The Maine Department of Education has signed a four-year, $41 million contract with Apple to continue to supply the technology, training, and support to Maine’s groundbreaking initiative that has equipped all the State’s 7th and 8th grade students and teachers with one-to-one access to wireless notebook computers and the Internet for the past 4 years.
According to Maine’s press release, the Initiative is still considered the single largest 1:1 educational technology program in the world. Maine’s Education Director of Special Projects, Bette Manchester notes, “The strength of the program is that the focus is on education. This is an educational project, not a technology project.”
The Maine Learning Technology Initiative has become a national and international model for 1:1 educational technology programs. Since its inception in 2002, many other U.S. states have implemented or are about to implement similar programs including Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. In January of 2005, Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media lab cited Maine’s program in his announcement at the World Economic Summit of the creation of One Laptop Per Child initiative that is working to put laptops in the hands of millions of students around the world.
Hardware:
The iBook G4 will be the new Maine Learning Technology Initiative notebook replacing the original iBook G3 units. Each iBook will be powered by a 1.33 ghz G4 chip and loaded with 1 GB of system memory (8x more memory than the previous MLTI laptop), the MLTI iBook will run Apple’s Mac OS 10.4 Tiger operating system. The iBook G4 will come with a 40GB hard drive and feature built-in wireless networking capabilities via Airport Extreme, 801.11g. Airport Extreme wireless networking will provide up to 5x faster connections than the previous iBooks. Maine’s new iBooks also feature a slot-loading CDRW/DVD-ROM drive.
Maine’s wireless networks that were installed in 2002 will be upgraded. Wireless access points will be upgraded to Airport Extreme Base Stations (802.11g, 54Mbps), and switches will be replaced as well. Coverage areas will be expanded and the new network will have up to 5x more available bandwidth than the previous network for internal data transfers.
Included Software Titles:
• Mac OS 10.4 Tiger: Apple’s latest operating system. Each year as available, the MLTI solution will be upgraded to utilize the latest version of the Mac OS.
• Appleworks: Productivity suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, drawing, painting, and presentation. http://www.apple.com/appleworks/
• CyberDuck: CyberDuck is an open source, fully featured FTP/SFTP client. Users may use it to upload web pages to web servers and perform other file transfer needs. http://cyberduck.ch. Offered to MLTI by the David Kocher, the creator of CyberDuck.
• Firefox: Fast and popular open source web browser. http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
• Garageband: Digital recording studio. Record and edit your own music or podcasts. http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
• Google Earth: Google Earth puts a planet’s worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. http://earth.google.com. Offered to MLTI by Google Inc.
• GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP): Open source image editing program. Similar to Adobe Photoshop. http://www.gimp.org/
• Grapher: A 2D and 3D graphing calculator. Bundled with Mac OS X. http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/over200.html
• iMovie HD: Movie editing software. http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/
• iPhoto: Digital Photo management, image enhancement, and slideshows. http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/
• iTunes: Digital music management and encoding. http://www.apple.com/itunes
• iWeb: Web page creation and publishing. http://www.apple.com/ilife/iweb/
• Journler: A daily journal software package. http://journler.phildow.net/
• Keynote: Presentation software. http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/
• LiveDictionary with AudioAssisted Text: LiveDictionary is a Safari extension that adds fast, convenient dictionary lookups to the web. http://www.eloquentsw.com/livedictionary.html. AudioAssistedText is a LiveDictionary plugin that allows you to point to a word in Safari and hear the word spoken in a human voice. http://www.audioassistedtext.com/. Both titles offered to MLTI by the authors, Eloquent Software and MetaTheory.
• NeoOffice: Open source productivity suite. Create, open, edit, and save Microsoft office formatted files (.doc, .xls, .ppt). http://www.neooffice.org
• NetLogo: NetLogo is a programmable modeling environment for simulating natural and social phenomena. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/. Offered to MLTI by Uri Wilensky, the creator of NetLogo, Director of the Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling.
