Maine plans to have a laptop for every student 7th thru 12th grade statewide (Portland: appointed, leases)

[Submariner]

Maine expanding 1st-in-the-nation laptop program - Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2009/03/11/maine_expanding_1st_in_the_nation_laptop_program/ - broken link)

The Gov and the Education Department announced Wednesday that the state is negotiating a [$25 million per year] four-year lease with Apple Inc. for 100,000 laptops. That's enough for all students and staff.

This is to cost Maine $25million per year, money saved from the SAD consolidation no doubt.

Do we truly 'need' this?

[tcrackly]

I don't know. I was at the library the other day and the pc lab was swamped with teens and tweens waiting their turns for homework and such. Everyone definitely needs the pc skills today. My DH can attest to that.

[Submariner]

I do understand that PC skills are becoming more and more needed for functioning in our society today; to replace obsolete penmanship.

Here we are [you and I] on our PCs.

I provided a PC for each of our children, everyone says that a military salary is not much, but I managed it.

I look at this 'deal' with Apple. 100,000 PCs for $25million. Now if my pencil works right today, that is roughly $250 per PC. Since it is a lease, I should think that they expect to repair 25% a year, and to replace 50% a year [these are going to children after all and they are not bolted down PCs but tossable laptops].

Even if the repairs were done for 'free'. That still makes the PCs $500 each.

I think that Maine children would be better served by an Apple [or IBM clone] program offering $500 PCs to every household in Maine. For every Mainer to be online [including children].

I do understand that $500 would still be a big cost for many households. Raising children is costly anyway. And we have so many social programs providing so many things already. If Apple is willing to sign such a deal for the governor, they should be willing to provide the same deal to parents.

My SIL has been trying to get me to donate money to a program where one company is building laptops running Linux, to be given to school children in Africa, those laptops are costing $200 each. And it is not a lease program, they are flat giving the students a laptop. And the company doing it is not a non-profit, they are clearing a profit doing this.

So really if a fella was to shop around hard, a better deal is available.

I just don't like the government getting in the way of things that families should be doing. It teaches socialism and dependence upon the government.

[tcrackly]

Yes, I have heard of that laptop program. I seem to remember that the design even incorporated a solar charged battery. Apple has always prided itself on a commitment to education, so it surprises me that they are leases and not donations. But I guess a donation cannot be updated, the leases have an upgrade subscription.
As far as a laptop per household, I don't know how well the numbers jibe...fewer students, I would thnik, than households.

[dmyankee]

A computer lab with 30 PC's for a school class offered once a week for basic typing and research skills is more than enough!

The texting, IM'ing and use of Google and Wiki are not preparing our kids for anything more than laziness amid horrible research and writing skills.

When they get to the college level, their instructors will run electronic versions of their papers through a program looking for plageristic practices. Many have no concept of reading entire peer review journals.

"If you can not afford a computer, one will be appointed to you by the taxpayers." I am getting sick of it! Go find the $12.50 a month and save for a year. There is your family computer!

[Casper1212]

And here I thought our school district was behind most of the country. They instituted a laptop program for students several years ago that has evolved into a laptop for every student, 7th through 12th grades, as well as for every teacher. The district negotiates contracts, takes bids, etc. every year to get the best prices. They usually end up with Dell. They have run into problems. One is that students lose the power supply adaptors, etc, and take someone else's. They also have tried everything from surfing porn sites to online gaming. Over time, the tech dept. has learned some simple and inovative ways to deal with these problems, everything from installing firewalls to using bar coding to ID what is issued to whom. This year, they began replacing old laptops with the new notebook models that are smaller, lighter, and just as useful in the classroom, but have screens and platforms too small for things like gaming. They also spent two weeks taking the housing off each one and putting the barcodes inside where they students can't access them.
One of the biggest assets that laptops in the classroom provide for students here is when TAKS time comes around, a state required testing system to see how much the kids have learned. It does cut down on a great waste of paper, and it provides laptops to a community where most kids would not have access to the internet for REAL school research.
While agree that there is a lot of abuse of the technology, and that it is expensive, it does save in other areas, such as time for overworked teachers and fewer trees going to make paper that only gets thrown away. While college professors may use computers to avoid work, as I recall, mine were never that interested in doing any more work than they had to. But I do know that our school district is working on using their computers to begin collecting data for analysis. IE, to turn in when applying for all that money that gets shelled out every year for everything in the book. If the government is going to throw it around to somebody, why not our kids? And, as someone else pointed out, we are now living in an age when there are few jobs where you don't need computer skills.
And dare I point out that we all wouldn't have the pleasure of communicating with one another with the accessability provided by our computers?

