Posted on 04/08/2011 10:51:03 PM PDT by Swordmaker
AUBURN, Maine — Moments after her daughter worked on writing and pronouncing letters on an iPad 2 Thursday, Natasha Landry said she was happy the Auburn School Committee voted to give kindergartners the tablet computers in the fall.
“It makes it easier for teachers to teach a larger group of kids, one on one, without having more teachers,” Landry said in the hall of Washburn Elementary School.
The $200,000 cost for the iPad 2 tablets will be less than hiring more teachers, she said. “It probably would take four teachers to do what the computers can do with one teacher.”
Landry was also fine with a 5 percent hike in the school budget, even though it would mean her property taxes would go up, if the budget is approved in a May 10 referendum.
“If we don’t try to keep up, our kids are going to fall behind,” she said.
But parent Nicole Fortin said she didn’t understand the idea of giving iPads to young students.
“It’s crazy,” Fortin said. “I look at all of the budgetary restraints we have. Our school system loses money every year to certain things. This is a lot to put in the hands of a 5-year-old.”
That great divide in opinion was common in Auburn on Thursday as news about iPad 2s for all Auburn kindergartners spread throughout Maine, New England and beyond.
Washburn Elementary School Principal Holly Couturier was “ecstatic” about the vote.
“I’ve seen myself the few students who have used iPads with [teacher] Mauri Dufour, and the gains they’ve made,” she said. “If they can make those gains in a relatively short amount of time, I can’t imagine where the kindergarten students are going to be at this time next year.”
Superintendent Tom Morrill said he would work diligently to pay for the iPads privately through grants or donations. Only if that fails will money in the budget be used, he said. By being first in Maine, and gaining the endorsement of former Gov. Angus King, Auburn has positioned itself well for grant money, Morrill said. The iPads will cost $479 each, he said.
Another way of paying for them could be through the newly formed Auburn Educational Fund, a private, nonprofit organization to support educational initiatives, Morrill said.
Some people questioned giving iPad 2s to 5-year-olds. They said the youngsters would drop and break the tablets. But children take care of things that are important to them, Morrill said. Also, the iPads are lighter and smaller than laptop computers, have no moving parts and will be in protective cases.
After students, teachers and parents go through iPad orientations, students will be allowed to take the computers home, Morrill said.
Two people representing Auburn taxpayer groups said Thursday they were unhappy with the school committee’s decision to approve the iPads.
Leroy Walker, a co-owner of Andy’s Beans in New Auburn and leader of the United New Auburn Association, said the iPads “are not needed in the kindergarten age.” He called the tablet “a toy.” Kindergartners “are a little young to be starting off with iPads. They’re too expensive,” he said.
However, he said, “educated people like teachers may be right. I may be wrong. We’ll see.”
He was less forgiving of the 5 percent budget increase, which he said is far too much.
“The whole state is in deep financial trouble,” he said. “Taxpayers are strapped with all these fuel problems and wars going on. It’s not the time to be asking for this kind of income.”
Ron Potvin of the Auburn Small Property Taxpayers Association agreed, calling the increase “beyond common sense.” To go from no increase to 5 percent when people are struggling “is not a doable figure,” he said. “All the things they’re asking for do not have to be done this year. They can be phased in.”
Both said a 2.1 percent increase would be more realistic.
Potvin was receptive to iPads “if the money’s there.” Young people seem to instantly understand technology, he said. “You look at kids today, they do stuff I never did. There would be value in it.”
Intel has such a program, with specially designed programs written right through high school.
Obviously you’ve never played an RPG, where you need to remember a small clue from 50 hours a go and put all the pieces together to figure out how to beat the fame.
That's right.
I suppose I wouldn't oppose this attempted reliance on computers in schools if the software were well-designed. I suspect, though, (as mentioned above) that they're just expensive substitutes for flash cards and chalkboards.
Most educational software programs don’t teach the reasons why an answer is the correct one. It’s either correct or it’s not, but there’s no rhyme or reason for it being so.
I think that well designed educational software holds great promise. You should be able to learn just about anything through university or trade.
However, I think the issue just needs to be studied more. From what I can see, they know how to create software that has the information, but presenting it so the student learns from it is very poorly designed.
We should be doing what India and China are doing, namely, NOT handimg out ipads!
I love computers but could not agree more.
However, what needs to be done is for the games to be designed to teaach kids something.
I bought a program to teach the ability to hear the difference between two notes and know the interval between them. That's something very good to know if you try to sing sheet music, but is easy to learn during early childhood, and much more difficult afterward (which is also true for language learning . . .).I couldn't gain much from the pedagogy of that program at my age, unfortunately. But I couldn't help thinking that a video game could be constructed to teach that subliminally. If you foreshadowed what was coming next in the game by notes with the interval you wanted to teach, the player of the game would learn to anticipate what was coming next, without necessarily knowing what they were learning. All it would take to construct that would be a modification to the sound in an existing video game . . .
But it's not obvious that buying iPads for kindergarteners is either necessary or sufficient to accomplish that.
Or, in a game setting, or one note signifying that your sim-uncle wants to talk to you and another note means your sim-mom wants to talk to you and you only get it right if you can tell the difference 100 percent of the time.
Sim games are very good at developing specific skills. For example, you could type into a game the sort of mechanical problem you were having and the game could teach you how to fix the problem.
I used to have some trouble driving, but the hand-eye coordination used in Gran Turismo helped immensely. Now if I can only do something about all the speeding tickets I got.
I think Swordmaker just posted the article, I don't think he made the purchasing decision.
I agree, a cheaper version seems much more reasonable to me - for a bunch of 5 year olds. If I had a 5-yr-old, I imagine they would have an iPad2...but my 17 & 15 year olds don't (but they do have their own macs).
Near-sighted by age 13. Boon for the eye glass industry.
Because educators are lazy these days. Just like everything else, they are not held accountable for kids that fail.
How idiotic. Bring back the one-room schoolhouse. Ban unions. Bar computers. Schools in rural India without running water are outperforming American kids in $10 million high-tech Elementary schools. This technology fetish is just a big distraction from the basics of reading, math and civics.
The $200,000 cost for the iPad 2 tablets will be less than hiring more teachers, she said. “It probably would take four teachers to do what the computers can do with one teacher.”. . . or, given the right software, you could just use the iPad to teach your own kid at home with no teachers.
So what happens when the IPAD gets upgraded, will the school board demand they all get thrown out and replaced at taxpayer expense.
Pencil, paper, compass, protractor and McGuffey Readers.
Oh, yes. And a competent teacher.
Like most education initiatives, this is insane. The problem with children and education is that we have stupid and permissive parents and stupid and permissive education officials, unions and government. Giving kindergarten children computers isn’t going to address any sort of need of problem other than give Apple a great big slice of the tax pie.
Consider that most computer use in the job world centers on three basic functions: word processing (typing), some kind of spread sheet and power point presentations. Most people can come up to speed with these things inside of a few months. Instead, we unquestioningly default to the use of more technology as an unchallenged solution to our social and economic ills. Rubbish, I say.
I’m going to start printing bumperstickers that say: ‘My homeschooled kid can still kick your publik skooled kid’s @ss - without a computer!’
Anyone want to bet on it "failing?" For that matter if they have that much money in the "budget" how about REDUCING the budget and lessening the tax bite on the people who pay for these pipe dreams? Out of one person's pocket into another, the idiocy of squandering tax dollars on frivoloties never stops.
in a perfect work C-I-C they would, FIRE the sorry ones and replace THEM with iPads... LOL
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