• NoteShare Multimedia Digital Notebook: Create, organize, share, publish. http://www.aquaminds.com
• Other: The MLTI image will also include a host of other titles including Mail, iChat, iCal, Address Book, iSync, Quicktime, etc. http://www.apple.com/macosx/
• Pages: Word Processor and Page Layout. This document was created using Pages. http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/
• PASCO DataStudio: Data analysis, graphing calculator. http://www.pasco.com/datastudio/
• PASCO MyWorld GIS: A Geographic Information System for Inquiry-Based Learning. Query, plot and analyze geographic data such as climate, geology, biodiversity, population and more. http://www.pasco.com/myworld/
• Safari RSS: Web browser with RSS feed management. http://www.apple.com/safari/
• SketchUp Pro: 3D design software. http://www.sketchup.com. Offered to MLTI by Google Inc.
• World Book Encyclopedia: The entire World Book Encyclopedia and more. http://www.mackiev.com/worldbook/
A more detailed summary of the terms of the contract is available on the website at http://www.maine.gov/mlti/
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Related article:
Maine’s Apple iBook program draws international attention – March 11, 2003
no wonder Apple wants to do this.
Thorin…
The quote provided showed a knee-jerk, Rush loving distate for the previous posters statement and implied a serious lack of reading experience as well.
I stand by my post… and I hate f*ing hippies more than you do, as I get no opinions from them whatsoever.
Blew,
Ok, first you should know that I am reasonable person. But dammit, I stand by my statement too! I know numerous individuals that are Democrats and lean to the left, but hate unions. It was generalizing and oversimplifying, that was my point. The statement that I was responding to was knee-jerk in my opinion.
With that said, all Mac enthusiasts are my friends and I wish you well.
$1139 for an outdated laptop. Congrats Maine.
Well, at least you are not calling me names or implying that you know me and hate me anymore.
That is a start, I guess.
Look Blew,
I never called you any names, and we were BOTH presumptuous about one another. I am still trying, have a good day.
These G4’s are plenty fast enough for what the kiddies will be doing. 1.33 GHz with 1 GB of RAM? That’s fast enough.
Thorin and Blew
Up in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-Geeeeeeeeee
IBooks are more than enough for these kids. What is there that they won’t be able to do on an IBookG4. I am in college for graphic design I still know students with them and they work fine. They all are able to use AdobeCS, and CS2 just fine on them. So why wouldn’t a 7th or 8th grader be able to work efficiently on them? I think that its a great deal. I would take an iBook over any PC available.
LOL Buster,
ANYWAY, I did not know that iBooks were still being produced for education, interesting. They seem to be of sufficient performance, hell it would likely suit my current needs. Not that I really know what the “hot” educational apps are. Anyone know? I have an 18 month old daughter, I have been wondering what the good educational packages are.
Now we know why they recently did a long-term deal with
that company that actually manufactures the G4’s(forgot their name).
Just think, 36,000 parents just missed out on the awesome Macbook and instead just compared the performance of what they think is Apple’s best to their new virus laptop from work.
Now, 36,000 students and teachers and at least 30 or 40 thousand of each students two parents just got influenced by an outdated, underpowered G4 processor. Ugh! THIS is what is wrong with Apple’s marketshare. Give them the new Macbook and watch the halo effect at its best. This is why the iPod halo effect works and the educational halo effect is in the toilet.
“wanna know why the educational system is so sad in the USA?”
you don’t have to be very smart to succeed. our current president was admitted to Yale with a C average.
all it takes is motivation & connections & you’ll surpass those very smart students every time.
“G4? Only G4s??? No wonder why the educational system is so sad in the USA. We need cutting edge technology.”
Yes, Eric, “Only G4s”. Perhaps they need to run REAL applications, like Microsoft Office or Photoshop. Yes, yes, its really neat that the Intel chip can rip a CD 10 seconds faster, but who really cares. If you want reliability (and increased productivity), stick with the PowerPC. Universal Binaries will EVENTUALLY solve SOME of the problems/limitations/bottlenecks/shortcomings of the x86 architecture, but they will always be there. Yada, yada, everone jump on in and remind me about running Windows or how 10.5 will make everyone’s life better – I think it will take about two more generations of Intel chips AND Apple OS versions before they get all of the issues solved. Good call for Maine.
