Schools Giving Laptops To Students Is A Terrible Idea

Ducman69 said:
BTW, is it just me or is that a fundemental difference between liberals and conservatives?
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No. The NSA/Snowden debate pretty much cleared that up. The shades of grey between the left and the right are too numerous to count.

We don't need a third party. We need a third and fourth at minimum.
 
SGA76 said:
I did chores at the promise of an alliance.
After 12 months it turned into "We don't owe you a dime, you live here without rent so you're going to work."
Great thing to tell to a 10 year old, no wonder I have trust issues.
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Hah, similar thing happened to me :p Still, got to take the good lessons with the bad ones. Every kid has to learn eventually that their parents have their own weaknesses / personality flaws.
 
Stiletto said:
No. The NSA/Snowden debate pretty much cleared that up. The shades of grey between the left and the right are too numerous to count.

We don't need a third party. We need a third and fourth at minimum.
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You're confusing political parties with broad social ideology.
 
Why not just a kindle for the books instead of a full laptop or Ipad? everything else would just be a distraction.
 
jackofalltrades said:
Why not just a kindle for the books instead of a full laptop or Ipad? everything else would just be a distraction.
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I wouldn't really advocate this either. A real textbook is much better than an e-copy on a Kindle as far as usability. The only advantage may be costs of the actual text and portability.
 
Grahamkracka said:
You're confusing political parties with broad social ideology.
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I'm pointing out that you have liberals who are backing Obama's drone use, and liberals who are denouncing it. You have conservatives saying the war on terror requires domestic surveillance, and conservatives saying that's a gross overreach of power. The whole idea of a political dichotomy has been shattered.
 
Stiletto said:
I'm pointing out that you have liberals who are backing Obama's drone use, and liberals who are denouncing it. You have conservatives saying the war on terror requires domestic surveillance, and conservatives saying that's a gross overreach of power. The whole idea of a political dichotomy has been shattered.
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I'm not disputing that Republicans and Democrats are the same thing. But saying a conservative is the same as a liberal is patently false. There still exists a very defined ideological split between the two.
 
Grahamkracka said:
I'm not disputing that Republicans and Democrats are the same thing. But saying a conservative is the same as a liberal is patently false. There still exists a very defined ideological split between the two.
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I'm not saying that a conservative and a liberal are the same. What I am saying is that in the modern context of issues, conservatives and liberals can find themselves agreeing on various concepts. The fact is that American political ideology is no longer a dichotomy. Statism is rising on both sides. Anarchism is rising on both sides. Factions are breaking off. If there is to be real representation in America, we need more parties, and lots of them, in order to represent the new array of political outlooks that are catching fire here. It's already catching over in the UK, as UKIP rises and the establishments decline, as Scotland looks to break away, etc.
 
Stiletto said:
I'm not saying that a conservative and a liberal are the same. What I am saying is that in the modern context of issues, conservatives and liberals can find themselves agreeing on various concepts. The fact is that American political ideology is no longer a dichotomy. Statism is rising on both sides. Anarchism is rising on both sides. Factions are breaking off. If there is to be real representation in America, we need more parties, and lots of them, in order to represent the new array of political outlooks that are catching fire here. It's already catching over in the UK, as UKIP rises and the establishments decline, as Scotland looks to break away, etc.
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Fair enough, see where you were going with it now. Though I think that was a little outside the scope of Ducman's original comment :D
 
We can't break the [H] tradition of a comment containing political content derailing an entire thread! Please, continue ;)
 
Grahamkracka said:
I wouldn't really advocate this either. A real textbook is much better than an e-copy on a Kindle as far as usability. The only advantage may be costs of the actual text and portability.
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The publisher will most likely charge the same if not more for the electronic version just because they can.
 
PHP:
RealityCrunch said:
Hah, similar thing happened to me :p Still, got to take the good lessons with the bad ones. Every kid has to learn eventually that their parents have their own weaknesses / personality flaws.
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Did your's keep your paper route money from you all year, use it to buy you your Christmas gifts, then tell you you were cheap and an ungrateful bastard for not buying them better gifts?

If you can't guess, I don't speak with my father and do everything I can to avoid my mother.
AND moved out to the middle of nowhere to get the hell away from them.
 
$200 Chromebook could be useful for kids as an educational tool right? $200 is probably cheaper than they pay for shoes/clothes/etc in a yeah, and the laptop can be used for more than a year. Sounds like something parents need to provide for their kids.
 
SGA76 said:
PHP:

Did your's keep your paper route money from you all year, use it to buy you your Christmas gifts, then tell you you were cheap and an ungrateful bastard for not buying them better gifts?

If you can't guess, I don't speak with my father and do everything I can to avoid my mother.
AND moved out to the middle of nowhere to get the hell away from them.
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That still doesn't mean that people should be given handouts on the backs of the taxpayers.

Sounds like you had a really crappy home life. Not all parents are jerks though.

One thing I have seen all my life... the people who don't have to work for their stuff tend to have a massive sense of entitlement and do not take care of the stuff given to them. They expect that they should be given new stuff once they break the stuff originally given to them.

