Community Corner
Op-Ed: School Board, Don't Vote for Macs
Upper Saucon Patch reader Kathie Parsons tells the school board why she feels 1:1 Macs are a waste of money.
Editor's Note: This email refers to
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Dear School Board member,
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I've been a member of many School District committees and do not recall ever hearing a recommendation for 1:1 laptops for students as an educational goal. There is no research indicating that the ubiquitous use of technology enhances learning but many reports do show that it creates distracted students. The presentation from the Technology committee should be filled with statistics supporting the idea that spending 2 million dollars for laptops will increase our students productivity and test scores. I would like to see,
" Data-informed decision-making guides our path to continuous improvement." (from the SLSD vision statement) not, "We got a great deal on laptops, let's get them for everyone!"
As you are listening to the presentation regarding buying laptops for the school district, I would appreciate it if you would consider the following:
Assuming that over 1,000 will be leased for a 1:1 ratio -
* The overwhelming majority of students in Southern Lehigh have computers with internet access at home. The 9% of students that are eligible for free or reduced lunch could be given a laptop to take home.
*Why do they need to take them home? Who will pay for the insurance? What happens if they are stolen or broken? There was no parent or student survey done asking if there was a NEED or a want for a laptop.
*Why not just continue to have laptops on carts? Why not buy 500 PC's and lease just 500 mac's?
*The students already use both Mac's and PC's, can't the teachers become just as adaptable as their students?
* There are recent studies that show that the ubiquitous use of technology does not enhance learning and instead creates distracted students.
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- DOES TECHNOLOGY WORK???
http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/answering-the-big-question-on-new-technology-in-schools-does-it-work-part-1/
When it comes to research supporting major purchases of laptops, tablets, and similar devices, such a cumulative body of evidence is missing-in-action.So if the research pantry is nearly empty, why do districts buy iPads? They want to use hardware and software to solve difficult problems. But school boards and superintendents also buy high-tech devices because they want to be seen as technologically innovative and ahead of other districts. In this culture, the value of technology is equal to social and economic progress. Because school boards are completely dependent upon the political support of their parents, taxpayers, and voters to fund annual budgets, being seen as ahead of the game in technology garners public support. Not to adopt new technologies, even when funds are short, means that district leaders are failing their students and against progress.So the truth of the matter is that research studies that show positive effects of technology hardly matter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/technology/technology-in-schools-faces-questions-on-value.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
"The class, and the Kyrene School District as a whole, offer what some see as a utopian vision of education’s future. Classrooms are decked out with laptops, big interactive screens and software that drills students on every basic subject. Under a ballot initiative approved in 2005, the district has invested roughly $33 million in such technologies." and "
Since 2005, scores in reading and math have stagnated in Kyrene, even as statewide scores have risen.To be sure, test scores can go up or down for many reasons. But to many education experts, something is not adding up — here and across the country. In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning."
From an article in The Christian Science Monitor, Timothy Snyder, Professor at Yale writes, "Removing laptops from the classroom gives students a chance to focus, and a chance to learn to focus. Without the flash of screens and the sound of typing, they find themselves... learning. In most courses, much is lost and nothing is gained by the use of the Internet. If the students need to use the Internet, they have the remaining 23 hours of the day, and indeed the rest of their lives, to do their screen-staring." .... "And what do the students think? Almost all of them, judging from the student evaluations of my previous courses, saw the logic of the laptop ban, and liked the atmosphere of calm and concentration that it permitted. If, at some future point, the tide of student opinion turns against me, I have one final argument: Ever since the laptop ban was inaugurated, my students have been earning far better grades."
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=416375
"Jeremy Littau is an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who focuses on media and technology. The topic became intensely personal when he noticed something interesting about the students in his classes.
Those who brought laptops with them, purportedly for note-taking, seemed to be performing less well than students who did not. And not only were they distracted; so were their nearby classmates.
"There's a halo effect, where people are being distracted by what's on the screen," says Littau. "The conspiracy theorist in me assumed they were on Facebook."
Apparently, some were. Or on Twitter or YouTube or eBay, or all three at the same time. One architecture student turned out to be designing a building while Littau was conducting lectures.
