yay! I'm first !

I have a strong opinion concerning the subject matter of this post. I just need more time to articulate it.

Ok, I've thought about it. A better way to spend that money would be to hire more teachers and make class sizes smaller. Also, basic building maintenance would be good.

Where I live, we've got these amazing old school buildings made of brick and marble. If you were going to rebuild them from scratch, the costs would be astronomical.

And yet, rather than maintain or refit them as needed, the district would rather sell them off or tear them down and build new schools that are nowhere near as solid. I suspect race has a lot to do with it (they're in an inner city district), and I'm no stranger to old buildings, so I really can't fathom the logic.

A similar thing happened around here. It seems that cities would rather build new schools than perform basic upkeep on existing schools. Makes no sense.

part of this I am sure is due to OSHA. It's all fine and dandy to have an Asbestos ceiling until you have to remove it. Also any building built prior to about 1970 is going to have lead paint, which again is more expensive to remove/rehab because of health concerns. Sometimes it actually may be cheaper to build new. The other consideration is time, because students would not be allowed in the school at all if Asbestos or Lead Paint were being removed, even if on a different floor/hallway.

Even with those considerations, unless someone puts a hole in the roof, these 4+ story buildings from the 40's will still be standing a hundred years from now while the particleboard flat-roofed strip-mall school building will have been condemned decades before. It's thinking long term which nobody seems willing to do anymore.

Which is why they should be retrofitted into homeless shelters, including heat in the winter, give them their own, or two to a room, where they would have their own key/keycard and have a lock box for storage. the cafeteria could be used as a soup kitchen.

Of course prividing free room for these people is akin to communism to the republicans.

Building a new building from scratch or placing an order for millions of iPads is fun, straight-forward and looks good. Fixing systemic problems in existing situations (or those exciting new situations, 6 months later) is tough and thankless.

I need to call my broker...

You're about fourteen years too late.

It's cheaper then buying new computers. This is a non story.

How so?

A good laptop can be had for under $400.00.

Plus, a laptop (or desktop) is more suitable to generating content. As somebody pointed out on SE, an iPad is great for consuming content, but that's as far as it goes.

But apple gives a brake to schools and administrators don't know anything about computers. They would end up comparing Ipads to dell desktops and all the screens, keyboards and mouse. Each machine would end up being $500+. They really do see Ipads as the future and have never had to use computers for anything work related that couldn't be done on a type writer or with a copy machine.

Horses for courses. But despite Apple's commercials, I wouldn't want to write a long document or program, or make a lot of edits to a spreadsheet without a keyboard, mouse and a big screen.

Bond measure language includes using money to purchase technology for schools. Schools purchase technology with bond money.

And as a recovering plumber, I'll add that the likelihood of a urinal flush valve in a school lasting 25 years before needing replacement is about zero. That's not even considering what will take place as waterless technologies mature and the cost of water in California goes up, necessitating the replacement of fixtures to have any hope of meeting operating costs.

None of which matters a whit if the kids don't get engaged with their book learnin', and tech engages kids. Teachers can't effectively compete for their attention without it, and they'll fail.

If teachers can't compete with technology for kids' attention, the teachers can tell the kids to put their smart phones away during class.

The competition doesn't end with the school day; there's an onslaught of media competing for fractions of every person's time -- Xbox, TV, movies, internet. Children of school age are no different, except that they are perhaps targeted more shrewdly than adults.

I've seen rather amazing results from my own kiddo with some of the math and reading apps. I certainly wasn't reading as well as her at her age -- and my mom was a teacher. Giving all kids access to these kinds of tools will only help them in the long run.

Fuck iPads. There are plenty of brands of tablet computers that work just as well, if not better, for a fraction of the price.

That said, I applaud this measure and hope that some day all public schools adopt something similar. I hated all the books and journals I had to carry around, all the sheets of loose paper I had to keep track of. This will in the long run cut down on the costs of ordering new textbooks and stationary. And speaking of textbooks, if this can help in severing Texas' stranglehold on textbooks consider that another win. They get to control what books schools get nation wide because they have such a high influence on what gets printed. Well, if texts don't get printed at all, but are just computer software, then it'd be a trivial matter for each district to be able to order custom software. Same basic outline, but state by state can choose which chapters to include or exclude. If Texas has a problem with their kids learning about Thomas Jefferson, they can have that cut just for them. Likewise, the entire country doesn't have to think the Alamo was so goddamn important anymore.

