Cobb County’s Board of Education will vote (login) tonight to finalize a decision it ALREADY MADE about moving forward with the first phase of its laptop in every pot plan. Damn, you’ve got to love that government efficiency. The hang-up apparently was over how much liability Apple would bear for a breach of contract.
Still being negotiated is what happens if Apple can’t deliver services or laptops that work and defaults on the contract. Apple contends it should pay back 100 percent of the contract’s cost and no more. The board would prefer more, with one example being that the company agree to make up the difference needed to acquire computers from another source.
It probably wouldn’t be the issue it is were it not for Apple’s notorious inability to churn out computers fast enough to meet demand. Still, anything that prolongs the publicity this whole affair receives is bad for the county. And, despite preferring Macs to PCs and having a personal desire to see Microsoft die a quick but painful death, I’m still not sold on the benefits of every student having their own individual laptop.
There was a lot of talk about this (a lot of talk; not much action) when I worked at a middle school in Dallas, Texas as a contractor for a non-profit a la Americorps. My job title was Technology Coordinator, which officially meant I was responsible for “helping teachers integrate technology into the curriculum, to make for a better learning experience for all students” (or something like that; I’d give a direct quote but their web site doesn’t exist anymore, since they went out of business). Of course, what it really meant was that I explained to teachers the difference between the monitor and the computer, installed printer cartridges, and, according to one teacher, “just walk[ed] around with a network cable in [my] hand, not doin’ nothin’.” But I digress.
A school district in Austin, Texas, where some people from the same organization were working, had purchased the iBook carts for several of their middle schools. To be clear, it wasn’t a situation where individual laptops were assigned to each student, and the student could take the laptop home and download pr0n, drop it on the floor, etc. The laptops stayed in a cart which could go from classroom to classroom, and the students would get one at the beginning of class.
I think there is a real advantage to this type of technology integration - but it should be approached with a critical eye and shouldn’t be seen as a panacea for all the probelems in schools. Some of the advantages:
1) In underpriveleged schools (such as the one I worked in), computers are scarce, and the ones that are there are old and clunky and not good for much. Laptop carts allow schools to maximize use of technology without spending an exorbitant sum on dedicated computer labs, desktop computers in individual classrooms, etc.
2) Research has shown that students feel more in control of their work and take it more seriously when they are given some responsibility and allowed to use these computers, instead of just being treated like retarded monkeys. One good article about a school that saw marked improvement is here. (And there are others in the “profiles” section.)
3) Students at underpriveleged schools may not have access to technology anywhere else. This is not to say that technology should be the focus; rather, it should be a complement to the core curriculum. This is also not to say that only “underprivelged” schools should/could take advantage of these programs. But it’s a point worth making.
Again (sorry for being long-winded) I don’t think this is a catch-all solution. If the teachers are worthless and the students are doing 2nd-grade level work in 7th grade (which was happening at the school where I worked) then you should focus on more fundamental things — you can’t just throw some computers at people and have it all get better. But, I think there is real merit to it.