Slashdot Mirror
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?"
$200k / 250 students is $800...why would you pay more for less?
be another case where spending more money does not produce a better educational outcome.
Unfortunately, making classrooms wired has very little to do with overall learning going on in the classroom. It is amazing how much learning actually went on in the one roomed school houses of 100 years ago with a much smaller budget than is spent per-pupil today by even the poorest school systems. If you doubt me, go read early high school text books. Many are sophomore+ college level today.
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
Does the kid get another? Do they have to pay? What a mess.
That depends entirely upon the software/content that the kids will be running.
Otherwise it will only be a distraction.
Also, has the school invested in some means of recovering these when they are stolen from the kids? Or is it a distraction toy that also makes them a target for crime?
So do they stay at the school at the end of the day? I would have that they would be too expensive and fragile for kids to take around with them, even with the cases.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
$800 per student. iPads are $450. Even without the bulk/educational discount they should be getting, I can't imagine a case costing $350.
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.
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.
Another school system that just throws money at problems? I never understood the rich/poor school district thing. Most knowledge is free, and with the amount of free information on the internet, public libraries and such, why can't schools just get by on redistributing free material and then working off that? Is there a need for the multi-hundred dollar textbooks, software packages, OS licenses, mega-calculators, mongoloid gyms and sports-programs, massive administrative overheard, super expensive art-decko modern design crap, and all that other new-age school bullshit? I'm pretty sure all that crap is extraneous, but the DoE has blossomed into a monstrosity, and schools now operate under the assumption that we must get great standardized test scores to get more money and once we get more money we can buy more shit to get better standardized test scores to get more money to hire more administrators to plan us getting better test scores.
There is a reason home-schooling is on the rise along with the growing demand for vouchers and more private-school flexibility.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I would be more wise to invest the money in teachers, teacher's education and other staff stuff. Devices make kids not wise or clever. They will not be better in understanding the media when they have an iPad. The important thing to know: How media works. How information can be retrieved and how you can evaluate it.
Beside that. Kids shall run around a lot and have fun. Still sitting is not really something they should learn. And they should learn to eat real food. So the money would also better be spend on good food in kindergarten.
iPads! What a crap.
Get them while they're young.
Is dumbing down a hidden agenda? Not just in the USA but in the western world? I live in NZ, and believe it is so. the 20ish year olds I come into contact with seem to know almost nothing that I learned 20 years ago. They also question nothing and just accept things. Dumber people are easier to control so maybe it is policy some where.
It's easier to be ignorant when you're already pretty well off. But, there are very definite societal issues involved. Here in the US, there's a rampant bullying problem in the schools that reinforces a negative view toward education, in general. AFAIK the bully culture's been here for decades, so I don't know if that says anything.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
I thought that for a long time. By not I do not think it is anything controller or intended, but rather an emergent property of modern advertising, politics and media. There are still those that consider learning worthwhile and invest the time.
I had the privilege of teaching (college) students like that the last two years. But this is evening-college and these are students that already work. They invest two evenings and most of the weekend and cannot be compared with regular students. They do really know why they are doing it. With them, I have 1-2 really good students and 5 motivated students in a total of 10. With ordinary students (university this time), my experience is more like 2-3 good and/or motivated one in 10. But even these are a selected group.
What I think is progressively missing is a general sense that working on yourself and your skills and insights is something that is highly desirable and makes you a better person. All the other benefits follow. Many children and young adults today think they have seen it all already and do not even try. It is really tragic.
If this economic downturn continues, one of the few good things I can potentially see coming out of it is that people will hopefully take less things for granted and try harder. Or at least in Europe. For the US, there is a real risk of the religious nuts gaining a lot more followers, which will make things even worse. Watching the slow demise of the US is also something really tragic. I hope this can still be turned round, but somehow I do not think so.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There's more to learning than test scores.
Interesting hypothesis. How would you test that theory?
schools just buy ipads so when the teacher asks the question you are graded on how fast you can google the answer rather than any comprehension or memorization skills.
the movie Idiocracy was a very perfect prediction of what this country is turning into... everyone singing commercial jingles, while everyone gets dumber and dumber. Computers shouldn't be allowed in normal subject classes.
I graduated college in 1995, and even then you were not allowed to bring a laptop to class, unless it was for your class, since I was a computer science major, which I got my associates degree as. But my core subjects, math/english/science laptops weren't allowed, and only basic calculators in the mathmatics classes. I remember professor made it very clear only old style calculators would be allowed, everything had to be worked out on paper and work shown and no graphing calcs or laptops could be used.
But even a decade later look at schools now, ipads in kindergarten? that's stupid waste of money, and would be a waste of money at any grade level unless it's computer specific classes such as college computer science, microcomputer specialist, or the multitude of programming classes that one could be required.
But yea, learning it first before relying on computers in normal subjects will always be better, and which is why private schools that don't allow such devices usually average higher test scores, at least going by Georgia and Florida Dept of Education sources.
