, most folks would just rather pay some guy like me than DIY.
I think PCs have pretty much always been easy to assemble, the hard part being drivers, which is still a problem Linux has with some hardware.
As for MSFT owning the Netbook market, is Acer and Toshiba good enough sources?
Ok, yes it's good enough. I don't keep up with the market, I have no interest in netbooks period, and didn't know what it was like.
And you cite CnR, but CnR is now owned by Xandros and the Linux community HATES Xandros
Again I was unaware. I said CNR came installed on my Linux PC, the distro installed was Linspire and they created it. And some in the community also hate Linspire. Personally I didn't know that 'til after I got it. My Windows PC I used was crapping out on me and I couldn't afford to spend much on a new PC. While looking around I saw this PC in a store selling for $250 with a $50 mail-in rebate. So I ended up buying one. Other than when the motherboard had to be replaced, it was still under warranty, I didn't have a problem with it. Well, I did. It didn't come with enough RAM or large enough an HDD so I also got more RAM and a second larger HDD. Even with those added the price was still lower than a Windows PC.
So while you got lucky that CNR came with yours I sincerely doubt you will see many main stream distros support it in the future.
There are 9 clients for different distro, two being RedHat and Ubuntu. So while distros may not include it it can be installed.
How is taking the laptop to the bozos at Geek Squad supposed to help? WTF?
WTF? is right. When did I say anything about taking the laptops to the Geek Squad? The only tyme I mentioned them was when I said I took my NT4 PC to them so they could install the Windows update Microsoft would not let me download.
Bye
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Public school children in South Carolina?
So that's like... what? 4, 5 kids?
It seems that since the information revolution has taken off that schools have continually turned out more and more illiterate students. I never had a laptop or computer until in high school where we had a single computer lab. I now run an IT department for a nationally based bank. But, I can read, write, perform mathematics, etc. They need to get back to the fundamentals in school...or at least take some of the money that school administrators are sucking out of the system and use that for laptops and infrastructure.
I am tremendously frustrated by this. Pennsylvania is doing a similar thing for high school students. What this amounts to is a redistribution of education funds, and there will inevitably be cuts to programs that need the money. Pennsylvania cut the Governor's Schools of Excellence program, which cost a tiny fraction of the laptop program, along with others. I sincerely hope that students and parents in South Carolina will be extremely vocal to save the programs which are important, because politicians tend not to vote against giving computers to kids, since it looks popular.