Slashdot Mirror
L.A. School Superintendent Folds on Laptops-For-Kids Program
In an announcement yesterday reported on by Ars Technica,
[Los Angeles school superintendent] Ramon C. Cortines said that the city can't afford to buy a computer for every student. The statement comes after intense controversy over a $1.3 billion initiative launched by Cortines' predecessor, former superintendent John Deasy, in which every student was supposed to be given an iPad loaded with content from educational publisher Pearson. (That controversy is worth reading about, and sparked an FBI investigation as well.)
Buy a Pi for every kid. Education is what the Pi is for.
Apple was the cheap option for schools 35 years ago, not now. Now they only sell trendy shit to snobs.
Technology solves everything, right?
Everyone should have an iPad - think of apple's profits - now apple will need to bribe the someone on the incumbent's staff - highly inefficient!
Its still dumb now. Just have good public access to computers for educational purposes (for all) and maybe a few set aside for people with specifically high enough permissions for programming and such. 95% or higher computer work in school is research, and everyone should absolutely have access to use it. Do kids need them at home? Nope, but it'd help. If a family is willing to get a cheap computer / tablet / etc. for their kid, that's their imperitive. But for those unable/unwilling to pay for a computer, they should still have access to materials. But assuming unlimited portability is more of a pipe dream unless you're footing the bill. My libraries have had computers for going on 2 decades now, and they've worked great for what they do, supply people with access to information.
Bye!
There was a time when there was an Apple II in every classroom. Now schools can't even afford iPads. Apple Inc might as well be dead.
Education, as needs to be done to make people fit for today's ever more complicated world, needs to be done in an individual, customized form that recognizes the learner and his/her personality. Anything else just lead to failure. In the absence of true/strong/real AI (and we are not going to get that in the next few decades and possibly not forever), this has to be done by qualified, motivated and talented teachers. There is no other way. Instead it is being done far too often by those left behind, but those lazy and by those that value conformity over everything else.
This "technology in education" issue is a diversion, nothing else. That includes computers for kids, teaching programming, etc.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If we assume that students still need textbooks, giving those textbooks on an iPad or similar device can be cost efficient. If the student buys a keyboard, the iPad can do much of what they student would do on a regular computer. One can even teach the basics of programming or web development on the iPad, if there is a server running somewhere they can telnet to.
Of course the iPad is different from a book because the iPad is worth real hard cash, and the market for stolen iPads is robust. That is a hard problem to solve. It is the same problem with calculators. Students steal them and sell them.
At some point education will enter the 21st century and kids will have computers, and we will just each the cost of stolen machines. If we are to have a trained workforce, kids need to learn to use computers as tools, and that requires an acquaintance with them. We have not had a powered machine quite like the computer. The closest thing would be the car, but the car is not a general work device.
The biggest problem to educating our children is the idea that 'they don't need a computer'. I am fortunate in that in the 80's my family did not believe that. If they did I would be as ignorant and underemployed as so many who graduated in the last century are.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
No profit left behind: Across the country, Pearson sold the Los Angeles Unified School District an online curriculum that it described as revolutionary - but that had not yet been completed, much less tested across a large district, before the LAUSD agreed to spend an estimated $135 million on it. Teachers dislike the Pearson lessons and rarely use them, an independent evaluation found.
Maybe the school district could work out a deal with book publishers and Amazon or another online bookstore to provide digital copies of textbooks. That way, students with tablets/computers can access texts without lugging books around. Provide a WiFi network so they download the books. That's about it, I think.
Handing out equipment seems too expensive and risky (I accidentally smashed a school's $20 calculator by putting it in my extremely heavy backpack).
I have 2 kids, one who is ready to hit kindergarten next year. From my extremely limited parenting experience, it seems to me that just putting computers in the classroom or in students' hands isn't going to fix long standing education problems. This (in my opinion) goes double for locked down tablets like the iPad.
I'm actually not pushing computers, tablets or other electronic stuff too much on the kids. There are so many fundamentals to work on (reading, numbers, vocabulary, learning to act like a normal human) that electronics can't solve or make worse. They watch movies, watch a little too much YouTube for my taste, and play a couple of educational games. The older one knows a little about navigating around the computer, and of course every kid knows how to use an iPad/iPhone. Ask me in 14 years whether I screwed them up too badly, but it's working out pretty well just reading to them. playing with them, answering all of the 29 million 4 year old questions they have, etc.
