“September will bring big changes to Burlington High School as the school implements its 1:1 program. Many schools across the country have already found success with 1:1 plans, an initiative to get a laptop into the hands of very student and teacher for educational use,” Cooley reports. “Burlington will be one of the few in Massachusetts next year. However, rather than just a laptop, the Burlington administration has settled on iPads as their technological tool and come September every student and teacher at the high school will have one.”
“Moving to a 1:1 plan is a goal Principal Patrick Larkin has been supporting. The issue settled this month was how the high school was going to do it, and which tool they were going to use. The iPad has several advantages over laptops, especially at these early stages of the plan,” Cooley reports. “The battery life is ten hours, which is longer than a school day. Laptops would need to be recharged every few hours. Additionally, programs are easier to download and install on iPads than on laptops, especially when everyone is using the same device.”
“One of the biggest issues was affordability, and iPads cost less than half the price of laptops. The biggest concern raised during the debates about the 1:1 plan has been how the iPads will be purchased. Larkin and town officials have not finished working out payment for the iPads,” Cooley reports. “‘We want to provide every student with an iPad,’ said Larkin. Possibilities to make this affordable include having parents pay only insurance costs for the device, or some kind of rental plan.”
Cooley reports, “iPads could reduce other costs over time. Textbooks, for example, are much cheaper online. Teachers could also use new, updated material on the Internet rather than textbooks that are years old… ‘We’re doing our students a disservice if we don’t take advantage of this technology,’ said Larkin.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Smart principal!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “NavyTim” for the heads up.]
I was kind of hoping it was MY school in MA, but that’s still a pretty cool idea.
Our local high-school did a Dell laptop deal. Poor kids… And poor parents — they had to pay for those substandard Dells.
Why not just leave one in every motel room in the country.
It’s also mentioned in the original story that the principal of the school sees this as a way to shorten the school week to four days. Will the faculty and staff be receiving less pay if they are working less? I doubt it.
They should probably do it with every high school in the nation. That should get iPad sales moving briskly. I’m sure that would put a scare into Microsoft.
I wonder who instigated that Dell laptop deal. Probably some guy that was getting a kickback from the Dell salesperson. Naw. Probably figured that Windows was the best way to go, as usual.
Plus –
– they’re secure
– they’re not loaded up with porn
meaning that the school doesn’t have to add an extra employee just to police them and keep viruses out.
@Conner
The four day week will probably refer to the days the school is open. Those days may be longer and their may be online classes at night or on days off. There will, no doubt be plenty of work for Faculty and admin.
To be consistent, I am sure you will agree that if they put in even more hours per week, they should receive higher pay!
Remember that shit a few years back, when a US school dropped their Macs for Dell’s or HP shit boxes. It was a big deal on MDN. I bet the School board are feeling a bit foolish by now.
I own both the iPad and a MacBook Air, and I think the high school’s decision to go with the iPad is a good one. The students are going to love the iPad, and I think it will be a great motivational tool as well as being a solid platform for the learning enterprise. I also see Flash as a non-issue, I haven’t missed it at all. The keyboard may be an issue. I find typing for extended periods on the iPad not as ergonomically comfortable as with a physical keyboard, but it’s hard to say how this will play out with the students. It should be okay for general homework assignments.
These are relatively minor disadvantages when considering the transformative nature of the iPad in terms of learning potential. It’s a bold move on Burlington HS’s part, and the faculty should strongly encourage the students to recognize their role in making this succeed. Go for it!
@Connor – Not everyone punches a time clock. I think if you divided the actual hours a teacher works into their salary, the rate per hour would approach minimum wage. They hardly complete their responsibilities during the school day.
@Connor
Way to hijack a thread doofus.
But I’ll bite anyway. Ignorant cheapskates like yourself who go out of their way to bash on supposedly “overpaid” teachers are a huge reason our country is going to shite. If we wanted our kids to actually learn we’d do what any smart business does when they need to attract better talent… Raise wages not lower them. Instead we scrimp on our kids’ futures so that dipshits like yourself can pay less taxes and spend more of your check burning up the world to run your SUV, light your 60″ TV and heat your mcmansion. The winners from your misplaced priorities? India, China, Saudis and Exxon. The losers?The future of America– our kids. Try learning to be a little less selfish for a change. Teachers are worth every penny of taxes we pay for them and a whole lot more.
@Fredo,
Get a clue. No business in the world would do what you’re proposing. With the exception of high school math and science, most public school teachers are certainly NOT underpaid. And when you include their ridiculous pension and health benefits, summers off, and complete lack of accountability for performance, they are WAY overpaid. I’ve been involved with public education for 25 years, so cut the BS. Or are you just a union shill?
@ OJ- never been in a union in my life, I’m a young professional with a number of extremely dedicated, underpaid friends who are big-city public school (humanities) teachers. They work their asses off for peanuts. They spend 3+ hours a day commuting back and forth to some rough neighborhoods, routinely work nights and weekends and over winter vacation, and start working on lesson plans and organizational crap 2-3 weeks before the end of every summer break. Yeah they still get 6-8 weeks vacay which is more than most but for all this they are paid in the 40s. These are people who invested 6 years of their lives and 100s of thousands in good 4-year colleges and education masters programs. They work their asses of for their kids and the future of their country and they are as skeptical and conflicted about their unions as anyone else. And what do you do other than denigrate their profession and call them overpaid? Would you do their job? I didn’t think so. So, STFU since you clearly have no idea what your talking about– or at very least, are massively overgeneralizing from your own limited experience.