Last time I checked, textbook companies were livid over this kind of thing. They seem to think they should get the same ungodly prices for their books even though they now have zero printing costs.

Zero shipping costs, too. How long would it take for a tablet to download a textbook via wifi?

LA schools give iPads to students? Let's see how long they stick around for...

Technology in schools is a tough thing to teach. "Computer Class" was barely a thing when I was in HS, and we had clunky old Apple IIe comps.

The problem is whatever you learn about and use for the class (unless, maybe, if you're learning a programming language or a VERY popular app like Photoshop) is likely going to be mostly if not completely obsolete in a few years. On the other hand, learning computer/technology basics is becoming a must these days.

I know people who can't even grasp the idea of bookmarks on a browser, for crissakes, and keep icons on their desktops that are basically browser address shortcuts because the farthest they ever got with learning how computers work was the desktop GUI.

In the bay area they are considering teaching kids programming. I think that's an interesting idea.

I think it's a good one, so long as either there's a variety of languages or someone who actually knows what they're doing picks ones that stand a better chance of still being used as the kids progress through school.

Even if the languages change, the concepts will persist.

Do they really need 1.3 billion iPads though!?

We thought they needed three times that number.

Maybe they'll reconsider when they come crawling to us for new batteries.

Federation technology amuses me. They have warp drive, holodecks, and replicators, but not tabs or windows for their pads. Those things probably have over a petabyte of memory, too. I was also amused by the fact that there are never surge protectors on their starships. Like 80% of on-screen casualties are due to a console overloading and blowing up in someone face. That's like if you work at an office, and all the computers explode when the building gets stuck by lightning. Pretty goddamn serious design flaw. At least with the pads I understand, as those props were just a sticker on a piece of plastic.

Meanwhile, in the Star Wars universe, it's impossible to damage a vehicle enough, short of blowing it up, that it can't be repaired by crossing two wires pulled from the armrest.

I like how the Millennium Falcon has like 10,000 switches and lights in the cockpit and not a single damn one of them is labelled.

Do you know how hard that makes that fucking thing to steal? The specific power up sequence is basically a password.

Han probably took them off because he and chewy couldn't work out the language they wanted them in. He then rationlized it as a way so that no one else could fly her. That's why he is making that face when Lando and Leia are flying it without him.

I do get that kids need to learn how to use current technology regardless of whether or not their parents can afford to buy it. Having them doesn't mean that the teachers are going to use them well though.

My kids are going to a public elementary school which has smart boards, and a mobile ipad lab. I believe that the intention is that teachers will use the technology to facilitate teaching and learning.

Of course some teachers are better than others at accepting and adopting technological changes to the teaching process.

Of course they could buy the kids Android tablets and then they'd have enough money left over to fix the broken toilets.

Or maybe, you know, apple could donate them?

Fuckin' commie.

Bay Area commie.

Actually that's kind of redundant.

But those first and second generation iPads are just sitting there taking in the money- ammirite?

Kidding!

We broke them and threw them away in India!

You're welcome!

But seriously. Why would you want an entire generation of LA kids to get used to (practically mandatorily) using an iPad in school?

I mean, fuck brand loyalty, right?

This was my 'ipad' in grade school:



Except we weren't allowed to use them because it was considered 'cheating'.

It was for your own good.

I mean it's not like you're going to be able to take a calculator with you EVERYWHERE when you grow up, right?

Remember that watch you bought and thought "that f8cking teacher is so full of shit" only like a kid so more like "Wait tell the teacher gets a load of this!"

Apple used to think this way - it seemed like every school in the country had Apple II computers. I don't think they were donated, but they were priced right.

They still have a great brake for schools. I had an apple II, now I use whatever hardware I can find second hand and use linux.

While I support this...
What could possibly go wrong?

http://news.kron4.com/news/man-punches-8-year-old-steals-his-ipad-video/

Dude.

What I find more disturbing, according to this account, is how much racism figured into this story.

1. The boy is called the n-word by the thief.
2. The cops only arrive after getting a report that someone (no race identified) was being chased by a bunch of Somali men.
3. Cops were responding to #2, yet Mohammed Armeli notes he called 911 before giving chase, so while it's great the cops didn't immediately take the side of the guy with the non-Muslim name, it doesn't seem like they were there because the restaurant owner called.