My 3 year old has had an iPad since she was 2, and it's been one of the best things we've ever gotten her. She plays with all sorts of educational apps, and we regularly read books to her on it before bed. Like anything else it's just a tool, and it's effect depends on how it is used. Personally for us it's been much cheaper than buying insanely overpriced childrens' books or educational toys. I mean really, have you seen the prices they charge for that stuff? It's ridiculous. The iPad plus the cost of the apps has more than paid for itself.
My sister is a special-ed teacher. She is a speech therapist. She has been using an ipad for a year or more now. Apparently there are a lot of really great special-purpose apps which she uses with her students. They're designed specifically for speech therapy work. It makes it a lot easier to work with multiple children. You can have one doing interactive exercises while working with the other directly. I've always been a fan of interactive learning. Anyone comparing this to textbooks is missing the point. This isn't for college students. This is giving kids practice drawing their alphabet or adding 3 and 4. Instant feedback and encouragement can make a big difference for some kids.
I've always been annoyed by the Apple fans in education and the iDevice thing has taken it to a whole new level. The reason is, as you point out, our education system is perpetually underfunded. That means what resources they do have need to be used to the best degree possible. Now I'm not saying Apple is never the solution, but given that their products are rather costly, I am going to venture to say usually there is a better solution.
This is clearly a case of a fanboy saying "Oooo, these shiny toys would be so cool, let's get them for the kids!" I see no evidence that iPads are useful for educating youngsters. While I'm sure they like them, that isn't the same thing. Even if they do work, one always has to ask if there are other things that work just as well and for less money. I mean sure, you could have software that does things like colour identification. You can also do that with crayons and they are $6 for 24 of them ordered at retail prices.
It is very sad when districts pull shit like this. It hurts education. Reminds me of shortly after I went to university my mom called me (she was a teacher) to tell me of the stupidity of the district: They decided high speed Internet was important for education so bought a T1 line to the district office. Ya that helped schools a whole not at all.
I can see the fanboy that pushed this program trying to justify it as such. One of our student workers is an Apple fanboy and it is funny to listen to him talk about the iPad. He spits out the marketing literature and listening to him talk, you really would think that it is some revolutionary new device, completely different from anything we've seen before. He really believes it too, he has some strange cognitive dissonance going on in that he knows it is just a large smartphone, more or less, or a simple computer, but he's convinced it is something completely new all the same.
Even if it runs all the right software, the question isn't can kids use it to learn on, the question is if they learn more efficiently or better than with cheaper means. Remember these things are pricey. So to be worth it they can't be as good as what you had before, they have to be a good deal better.
I'm a doctor and one of the things I can contribute is this: If you think for a second that our society is NOT catering to dumbasses, look at any drug commercial on TV. Thank you. Move on. Avoid the vomit I just put to the right.
Here in the US, there's a rampant bullying problem in the schools that reinforces a negative view toward education, in general.
Which persists here in the US due in large part to a namby-pamby culture that exists in our public schools; where every child, whether deserving or not, is treated with kid gloves. The bullies get away with virtually anything they wish while their victims are punished instead. What needs to happen is for our children to be told early on about how society deals with those who can't or won't exercise self restraint. Tell them how uncivilized and uneducated thugs end up in federal prisons for some of the longest terms in the western world with those who are twice and thrice as tough as them. Inform them that legions of hungry and ambitious children in India and China are just itching for a chance to eat their collective lunches when they grow up. Finally, tell them all that if they fail to meet expectations, society will discard them without pity or mercy for being stupid or lazy. This is the truth and there is power in it for those who learn it early. Of course, the utter impotence of our teachers' unions and the liberal bullshit that is spoon fed to our children in public schools virtually ensures that only the children of the wealthy, who can afford an elite education in private schools with tutors, ever learn theses things soon enough to be competitive. The US is being soundly beaten in education because we fail to discipline our children and we waste vast sums of money ensuring that every student meets a low minimum standard instead of identifying the best and most worthy students early and advancing them fully for the future benefit of society, as the Indians and Chinese do, even at the expense of the "slow" ones. Not every child is going to become an entrepreneur, scientist, engineer, doctor or lawyer (we have too many lawyers anyway). An education system which recognizes this and allocates resources efficiently and effectively, by advancing the best and most worthy students while discarding the losers, benefits society more than one that's based upon equality of underachievement; as it is here in the United States. So tell the children the truth. Tell them that every one of them has a chance, but that outcomes aren't equal and only those who seize upon the opportunities and make the most of them will succeed in school or life.
Amazed a story (summary) on Slashdot completely glossed over the most important part of this whole experiment, and the ingredient that will ultimately cause this experiment to succeed or fail: the software... well, when this experiment plays out on older kids IMO. I hope it's good for the kids sake. Welcome to Parenthood 2.0 (tm).
Reminds me of The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Awesome book.
where life isn't a constant struggle for survival. I'm just sayin'...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/