And how precisely is the Teacher’s Union the reason why the U.S. education system is so stuffed up? Being a teacher is perhaps the most important job a person could hold – more important than politicians, lawyers, economists, sports stars, celebrities and the entire military complex combined which is perhaps the most useless, wasteful, damaging and unproductive thing on the face of the Earth.
I would have thought the abysmal lack of funding for education and the criminally low pay of teachers has more to do with the problem than a Union whose aim is to protect their members for unwarranted attacks, promote better standards and campaign for decent pay.
In a country like Australia and much of Europe, if it wasn’t for unions, you’re average worker wouldn’t have things like paid days off for public holidays, penalty rates for working weekends, public holidays and at night, paid overtime, annual leave, long service leave, a decent minimum wage, protection from unfair dismissal, occupational health and safety standards to protect workers from death, disablement and injury and workers compensation when they are.
I look forward to the day when schools have all the money they need and the military needs to hold a cake sale to buy a new fighter jet.
Bravo, Stuart, let’s hear it for socialism! I’ve BEEN to public school, my kids have been to public school — I’m still apologizing to them — and I’m still paying for everybody’s kids to go to public school and NOBODY ever got an education in public school.
Teaching IS an important job — so why is it so easy to become a teacher? Probably because passing on dogma and propaganda does not take any special skills. Why do you think they need a union?!
And schools will have all the money they need when they have a product worth buying — taking money from me at the threat of losing my property doesn’t gain my sympathy.
mw: progress hahaha
Teaching is a very important job, but simply not as demanding (and not NEARLY as demanding) as the occupations with which Stuart made comparisons. That is a fact that simply must be faced.
Unions have served a purpose, they allowed for much better treatment of employees, particularly in the early 1900’s. Workplace standards were virtually non-existent. The problem is that it has gotten out of hand. The guy that puts staples in the seats of a Chevy at the GM plant gets $30 per hour. That is way out of the park. That’s why a decent car costs $30,000. So just how much is a teacher worth? Hard to put a number on it. I’m not saying teachers are adequately compensated, but I have explained why many people dislike unions. Unions are very “socialist” in that even the incompetent team members are treated the same as the best.
This discussion demonstrates the problem with US education. The public has, in general, swallowed the politicians’ swill that we, the tax-base, shouldn’t have to pay to educate the poor. Politicians don’t want to educate the poor because its a lot easier to get uneducated people to vote for people who abuse and exploit them.
Excuse me, disregard the “politicians, lawyers” reference from my previous point.
Thank you
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Couple of observations:
Students don’t need the latest and greatest. Trust me. My district has been using XP-based HP machines and a lousy Novell network for years and it suits them fine. What do they use them for? Word processing, searching the web, and creating crappy PowerPoints. That’s all. Why spend taxpayer money when there’s no need? Would I prefer Macs? Hell yes. Lots more cool stuff to do with them if the teachers in my district had a clue, but the district wonks won’t have them. Same old story. “Windows is the most used OS blah blah….” Our network people are terrified of Mac OS. I’m serious.
Second, as a professional teacher, I can say that unions have been a necessery evil, at least in my decade of teaching. Why?
Sure, I hate paying union dues to a huge bureaucracey. But every dipsh*t politician down the pipe wants to “reform” teaching, when teaching is fine. As another poster mentioned, it’s parents who can’t get their acts together. I’ve had many kids whose parents have been so lax, so negligent, so abusive, that to me, it’s criminal. I’m not just talking urban; I’ve tutored suburban kids who are retarded beyond belief by lazy-ass, corporate-licking parents who think their kids’ sh*t doesn’t stink yet who have never read a book to their kids or made them do their homework….
Lay off teachers. Ninety-eight percent of those I’ve known have worked their asses off for kids. Can you find that much dedication in any other field?
Okay. Vented. Longtime lurker. First time poster.
