Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney wants to give a $100 laptop (to be developed by MIT) to every sixth through 12th grade student in the state. Maine gives laptops to seventh- and eighth-graders, the Boston Globe notes.
Three years after laptops were first handed out, teachers and students generally rave about it. But there is no hard proof of an educational payoff, and funding issues loom.
Students write and rewrite more when they have access to computers. It’s easier to do research. But state test scores for eighth graders haven’t budged.
I wonder if we really will see a $100 laptop in the next few years.
Update: Here’s more on plans for an ultra-cheap laptop.
What folks like Romney don’t understand is that the initial purchase price is just the tip of the iceberg. Software and support costs are the real expense. Most schools could not realistically afford a program like this even if the laptops were free. Not to mention, of course, the fact that the benefits of such a program are wildly overstated.
Romney should talk to some people in Cobb County, GA were a similar proposal crashed and burned not long ago.
> Romney should talk to some people in
> Cobb County, GA were a similar proposal
> crashed and burned not long ago.
The problem was that the funding was based on a sales tax that was not properly advertised by the School Board when it went to the voters:
—
Court ruling halts Cobb’s laptop plans
From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
August 2, 2005
“Thompson and former Gov. Roy Barnes, his attorney, argued at a hearing in July that school officials participated in a “bait-and-switch operation” when they promised that the 1 percent sales tax would, in part, “refresh obsolete workstations.”
—
While there is cost involved, doing the necessary planning would be the first, best step before getting the voters involved in such plans.
A news story on the $100 laptop (with picture) is at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4292854.stm
I wouldn’t start buying the bunting just yet.
The history of po’ folks computers designed by the highminded isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring. The most recent, splashy failure was the Simputer. There’ve been others.
What they’ve had in common is a disdain for the market as exemplified by their distribution schemes: always through government agencies, always free to the uninterested, deserving poor.
Maybe Negroponte will put this together properly but I’ll wait until the votes are in. In the meantime, the market system continues to grind toward a profitable $100 computer.
$500 laptops are not unusual and with a couple of technologies getting ready to drop the cost of the most expensive component, the display, a commericial $100 laptop is probably not much more the two years out. You can bet those laptops will appeal to their purchasers because their manufacturers won’t have the luxury of deciding what poor people would want if only they were richer.
I don’t know why anyone thinks that giving students laptops would increase performance. Yes, students can edit their writing easily, but grading student compositions remains labor intensive. If students do not read extensively, they will never learn to write well.
I think Hunter hit the nail on the head with his comments about the laptop being only part of the cost.
How about replacements for kids who lose them? What about repairs? If an entire school has them it seems to me you will need a full time repair person on site to handle the problems that come up. Also, being a parent of a 6th grader I can tell you some of those laptops are going to get lost or stolen. Who pays the replacement costs? If you say the kid is S.O.O.L than there will be kids whose lessons have to be modified b/c they won’t have a laptop available.
> How about replacements for kids who
> lose them? What about repairs?
> If an entire school has them it seems
> to me you will need a full time repair
> person on site to handle the problems
> that come up.
The well-designed program takes all of these factors into consideration. Apple iBooks have been one of the choices for schools moving to LapTops over the past couple of years. While a little pricey, they are designed for kids. While not indestructable, they do seem pretty durable.
The machine being discussed in this article seems to have durability as one of the design parameters. Right now, the disks and key-boards are about the only moving parts on a LapTop (and hinges). It stands to reason that over time the disks will become very small, and quite inexpensive. Disk storage could well be replaced with memory in the coming years, reducing another point-of-failure in the machines.
These sorts of programs would probably best be administered at the District level, so that the number of support personnel could be reduced. It’s quite likely that the machines will be “throw-aways” in the future, meaning it’s not worth time fixing them because the cost of labor is greater than the replacement costs.
Assuming that there is a shift to electronic media for books (e-books, etc), then the savings from the cost of printed educational/instructional materials will be applied to purchasing/maintaining the LapTops (or other machines that might be designed in the future to provide students an “Educational Information Appliance”. The savings from shifting from printed books to e-books is in the billions of dollars, which should pay for the computation hardware/software.
Sell your backpack stock, and possibly your printing press. If they keep the power supply separate as I have recommended, they might have them next year. Teachers should be developing methodology now that makes use of the laptop.
