Laptops shouldn't be Maine's first priority
on
Laptops In Education
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· Score: 5
The title says it all. Born and raised in Maine, I took certain interest when I read about it in my campus newspaper. Wow. Gov. King wants to give all the kids laptops. That's a lot of money. Yeah, we've got a huge surplus here in Maine this year. And Gov. King wants to make sure he goes down in infamy. But I don't think it'll work. The plan the state legislature has proposed has half the funds coming from the buget surplus, and half coming from the educational department. Good idea, unless you've visited one of Maine's many, many delapidated schools. Sure, we've all seen the news specials on the inner-city New York schools which have no heat, leaky roofs, small classrooms, etc. Now, put that school hundreds of miles from a city of any sort. Share that school between a half dozen townships and villages. Make some kids ride on a bus for an hour to get there. Now put them in a broom closet for their day's education.
Not my idea of a good time.
I was lucky, I grew up in Bangor, a bustling metropolis of 33,000 (The 3rd largest city in the state...please don't laugh) My school was one of the largest in the state, about 1400 people by the time I graduated. But the building was designed only to hold about 1000. What happened? They converted some of the labs into classrooms. Electical lab? Buh-bye. Woodshop? Now a lecture hall. It's not that the classes weren't being used, it's that they found "better" uses for them. Study halls had a higher priority then learning the difference beween ohms and hertz. But I had it good as far as most of the state goes.
Gov. King should be thinking about spending the money to improve the standard of Education of Maine. Repair some of these run-down schools. Give some low-interest loans to school districts to build new buildings. Give the teachers of the state a frickin' raise. We have some of the lowest-paid educators in the country. Ooh, now let's give them the extra burden of having to teach with laptops now, too. Maybe buy some books for the students...$500/student could go a long way as far as books could go. I remember using a book printed in 1979 as my US History book in 7th grade...Well, it missed everything in MY lifetime.
Gov. King's plan is quite lofty, and it sure has put him on the map as far as news goes. Ooh, look at the great Independent Govenor of Maine. Look at his great plans.
One thing his plan DOESN'T cover is the extra training the teachers will have to recieve in order to effectively use these computers to actually teach. Otherwise, I think King is setting himself up for a very expensive free round of solitaire machines to buy for all the 7th graders of Maine.
Oh well. Maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't get a laptop as a 7th grader...
lohen says "What you've said would be valid, were it not that Nicolas MONNET was talking about Europe. BTW, do you like what some voices in your country, such as Southpark, have found to say about hunters or is that a sore topic? Don't get me wrong, I've personally nothing against well-managed hunting, although I don't take part myself."
Like? I could give half a rat's ass...I don't like what half the people in my country say about anything. Do I care? Not really. A lot of things people do (in general) don't agree with the norm (I guess 50% by definition). I hunt. I'm in the 80% norm range for my state. For the country, I'm probably more in the 5%-10% range. There will always be stereotypes protrayed. There will always be a Jimbo, toting a loaded 30-06, shooting everything in sight. And the computer programmer will always be a star trek fan who eats twinkies and drinks lots of coffee...You deal with it. And besides, who gives a fsck?:)
Nicolas MONNET says: "Few people (except the fascistic conservative minorities) here want guns. It's just not part of the culture"
I sincerely hope you're not talking about the US in this statement. Born and raised in a fairly rural State (Maine), and by almost all definitions a Geek to the core, I believe the Right to Bear Arms is one of the most prized possesions that we can have as citizens. Don't confuse me with a gun-toting self-protection zealot...There is one handgun in my house...A Ruger 8-shot.22 revolver. It's a backup firearm to dispatch game. The other 6 guns are all various shotguns and rifles. People in my area simply have guns. Period. Few people carry them for protection, but they may have them in their house for that purpose. We have one of the highest per capita gun possesion rates in the country, and (AFAIK) the lowest accident rate per gun in the country. Hunting is a large part of the identity of my area, and many homes (such as mine) have multiple non-handgun guns. Hell, I even keep one at college with me in case I have the need to go out and hunt during the school year. Would I use one of my guns to protect my home and house? Most certainly. Is that why I have them? Most certainly not...