Clever apologists for the unions hide behind the skirts of other teachers and pretend that the critics are attacking all teachers. Nonsense! The better public school educators know that unions’ main function these days is to protect the incompetent as well as prevent the most effective teachers from gaining the recognition (financial and career) that they deserve. In other words: Lowest Common Denominator. The unions are not there for the kids–they’re goal is to feather their nests.
“Can you find that much dedication in any other field?”
HELL YES
I can attribute to the Educational Halo effect. I still remember the beginning of my 8th grade year. I was using an eMac. It booted into OS “X”. “Panther” I was impressed. The dock was pretty cool too. I never found it to be too slow, but it didn’t seem fast to me. Later in the year, I began to research the Mac on the internet. And I found what I expected to, generally slower hardware but a much better operating system. Now I have a PPC Mac Mini, and I love it.
Our high school, unfortunately, is Windows-only. Old Dell laptops, some off-brand towers, horribly monitors, all running Windows with Microsoft office. Nobody likes the IT guy anyway, but that really upsets me. All the way up to high school, we had been Mac-only. Even the high school had been Mac-only until he came. Speaking of incompetent teachers! Want his e-mail? I might have an idea of what it is.
I guess my point was that even PPC Macs should still impress parents and families of the students. If it’s too slow, the slightest curiosity about Macs would lead them to the Apple Store where they would be led to the Intel-powered Macs anyway.
Teacher’s Union and the Department of Education – Take them both and make a thousand points of light out of the employees in both groups.
Give me back the ability to say locally accepted standards that are BETTER are what I want – and STOP taxing me when I send my kid to private school if you won’t let get rid of the AEA and the Department of Education – I’m not a charity!
If other mommies and daddies want to provide for their kids, how about standing up and saying, “I’m responsible – I’LL TAKE CARE OF THE NURTURING OF MY OWN CHILDREN, THANK YOU!”
Judging by your post in which you twice display your inability to count beyond one, it’s obvious you’ve never met a teacher throughout your sad existence.
misanthrope = idiot.
Fervor = idiot.
Unionism is not communism. Socialism isn’t communism. And socialism (which operates in a capitalist society such as Australia) is certainly a better system than pure free market ideology and having a permanent wartime economy based on the military-industrial complex.
And there’s absolutely nothing challenging about pickup up a gun and shooting people, or kicking a football or hitting something with a stick.
I’m a Union Delegate for the RBTU in my workplace and there’s been complete deadwood that has sought Union assistance when they’re own stupidity and laziness has landed them in trouble. We provide the assistance that is expected, support at discipinary meetings for example, but we’re also mindful of the workplace as a whole and won’t bust our gut for said deadwood. Contrary to the lies being peddled by the anti-worker brigade on here, we don’t shed a tear when we loose people like that – it’s actually a relief.
But in other situations, like what happened recently at my work, some staff didn’t have their contracts renewed because they failed to meet the Key Performance Indicators. They failed, however because their supervisors failed to provide the ongoing training and coaching these people required and was a part of their job role to provide, then lied through their teeth to management that this training was provided. So rather than spend a few thousand on training these people properly to bring them up to speed, management would rather spend $30K on training a new bunch who also might fail for the same reasons as the last lot. That is what I call a false economy.
Unions are constantly trying to make management aware of problems and suggest better, more efficient ways of doing things but it’s generally management that entrenches bad habits and inefficiencies and ignores good ideas and then it’s the poor worker who cops the blame when things go pear shaped.
The entire society benefits from a properly funded, universal education system – whether you choose to send your child to a public school or not. Just as it benefits from universal health care, state funded infrastructure such as roads and rail, public transport, sanitation, policing, and I could go on and on about stuff that is provided by government.
You both demonstrate the selfishness of the me-me-me attitiude and a one dimensional (and that’s generous) view of the world.
Why people continue to swallow bull shit dished out by corporate hacks and corrupt politicians who use fear and lies to continue their grab for power is beyond me. I guess it’s easier to believe a lie than find the truth. The world is a lot more complex and interesting than the 30 second sound bites and paper thin investigating you get in the news.
Wake up.