Quote:
Originally Posted by msjohnson007
To clarify my position, the students I teach enjoy reading when given the chance to choose their literature. My class reads 40 books per year at a minimum and the students get to choose, within certain parameters, those 40 books. My classroom "hard copy" library is limited by my ability to fund its growth and I do not make enough to keep abreast with the voracious curiosities and varying interests of 35 fifth-graders. I barely make enough to supply art materials, notebooks, and copy paper. Our school library is rapidly dwindling in response to a severe deficit in the goodwill of our society toward the public school system. As it is, the local public libraries are carrying less and less books. It may not be this way at your child's public school yet, but my students are being greatly disserviced.
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I did some work for a local high school when the Australian Federal Government funded a "One Laptop per Child" program. The students were 12-14 years old - which I suspect is considerably older than msjohnson007's fifth-graders, down here they would be 9-10 years old.
The problem was that the Feds didn't fund any support programs, additional infrastructure (like a half-decent school network) nor did they fund any teacher or admin staff training. The teachers ended up supporting the technology but they failed to take a unified approach - the English, Math, Physics, et al, teachers were all pulling against one another. The schools where it was more successful were were private schools (what the UK would call public schools) and some denominational schools - less bolshie teachers mayhap.
The main issue was NOT the OS it was the applications the teachers wanted the kids to use.
I wonder how many nine-year-olds would have the discipline to use calibre, which takes a very structured approach, unlike music libraries which tend to be more ad-hoc - OneNote v Evernote is another example of that difference.
The idea of a Calibre-Lite has been discussed from time to time - perhaps Chrome OS could be the first target platform.
msjohnson007 - rather than money, you could may get more traction for your 'project' if you 'crowd' sourced one or two experienced developers who were willing to donate their time and intellect.
BR