Throw away the office copy machine and get a couple of CD/DVD burners.
Here are the positives of a laptop
designed for the classroom:
1. Eliminates most books and clutter.
2. Eliminates students’ giant backpacks.
3. Simplifies tests and quizes, alows a
computer to check the entire classes’
assignment in a split second.
4. All curriculum material in the laptop
can be easily reviewed and updated.
-
Most drawbacks can be avoided:
1. Laptops should have ONLY an IR
interface, preferrably transmitting
and receiving in a ’school format’.
This is to reduce the laptop’s
commercial value, making it less
likely to be stolen.
Also, the IR port would eliminate
any place a student could stick and
break off a pen or pencil.
2. No audio output.
To eliminate audio distractions a
student could make the laptop do.
3. No Internet connection.
—-
Some preferred laptop features:
1. High-resolution display.
Because, at a young age, I recall
being distracted by the grain in the
paper. If I put on my reading glasses
today, I am slightly distracted, or
fascinated by the ‘jaggies’ on my
1240 x 1024 TFT monitor. If you don’t
have great eyesight, you might not
understand this experience.
2. A speed-read exerciser.
3. A speed-type exerciser.
4. The laptop should be packaged so that
an attempt tp open and modify it would
destroy its case. It should only
accomondate battery replacements and
a charger.
I hadn’t read the article before I posted
my ‘laptop specifications’ at ~2:00pm.
Here is an excerpt from Brian Klako’s
article that justifies my requirement
that the laptop have NO INTERNET access:
________
There have been some glitches..
..During the same
class, her teacher struggled to get
everyone logged on to a site to view
video lessons about fractions.
________
THESE ‘GLITCHES’ occurr often when the
Internet is part of a lesson plan.
Also there seems to be evidence in this
excerpt that this teacher doesn’t trust
herself to teach the subject of
fractions, and defers to a website.
Its quite a simple subject. Why bother
with a website?
Most Feared Answers:
a) The hardware exists to do it, so do
it.
b) A school administrator or an
instructor in a ‘college of teacher
education’ wants to see a lesson plan
that incorporates the Internet.
I say, go with the solid gains that can
be realized by the laptop, and ditch
proposals that make wild claims. Those
can be experimented with at a later
date.
You guys are dealing with this as if school districts will be able to dictate the computer/gadget the kids can use. I don’t think that’s a very realistic assumption.
As the price of laptops continues its descent what’ll be the rationale for insisting that the kids use the district-supplied computers? Whatever the reason given, it’ll have to be good enough to justify a district expenditure to replace a piece of hardware already purchased by many parents and, that’ll probably be rendered obsolescent in a fairly short period of time.
Some districts will insist that only school-supplied computers be used but I don’t think that’s a tenable position, long-term for a number of reasons.
First, the duplication of costs - paying for something quite a few parents have already paid for - will be a tough sell, especially if it requires additional budget. It almost certainly will since, as Hunter pointed out in the first post, the computer’s only a part of the cost and not the biggest part.
Second, some of the reasons given for the district supplying the laptops amounts to increasing the convenience of the district. Common hardware reduces the complexity of the repair/maintenance issue, software support and staff training. This is also where a lot of the costs of the program would be found. Is bureaucratic convenience a good enough reason to duplicate the costs of parents purchasing computers for their kids?
Last, the speed of technological change means that in a fairly short period of time the district laptops will be obsolescent. As the contrast between the district-supplied laptops and what’s available on the market continues to increase it’ll be more and more difficult to get the kids to use them. Cellphones, for example, are constantly, and quickly, getting cheaper, smaller and more capable. One trendlet in Japan is using your cellphone as your primary computer by hooking up keyboards, external monitors and external storage when conditions allow. Any district-based laptop program will have to deal with increasingly independent and sophisticated technological competition and the only way they can do that is by flexing their authoritarion muscles by prohibiting private, electronic gadgetry.
Paulr Wrote:
> Most drawbacks can be avoided:
> 1. Laptops should have ONLY an IR
> interface, preferrably transmitting
> and receiving in a ’school format’.
> This is to reduce the laptop’s
> commercial value, making it less
> likely to be stolen.
> Also, the IR port would eliminate
> any place a student could stick and
> break off a pen or pencil.