BTW your response about what a company would do flies in the face of reality. Companies offer higher wages all the time to attract better talent especially for mission-critical jobs that need specialized skill sets– engineers, crative, executives, even technicians and skilled assemblers. Education can’t be outsourced (even though I’m sure you’d love that) and if you think it’s not high-skill and mission-critical then just another reason China and India will eat out lunch. If our nation is ignorant enough to think public education should be treated as a low-skilled service sector job with the pay and benefits of fast food and retail chain managers, then I guess we deserve what we’ve got coming.
@ OJ, Conner & anyone who holds their point of view.
The biggest problem with education these days is that many parents have abrogated their duties as educators of their own children. As soon as the child has been picked up by the big yellow bus or whatever mode of transport available for this purpose, they think of themselves as no longer responsible for their children. This way of thinking has led to the USA & Europe of today where decisions are made that affect all our lives by individual companies, research institutes and government funded bodies that are then enforced upon us as though the impact of such decisions will not affect the decision makers.
When we think of the well being of our neighbor, we by default think of our own well being.
Pass it forward.
School in our area testing iPads (and Macs) with the kids and teachers
http://www.noblecountyedc.com/news.aspx/2011/1/19/board-looks-to-lower-building-project-cost
@crabapple
Bad parenting is not something new. It’s as old as the human race. In the past we have managed to raise and educate an enormous number of Americans who didn’t have ideal parents. They went on to change the world and make it a better place. It’s not like that anymore. So what’s changed? Is it the parents or the way kids are educated? What’s the variable here?
Conner, you wrote: So what’s changed? Is it the parents or the way kids are educated?
The answer is yes. Both and, not either or.
Now back to the topic of this thread. iPads in schools are a great idea, but they’re not yet cheap enough to be used widespread. Many parents just can’t afford to buy their kids a $500 piece of electronic equipment the kids will bang up and break inside a three month period, insured or not. Our school systems are not financially able to buy iPads AND electronic versions of books as of yet.
This idea’s time has not quite come, yet I applaud this MA’s school system for attempting it early.
Having been a teacher I can speak to some of this. I never did less than a 60 hour week and needed to have a summer job in order to make it financially, so had to do my ongoing education to keep my certificate up at night in the summer.
Parents? I have seen enough generations come and go to know that todays parents, as a group, are FAR less involved and FAR less interested in taking responsibility for raising their own kids.
We have created 2 generations of parents, the latest one being the worst of the two by far, who believe that it is society’s obligation to raise their kids from cradle to grave.
We WILL be much the worse for it and I am afraid that a meltdown is the only thing that will get their attention.
How in Gods name can you expect a teacher to manage a classroom of 30 kids when their parents can’t or wont manage the behavior of even one of those kids.
Yes, it really is that simple, so don’t trot out that “its not that simple” junk answer. I will not listen, and am proud to say it.
IT IS that simple.
Buy iPads though. I am training to be an iPad/iPhone app developer, and I will be better at it than most not because of my educational degree, but because of my most important degree: a Doctorate from the School of Hard Knocks and Experience which in the real world, trumps them all!
Teachers and non-teaching professionals can see dramatic advantages … and students can see a billion ways to make this very distracting, time consuming, and very expensive for the school administration. If there’s one thing that electronics vendors should know about school equipment, it’s that no mobile devices placed in the hands of juveniles with no financial skin in the game is a recipe for IT department pain — no matter what company builds ’em.
MDN, aren’t you going to tow the Fox/Luntz/GOP party line of how stupid “Massachussetts liberals” are?
Mike you are right about one thing: if the kid or his parents has no economic skin in the game, their will be more damage and maintenance than they project…. a lot more.
So now I expect a retort from a parent: “What??? NO NOT MY KID! It is your job as teacher to stop him or her!”
No it’s not. It’s your responsibility to raise the kid correctly. Deal with it.
As you may have noticed, I am not politically correct, that is why I don’t teach any more. You have to lie in order to be politically correct.
Doesn’t mean their aren’t great kids and parents out there who will use the iPads. in a very effective way. It’s just that over the years our open-mindedness has caused our brains to fall out in the areas of behavior, character, and personal responsibility.
The school system WILL have to separate the bad people from the good ones and don’t be afraid to identify them for who they are. Hey, its not like everyone does not know who they are, its just that we don’t have the courage to do anything about it.
@MDN Take: *sigh* I’m so jealous of their school right now – Our principal is adamant about sticking with the dell laptops he’s held on to for the past few years. They are slow as crap and run on Pentium IV’s.
I dont know what’s worse at this point, the fact that only 2 teachers on campus support macs, or that Im occasionally forced to use these windoze machines 🙁
@ Conner
So what’s changed? Is it the parents or the way kids are educated? What’s the variable here?
It is society as a whole, you, me, them, us. In the old days as you mention, things may have been the same as today but a lower level because everyone took responsibility. As a child, you did not misbehave in front of an adult for fear of being disciplined on the spot or being reported to to your parents who would then discipline you far worse than the adult who reported you would have.
As an adult, unless you were an out & out criminal, you were careful of your conduct because if it upset your community, you would find it uncomfortable to live in it.
And then of course the media who convinced us to aspire to lifestyles we cannot support morally or financially.
The main issue here is how we take or do not take control of our personal responsibilities.