Wow, really sucks to be Real right now. After the escapade (what, 2 days ago?) with their realplayer sending out personal info, now they seriously fsck up in not encrypting their DVD player... Does anyone else here smell lawsuits?
"The real thrill is to get the average "I use Windows to write letters and play some games" user who doesn't want to cope with problems like "argh, why doesn't/etc/ld.so.conf contain/usr/local/lib per default" swap from Windows to Linux."
Well, right as soon as someone makes a good GUI for linux that any idiot can run, I think we'll start seeing the migration of users from windows once they realize that it is more powerful...Even though most "power" users want to play with the inner workings of linux, there are some that don't wanna screw with it. And as soon as we start seeing some high-end engineering programs get ported, that'll be the clincher. C'mon over! The Linux is great!:) Bonz..
Good to see companies see that the only way to get linux in the mainstream is to get younger people hooked (ie College students, like myself), and that the only way to do that is to have college-like programs (compilers, CAD programs, etc...) ported to Linux. I'll cream my pants when they get AutoCAD ported.:) Bonz..
The point is that artists see only pennies from every CD that's sold in their name-There are only two reasons for the sale of CD's-So Sony, Virgin, et al can make money, and so us, the consumers, can find out about, and like a particular artist.
The latter is the greater benefit for the artist. If you like an artist, there's a good chance that you'll go see them in concert, buy their t-shirts, etc...That's where the artists make their real money. Dissimation of their music leads to real profits for them. Tom Petty tried to do it, so did Alanis and the beastie boys. They see shit for money from the CD sales, but they rake it in with their live performances...No middle man to take 90% of the profit.
It's the record companies that are scared of MP3...not the artists...
I bet that the "other" OEM's will start at least pretending to be jumping on the linux boat...just so the public doesn't think that they're lagging behind on the "newest and best". Or whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
The title says it all. Born and raised in Maine, I took certain interest when I read about it in my campus newspaper. Wow. Gov. King wants to give all the kids laptops. That's a lot of money. Yeah, we've got a huge surplus here in Maine this year. And Gov. King wants to make sure he goes down in infamy. But I don't think it'll work. The plan the state legislature has proposed has half the funds coming from the buget surplus, and half coming from the educational department. Good idea, unless you've visited one of Maine's many, many delapidated schools. Sure, we've all seen the news specials on the inner-city New York schools which have no heat, leaky roofs, small classrooms, etc. Now, put that school hundreds of miles from a city of any sort. Share that school between a half dozen townships and villages. Make some kids ride on a bus for an hour to get there. Now put them in a broom closet for their day's education.
Not my idea of a good time.
I was lucky, I grew up in Bangor, a bustling metropolis of 33,000 (The 3rd largest city in the state...please don't laugh) My school was one of the largest in the state, about 1400 people by the time I graduated. But the building was designed only to hold about 1000. What happened? They converted some of the labs into classrooms. Electical lab? Buh-bye. Woodshop? Now a lecture hall. It's not that the classes weren't being used, it's that they found "better" uses for them. Study halls had a higher priority then learning the difference beween ohms and hertz. But I had it good as far as most of the state goes.
Gov. King should be thinking about spending the money to improve the standard of Education of Maine. Repair some of these run-down schools. Give some low-interest loans to school districts to build new buildings. Give the teachers of the state a frickin' raise. We have some of the lowest-paid educators in the country. Ooh, now let's give them the extra burden of having to teach with laptops now, too. Maybe buy some books for the students...$500/student could go a long way as far as books could go. I remember using a book printed in 1979 as my US History book in 7th grade...Well, it missed everything in MY lifetime.
Gov. King's plan is quite lofty, and it sure has put him on the map as far as news goes. Ooh, look at the great Independent Govenor of Maine. Look at his great plans.
One thing his plan DOESN'T cover is the extra training the teachers will have to recieve in order to effectively use these computers to actually teach. Otherwise, I think King is setting himself up for a very expensive free round of solitaire machines to buy for all the 7th graders of Maine.