> 2. No audio output.
> To eliminate audio distractions a
> student could make the laptop do.
> 3. No Internet connection.
To my way of thinking, these restrictions would reduce the capabilities of the machine to the point of being almost useless in a multi-media, network-based, distance-learning environment.
While I’m not sanguine about the likelihood of a $100 machine being commercially available anytime soon (I worked for a company that tried to do something like that once), $300-$400 machines will show up one of these days.
—-
> Some preferred laptop features:
> 1. High-resolution display.
Yes.
> 2. A speed-read exerciser.
> 3. A speed-type exerciser.
Presumably this is software?
> 4. The laptop should be packaged so that
> an attempt tp open and modify it would
> destroy its case. It should only
> accomondate battery replacements and
> a charger.
This seems rather harsh. Better to integrate an “identity” capability into the motherboard, so that the machine can be identified (perhaps even remotely) easily as school property.
> ..During the same
> class, her teacher struggled to get
> everyone logged on to a site to view
> video lessons about fractions.
And this is the sole reason for not designing the Internet (or maybe some other network) into a “LapTop” for school-based instruction? “Glitches” occur all the time. Good design (based on a “vision” of services to be delivered) will eventually correct these sorts of problems.
One of the issues with the Internet being a primary “educational” network is that the load of 60M-70M school children (or more) has not been factored into the capacity equation for the Net. My sense is that each State (or a consortia of States) will want to create “limited access” server sites for its schools, which would be provisioned for the load of the schools connecting to this, effectively, limited access network.
The other problem turns out to be content. Just because a “fractions” WEB-site happens to be on the WEB today, doesn’t mean it will be there tomorrow. Content that is needed for instruction needs to be managed, archived, and retired when no longer needed. The management of the servers could be easily facilitated at a central site, via a State-level agency; teachers would want to be able to upload their own content without having to go through a site administration, however.
Allan Wrote:
> You guys are dealing with this as if
> school districts will be able to dictate
> the computer/gadget the kids can use.
The State of Maine has made had a program for its middle school students where it provided the hardware. The problem is whether the schools should provide the equipment, or the parents should be expected to provide it.
> Is bureaucratic convenience a good enough
> reason to duplicate the costs of parents
> purchasing computers for their kids?
> Last, the speed of technological change means
> that in a fairly short period of time the
> district laptops will be obsolescent.
And America’s businesses don’t have the same problem?
> One trendlet in Japan is using your cellphone
> as your primary computer by hooking up
> keyboards, external monitors and external
> storage when conditions allow..
No one can predict where the world of consumer electronics will be in just five years. Moving to LapTops, or some other Information Appliance, and away from printed instructional material, is a commitment to cost control that Schools have to make which will have profound effects on their finances, and will, over time, offer higher quality educational services because of network-based educational delivery
The State of Maine started a LapTop program for its middle school students some years years ago. This article appeared a the Portland, ME paper after it was determined that test scores have shown any appreciable increase:
http://news.mainetoday.com/indepth/laptops/040810laptops.shtml
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Laptop students still test the same
By TOM BELL, Portland Press Herald Writer
After two years, the first middle school children to use laptops in class showed no improvement in statewide MEA tests, despite the state’s million investment. Do you believe laptops will enhance your child’s ability to learn?
The goals of introducing “laptops” is probably less that clear for many people. Part of the problem is that something called a “paradigm shift” has to occur in order for “productivity” increase to be realized. This same problem happened in the mid-‘80s, when after a couple of rounds of adding PCs to the desktops of America’s offices, people began to ask: “Where’s the economic payback?” There were a number of traditional economics studies that claimed that PCs weren’t helping the bottom line, and there was no clear cost/benefit to justify their purchase. After a few more years, and a lot more deployment of the machines, other economists began to write that “traditional” metrics would not see productivity increases based on the introduction of PCS; different metrics would have to be developed to provide the cost/benefit justifications.
For instance, communications between employees was increased because of networks and email. While this was not always a good thing, in time, people began to see that this added communication provided better inputs to corporate decisions. Other areas that were difficult to see at first were in the areas of product quality. Over time, it became clear that PCs could be integrated into manufacturing lines in any number of ways. Increase Product quality became a necessity as the US had fallen into a “quality hole” in the 1970s, and was surpassed by the Japanese in a number of areas that turned out to be very embarrassing.