This is why the USA is such a huge mess right now. The politicians give handouts left/right, and the dumbmasses who have no business being involved in the election process keep voting them back in.

If you are on welfare, you should not be allowed to vote.
 
Stiletto said:
Sounds like the same rate of laptop destruction at my workplace of 2000 "professionals", with the exact same reasons.
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Had a user at my work place bring in a laptop with a cracked screen and when I asked her what happened she told me straight up she dropped it, but then proceeded to say it was the bags fault because "I've dropped plenty of laptops in their bags and they never broke so this bag must not be very good".

Is it so hard to just take ownership of your actions?
 
All the kids our family that have tablets or laptops tell me how all they do is surf the net, facebook or play games in class. They all but one use apple stuff and they ether have no lock down or bypass it.

I believe the only think the use use is ebook to hold the text books.
 
They shouldn't just give the kids normal laptops. That opens up far too many cans of worms.

They should give them devices with no USB ports, Ethernet, or Wi-Fi. Just a membrane keyboard, a thick plastic screen, a really tough/reinforced hinge, and a proprietary wireless network protocol for downloading textbooks. Maybe a few office applications and a calculator.

That's all they should get. A standard tablet or laptop is too easy to misuse.
 
thejokker said:
This is why socialism/marxism/liberalism always fails...

If somebody gets something for free without working for it than most people will not respect it.
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This is a universal truth. I've seen it in those around me who've been freely given money and material things their entire lives—they value none of it, including themselves (or at least not any kind of deep-seated sense of EARNED self-worth and self-respect.)
 
Stiletto said:
Nah. I just hear "I dropped it, give me a new one."

Okay, you'll have to wait a few hours like everyone else.

"No, I need it now."

We don't have one to give to you right this moment.

"Why not? I'm going to call my manager."

Company policy states we have 12 hours...

Email: "Why haven't you given them a new laptop?"

An hour later...

Email "Please convene for a meeting to discuss the build and deployment process."

Thankfully, people are being fired one after another. I can't wait for my turn.
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Reminds me of when a former boss of mine "dropped" his laptop because he thought it was too old. He was used to being with large companies, but this was a small business and their new computer budget was already exhausted, so he was stuck with a partially broken laptop :p
 
Smashing Young Man said:
This is a universal truth. I've seen it in those around me who've been freely given money and material things their entire lives—they value none of it, including themselves (or at least not any kind of deep-seated sense of EARNED self-worth and self-respect.)
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In that case if you feel that people look after stuff much better if they buy it themselves...then why is it most privately purchased PCs and laptops I get in to work on look like shit? Covered in food, full of dust, bits broken off, cracked cases, missing keys.

That theory really doesn't hold true in this case. Computers are 'cheap' commodity items now.

I tell my customers "buy it, abuse it for 3-4 years then dump it and get another one for half the price!"
 
daglesj said:
In that case if you feel that people look after stuff much better if they buy it themselves...then why is it most privately purchased PCs and laptops I get in to work on look like shit? Covered in food, full of dust, bits broken off, cracked cases, missing keys.

That theory really doesn't hold true in this case. Computers are 'cheap' commodity items now.

I tell my customers "buy it, abuse it for 3-4 years then dump it and get another one for half the price!"
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His theory seems related to the Tragedy of the Commons, a rather well respected theory of economics.

It doesn't seem to apply perfectly though as each individual is assigned their own equipment, so the theory probably doesn't hold quite as well.
 
amddragonpc said:
Maybe these teachers and school management should go back to pen and paper. Really, who needs this aggravation? I can imagine the stress, directly and indirectly, these students and teachers are experiencing because of equipment malfunctions, etc.
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as one who enjoys tech and is a teach I can say that the difficulties of poorly run IT departments who are stuck working on backend servers, internet problems and poorly deployed thin client labs is the biggest issue...

iPads are fine, but only because of the software you can load on to them, at our school we have ipad carts of 32 and they are fine.... but we have no policy or procedure to get an application on all of them. So we are left with using them with iworks, web browser or the apps that were install on the ipads when we had a teacher on special assignment who was managing the ipads and chromebooks....

I ended up buying 8 windows laptops from a business that was going under on craigslist for $800 and use them in my classroom because I can actually load software on them when i want/need to...

4-5 IT people for 8 elementary schools 1 Jr high and 1 high school isnt enough to manage a 1:1 program or anything like it.


schools are not willing to higher the necessary technical staff to implement what they want to do.... which is why chromebooks are becoming more popular


although setting up 1,000 new google apps accounts for new students every year is not a trivial thing to do
 
daglesj said:
In that case if you feel that people look after stuff much better if they buy it themselves...then why is it most privately purchased PCs and laptops I get in to work on look like shit? Covered in food, full of dust, bits broken off, cracked cases, missing keys.

That theory really doesn't hold true in this case. Computers are 'cheap' commodity items now.

