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Posted on 02/18/2008 11:52:44 PM PST by Swordmaker
BAINS — West Feliciana Middle School sixth-graders left school last Tuesday with laptop computers and words of encouragement and caution.
The students are participating in “Turn on to Learning,” a $5 million initiative to put Apple MacBook computers into the hands of more that 3,500 sixth-graders and their teachers across the state.
West Feliciana’s students received their computers last fall, and Tuesday was their first opportunity to use them at home. “I think the kids are so excited about it, that they’ll take care of them,” Principal Darryl Powell said.
“The parents are excited, too. They’re so proud their kids are getting computers and leading the state,” Powell said.
Ebony Hall said she was caught up in the excitement and planned to use hers to study math on a Web site, “Cool Math for Kids.” “It has math games,” she said.
Asked what she would do to find information on the ivory-billed woodpecker, Kaylee Kaiser told School Superintendent Lloyd Lindsey she would first try Google and the World Book Online.
“These kids are connected,” Lindsey commented.
Some of the students’ textbooks have been downloaded to the computers, under arrangements with the publishers.
“Basically, we put our math books away. There’s not enough empty room on our desks for a book. We use the math book in our computer,” teacher Susan Morgan said.
Some of the digital texts have workbooks that are not included in the regular textbook, the teachers said.
Jerome Matherne, the school system’s technology director, said West Feliciana Middle School may be the first participating school to allow the children to take their laptops home.
The state program offered each school 52 computers, but West Feliciana correctly assumed that some schools would not participate and therefore asked, and received, enough computers for every sixth-grader at the parish’s middle school.
The school held meetings with parents last month to explain the responsibilities the School Board is placing in their hands, and the students heard some reminders before they were dismissed for the day.
“You’re the guinea pigs on whether the School Board decides to spend probably a quarter-million dollars to buy laptops for the next class,” Assistant Superintendent Jesse Perkins said in urging the students to take care of the devices.
“This white box is just a tool, but it can open up worlds we could have only imagined when I was young,” Lindsey said. Lindsey said the computer doesn’t know if the user is rich or poor, “but it gives you all an equal playing field.”
“You’ll be the first group of kids in Louisiana to go through school with a laptop. We will replace them in about three years, but until then, take care of them and use them responsibly,” he said.
School technology coordinator Leslie McClure spoke briefly on being a good “cyber-citizen” and cautioned the students on avoiding Web sites with adult content, gambling offers and “violence and hate.” Lindsey also reminded the group that school authorities have the right to look in the computers’ memories for inappropriate material.
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3 years! Not only do they get a free laptop, but one every three years? I need to go back to school. I can’t afford one, much less one every three years.
I want one baaaad
Who’s paying for this, I wonder?
We can’t afford new laptops either. Where do we get in line for one?
If it's free, it has no value, they'll just expect another one when that one gets abused.
Educrats are so out of touch.
No room for a book but room for a computer?
I've seen the size of Macbooks, they're not small.
Again, how out of touch...
ping
I might be able to see giving them one of those $200 Linux laptops, but what this tells me is that we spend too much on our schools.
Sixth grade? By the time my grandson was in the fourth grade he was the teachers assistant in the Mac computer lab. I think he was 7 or 8 and all local schools were Mac equipped and his family had a Mac at home. This was in 89 or 90...
Why is Comment #3 in these Apple threads always removed by the AdMod?
< |:)~
Riiiiiiight.
It's done at my request because some combination of the names in the Ping list results in a double post almost every time I ping the list. They can't figure it out and I don't want to multiple ping the list to test different combinations to find the offending characters that are fooling FR into doing it.
They will be too busy downloading mp3s and updating their myspace page to do homework.
“The state program...”
Wow, they must not be having any budget problems in that state.
“what this tells me is that we spend too much on our schools.”
Be quiet and support the upcoming milage.
And answering 'Yes' to the question, 'Adult content,you must be over 18 to enter'.
I swear, these school boards have lost their minds.
I guess they have extra money they have to spend so they can cry poor mouth next year.
How did we ever make it through school without laptops?
I think this is all coming about because a bunch of educrats tried to read “The Earth is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. It was all the rage on the motivational arena, I guess. My principal was assigned to read it, along with the other administrators, a couple of years ago. She said it was too hard for her to read, so she got it on CD. Then she said it was too hard to listen to, so somebody else had to tell her what it was about. I kid you not.
Anyway, the higher-ups went on and on about how in India, the kids all have computers in their hovels, and that’s why if we want our kids to compete, they all have to have computers in their homes. What no one pointed out is that
a) the Indian children had computers because the parents valued education so much that they sacrificed to buy them. Gee, maybe parents giving a crap had more effect than a computer?
and,
b) our school systems are supposed to be training our children to compete with turd-worlders for jobs...shouldn’t we be aiming a little higher? Or at least for a job that they won’t have to move to India or the Phillipines to get?
The educrats just keep wailing, “The CHILDREN have to have computers!”
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