Posted on 07/11/2005 8:53:06 AM PDT by freepatriot32
TUCSON, Ariz. (July 11) - A high school in Vail will become the state's first all-wireless, all-laptop public school this fall. The 350 students at the school will not have traditional textbooks. Instead, they will use electronic and online articles as part of more traditional teacher lesson plans.
Vail Unified School District's decision to go with an all-electronic school is rare, experts say. Often, cost, insecurity, ignorance and institutional constraints prevent schools from making the leap away from paper.
''The efforts are very sporadic,'' said Mark Schneiderman, director of education policy for the Software and Information Industry Association. ''A minority of communities are doing a good or very good job, but a large number are just not there on a number of levels.''
Calvin Baker, superintendent of Vail Unified School District, said the move to electronic materials gets teachers away from the habit of simply marching through a textbook each year.
He noted that the AIMS test now makes the state standards the curriculum, not textbooks. Arizona students will soon need to pass Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards to graduate from high school.
But the move to laptops is not cheap. The laptops cost $850 each, and the district will hand them to 350 students for the entire year. The fast-growing district hopes to have 750 students at the high school eventually.
A set of textbooks runs about $500 to $600, Baker said.
It's not clear how the change to laptops will work, he conceded.
''I'm sure there are going to be some adjustments. But we visited other schools using laptops. And at the schools with laptops, students were just more engaged than at non-laptop schools,'' he said.
Will they have to wrap their laptop with brown grocery bags to protect them? ;)
"yes sir, even YOU can re-write history"
ping
Yeah, engaged with music downloads, instant messenger, chat rooms, etc.
Aren't all the textbooks these days outdated, too expensive and owned by foreigners?
That was my first thought. Direct the little angels to FreeRepublic!
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
The issue is cost, connectivity & maintenance for lower income students. However, the advantages are great & I think it is the way of the future.
No one believes me when i tell them this but i swear that its true.When I was in the 5th grade the class was using encyclopedias that said albert einstien was still alive
I bet the incidence of reading problems will increase especially if this gets expanded down to the elementary school level. Printed books have superior resolution to laptop screens.
Speaking as one who works at a school where each child is provided with a laptop, let me say this: I am not impressed with the effects on academic achievement, so far. I think school districts should wait and see what the research on school districts already doing this shows-- especially since laptops are more expensive than books. [Our less expensive iMacs (smallest size) are closer to $1,000 each.]
''I'm sure there are going to be some adjustments. But we visited other schools using laptops. And at the schools with laptops, students were just more engaged than at non-laptop schools,'' he said.
I'm glad they used a careful and scientific method to ensure such an expensive decision is worthwhile.
We also have a Smartboard in some of our classrooms. A Smartboard is about 48" square and is a computer screen that is on the board. Professors can just touch the controls to get what they want. They can also draw over their notes, bring up internet images, powerpoint, etc., etc. The possibilities are endless. I think it is the greatest aid for teaching that I know of, especially since I teach with slides (or, now, internet images). I often analyze the artworks first; then we discuss them, but often students never got the right notes down. Now I can write the notes in class, or post pre-written notes, and students can relax and discuss the works and get the notes later on line. Some students have to process information by writing notes, but others don't and can truly benefit by absorbing the information visually.
The Smartboard works even without laptops in the class. But as students get the laptops, they can download the information in class and then add to it as they wish.
I do wonder about IM going on, and I also wonder if new fun "tricks" on the internet might replace hard thought and learning. However, being able to search for sources etc. in class could be beneficial.
I think we should try whatever the budgets allow, debate and assess the results, and go from there. But students should still be reading real books. I expect, however, that soon books will be on line as well, and that might be beneficial in some instances.
What happens if the little darlings sell the things for drugs, booze, or sneakers?
b) this is a VERY BAD sign, as students are increasingly reading less and putting stuff on-line does NOT encourage them to read more. We need more actual physical text reading, where students can mark up documents and make comments.
I say substitute the 350 copies of the nut-job textbooks with ours. That solves both problems.
Having read your book, I'll second that :)
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