When he started surreptitiously tracking the performance of the laptop users, Littau found out something else about them: they were getting lower grades.
Now, along with a growing number of other US academics - and backed by new neurological research suggesting that technological distractions are taking a significant toll on learning - he has taken the dramatic step of banning laptops from his classes."
More - http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-24/news/29469460_1_mit-social-networking-laptops and
http://www.economist.com/node/21552202 , http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/dilemmas-in-researching-technology-in-schools-part-2/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/state-education-rankings-_n_894528.html
and my favorite: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
"The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction"
Cost of Mac's vs. PC.
Cost of Dell Latitude E5420 from Dell's business site - http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/latitude-e5420/pd?refid=latitude-e5420&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=1&~ck=dellSearch&isredir=true $499. This is the purchase price, not a lease.
Cost of Microsoft Live http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/essentials-home FREE!
Wouldn't it be better to teach students how to use software that they can easily access from their home computers? 73% of College students own PC's. Why not equip our students so they will know how to use them?
The families in our school district make the decision NOT to buy Mac's for themselves because they are so expensive. What message are you sending when we are supposedly cutting the budget but we have 2 million for laptops that no one has asked for?
Enterprise Desktop Alliance: – Survey of 260 IT professionals say Mac's are cheaper
http://www.cio.com.au/article/338964/macs_really_cheaper_manage_than_pcs_/ "
With Macs dominating in almost every cost category, why would 16 percent claim they spent less troubleshooting PCs? "It might be an [issue] of expertise of the IT staff," says Tom Cromlin, spokesperson for the Enterprise Desktop Alliance. "They're probably more comfortable troubleshooting PCs."
Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Jon Oltsik has another reason. He says top execs often prefer Macs, and thus supporting those machines take on more importance. "It's not about managing [Mac] systems, which may be easier than Windows" on a machine-by-machines basis, Oltsik explains. "It's when the CEO wants IT to install software on his or her Mac, which will need immediate attention and take time away from other tasks."
The cost of management appears to be a key driver for Macs in the enterprise. Nearly half of respondents said they brought in Macs mainly because of their low total cost of ownership and ease of technical support.
In fact, many small companies with limited IT resources told CIO.com that they moved to Macs after getting fed up with costly PC support issues. "Mac owners tend to do a lot of problem resolution themselves by communicating with other users," Oltsik says.
One of the flaws of the survey is that it doesn't factor in the cost of the PC or Mac itself, only the costs associated with managing the computers. Macs, of course, cost more than most PCs. However, many companies told CIO.com that the low cost of managing Macs more than makes up the cost difference between the computers.
Many, but not all. "You can buy a PC for $400, while the cheapest Mac is over a thousand," Jon Graff, director of IT operations at A&E, told CIO.com last year.. "In the real world, you're spending a lot more on a Mac." While managing Macs may be cheaper than managing PCs, Macs pose their own special challenges as companies get up to speed supporting a Mac-PC environment."
Digital textbooks can be used on-line now. They don't need a special Mac.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7-57361974-243/6-things-we-dont-know-about-apples-e-textbooks-strategy/
Students at colleges when given the choice of a traditional hard copy book or a digitized version choose the hard copy one.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-16/ebook-textbook-sales/52603526/1
"So far, students have been less than impressed and more likely to opt for print books. About 11% of college students have bought e-textbooks, according to market research firm Student Monitor.
Availability isn't the chief problem. Most popular textbooks have a digital version, and they're available online. But students have largely stayed away because the most readily available technology today — PDF (portable document format) or other document reader versions of the print book — is clunky and eye-straining to read."
Kutztown, a nearby school district with a similar demographic as Southern Lehigh, has had a 1:1 laptop program for the last 7 years. Their test scores have dropped every year since 2005. http://www.schooldigger.com/go/PA/schools/1293000816/school.aspx
In conclusion, I think that the laptop lease with the intent to give every student a laptop is a poorly thought out decision with no substantial research to show any expectation of increased productivity or test scores.
I hope that you will give as much thought and research to this very costly issue as I have.
Sincerely,
Kathie Parsons
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