No Child Left Untableted 214
theodp writes "Made possible by a $30 million grant from the Dept. of Education's Race to the Top program, the NY Times reports that every student and teacher in 18 of Guilford County's (NC) middle schools is receiving a tablet created and sold by Amplify, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. The tablets — 15,450 in all — are to be used for class work, homework, educational games — just about everything. With a total annual per unit lease cost of $214, Amplify was the low bidder of those responding to Guilford's Race-to-the-Top RFP, including Apple. Touted by Amplify as one of the largest tablet deployments in K-12 education, the deal raised some eyebrows, since Guilford's School Superintendent once reported to an Amplify EVP when the latter was the superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, coincidentally a proving ground of the Gates Foundation. Amplify and the Gates Foundation are partners on a controversial national K-12 student tracking database that counts the Guilford County Schools among its guinea pigs. Getting back to the hardware, after putting their John Hancock on a Student Tablet Agreement and the Acceptable Use Guidelines for Tablet, students are provided with an ASUS-made tablet "similar to ASUS MeMO Pad ME301T" ($279 at Wal-Mart). The News & Record reports on some glitches encountered in the first week of the program, including Internet connectivity issues affecting about 5% of the tablets."
Yes, exactly what we need. More distractions. (Score:5, Insightful)
What we really need is well paid and highly motivated teachers with small class sizes. Not yet another way for students to play angry birds.
Of course the ones making decisions know this, but they're happy taking the tech sector money. And a class full of little kids with tablets make good press and website pictures.
3.3 million down the drain (Score:5, Insightful)
per year out of tax payer pockets. Please stop doing it for the children because everything you do sets them back even further. Smaller class sizes? Boon for teachers union, bane for tax payers. Students? Show me the improved test scores. New math? Fail. "Smart" classrooms? Fail.
It remains fact that students pre WWII were better educated in every discipline. The US has sunk hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, over the decades to "fix" education with absolutely no positive results. Perhaps it was not broken in the first place.
Re:3.3 million down the drain (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No Correlation (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how politicians think a tablet/laptop/computer/ebook reader will make students better.
Manufacturers have lobbyists.
Students do not.
Whose lives do you think politicians are really trying to make better?
Re:3.3 million down the drain (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:3.3 million down the drain (Score:2, Insightful)
An average student today would browse to Google Maps, search for "new york", and be presented with the information they need.
Rote memorization is really a useless skill these days, especially for facts that are retrieved infrequently.
It's a lot like the situation with those Indian Java "programmers" who can quote you namespace-qualified class names and method signatures, yet they can't write even simple loops or conditionals correctly. Yeah, maybe they can regurgitate API facts better than an American or European programmer, but they can't get any real or useful work done. The ability to do, which the Americans and Europeans tend to have, far outweighs the ability to memorize.
Re:Yes, exactly what we need. More distractions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone once told me "the further you get from the classroom, the more money you make"
Re:annual of $214! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Now, at $214 a pop, that is orders of magnitude less expensive than textbooks."
You don't know what an "order of magnitude" is. Textbooks do not cost $20,000+ per year per student in K12 or anywhere else.
$200 could buy a tablet outright rather than lease for a year. eBook software won't change that equation and other educational software is value-add a book can't offer.
And, of course, the horrors of exposing children to display screens. We couldn't possibly know the effect of that by now!!!
Re:Could you have gotten any more links in there? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other word, you visit a page using http, aka hyper text transport protocol, you got served some hypertext, AND YOU COMPLAIN???
Yes. Because [merriam-webster.com] too many [thefolderstore.com] links make the article [clipartof.com] hard to read [bubblews.com] and obscure [blogspot.com] the most relevant [relevantmagazine.com] links.
Re:OLPC (Score:5, Insightful)
One basic education in reading, writing, arithmetic, speaking and science per child, using paper and pencil and no computers, would be a superior solution. That's all the education I had as child. I've had no difficulties putting computers to work on engineering, financial, and scientific problems since then. What a fallacy, to think children need "computer skills"; they need thinking skills.
County Ed Budget Too High (Score:5, Insightful)
For their "total annual per unit lease cost of $214" they could buy 5 Raspberry Pis at Adafruit, and OWN THEM OUTRIGHT instead of the devices still being on lease so they have to pay $214 every year till the supplier is fat and happy.
Edison promoted phonograph as teaching aid (Score:4, Insightful)
Every new media invention in the past 140 years has been promoted as an education aid with varying success.
P.S. Edison originally invented the phonograph as a means of cramming more information onto a telegraph. You'd record message on a phonograph, send them at high speed across the wire, record them at the other end, and play back at human readable speeds. Wires were a precious resource in those days.