And (for the second time today) … a Times Online link, this time to a story about laptop computers.
Quote:
There are plenty of reasons for St Cecilia’s to be popular. Sheer newness and glossy, high-tech appearance for a start. Even the head teacher, Jeffrey Risbridger, admits that from the outside St Cecilia’s, with its large plasma screen flashing up the names of guests in the foyer, looks more like a plush new office block than a high school. But it is the school’s laptop policy that may be its biggest lure for parents and pupils.St Cecilia’s, building its way to a full complement of 900 pupils, currently has just 11, 12 and 13-year-olds on roll. But every one of its 300 pupils has their own laptop, picked up in the morning and used across subjects until the school day ends at 2.30pm. If they then want to stay on to complete homework the building is open – and the laptops are available – until 6pm.
The laptops are a vital part of a state-of-the-art information and communication technology (ICT) scheme in which the latest radio technology and extended battery power are used to avoid the need for cables. Every classroom is equipped with electronic whiteboards, upon which teachers flash up their lessons, consigning the old-fashioned handout to history.
As I have said here before (and I will have to dig up the link later because I can't now find it), this kind of thing only works if you have staff who are committed to making it work, as this school obviously does.
Nightmare scenario: this school is brilliantly successful, and is copied by other schools who think that flinging money at computer companies will guarantee success, even if the staff don't have a clue about how to use all their new toys, and think that the toys will rise up magically and do their job for them.
The bad news about this school and its laptops is that they can't be taken home and worked with there, because they would then be stolen by marauding gangs of less educationally advantaged youths. So I guess the next step is to fix it so that the pupils can access all the same material from their home computers, with some kind of networky thingy arrangement.
See to it, Professor Jeeves.
Impressive. Very inspiring work. I am trying to build one here: http://www.lahoreschoolofeconomics.blogspot.com/
Shirazi
Too many people are obsessed with portable computers. Compared with desktops, they are more than twice as expensive, more fragile, less useful, more easily stolen, more expensive to maintain, and impossible to upgrade.
Computers for school pupils should be networked desktops in the classrooms and interchangable between users.
The potential in technology is so poorly tapped I wonder if there is genuine interest in educating children at all. Instant feedback, paperless records, data mining, and the effective use of multi-media resources actually do sit at our fingertips. Devices do wear out, a computer of any kind should be replaced every 3 years. The software, technical staff, education staff and environment impact of managing a genuine effort to use technology on a mass scale doesn't exist. The worst problem is the commercial explosion of popular applications and lack of clear direction is crushing the goal of healthy, realistic expectations.
Of coarse you need a knowledgable technical staff to have an effective program. You also need a staff who understands the needs of the children. I have seen neither. Technlogy specialist I've worked with are still looking for ways to adapt children and educators to gameboy instead of building a good tool.
Compared with desktops, they are more than twice as expensive, more fragile, less useful, more easily stolen, more expensive to maintain, and impossible to upgrade.
All entirely true. I would also add "They have half the expected lifetime of a desktop computer". And I still love my laptop and wouldn't want to live without it.
The only advantage of laptops is the transportability to take them home. Without that as an option, a student file server and networked desktop computers is a more viable option. A student file server gives students a safe, secure, accessible file folder to store their work. I've had one in place at my junior high for six years and one still in place at the elementary school I left behind. The server does not have to be expensive either. I use the Linux OS for my files servers. You can download it for free or buy an off the shelf version for under $100. I build the computers myself. A school can have a student file server up and running for under $1000.00. Also with Linux there are no per client licensing fees so it serves several hundred computers and over 700 users for that same 1000 bucks.
