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.

From money to computers

[slapout]

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