Bravo, Bush! Say what you like about George Doubya personally, or Republican policies in general, but you have to admit that they seem to care a
whole lot more about the rights and freedoms of individuals.
Before you applaud Bush for his respect and care for rights and freedoms, you should probably talk to the two men in Texas who were fined for engaging in PRIVATE consentual sex. Texas has the most Republican government (at the state level) than any other state in the US. One wonders how quickly those so-called freedoms and rights you talk about would go out the window if the Religious Right or the Big Business decided that you really shouldn't be allowed to have them.
I think that as long as we continue tolerating any restriction of basic human rights to people of any group, that we will never be able to look positively at the future. Bush will protect the rights that he believes you should have.
As many of y'all have been saying, people are more and more willing to throw a computer of some sort at an existing institution to try and "revolutionize" or "revitalize" it. Quite frankly, this type of piecemail solution isn't going to cut it.
During my last year of high school, I helped implement a school-wide laptop program at Episcopal HS in Texas with a wireless network that gave all classes fast (2Mb/s) connections to the net. The school touted the program as being on the leading edge of technology and pushing the limits of traditional teaching. All of these promises had potential, but definitely failed in the end.
Ultimately, after a year in service, the laptop program has done little more than give some of the geekier students (such as myself) a chance to play Quake 3 in Calculus class and those less inclined to games a chance to Instant Message each other all day. What we found at the end of the year was a dramatic drop in grades and a general disinterest in utilizing the laptops by the teachers. Coming up with a new "tech-enhanced" curriculum is a lot of work that many teachers are just not motivated to pursure. How much better can you teach French or Painting with a laptop than without one?
What needs to happen is not a slap-on bandaid as we've already said, but a complete restructuring of the educational system to use technology and to bring a new perspective on how children learn.
Slashdot Mirror
Before you applaud Bush for his respect and care for rights and freedoms, you should probably talk to the two men in Texas who were fined for engaging in PRIVATE consentual sex. Texas has the most Republican government (at the state level) than any other state in the US. One wonders how quickly those so-called freedoms and rights you talk about would go out the window if the Religious Right or the Big Business decided that you really shouldn't be allowed to have them. I think that as long as we continue tolerating any restriction of basic human rights to people of any group, that we will never be able to look positively at the future. Bush will protect the rights that he believes you should have.
As many of y'all have been saying, people are more and more willing to throw a computer of some sort at an existing institution to try and "revolutionize" or "revitalize" it. Quite frankly, this type of piecemail solution isn't going to cut it.
During my last year of high school, I helped implement a school-wide laptop program at Episcopal HS in Texas with a wireless network that gave all classes fast (2Mb/s) connections to the net. The school touted the program as being on the leading edge of technology and pushing the limits of traditional teaching. All of these promises had potential, but definitely failed in the end.
Ultimately, after a year in service, the laptop program has done little more than give some of the geekier students (such as myself) a chance to play Quake 3 in Calculus class and those less inclined to games a chance to Instant Message each other all day. What we found at the end of the year was a dramatic drop in grades and a general disinterest in utilizing the laptops by the teachers. Coming up with a new "tech-enhanced" curriculum is a lot of work that many teachers are just not motivated to pursure. How much better can you teach French or Painting with a laptop than without one?
What needs to happen is not a slap-on bandaid as we've already said, but a complete restructuring of the educational system to use technology and to bring a new perspective on how children learn.
-E(r)van