Computers can't fix the real problems -- crappy parents, crappy home situations, low pay and low respect for teachers, etc. Every kid should be computer literate...not just phones and tablets, but able to use an office suite, look stuff up, etc. If they express an interest in coding or IT, great -- but the fundamentals of logic and scientific reasoning should take precedence. It's no reason to dump a computer or tablet into a kid's hands without a good curriculum to back it up. And from the article, it sounds like Pearson just sold the LA school district a bunch of slideware.
Why imprison kids at the consumer level by giving them all such a closed platform as the iAnything? Select paths for several levels of technology, and let them pick their course. Some will be into Fancy Displays, Some into 1's and 0's, some are into networking etc... Have them share the development thru release of a content delivery system... Top to bottom. Would Pi work for this ? sure. Would Ipad - for some levels, but why pay for it? Stand back an look what will get invented!!!!!!! I get the impression that current kids see past generations as "in the way", the generation responsible for the Internet's freedom that is now taken for granted. Its like food. Are we too used to pulling food from a plastic bag, and don't see where it came from. Gotta give everyone a sense of ownership and participation in the worlds realities. Gotta reconnect to food as part of being a Earthling, and Dataflow as part of a people driven information service. Otherwise we'll only find green slime to eat and be able to shop for crap on an information goatpath.
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
That controversy is worth reading about, and sparked an FBI investigation as well.
Nope, not worth the time. This is the third or fourth one of these technology in K-12 programs that has failed over the last decade or so. Fits the colloquial definition of insanity: Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
...now that Apple and Pearson's got the money.
Looks like they need a new project somewhere else.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
is that failure comes as a complete surprise, and is not preceeded by a period of foreboding or woe.
Introducing change, at a large scale, into any large system, without a well thought out, holistic plan is going to, at best, be sub-optimal, and very likely fail.
It is very likely, that the driver for this was to achieve lock-in to Pearson Education's electronic textbooks, with a strong side effect of "hey look at me, shiny thing" from the senior leadership. (iPads are the lowest cost platform that Pearson's DRM textbook system - they call it "eText" - can be deployed on). It is possible, that also they were simply recommending Apple devices, to use Apple's brand to draw attention away from the relationship between the deputy superintendent, and Pearson, where they were previously a VP.
Are iPads a great educational tool ? Hell yes. If you plan for how they will be used, and you have the right sets of software on them, and if you develop the teachers to be able to use them. Otherwise its basically giving laser rifles to cavemen.. Apple's Education sales team has significant resources, including lots of teacher training, but also IT staff training, that they make available to customers. The fact that the LAUSD program didn't make much, if any use of this, suggests that LAUSD senior management weren't really interested in the educational outcomes, but rather the publicity.
Are they just a consumption device ? Not by any means at all, and "you need a physical keyboard to produce information" is a largely, bullshit argument made by vendors who make devices with hardware keyboards. Here's a hint : "content creation" does not always equal "lots of typing". There are many forms of content creation where typing is a peripheral activity, that have real educational value, and help students express in more ways than how many WPM they can achieve on a keyboard.
Should students only have access to a single vendor ? It depends on what functions you are trying to accomplish, but usually no. There are economies of scale in having a single platform for certain functions . But when you get to the area of "we want to teach kids about technology" then absolutely not - there should be iPads, Macs, Android, Linux machines, Windows machines, Rasberry Pi's, 3 D printers, etc etc etc. We wouldn't teach children "English" as a subject, and then only make them read Harry Potter, or only make them read Harold Robbins.
