Les Kern said:
As for ANY Windows machine, XP is an abomination, and an XP laptop in the hands of even moderately savy kids will lead to problems I think that that panel of folks at Henrico were either misled or blind to the facts.
Pray for them, but it will be fun to watch.
This is the problem. It is not just tech savy kids, but the sham/scam artists out there that there that is also a problem.
I am not a total techno-geek, but it does seem that M$ could make XP and future OS's less prone to hijacking.
As to renting (answering mole's comments). There are social/economic issues with that. I would prefer that a student that wanted or needed a system at home could check one out, like any book at the library. Any family that did not have insurance to cover the loss of the computer could get an affordable coverage that could be likened to your rental fee.
I support the idea of giving each student a laptop at the start of the year, only if it replaces the textbooks that they use. Not sure if times have changed much, but I left HS in '76. I went back to my JHS as a substitute teacher in the '77 school year. In my JHS days, the history books were just beginning to accept JFK as president, or in rare cases LBJ as president. And even 4 to 6 years later, the students were using the same text books (I know this as fact since I picked up one, and it had my name in it!).
According to my quick research, there are about 65 million school aged children in the US. According to the Washington Post this past Sunday, we have spent or will spend $186B US for the war in Iraq. That works out to be about $2800 for each school aged student. More than enough IMO to equip each student with a laptop (of any sort) for their 12 years of school.
NCLB was meant to bring about standards. By giving each student a laptop that could be used as an ebook machine, we could ring about a greater ability to have a greater national standard. Yes, it would mean a change in publishing of text books. Instead of 100's on a subject to choose from, it may be 20 or so. But in the end this may raise the standards of what is published. Also there would be an economy of scale issue, that the textbooks could be updated more easily and cheaply.
Maybe, dare I say, allow school districts the ability to participate in e-publishing. Allowing them to pick the best parts of each "book", in order to meet the social needs of their district?
Back to the original post. I do believe that in my experience as a Mac/Windows user, and in the past selling and supporting both platforms - that any wholesale move towards the Windows OS is not in the best interest of limited public funds to support IT.