I tell my customers "buy it, abuse it for 3-4 years then dump it and get another one for half the price!"
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I call B.S. to your overall theory (YMMV of course), though I don't tell my clients to "aubse" their computers. I've been working on other peoples computers for well over a dozen years and for the most part people take decent care of them. Generally the older they are the better they seem to try maintaining the device. Laptops do tend to gather more detritus, wear & tear and abuse than personal desktops (compared to business computers, where people often couldn't give a crap what happens to it).

As far as this article is concerned, kids shouldn't have laptops provided by taxpayers money. Put a computer lab in school made available to students that are in need (which realistically should be very little as most school kids have some form of computing device available to them outside of school). Make it just enough of a chore that only the ones who really need it and are willing to put the effort into getting it are able to make use of it.

Administrators that put expensive toys into kids hands need to be shot, fired, flogged and submitted to an IRS audit. Little Bobby needs an iPad to surf the web? His parents can buy it for him.

Yeah, as a kid I sold candy at school, fruit from a wagon, collected and recycled cans & bottles and anything else I could do to get money. No free lunch and I'm a better person for it in the long run - at least my financial well-being is better for it ;)
 
daglesj said:
In that case if you feel that people look after stuff much better if they buy it themselves...then why is it most privately purchased PCs and laptops I get in to work on look like shit? Covered in food, full of dust, bits broken off, cracked cases, missing keys.

That theory really doesn't hold true in this case. Computers are 'cheap' commodity items now.

I tell my customers "buy it, abuse it for 3-4 years then dump it and get another one for half the price!"
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I believe it's related to how easy a thing is to obtain. If a person had to save for a new PC before they could afford it, odds are they would take much better care of it. A person to whom a new PC is only pocket change is less apt to. It's all relative to how difficult a thing is to obtain—the more difficult, the higher it's personally valued and hence better cared for. I think it's safe to say nothing is easier than free.

Though it's also true that some people are just prone to trashing stuff, no matter how hard they may have worked for it.
 
the-one1 said:
The publisher will most likely charge the same if not more for the electronic version just because they can.
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Which is why using iPads, laptops, tablets, etc. to replace books is a losing proposition.

What is needed is a ruggedized, locked down tablet designed specifically for education, and books/education material developed and available at a very low cost or even free.
 
nutzo said:
Which is why using iPads, laptops, tablets, etc. to replace books is a losing proposition.

What is needed is a ruggedized, locked down tablet designed specifically for education, and books/education material developed and available at a very low cost or even free.
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Maybe some lower cost items made from pulp and glue...
 
When something is given to you for free, you don't give a shit about it. It has little to no value to you outside of being a hammer. Then you couple youth with irresponsibility along with free equipment and you have a recipe described above. Adults are almost no different.
 
Anytime I've seen a 1:1 device/student program fail, it's because the IT department was bad. It is not an impossible goal or a bad idea to have even student with a device.

They could hide their incompetence running a normal network, but once you brought in a serious wifi network and 500+ devices, these school IT folk can't handle it.

I'm actually working on rebuilding a 500 iPad high school right now. The network was in shambles, as it was only 1 subnet (for everything from servers to guest wifi devices.) The wireless used all 11 channels, 2.4GHz only, APs were on desks or velcroed to the hallway-touching wall and every AP was cranked to high transmit power. One of their biggest issues was that the entire network went hard-down for 15 minutes every class change.

Once I took over, things started to get manageable. You HAVE to do it right. Broken devices are a lame excuse, you can get a large number of ipads and then have another company handle replacements. Just take the broken one, give the student a new one, and move on. The students pay insurance on their iPads.
 
Ducman69 said:
BTW, is it just me or is that a fundemental difference between liberals and conservatives? Seems most liberals never really had any chores and just lived purely off charity into adulthood
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No. But that doesn't stop 99% of conservatives from thinking so.
 
ml_paladin888 said:
without the laptop I'd be wasting hours per week just sitting in useless classes that had nothing to do with my major or my career goals.
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It's sad to see someone think that learning things outside their major is a useless waste of time.
 
I need to find it but im part of a fountain pen forums and there was an article/study linked there that showed 95% of the time people retained information when handwriting notes during a lecture as opposed to typing.

Had to do with not only the translation but the way notes were taken. a high percentage of the people taking notes on laptops were taking verbatim notes as the lecturer spoke wheres handwriters were pulling out just the key points which caused them to not only focus more, but provided more analysis while listening to the lecturer as opposed to mindlessly typing what they said
 
VladDracule said:
I need to find it but im part of a fountain pen forums and there was an article/study linked there that showed 95% of the time people retained information when handwriting notes during a lecture as opposed to typing.

Had to do with not only the translation but the way notes were taken. a high percentage of the people taking notes on laptops were taking verbatim notes as the lecturer spoke wheres handwriters were pulling out just the key points which caused them to not only focus more, but provided more analysis while listening to the lecturer as opposed to mindlessly typing what they said
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Heck, these days you just record the lecture :p Row after row of students holding their smart-phones in front of their faces.
 
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