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Maine School District Gives iPad To Every Kindergartner
An anonymous reader writes "'An Auburn, ME school district spent more than $200,000 to outfit every one of its 250 kindergartners with [iPads], along with sturdy cases to protect them. School officials say they are the first public school district in the country to give every kindergartner an iPad. Mrs. McCarthy says the tools give her 19 students more immediate feedback and individual attention than she ever could.' Will this improve low test scores, or be another case where spending more money does not produce a better educational outcome?"
I thought we discussed this two weeks ago, when the New York Times published an article about how all the computers we have dumped into the school system have had negligible results in terms of improving education. Now we are trying the same strategy, but with a different form factor? Are these decision makers even bothering to give thought to how iPads are going to help kindergarden students?
Palm trees and 8
This is crazy, as in a crazy bad value. iPad is just a toy. An $800 toy that spies on you for Apple Corp. Instead, and for half as much, they could have given every kid something like a Dell Mini with Ubuntu.
I'm not at all apologizing for our horrible public education system, but there's much more to it than per-student spending. Books are much more expensive, wages are much higher. Those one-room schoolhouses were often owned and operated by the one or two teachers that ran the joint and they were able to handle what little administrative needs there were by themselves. Nowadays we have big schools with scores of teachers, large administrative staffs, etc. Plus you need to keep the facilities maintained and have a maintenance staff on daily duty. The districts have their own administrative buildings and staff as well as the need to maintain a fleet of buses, etc. There are nutritional programs because kids often get their food at school rather than packing lunch, etc.
That all being said, our educational system sucks and is in dire need of improvement... but again, it's not just "per-student spending".
Meanwhile, I'm still having to supply basic community-use classroom materials that the school should be supplying (kleenex, hand sanitizer, paper towels, etc.).
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
I work at a school, and a few months back we did an interesting school trip.... to an Apple store. Where the students all got told glowingly how wonderful Apple products are, and were given a chance to try them all out. School trips are not my department, but you don't need to be much of a conspiracy theorist to make the connection between that trip and the new iMacs that soon equipped the photography class.
It's no great secret that tech companies target schools intensively in their marketing. Microsoft has been doing it for years. So has Apple. So has just about everyone else. Sometimes they do it by offering equipment or software at a discount, even to almost or entirely free at times. Sometimes it's by lobbying, pressuring curriculum writers to mandate a particular vendor's technology or urging administrators to buy it.
Schools are just irresistable. Get the students familiar with something, and they will go buying it once they get out. Teach them Office, they buy Office at home. Teach them to use iPads, and they will want to buy iPads - or in this case, tell their parents how cool iPads are. Simple, highly effective marketing. Business sense says a vendor needs to get their product into schools, and so they will - even if it means intensive lobbying and selling at a loss.
Well, when you are a kindergarten teacher and you are worried about test scores.... there is something wrong.
My tests consisted of drawing the alphabet (which was above the chalkboard), and sleeping during nap time.
When I was in Junior High School in the early 60's, I was allowed to maintain the school's public address/intercom system. All vacuum tubes. Lethal voltages.
I knew that. Just as I knew about the power saw in shop class. I knew what guns were too. And explosives. I knew what they were and treated them with due respect.
I don't think anyone gave the situation a second thought.
Its called living in the real world. Common sense. Who of us were not aware of the kinetic energy of a moving car? Even dogs and cats knew of these things.
My school made available to me stuff of a very expensive nature, and let me open it up and see how it worked. I am very grateful to Glenn Peterson, the principal of the Junior High School I attended for the trust he placed in me. I kept that machine working the whole time I attended the school, and that prepared me for my summer job of fixing things at my neighborhood radio repair shop.
I am also aware of just how fortunate I was to be schooled in that time frame. There is no way I could ever get *that* kind of education today. I would have never seen the power of "nature in the raw" that my teachers were able to show me.
Yes, it was dangerous. I could have killed myself touching the wrong thing in that chassis. I could have cut my hand off with the power saw. I could have blinded myself with the drill press. But I didn't.
The worst damage I did to myself during school, all the science labs, all the shop classes, all the experience with guns - the worst was I snapped my ankle during a wrestling match, and to this day still walk with a limp.
I don't think an $800 thingie way beyond my comprehension would have helped much. It was my teachers, and my relationship with them, that made the difference in my life, and that is what I remember.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
It's a new age, American children need to hit the ground running out of the womb in order to compete versus the vast numbers in China and India. We have to build better everything, and that includes kids. Now if only we are smart enough not to hold these kids back as they blossom and grow under the tutelage of our machine friends. Get with the times Grandpa.
Really? You think an iPad will give Western children the competitive edge they need? Here's a free clue:
Indian and Chinese students have one deadly advantage: motivation.
Basically, Western kids can aspire to being mediocre at everything they do, knowing full well that they will thereby enough income to live comfortably well-off for their entire lives. Chinese and Indian kids know that if they aren't amongst a very small percentage of the best of their cadre, they will earn poverty.
Western kids don't need to be taught how to multi-touch gesture-smear on an $800 doo-dad. They need someone to motivate them to compete. Angry Birds and fart apps won't help with that.
"Oh no... he found the