[toadling81]

Personally, I don't think it will do the students much of a big favor because these are Mac laptops, not PCs. Windows-based operating systems are more widely used, and in college if you submit assignments online they have to be in Microsoft Word Format. Colleges and universities primarily use PCs, not Mac, and if a student's only computer experience is using a Mac, and that could be a disadvantage. BUT I say that any computer experience at all is 100x better than none! I'm just wondering how they're going to figure out the rules of this thing - can the students only use them at school, and then how much time are they actually going to have in a full school day to learn it? They need to be able to take them home with homework assigned to be done using the laptop to get a full grasp. And if that's the case, then they better have a good warranty /tech service plan in place, because there are going to be a lot of broken computers.
I'm proud of Maine for doing it, but being the first to do something means a lot of time and money spent working the bugs out. Hopefully it pays off!

[BrokenTap]

My wife is a teacher and she will tell you herself the Laptop program that was supposed to give Governor King his reputation is a waste of tax payer money. As mentioned,they are Mac's because they won the lowest bid, when PC's run this world essentially.

This is not a PC versus Mac thing its just that we are essentially teaching our kids with antiqued and very odd computers. To put it in perspective, it is the equivalent of bringing a standard shift Saab 95 over from Britain complete with steering wheel on the right, shifter on the left and then throwing them out on I-95 and saying,"Hey they both are cars, sorry your are going to have to learn how to drive altogether different now. Best of luck to you," and then walking away. This is what we are doing with these old and odd computers.

Stupid.

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by toadling81

Personally, I don't think it will do the students much of a big favor because these are Mac laptops, not PCs. Windows-based operating systems are more widely used, and in college if you submit assignments online they have to be in Microsoft Word Format. Colleges and universities primarily use PCs, not Mac, and if a student's only computer experience is using a Mac, and that could be a disadvantage. BUT I say that any computer experience at all is 100x better than none! I'm just wondering how they're going to figure out the rules of this thing - can the students only use them at school, and then how much time are they actually going to have in a full school day to learn it? They need to be able to take them home with homework assigned to be done using the laptop to get a full grasp. And if that's the case, then they better have a good warranty /tech service plan in place, because there are going to be a lot of broken computers.
I'm proud of Maine for doing it, but being the first to do something means a lot of time and money spent working the bugs out. Hopefully it pays off!

The machines are Macs that run Windows operating systems, probably Vista. Apple has had a foothold in the educational venue for years now. They do an excellent job since the machines themselves have comparative longevity. My first pc class at continuing ed was Windows based on a Mac computer. I'm writing this now on a Mac format(my preference) but my computer also runs Microsoft Windows XP.

The program is a lease plan as well, so I assume that covers all repairs and upgrades.

[shadowfax1997]

Here is the story in portland press herald:
Laptop money already in place | Portland Press Herald (http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=244532&ac=PHnws - broken link)

Some of the info listed in comments above isn't correct according to the PPH story. Schools already get technology funds from the state, and under the proposal would get mac laptops in place of the technology funds. The cost for laptops is less than what is currently given to schools per pupil and includes support and training. Schools would have a choice as to which to accept. No new funds would need to be raised, just existing funding levels.

Differences between using the mac and pc is minimal. There are free programs that have the same appearance and function as microsoft office. My school actually purchased office and installed on each machine - so there is no difference besides operating system.

As for usefullness of the machines - that is up for debate. The kids like using them. We have security in place that severly limits locations on internet students can go. We can monitor what students are doing on the laptops, and have records of who logs in when and where. There needs to be more teacher training on use and integration, and perhaps incentives to use them more. We have some laptops that students can sign out of the library to take home, but for the most part they stay at school.

They can be very useful. A student of mine needed to draw an oval 14" long and 5" tall. It was pretty easy to lookup instructions using the laptop.

Schools are running into the issue of what to teach - there are simply too many subjects/pieces of information to squeeze into the education time. Reading/writing/math are most important and should be emphasized more, but also learning to differentiate sources on the internet, finding information or reading off a computer screen vs book are among the many things that 30 years ago just weren't concerns. Then add in all the "parenting" that schools are stuck with.....