Posted on 07/30/2005 7:24:04 PM PDT by Panerai
A deal between Apple and Georgia’s Cobb County School District that could ultimately result in 63,000 iBooks has been stopped cold because of a lawsuit filed by a former county commissioner. Superior Court Judge S. Lark Ingram ordered the iBook deployment to stop on Friday.
Heralded as the largest ever “one-to-one” computing initiative, Cobb County’s “Power to Learn” program used money earmarked from a special tax fund Georgia taxpayers in individual counties can request called Special Purpose Location Option Sales Tax, or SPLOST. How this tax override was represented to voters is central to the judge’s decision, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cobb County School District PR director Jay Dillon told MacCentral in May that the deal with Apple funding the first phase of the “Power to Learn” program cost the school district about $23.5 million — less than one quarter the amount some local news agencies had reported, and about four percent of the overall SPLOST program. That phase of the plan, which began in May, was supposed to put 17,000 iBooks into the hands of teachers across the district, as well as high school students at four “demonstration” sites.
Apple had hoped that, if the first phase was successful, it would ultimately lead to a total of 63,000 iBooks installed in the Cobb County school program. Experts from the University of Georgia’s Learning & Performance Support Laboratory were to measure the program’s effectiveness before Cobb County school officials would have voted on whether to continue the program.
(Excerpt) Read more at macworld.com ...
Good.
All we need is high school students surfing the Internet in class.
This ridiculous idea was tried in Henrico County, Virginia several years ago. Before very long, there were students found to have hard-core porn all over their computers, and others who were caught after hacking into their teachers' computers to change their grades. A friend of mine worked for the company that set up the networks, and they kept having to go back and place more restrictions on the computers' capabilities. I don't know what that entailed, but I knew from the start, thanks to him, that it was a huge fiasco.
That was four years ago. And what happened to that fabulous program? It's already been ended. It was a complete failure.
obviously it failed because the children did not have their own taxpayer provided cars.
And of course, once they get the cars, they all need ponies for the program to really work.
Heh...and Henrico County is now selling the last thousand of those iBooks for $50 each. Yep. $50 for a decent, if somewhat dated, laptop. My wife has already announced she'll be in line next Tuesday morning to get us one.
}:-)4
I'd love to know how much taxpayer money the county wasted on that program. I always thought it was hilarious how it was touted as so groundbreaking, with all the usual suspects stating that it was going to be such a huge success. It was a disaster from the beginning. Nothing substitutes for good teaching.
And it was never necessary, in my opinion. Henrico is a wealthy county. I would guess that most of the students in the program already had computers in their homes. For those who didn't, the county could have simply set up a couple of computer labs in each school, so folks who didn't have home computer access could type their papers, etc. And that way, everything that was viewed on the computers could be monitored, meaning no computers loaded with pornography.
Dunno, but they're selling the Macs cause they got a slightly lower bid from Dell.
Ping A Ling...
I sure is a good thing they want to get all those computers in school to help those kids. Much better use of money than a few more teachers, new books, new facilities, etc, etc, etc. Dumb a$$ed lieberals.
we already do...
in college classes most of the kids try using 'berrys or phones to surf, make funny pictures, cheat, email their next sexual hook-up, etc.
the rest are stoned/hungover.
A few are actually trying to learn, and those are the ones I focus on.
So it's basically me and a handful of bright undergrads, with a couple dozen casual observers.
PING!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Yes, that's why I qualified with "high school". I knew it was already an issue at the college level.
I'm not sure what I'd do, if I were sitting where you're at. It's probably impossible to try to prevent it or forbid it. I might have to build a very small directional jammer for amusement, though.
Why on earth would they give iBooks to high school kids? I can understand it at the elementary and middle school levels, but high school students need to be able to use PCs because that's what they'll most likely use on the job.
My alma mater has required wireless-capable laptops since mid-2001 for undergrad business majors. Now they've redone most of the classroom buildings to accomodate wireless.
The school is now strongly recommending that incoming freshmen get laptops with wireless networking capability. Amazing - when I was a freshman in '99 most of us who had computers had desktops. By the time I graduated in '03 at least 75% of residential students had laptops. I'm told by younger friends that virtually all undergrads have laptops now. It's very unusual to find a student who doesn't have a computer at all - it's the new thing for parents to buy for their kids going off to college. I probably spent more on books in a year than it costs now to buy a good laptop.
I worked on the residential network staff in college and most of the other techs were MIS or business majors. They all used the lovely wireless hookup in the business building to surf the web and IM each other during class. They paid little to no attention to what was happening in class.
Don't get me wrong, I love my wireless networking and am using it to type this on my iBook! But had it been available to me while in college I know I'd have been surfing and IMing during lectures with the best of them! It's just too tempting a situation to have a fairly unfettered network available to someone whose only "job" is to go to school.
Very practical point.
Very practical point.
We'll see if the Dell computers last four years or "really" save the district money.
Perhaps it is because the applications most often used in school, Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc., work just the same on iBooks as they do on PCs?
The primary software that DOESN'T work just the same on iBooks as it does on PCs are malware... spyware, adware, viruses, trojans, worms.
I observed the same pattern in my students from 1980 to 1983. The distractions were different, but the classroom demographics where very similar.
Part of my solution was to publish the assignments for the whole semester on the first night. Successful completion requirements for a specific letter grade were detailed. That dropped the first night classroom size from 65 to 35 by the 2nd class meeting. Over 3 1/2 years my student population managed a 91% hire rate by DEC and IBM.
Even with that approach, I usually had 5 fairly bright students and 30 that were capable of finishing the course. I handed the 5 bright ones extra assignments to go beyond the scope of the class. They were also happy to mentor the low end during lab periods.
Also-- and I'm a user of both Macs [at work] and PC's [at home]-- I haven't had a malware or a virus or anything else on my home PC in years. My PC has never been "taken over" by anything, nor crashed [except when a hard drive died of old age several years back]. When I get a new home computer, it will be a PC.
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