Laptops for All Cobb Students? $70 Million.

The Atlanta Journal/Constitution ^ | 02/10/2005 | Kristin Torres

[groanup]

I spoke with a Cobb County teacher about this. She is outraged for a number of reasons. Personally I can't think of a greater waste of taxpayers money.

[groanup]

I ran several searches and didn't see it. If it's a dupe please discard. Thanks.

[Drango]

I'd like an Apple laptop. And a pony.

[randog]

I'd like an Apple laptop. And a pony.

What--no unicorn? I'm sure the Cobb County School District would go out of their way to accomodate you.

[groanup]

Give me a list and I'll see that the school board gets it.

[SoftballMominVA]

There are some middle and high schools in my area that give laptops to each student. It's a very successful program. I was impressed with the amount of security involved. Should a laptop be stolen, it is tracked the first time someone attempts to log on to the internet. Downloading of porn or even visiting these sites is blocked and attempts are tracked. Kids seem to take very good care of the laptops and the feedback is very positive over all.

$350 a laptop is a sweet deal. It will be interesting in time to look back at Cobb County's attempts and see if the program was successful

[groanup]

The teacher I talked to had several objections:

Most of the teachers are trained on PC.

What happens when batteries die in class?

What happens when all of the computers and software become outdated withing two years?

etc, etc.

[Smokin' Joe]

Well, at least the dog is off the hook.

Where is your homework assignment?

"My computer ate it"

[Kewlhand`tek]

in my opinion parents should be buying the computers. "I" shouldnt be buying a computer for "your" child.

[groanup]

Or: I swear I save it in Word, I don't know what happened.

[SoftballMominVA]

My children don't go to this district. And they have their own laptops.

[RFEngineer]

"Parents would be responsible for insurance, expected to be $50 a year"

I wonder what the year 2 cost will be?

[Clara Lou]

There are several of these programs ongoing in Texas, and they are part of a research program over 4 years: Does technology integration improve student learning? Teachers on at least one campus [and I suspect all of the schools feel the same] where all students [6th, 7th, 8th] have received laptops were sceptical when the program was announced, and are currently displeased because the program, at least for the first year [and this is to be expected during the first year of any program], has disrupted teaching and learning-- training upon training for teachers, academic time lost to student training, one-size-fits-all-subject-areas pronouncements from supervisors, etc.
All I can say is that this is a real money-maker for Apple. OS-X [Jaguar, I think] is a huge improvement over previous OS's, but there are still daily, time-consuming issues-- kids can't log into the system because of some glitch, part of the dock disappears, such-and such program won't let the kid log in, the web filter filters too much, the laptop goes to sleep and won't wake up, kids don't back up their work.... It's a hassle.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Laptops are cost justifiable for the business user road warrior.

For all others desktops are more cost effective and far easier to maintain.

[Drango]

The bulk of teachers I know are dummer than rocks when it comes to computers. The school district will have to quadruple the number of techs.

[ProudVet77]

Just let Bill Gates hear about this and they will get Wintel laptops for free.

[festus]

Part of the reason is Georgia teachers raises are paltry this year and I bet they'd rather get raises than the kids get laptops.

That said I don't know how laptops will help the kids. They need knowledge not computers. The two are not equal.

[Smokin' Joe]

Seriesly, I smell Apple making a play for market share here. DO they have metal detectors in the school there? Will that mess the macines up?

[Clara Lou]

What happens when batteries die in class?
That is not a problem. Classrooms would be provided with multiple plug-in sites. There are extension cords with multiple plug-ins designed for just this purpose. Students can plug them in in any classroom at any time. Recharging takes very little time.