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.

Comments

Is this such a good idea?

[Sockatume]

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?

Re:Is this such a good idea?

[eldavojohn]

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?

What's interesting about this is this part from the article:

The child must sign a document promising simply to try to "do something great" for their state, families -- and themselves -- with the laptop.

It doesn't sound like they're putting these laptops in the hands of the children for the purpose of teachers utilizing them as teaching tools. And of course, with such a bold new technology, I would expect the teachers not to use them at all at first. Then learn to use them as an augmenting learning tool. And maybe the final stage five years from now is to have the textbook on the laptop and all that jazz.

I know a school teacher in the Bronx and from what she tells me it sounds like all other attempts to improve the learning process have failed or actually deterred from it. She sounds like she'd be willing to try anything.

Keep in mind that these laptops are probably going to cost the same as a couple of new textbooks. Who cares if it fails? It'd be great if a few kids did do something great for their state and family with these laptops.

First things first

[elrous0]

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.

From money to computers

[slapout]

Looks like we've gone from throwing money at the problem to throwing computers at the problem.

Re:Suprises

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Parts of South Carolina(and other areas of the US) are in the poorer regions of the world where kids cant get the books...

View of a SC Public School IT

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Suprises

[jedidiah]

I know this is a bit of educational heresy but some subjects just aren't
that dynamic. The "tragedy" of having old textbooks is not really that
severe. Even stuff like "recent events" history could be covered by
supplementary materials.

Punctuation rules and the laws of motion don't change that much.

rural IT FOSS in education advocate

[viralMeme]

"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 :)

Great Opportunity for South Carolina

[xzvf]

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.

Re:Suprises

[commodore64_love]

That's true. When I was a kid my mom gave me a bunch of old textbooks from my grandmother (1940s), and I devoured them. Frequently my teachers or classmates would ask, "How on earth did you know that?" For example: "How did you know the alternate name of white blood cell is corpuscle???" Well. I read it. Things haven't changed that much, especially in the areas of biology or astronomy. And math and spelling is identical. Having an old textbook certainly is not ideal, but it's not a tragedy either so long as the student is learning.

Contrast that with a laptop. Will a laptop given to a 4th grader today still be any good when they graduate (2018). Heck no. That would be equivalent to me graduating this year with a 100 megahertz/ 16 megabyte machine. You'll end-up spending thousands of dollars trying to keep your students up-to-date with new machines, and poor schools can not afford that.

Governments keep throwing money at the education problem, and lack-of-money is not the problem. It's equivalent to a patient coming to me and saying "my head hurts," but instead I start stuffing her pockets with dollar bills. The problem is not being addressed.