Did LAUSD screw up ? Hell yes. At many levels, from the lack of teacher development effort - i.e. teaching the teachers how to use the tools; lack of infrastructure like Wi-fi networks, content management systems etc ; technical ineptitude over issues like use of ActiveSync as a "device management" protocol (FFS - ActiveSync is opt-in/opt-out by the end user, and the server believes everything the device tells it - it is totally unsuitable for an educational environment as a management tool. The ridiculous thing is that Apple HAS stuff that largely works in this space, mostly pretty well - Device Enrolment Program to completely configure devices over the air, supervision to shift the breadth & depth of policy controls from a BYOD style scope to greater depth & breadth, mandatory, non-removable mobile device management, restricted iTunes accounts for under 13's, and LAUSD appears to have chosen to ignore what was sitting on the shelf ready for them to use)
Note that this kind of ineptitude isn't unusual at large scale in the education system - Australia had a state education department deploy half a million netbooks running Windows into schools in another "computer for every student" deployment a few years before this and it also was an epic disaster - perhaps without quite the same whiff of corrupt behaviour by senior management, but it was epically mismanaged and failed to address almost all of the infrastructure and teacher development aspects that LAUSD also failed at.
Change at this scale is hard and there are many moving parts. Very few educational systems , anywhere in t
You have that right. With the exception of CS types (like me) anybody with an active mind and a solid education can use computers with a very short learning period. As to using office software, that is not complicated. A one week course is quite enough to get the basics. The important things, like reading and writing with a strong focus on what the text said and what you want to express, are however critical and more so in a world where more communication goes via the written word than ever.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Have children weep as they struggle to build their own ipads in sweatshops just like real Chinese factory workers.
Getting the whole school to hot bunk and live in difficult conditions will indeed become an educational experience:
http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports/global-tech-betting-against-american-workers
1.3 billion USD is a huge amount of money. Wikipedia tells me Los Angeles total population is 3958125 (how precise!). If we use 1.3 billion USD to buy a computer for every resident (which is much more than every children), individual machines can still cost up to 328 USD, which seems to be more than an iPad's price.
What if you provided a $40 pi or similar to each student, 5 or 6 monitors in each classroom, many more in the school library?
Families can provide a monitor at home.
Sign a big volume deal with Leap Motion so students can purchase a controller for $49. Or point them at a $35 wireless keyboard with touchpad.
That would run $1200/year/classroom of 30 students. Throw in $200/year to replace a monitor. Round it up to $1500.
Offer to name a classroom in the school after anyone who will donate $1500 for student computers.
Then offer teachers $2500 to develop a curriculum that uses the computers.
Then save $100/student/year ($3000/classroom/year) on textbooks.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Another example, possibly, of how illegals take away from Citizens?
It was primarily designed to funnel money into Apple and Pearson's coffers or facilitate tax writeoffs from said companies that would be at least as lucrative.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I'm actually on my way to becoming a teacher right now and just started my practicum, which is essentially just observing a teacher and his / her students. The teacher I'm observing is one of the heads of the I-Pad technology initiative in this school, so you'd think that I would see some really interesting uses for the I-Pad in the classroom, right? (10th Grade English, Honors) So far I've seen the I-Pads used for taking quizzes, writing responses, drawing, and playing games and/or listening to music in the classroom. As you can imagine, I see the latter options much more frequently than the former. I just don't see any point in using technology like this. Frankly it's just another distraction that the teacher and I have to deal with constantly. I won't argue that technology CAN and SHOULD be integrated into the classroom. However, implementing technology just for the sake of saying that you are doing so is idiotic, AND EXPENSIVE! There are some limited and legitimate uses for technology in the classroom, but we still need to concentrate on the basics. I-Pads can be somewhat useful, but I cringe every-time I see these students start composing a written response on them, and even my mentor teacher admits that these devices are more of a distraction than anything else.
You can find sub $80 (especially in bulk wholesale) android tablets that are more than capable running of basic school learning software. The resale value of these isn't very high reducing the risk of theft and the on board processors won't be up to the task of running many popular games the kids will no doubt load onto the device. If a kid drops and breaks theirs, the cost of replacement will be much more bearable.
We have no use case. One successful educational dev advised me not to listen to either teachers or students when developing educational software. In his experience, the teachers dumbed the experience down to the point where it was boring, and the students just wanted ways to cheat the system.
The problem is that we need unique hardware to really handle an educational use case. Business people have to produce presentations and run numbers through a spreadsheet. Consumers play games and write tweets. We need something where a student can be aided in their thinking process better than a pencil and paper with a book. These tablets have no keyboard or sensitive stylus, so you can't quickly sketch out an idea or write anything at length.
