Hi All.
Darren would like us to follow the advice of Gary who believes that
"If you think that computers are important in the lives of kids, then every
kid should have one."
There is nothing new here. However, experience points to many difficulties.
Having worked with computers in education since 1968 I have enjoyed the
enthusiasm which many students have shown toward learning using computers.
But:
1. Our school has enough machines to provide one for every three students
but the Kids are no longer facinated with computers. They accept
them as
part of the school environment and that alone turns some of them off.
Do you remember that the books you had to study were the only books you
didn't want to read. Its the same with educational software.
2. But you are talking about personal laptops. Yes they appeal a bit more
because the student "owns them". But as soon as they are plugged into
the internet, unless closely supervised, its unlikely to be
educational
sites that they visit. Most students see a laptop as another games
machine
which is also able to copy CDs and DVDs. The word processing software
comes well behind these prime applications.
3. Laptops are expensive to maintain. Students expect the school to do
this.
Providing technicians is very expensive. Schools provide a wonderful
training ground for young technicians. As soon as they have learned
how to
do their work they leave and get a decent paid job.
4. Laptops are much more difficult to maintain in a school environment
than
desktop machines. Kids don't take better care of their bags just
because
there is a computer in them. Not many laptops can take this treatment.
The only one which went close was the Apple Newton which was built to
survive school bags. After three years Apple were still making a
loss on these.
5. There is the cost of rewiring classrooms to provide enough power
outlets.
6. Then there is the expense of educating the staff. The maths
coordinator would
like to inservice the faculty to use just one piece of software.
The cost for
relieving teachers to cover16 teachers for three days would be $14,400.
7. Then there is the cost of software. Sure, educational software is
relatively
cheap. But add up the cost of buying licenses for 20 pieces of
software on
1500 laptops and the cost of the machines becomes insignificant.
You will
need to sell a lot more than one building.
8. One school collected its own software and much learning material
from the
internet and built this into their intranet. Some of this was
copied onto
CDs and sold. The copyright implications are quite serious.
9. And then after so much hard work and expense, when you finally get
kids keen
to learn using computers there are a few ludite parents who argue
we should
get back to basics and stop wasting our time "playing" on computers.
Been there - done all that.
Yes - its worth the effort to see kids keen to learn but
there is little recognition of the difficulties.
Regards
Hartley Hyde
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