Kevin Trainor wrote: > What we really need to be buying for the high schools (and perhaps the middle >schools) are network computers or thin clients driven by a central server or server >cluster. This would drastically reduce the risk of infection by viruses and the >installation of unwanted software by students. It would also reduce the cost of >purchasing computers for students to a few hundred dollars including the monitor, as >opposed to nearly $1000 for a decent desktop model PC.
While it is true that the MPS could reduce costs by shifting some complexity from stand-alone computers to servers, it is not true that would reduce the risk of infection. It's not really practical to prevent students from saving their work on floppy disks. And, as long as your servers are connected to the Internet (which is there computers derive the most benefit) you will not eliminate the risk of worms or viruses. > I don't claim to be a computer professional, but I have worked with computers for >most of my adult life. Much like any other educational tool, they are only as good >as the software and the instructors provided with them. As things stand now with the >Minneapolis public schools, I have no faith whatsoever that the school board will >manage to provide more than a handful of the necessary qualified instruction. I think that it would be helpful if someone from the MPSs could tell us exactly how the computers are being used; what the computer to student ratio is; whether this ratio is equal between schools and grades; and if there are any studies that have been done in Minneapolis that show that computers contribute to achievement. MPSs Proposal #1: In order to know that programs are effective you need to be able to record data and tract students. It is essential that the district have a powerful, easy-to-use, and accurate database system. From what I have heard, they do not. The "new" school board's first priority should be to finance such a system (it shouldn't be too expensive comparatively). Betts Zerby wrote: > Half of their hour for "media" was spent in the library, > selecting books to take home, being read to, and checking out the > books on the computer, which remembered whether they had returned > their books. > I would like to know if the computer that the students were checking out their books from was networked to a central database that record details of what books the students checked out. If the computer is a stand-alone system, then I don't think it's worth the $700-$2000 that the system probably costs. The Pratt school could always check out books with a paper card system for a few dollars. Ms. Zerby makes clear the point that many of the activities at this grade level don't need computer support and that the district can save a substantial amount of money by reviewing which systems really require computers. I don't know if anyone else saw the report in the news last night that the national dropout rate is going down. Why is ours remaining constant, with 50% of the students in the MPSs failing to graduate in four years? Michael Atherton Prospect Park _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
