this switch was definitly not planned. i think i can summize the senario:
1. any time you give out 1-1 laptops in a school enviornment, you are going to have probems. some kids will be responcible, others won't. there will be a full gambit of issue from abuse to never desiring to use it.
2. the teachers will initially embrace the idea but then it becomes a pain to integrate thier lessons into using the computers. they become aware of how this can either be a tool or a toy in the classroom from first hand expierence. remember that these are the same people who only get paid 30,000+ per year for having a masters degree. so going the extra mile is a tough sell to teachers
3. the parents field the complaint department. they want to know why something does or doesn't work. and most kids boil problems down becouse they either can't or don't feel like explaining the details. "Why don't you use your laptop?" will get answers like "it is a piece of crap". when the real answer is maybe it just needs more ram or someone spilt thier coke on it and doesn't want to let thier parents know. ultimatly parents look at this with only 2 critera what is it going to do to my tax bill and is it going to be a better learning tool for my child. above that, most parents are unaware that the computer world exsists outside of Dell and Microsoft.
4. Elected School Officials- this is the easy one. after a few years of complaints, they are just concerned about getting elected on the next go round. they were the first to buckle.
this entire process will repeat with dell or anyone else's computers. the only differnece is this is now a platform that the parents use at work and they think that now it will be easier to help thier kids.
These kids are not stupid, they are going to try to work the system to thier advantage. and thier are far more loopholes on windows xp to do so. but here is the ultimate problem. no laptop in the $1200 range that comes preloaded with office is going to have enough of everything (like ram) to make a a good enough tool to be used for 4 years. so on the 4th year when they are using aged technology of course it is going to be frustrating to everyone. Again this is where you start to hear the rumblings of the parents saying "they should have just gotten a dell".
and this isn't about the money. the $30 per laptop they are saving is going to be spent 2 or 3 times in the conversion process. and they are very aware of that.
when 4 years are up this time, they will be having all new problems and i am positive that the parents will find a new finger of blame to point at the current program and then the new flavor of the year will be suggested as the programs savior.
(EDIT: i am generalizing in this post, i realize that not every student, parent and teacher are identical - although elected officals do crack to the will of the taxpayer)
1. any time you give out 1-1 laptops in a school enviornment, you are going to have probems. some kids will be responcible, others won't. there will be a full gambit of issue from abuse to never desiring to use it.
2. the teachers will initially embrace the idea but then it becomes a pain to integrate thier lessons into using the computers. they become aware of how this can either be a tool or a toy in the classroom from first hand expierence. remember that these are the same people who only get paid 30,000+ per year for having a masters degree. so going the extra mile is a tough sell to teachers
3. the parents field the complaint department. they want to know why something does or doesn't work. and most kids boil problems down becouse they either can't or don't feel like explaining the details. "Why don't you use your laptop?" will get answers like "it is a piece of crap". when the real answer is maybe it just needs more ram or someone spilt thier coke on it and doesn't want to let thier parents know. ultimatly parents look at this with only 2 critera what is it going to do to my tax bill and is it going to be a better learning tool for my child. above that, most parents are unaware that the computer world exsists outside of Dell and Microsoft.
4. Elected School Officials- this is the easy one. after a few years of complaints, they are just concerned about getting elected on the next go round. they were the first to buckle.
this entire process will repeat with dell or anyone else's computers. the only differnece is this is now a platform that the parents use at work and they think that now it will be easier to help thier kids.
These kids are not stupid, they are going to try to work the system to thier advantage. and thier are far more loopholes on windows xp to do so. but here is the ultimate problem. no laptop in the $1200 range that comes preloaded with office is going to have enough of everything (like ram) to make a a good enough tool to be used for 4 years. so on the 4th year when they are using aged technology of course it is going to be frustrating to everyone. Again this is where you start to hear the rumblings of the parents saying "they should have just gotten a dell".
and this isn't about the money. the $30 per laptop they are saving is going to be spent 2 or 3 times in the conversion process. and they are very aware of that.
when 4 years are up this time, they will be having all new problems and i am positive that the parents will find a new finger of blame to point at the current program and then the new flavor of the year will be suggested as the programs savior.
(EDIT: i am generalizing in this post, i realize that not every student, parent and teacher are identical - although elected officals do crack to the will of the taxpayer)
