‘Bye-bye books, hello iBooks
p2pnet.net News:- In Kutztown, pupils must use Apple laptops for school work. It’s mandatory, and it’s all part of the increasing trend in the US to use schools and universities as marketing and promotion outlets.
The entertainment cartels are in the process of successfully turning American universities into corporate police and marketing divisions – they even have their very own ‘educational’ programs in place, and they’re run by school staffs. So why shouldn’t Apple do the same, having already convinced Duke University that iPod music players are essential educational tools?
Now, instead of text books, 340 students at Empire High School in Vail, Arizona, will use iBooks – laptops made by Apple – as the, “Southeast Side district opens the state’s first all-wireless, all-laptop public high school,” says the Arizona Star.
“Students still will go to class and teachers still will create lesson plans, but textbooks are making way for electronic and online articles.”
In February, Bill Gates, spoke before the National Governors Association, “calling the American high school obsolete,” says the story, going on that Gates called for more than just advances in technology: “He wants a systematic look at the effectiveness of high schools across the country.”
Wonder what softrware he wants them to run?
“It’s a big investment for the growing district,” says the Star. “The laptops run $850 a pop, and the district will hand them to 350 students to keep for an entire year. Eventually, administrators hope enrollment will hit 750.
“A set of textbooks runs about $500 to $600,” Calvin Baker, superintendent of the Vail Unified School District, said. And, “because books usually are used for six years, a government textbook might still reference Bill Clinton as president. ‘We don’t really know for sure’ how well the plan will work, Baker admitted.
” ‘I’m sure there are going to be some adjustments. But we visited other schools using laptops. And at the schools with laptops, students were just more engaged than at non-laptop schools’.”
The school isn’t entirely paperless, however. It has a library, and students are often assigned outside reading.
“We’re not trying to eliminate books,” the Associated Press has Baker saying. “We love books.”
Computers and the Net are now integral to the world we live in. So schools have to be online, and students obviously have to be able to use computers.
But coupled with that should be some kind of competitive process, together with an intensive and in-depth assessment program.
Stay tuned.
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See:-
It’s mandatory – The Kutztown 13, August 11, 2005
Arizona Star – All-laptop high school to open in Vail, August 19, 2005
Associated Press – Ariz. High School Swaps Books for Laptops, August 19, 2005
August 19th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
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August 20th, 2005 at 3:54 am
LOL. Yeah, that way they change “history” overnight & schools’ll become Wikipedia centers of disinformation similar to the media. LOL. Gates shouldn’t talk. What original idea has he ever come with?
August 20th, 2005 at 11:36 am
Of course schools are obsolete learning systems. Everyone is expected to learn the same thing at the same time, whether they’re interested or not. Gates isn’t saying anything the Automonous Learning fraternity hasn’t known for decades.
And forcing kids to use Apple iBooks? As someone who observes the education system with the bemusement of one who knows his kids will never get involved in it, this seems no less daft than school meals sponsored by Coca Cola and lesson plans drawn up by Hollywood.
Dumping corporate culture starts at a young age. Just say “no”, kids.
Chris