Yes, please.
Seriously, I'm curious if people could think of an alternative. If this school is willing to spend $20,000US/14,500 Euro to equip a few trial classes in middle/high school with iPads, what else could they do with that money that is equally meaningful? I was going to suggest subsidized textbooks or some kind of major field trip that would be way beyond what the youngins are used to.
Fieldtrips are awesome, but one time deals. Why spoil one year and leave everyone else lacking?Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
To some extend you could say the same for textbooks, constantly having to be repurchased and replaced.
Tech purchases are usually made to fulfill long term goals. IE, replacing the need for textbooks.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
What kinda backgrounds do these students have? Fairly well off? Academic? How many students? Is this going to be a one-time expense? What do the people "on the floor" aka. the teachers think, and why? What the hell do they hope to accomplish other than to blind parents and to lure suckers into enrolling?
Have they gotten any input from the kids about what they think they need? (without giving them a list)
If you've got the means, set up a mentorship programme.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
And the field trip is supposed to accomplish what exactly? Honestly, you're biased and that makes you think that the alternatives are automatically more worthwhile than the original suggestion.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
If they're gonna buy tech then at least make sure they don't buy ipads. Cheap netbooks if they want it. Use them to enable work on collaborative projects.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
He's asking. Jesus
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Weekend workshops. Workshops or courses in leadership, group dynamics, personal development.
Team-building and fun things for the teachers. I once heard some remark that hospitals should put their staff first so that their staff can put their patients first. I can't help but feel as if the same may apply to schools and teachers. What do your teachers want?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Well, honestly, I'm a bit angry that people like him are the ones deciding what pupils are getting based on a whim and unsubstantiated opinions. Sorry, but that's exactly why schools are in the mess they are in - decisions not based on actual facts but on some kind of extremist notions.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Prize money or scholarships. Emphasis on something that improves the school and helps develop a good environment.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
You're mischaracterising his posts as being extremist, perhaps because you're angry. Anger came first. Now stop being a poopyhead and help him out with better ideas. Angry misguided criticism can only get him so far (not very far).
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Tech is a good investment for enabling self-directed learning, but you guys might want to look into how you might get them (kids and teachers) started down that path because few people can perform well starting from nothing.
Do you guys already have a web-platform on which you can share useful resources such as educational videos, tutorials, etc?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
The platforms exist, but are not universal in their adoption. I think the only one thats made any progress is Blackboard, which is mainly a college thing, and students hate it.
One of our neighboring counties has one thats parent focused. Allowing the parents to track grading, see what the teacher is teaching, resources being used and suggested, etc.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Well, you're going at it all wrong. First you have to decide what you want: Better the school atmosphere. Get rid of some already-known structural problems. Improve the kids' chances beyond school. Improve their grades short-term, mid-term or long-term. Improve relations between parents and teachers. Get rid of bullying. Prevent bullying from happening.
Then you look at the measures you can achieve your goal with and compare them - it would be best to actually have some kind of statistics you can base your comparison on. You also need to think why the proposed measures are supposed to help you achieve your goals - by which effects and strategies, and what you need to consider to make them work, the boundary conditions, so to speak.
An example for this would be the difference between school medicine and homeopathy - both want to cure, yet the latter variant makes use of quackery. That's why you also need to look at the proposed mechanisms to see if they make sense.
And only then you decide what you actually spend money on.
Everything else would be throwing money in the air and hoping something sticks. Honestly, this sounds like some of our bureaucracy's shenannigans - some departments are funded for one year and the next year's budget is determined by how much money they spent. If they did not spend all the money, they'll get less. Which means that the last two month may be a frenzy to spend money wherever they can.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Has it been well-received? How's it worked so far?
Many of these platforms are too complex, unwieldy and poorly adapted to the needs and wants of those who're supposed to use them. You could probably do more with a facebook fan page, an involved teacher and a few curious students
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
It's a well-run school and the students come from solid family backgrounds. About 13% are disadvantaged, but the rest I would characterize as well-off. I did speak to one of the teachers this summer. He described the opinions as mixed. He said it would be great if all textbooks could be available on iPads, because that would make students always have their textbooks on them and get to read them during subway commutes, on trips, etc. But not all the books are available, which he felt was a significant drawback. But he wasn't sure what we could do with the iPads beyond teaching the kids how to analyze truth/rumor on the Web and teaching them how to type.
Though he was slightly biased in favor because he got a free iPad.
Whether it's an iPad or something else, you're right there is an element of a one-time splurge of money here. And a "field trip" wouldn't make that any better, which is why I'm somewhat reluctant to throw-out the idea without a more solid idea behind it.