Eventually the World Wide Web was developed, and information interchange exponentially increased globally. People in faraway lands could set up WEB-sites, announcing the availability of goods and services which bypassed the traditional distribution channels.
Unfortunately, education, being people-centric, has been very slow to see the possibilities for systemic change that would increase the quality of education delivery, and the cost at the same time.
There are a very large number of teaching opportunities that having Internet-capable LapTops would offer schools. Take, for instance, the possibility of introducing students to the worlds art museums from their desks at school, or their desks at home. The following WEB-site is just one of several that offer people access to art from all over the world:
Roland Collection:
http://www.roland-collection.com/
It’s probably not possible to visit all of the world’s art collections in one’s lifetime, but with appropriate development of instructional videos, any one of the world’s collections could be visited from any Internet Access Device (IAD) at any time.
Moving to LapTops is simply the beginning of decades of work that will have to be done to upgrade Americans backward-looking school systems.
Wayne Martin wrote:
The State of Maine has made had a program for its middle school students where it provided the hardware.
That’s nice but this is the world of the $100 computer that’s under discussion. Will the State of Maine dictate that $200 computers can’t be used? How about smart cellphones? Wearable computers? Implicit in the “hand ‘em out to all the kids” approach is the egalitarianism that provides one rationale for mandating school-distributed computers and excluding unfairness-causing $200 laptops.
And America’s businesses don’t have the same problem?
No.
No one can predict where the world of consumer electronics will be in just five years.
Say hello to no one then.
Computers will be smaller, faster, cheaper, more capable, more reliable, more accesible, more flexible, less obtrusive, less obvious and well on their way to ubiquity. How’s that?
*From the article*
There were a number of traditional economics studies that claimed that PCs weren’t helping the bottom line, and there was no clear cost/benefit to justify their purchase.
Some of those studies were probably even compiled using Visicalc, the seminal spreadsheet and the piece of software that saved Apple. I’m fairly sure the irony of “proving” the illusory benefits of computers while enjoying the productivity of those illusory benefits was entirely lost on the study’s authors.
Unfortunately, education, being people-centric,
Well yes, it is. But not student-centric. It’s other people-centric. Board of Ed member-centric, superintendent-centric, principal-centric, teacher-centric. After all those centrics are accounted for what little centrification is left over can be apportioned to student-centricity.
Allan Wrote:
> That’s nice but this is the world of the
> $100 computer
> that’s under discussion. Will the State of
> Maine dictate
> that $200 computers can’t be used? How
> about smart
> cellphones? Wearable computers?
Over time, I expect that innovation/curiosity/economic opportunity would open the doors to just about every computing device that gets invented. (I have been “cool” to the idea of “wearable” computers, but have begun to “warm” to the idea now that I’m hooked on wireless”.)
Duke University had a pilot program last year that saw the University giving iPods to incoming freshman. They have discontinued the initial program, citing a number of issues/problems that need study. However, many of the teachers have voluntarily continued their use of iPods in their classes. (Apple is hinting the next iPod will have a video capability, so this opens doors to more iPod applications for education.) Podcasting of lectures is now found on a number of University WEB-sites. It’s only a matter of time before this technology, and audio/video libraries are available for public schools too.
While the discussion initially focused on the $100 machine, we need to fold other devices into the mix also because the $100 machine may not be a reality.
> Implicit in the “hand ‘em
> out to all the kids” approach is the
> egalitarianism that
> provides one rationale for mandating
> school-distributed
> computers and excluding unfairness-causing $200 laptops.
Can’t say that I see this point as part of the discussion. Maybe a $100 computer is a holy grail, maybe it isn’t. Remember, if the 100 computer becomes a reality, someone will see the possibility of a $50 computer and one of these days it will be developed and come into existence to displace the $100 computer.
>> And America’s businesses don’t have the
> same problem?
> No.
Sorry, but everyone has this problem.
> Some of those studies were probably even
> compiled
> using Visicalc, the seminal spreadsheet and
> the piece of
> software that saved Apple.
Personal Software, the publisher of Visicalc, was out-of-business by 1984 (or thereabouts), so it’s more likely that Lotus was the spreadsheet of choice for these studies conducted in the late ‘80s and early ’90s.