“Cobb County teachers are concerned that a controversial laptop-computer program will create compatibility problems with the system’s current technology and that students won’t take proper care of the machines,” Kristina Torres reports for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “More than 2,500 of Cobb County’s 8,000 teachers responded to the survey about the $70 million program, which proposes to give a laptop to every teacher and every student in grades six through 12. About 1,300 teachers wrote questions or comments in response to an open-ended survey question. The survey was anonymous, but a few teachers signed their names.”
Some teachers “are concerned about mixing Apple laptops with the current PC-based system. ‘I strongly disagree with the decision to purchase Apple laptops when the entire district is already using Windows,’ a teacher wrote, adding later in the comments: ‘Some teachers will not use the new laptops because they simply won’t want to learn a new operating system,'” Torres reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Teachers who don’t want to learn new things should be fired immediately. Sorry for the burst of truth, NEA. The NEA’s Code of Ethics of the Education Profession states: “In fulfillment of the obligation to the student, the educator shall not unreasonably restrain the student from independent action in the pursuit of learning. Shall not unreasonably deny the student’s access to varying points of view. Shall not deliberately suppress or distort subject matter relevant to the student’s progress.” The NEA has been around since 1857; supposedly “working to provide great public schools.” However, U.S. public schools are generally woeful. Is it the National Education Association or the National Education Anchor? Perhaps it’s time America tried something else, something that’s actually effective and improves the nation’s public school system?
Find out why Apple Macs are better than Windows PCs for schools here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Cobb County Georgia meeting discusses plan to equip schools with 63,000 Apple iBooks – February 24, 2005
Report: 90 percent of emails opposed to Georgia’s Apple iBook program – February 10, 2005
65,000 Apple iBooks for Georgia schools one of the largest school laptop programs in the country – February 10, 2005
Georgia school district to propose 63,000 Macs for students and teachers – February 07, 2005