I don't have any formal decision-making power. The school just has a network of people whom they meet with to solicit ideas. This school can and does beat the crap out of any unionized public school in the city by just about every measure. It is very well run, and I have very little to do with that. But part of the reason is i so well-run is because they voluntarily open themselves up to outsider opinions and ask for [non-binding] feedback and brainstorming.
Pay this guy to talk to your teachers, parents and students:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_m..._makeover.html
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I really don't think you should be wary of one-time things in principle, esp. not if it has a chance of long-term impact (so one-time splurge on a very appreciated course/workshop might be a good idea).
How about a field trip for the interested to CNSE?
Or a fund that goes towards buying coffee and cookies for mentors and their adepts
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
And there he goes again with the unions thing.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
My knowledge of it is limited to little more than what parents from that county tell me, but they seem to love it. Its much easier for them to track their children's progress, and they know at all times what their children are learning and how much work they are supposed to be doing (it would do wonders with us and Brent not being honest with his homework levels).
It makes communication with the teacher easier, and it makes it easier for the parents to jump right into the subjects their children are learning, as well as relating reallife scenarios to what they are learning in school.
Yet we have people who want to outlaw or ban such forms of communication between teacher and student.You could probably do more with a facebook fan page, an involved teacher and a few curious students
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 10-24-2011 at 04:15 PM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
A guest lecturer. Now that's an idea...not short term, but not long-term. But also someone who could really bring some new perspective to a class and will be remembered for a long time.
More importantly, it might be appreciated by the teachers as well. That part can be long-term, unless you plan on firing all your teachers
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
The most appreciated and useful things we do through the local chapter of the med student union is to arrange interesting lectures and workshops/seminars. There's one guy who has a real gift for finding interesting and interested people, and we occasionally get input from students on who or what they'd like to see. It's fairly cheap and very simple, and very effective in terms of boosting inspiration and motivation. Workshops/seminars are of course more work to set up, but can be far more effective and useful (esp. if the idea is to go forward appling the new knowledge and skills).
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Well, that's the problem (I think) with the discussion over "technology in the classroom." For some reason, everyone always seems to assume this means and must mean that we put the technology in the hands of the kids, which... is dumb for so many reasons. The iPad money would be better spent on, for example, a bunch of projectors, a decent LAN and a couple servers so teachers can use multimedia tools and the internet to teach the kids about whatever, instead of using overhead projectors and dry erase markers and chalk and chalkboards and all that shit. (Plus it would or could vastly cut down on the time teachers spend revising paper copies of their lesson plans and allow greater collaboration if everyone's lesson plans are electronic and centrally located, etc, etc.)
Put the technology in the hands of the teachers, instead of the kids, and you eliminate a lot of the problems that current (stupid) approaches with "technology in the classroom" bring, which are usually related to teaching the kids how to use the technology, and then stopping them from using it purposes more fun than learning once they do know how to use it.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
The teachers already have some of those tools and some of them are great. I got a nice tour of the main one called SmartBoard. It's basically a hybrid of a projector and a touch-sensitive digital dry-erase board. It allows my old friend (who happens to be a teacher at the school) to project from a laptop onto a white board, but also interact with the board to manipulate what's on the screen and annotate/write things out. Students can come up to the board and do the same.
We didn't have an especially detailed iPad discussion, but I got the group and faculty to set-aside much more time for it at the next meeting. I also pushed them to bring students and teachers in to join the discussion (they were going to bring in the IT department, which is totally irrelevant). This will be in April when the trial program is a few months old (it is happening in 5th, 9th and 10th grades).
My teacher friend and I agree that the iPads would make a ton more sense if most/all student textbooks were available for digital downloads. But they aren't, which muddies the waters a bit. Most ludicrously, the school envisions this as a "green" initiative to save paper/the environment. I will be sure to bring them some photos from Shanghai next time around.
I also question going straight for iPads instead of an open-source tablet with different hardware configurations, but will have to wait until April to see what kind of software they are all using. On the plus side, the whole school just completed a program to switch from a FirstClass client circa 2001 to Google Apps for Education.
Smartboards have been around for while, but they need(ed) better penetration into the classroom. Used them a few times, and they are good but very limited, especially considering their pricing a few years ago.
But at this point, I think they are sitting back burner with all the talk of touchscreens and smart surfaces. That tech is to the point now that Microsoft has demoed how to turn any surface into a touchscreen, not to mention the crazy shit being done with Kinect.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
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