Oh well. Maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't get a laptop as a 7th grader...
Bonz..
lohen says
:)
"What you've said would be valid, were it not that Nicolas MONNET was talking about Europe. BTW, do you like what some voices in your country, such as Southpark, have found to say about hunters or is that a sore topic? Don't get me wrong, I've personally nothing against well-managed hunting, although I don't take part myself."
Like? I could give half a rat's ass...I don't like what half the people in my country say about anything. Do I care? Not really. A lot of things people do (in general) don't agree with the norm (I guess 50% by definition). I hunt. I'm in the 80% norm range for my state. For the country, I'm probably more in the 5%-10% range. There will always be stereotypes protrayed. There will always be a Jimbo, toting a loaded 30-06, shooting everything in sight. And the computer programmer will always be a star trek fan who eats twinkies and drinks lots of coffee...You deal with it. And besides, who gives a fsck?
Nicolas MONNET says:
.22 revolver. It's a backup firearm to dispatch game. The other 6 guns are all various shotguns and rifles. People in my area simply have guns. Period. Few people carry them for protection, but they may have them in their house for that purpose. We have one of the highest per capita gun possesion rates in the country, and (AFAIK) the lowest accident rate per gun in the country. Hunting is a large part of the identity of my area, and many homes (such as mine) have multiple non-handgun guns. Hell, I even keep one at college with me in case I have the need to go out and hunt during the school year. Would I use one of my guns to protect my home and house? Most certainly. Is that why I have them? Most certainly not...
"Few people (except the fascistic conservative minorities) here want guns. It's just not part of the culture"
I sincerely hope you're not talking about the US in this statement. Born and raised in a fairly rural State (Maine), and by almost all definitions a Geek to the core, I believe the Right to Bear Arms is one of the most prized possesions that we can have as citizens. Don't confuse me with a gun-toting self-protection zealot...There is one handgun in my house...A Ruger 8-shot
Wow, really sucks to be Real right now. After the escapade (what, 2 days ago?) with their realplayer sending out personal info, now they seriously fsck up in not encrypting their DVD player...
Does anyone else here smell lawsuits?
::sniff sniff::
Bonz..
Graf Zahl Said:
/etc/ld.so.conf contain /usr/local/lib per default" swap
:)
"The real thrill is to get the average "I use Windows to write letters and play some games" user who doesn't
want to cope with problems like "argh, why doesn't
from Windows to Linux."
Well, right as soon as someone makes a good GUI for linux that any idiot can run, I think we'll start seeing the migration of users from windows once they realize that it is more powerful...Even though most "power" users want to play with the inner workings of linux, there are some that don't wanna screw with it. And as soon as we start seeing some high-end engineering programs get ported, that'll be the clincher. C'mon over! The Linux is great!
Bonz..
Good to see companies see that the only way to get linux in the mainstream is to get younger people hooked (ie College students, like myself), and that the only way to do that is to have college-like programs (compilers, CAD programs, etc...) ported to Linux. I'll cream my pants when they get AutoCAD ported. :)
Bonz..
Sorry for being an ignorant tool, but what the fsck are slashboxes?
The point is that artists see only pennies from every CD that's sold in their name-There are only two reasons for the sale of CD's-So Sony, Virgin, et al can make money, and so us, the consumers, can find out about, and like a particular artist.
The latter is the greater benefit for the artist. If you like an artist, there's a good chance that you'll go see them in concert, buy their t-shirts, etc...That's where the artists make their real money. Dissimation of their music leads to real profits for them. Tom Petty tried to do it, so did Alanis and the beastie boys. They see shit for money from the CD sales, but they rake it in with their live performances...No middle man to take 90% of the profit.
It's the record companies that are scared of MP3...not the artists...
//Logged out. Connection reset by beer.
I bet that the "other" OEM's will start at least pretending to be jumping on the linux boat...just so the public doesn't think that they're lagging behind on the "newest and best". Or whatever.
What is this secret IRC site that he made references to?