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Originally Posted by lmarie
brecklundin,
I agree with you (except your comment about non-tech-savvy teachers  ). |
hehehehehe...you know there are some out there...but I am thinking to reduce the intrustion of device support overhead, which like you say can be a HUGE hinderance to the subject being taught.
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I AM a teacher (inner city Philadelphia), and I can tell you that much of the technology so far leads to distraction rather than focus. I'm not sure how many people here have taken a group of kids to a computer lab, or rolled in a laptop cart and distributed laptops for an assignment, but I have. The internet provides endless opportunities for kids to do anything EXCEPT focus.
I'd love to see ebook devices, lightweight, portable, with student texts and literature easily downloaded to them. I think such a device would be more useful than a laptop. I know it's a pipe dream here in the US (I did read somewhere about an experiment with this in Norway though). We don't want to invest in education in this country -- at least, not in an education that will actually help our kids in the competitive global economy of the 21st century. Other countries will though.
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One of my closest friends is actually president of the teachers union in our town. I am amazed at what he tells me teaching has been reduced to for the most part. If it were ANYONE else telling me this stuff I would not believe it...in fact I never believed it was this bad until someone I turst without question tells me how it is...
It is very sad people are willing to donate OLPC's for kids in other parts of the world but unwilling to perceive the benefit of such adoption here in the US...better they all have cell phones & PSP's from the age of six.
It is time and this is a low overhead way to bring some of the advantages of tech devices into the educational system. A simple and elegant system.
BTW, I ran a computer lab for a local community college for a couple years while finishing my university degrees. So I get what you mean about how difficult it can be to get a student to focus on their task vs. the distractions of the device itself.
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I believe it was also asked how the books would be delivered...ummmm...it's built into the design of the Kindle's. One mass mailing to the already setup book list to Amazon and xfer'd to the Kindle's via EVDO (or even pre-delivered this way for areas w/o EVDO) and viola the device is loaded and ready for the semester.
I promise you once a few schools make this work it will catch on...I do think the mention of device durability is an issue that would need to be solved in the case of student devices. Warranty issues and such needs to be addressed. But that can be worked out...actually having watched the 36" drop video on the Kindle page of Amazon pretty much tells me the Kindle is very durable already. Not sure a Sony can match this point.