Technology has helped education, with blackboards, paper, printed books, pencils with erasers, and ball-point pens. But while computing technology has come a long way, shoehorning a business or consumer use-case into a classroom is a proven failure.
The educational use case is instant feedback, both to the teacher and to the student, but tech can't immediately see what a student is writing on a piece of paper, so we screw that up to make the tech work. I have more hope for something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-SnpwAsIYc#t=18 than a tablet.
...another cargo cultist.
What a complete load of bull. I can only assume you are trying to promote some new form of computer assistance down the throats of educators at a huge profit margin (but of course 'for the good of the children').
There is NO real hardware difference between the usage cases you outlined. AND IT DOESNT MATTER ANYWAY.
Because technology is not actually needed in education! There is pretty much 0 research showing any real learning advantage to it, there is a TON of research showing that it detracts from the learning!
Stop trying to push snake oil. I know its profitable, but GROW SOME DAMN MORALS. These are children you are damaging.
What students need is better teachers, less administrators, less 'profit' being scammed out of the education system by suppliers and secondary services, and did I mention better teachers? (and no I am not calling all teachers bad, there are some great ones... but then there are the rest).
I would list the THREATS to a good education at present as:
#1, Teachers unions (by protecting incompetent teachers no matter what, and making it impossible to remove them and make space for good teachers).
#2, Administrators, who are in it to grown their personal fiefdoms, line their pockets, and get in the way of teaching (remember when principles used to be teachers? wasnt that a unique idea..)
#3, 'Technology' being used as a crutch to reduce the need for teacher/student interaction, which is what kids actually need to learn!
#4, The parents, yes, thats right, you! who cannot possibly accept that their kid is good at some stuff, bad at others, a pain in the arse half of the time, and needs a good (figurative, and sometimes more) kick in the arse from time to time to help them get somewhere.
We love to look back and laugh at 'old style' schooling, claiming it was all rote learning and raps on the knuckles, but we are far to fast to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Respected teachers, who EARNT their respect, KNEW their students, KNEW their subject are worth their weight in gold.. the others NEED TO GO.
And 'technology' doesnt help that, not one little bit.
You have that right. With the exception of CS types (like me) anybody with an active mind and a solid education can use computers with a very short learning period.
So what's wrong with you CS types, anyway? As an IT worker I have commonly noted that programmers don't know which side of the computer is up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am not a "programmer", so I would not know from the inside. I do create high-quality software from time to time though, and do the occasional code-review.
My take is that about 90% of programmers have no business being in that field due to lack of talent, insight, passion and general incompetence. Many might have thought this was an easy lunch-ticket, but the central problem I see is that "business" people do not get at all that it requires significant skills and education to create good software and hence hire people that are cheap per hour, but exceptionally expensive with regard to their TCO. At the same time, this causes quite a few people that would be good at it to go into other fields.
Nice reference: http://blog.codinghorror.com/t...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Give the kids iPads and they will just run Angry Birds all day. What ever happened to OLPC?
they gave all the kids tablets...
So now instead of paying attention in class.. theyre all playing farmville.
Adding tech to the average school is sort of like loading MS-DOS onto a modern computer. Sure it -might- work better but it's still awful.
The problem with adding the iPads or any tech to schools is that the culture can't handle it. One might think that this could be solved by adding fresh enthusiastic young teachers. Unfortunately the current culture in education ruins most teachers within about two years. The following strategy would better prepare teenagers for life then the average school. Get enough computers / iPads or whatever so that 1 in 3 students can be in front of one at any given time. Hire a staff whose only job is keep students and infrastructure as safe as is practical. Let the students do what ever they want.
The above strategy is terrible, however for schools to get much benefit from tech the schools need to be replaced! Not upgraded or recycled, we need a brand new system.
I like the idea of pad of paper, box of pencils, and a slide rule for each kid. But what about the illegals coming across the border? Don't they deserve an education, too? What about all the people they left behind? Surely, you can't just ignore them. But hay, as long as we are talking about spending "other people's money" what's the big deal? Why not? I am guessing the paper, pencils, and slide rule will also require lots of teachers to show them how to use them. Or are we just going to let "them use google" to figure out what to write down?
watch their dreams wilt a little.
No getting dozens of laptops for pennies to flog elsewhere for dollars.