Doug LaRue wrote:
** Reply to message from Tracy R Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Wed, 16 Apr
2008 12:29:47 -0700
We also set up an
LTSP lab at Hickman elementary school but none of the teachers aside
from our sponsor there were interested in using it and as soon as he
left so did the lab.
Was there any teacher training or any curriculum advising program in place
or just a "we built it, you figure out how to use it" kind of thing?
I'm also thinking that if the $$$ in savings...
"Savings" is a meaningless word to a bean counter. There is no column in
their ledger titled "Savings". They understand accounts payable and
accounts receivable and that's it. The proper approach is to show them
how to increase revenue (and failing that how to cut expenditures).
...can be shown and associated with
how many teaching jobs that might save, we just might get some interest. Heck
I'm even thinking of sending another email to the governator to see if there
isn't
anybody up there trying to push some software and hardware savings down
the chain to the States school system. It is going on in Indiana already.
As a voter outside the education system it is my observation that, at
least in California, the education system is not very interested in
educating. They are more interested in infrastructure and its value and
management. They believe that it's not possible to teach a child without
a classroom, but it is possible to educate a child without a teacher
(which is why I will vote to fire every sitting member of the San Diego
Unified School District's board up for re-election).
Maybe that's a plus if you're trying to sell them on new equipment, but
I think it'll fall of deaf ears if you propose actually increasing a
teacher's effectiveness in the classroom.
If there is nothing "behind" the project to help educators use the system, then
it should be expected to fail. If they have only the interest to teach say
Microsoft
Word and have no other use for such a lab, it will fail. But will they not
understand
the money for the Windows OS licenses, the MS Office licenses, and the added
hardware to run those will equate to a good percentage of one teachers annual
salary? Maybe not but when times are tough, new ideas might become acceptable.
Apparently, actual educators (i.e. teachers and their aides) have no
leverage. They have no power. They have no permission. And they have no
time. For teachers, having scarce resources may be the least of their
problems in the current state of educational affairs, since the accepted
solution to that is that fewer teachers leads to more resources.
Hey, do you think all the attention being put on hybrid cars and solar
electricity is
because it is cool stuff do you? It has everything to do with $3+/gal fuel
costs
and high electricity and environment impact costs.
Doug
Actually, it has to do with bullshit and greed. Reaping profits in the
commodity markets. The scarcity, and thus increasing value, of land, on
which it is more profitable to grow crops to burn rather than crops to
eat (made possible by convincing gullible voters and politicians alike
that the laws of physics don't apply to "My New Energy Source").
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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