MA High School Forces All Students To Buy MacBooks 1217
An anonymous reader sends in this excerpt from the Salem News:
"A new program at Beverly High will equip every student with a new laptop computer to prepare kids for a high-tech future. But there's a catch. The money for the $900 Apple MacBooks will come out of parents' pockets. 'You're kidding me,' parent Jenn Parisella said when she found out she'd have to buy her sophomore daughter, Sky, a new computer. 'She has a laptop. Why would I buy her another laptop?' Sky has a Dell. Come September 2011, every student will need an Apple. They'll bring it to class and use it for homework. Superintendent James Hayes sees the technology as an essential move to prepare kids for the future. The School Committee approved the move last year, and Hayes said he's getting the news out now so families can prepare. 'We have one platform,' Hayes said. 'And that's going to be the Mac.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:iNelson (Score:5, Funny)
Has anyone noticed that putting an exclamation after apple's iStuff makes it look like it's in spanish? iCarumba!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's caramba.
Re:lol yes .. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Morality [wikiquote.org]
"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."
* Bertrand Russell, in Why I Am Not a Christian; this has often been misquoted as "The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."
Re:iNelson (Score:5, Informative)
What are you talking about? In 1991, I purchased an IBM PS/2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_System/2 [wikipedia.org]
Re:iNelson (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Variously attributed to Lincoln, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and Socrates"
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Proverbs 17:28
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Informative)
Students who don't participate will be able to borrow a school-provided laptop during the day, but they won't be able to take it home, Hayes said.
Which essentially means that the program is voluntary. The school is hoping to be able to save money by not having to provide computer labs.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Insightful)
School World: You pay the school in order to do work, and provide your own materials.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Informative)
Not all employers provide work materials, hell I have to pay for parking where I am.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean: a lot of places charge employees for parking, because a lot of places are cheap bastards. Lot space doesn't come for free ...
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry teacher. I'm not rich enough to do my homework.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry teacher. I'm not rich enough to do my homework
See? They ARE teaching kids real-life skills... just maybe not the ones they intended.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Funny)
Claris ate my homework. Moof.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Funny)
I can't tell if you are joking or not.
Using tax-payer funds to subsidize personal Macintosh purchases?
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes but they're using Macs. Why not just use netbooks w/Windows 7 Starter? Cheaper for taxpayers and parents alike, and Windows 7 at least prepares them for the corporate world.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Windows 7 at least prepares them for the corporate world."
Which is all high school is for anyway. (And no, there is no sarcasm being used at all.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Insightful)
There were techies bitching about buttons being moved in Ubuntu, and you expect normal people to go from OS X after three years of likely exclusive use to Windows? People react poorly to change, and Mac users least of all due to the sticky nature of Apple's product line. You're right, they ARE going to have some big problems later when they need to use a computer at work, and it requires something more than drag-n-drop to work.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, in this type of situation, going with Windows would be better. If students already have Mac laptops, they could run Windows using bootcamp on them, and they'd only have to buy a copy of Windows, not a whole new laptop. By going with Mac laptops it forces parents of students who already have a Windows laptop to either need a loaner, or buy a second laptop.
Actually requiring any specific platform is stupid. The best idea is to identify the tasks to be performed then allow the people to make their own choice as to how to perform the task. And MS Word or Office isn't the task, word processing, presentations, spread sheets, and databases are the requirements. Allow people to use whatever tool will do the job.
Falcon
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Interesting)
The school is hoping to be able to save money by not having to provide computer labs.
A school district near where I live is doing exactly that, but the school is providing the macbooks, one to every student. And the teachers are also ditching the imacs from their desktops and getting macbook pros. Doing this allows the school to reclaim 7 entire labs into new classrooms to make smaller class sizes without building a new wing, so it's actually a cost-saving measure.
They crunched the numbers, and talked with other nearby school districts that had done the same thing, to see if theft/loss/damage of the laptops was an issue, and surprisingly, it was not. (four damaged laptops in the entire year in one district they asked)
But this is a fairly wealthy school district, they had the money to pull it off, and I think it's great.
I suppose the next ideal evolution will be getting the textbooks onto the computers. That would be an entirely new level of awesome.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't want my child using one of the school laptops either. What if it's gets damaged while in the student possession. Will the parent be responsible for repairs? If I can't afford to buy my child one I won't be able to pay for repairs either.
And why mac books? I don't like windows anymore than the rest of the /. crowd but if you want them to be prepared for the high tech future why not get Dells with Windows 7 at half the cost.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Interesting)
And why mac books? I don't like windows anymore than the rest of the /. crowd but if you want them to be prepared for the high tech future why not get Dells with Windows 7 at half the cost.
I completely agree with you here. These are students being taught for their future and will need the skills required for their future jobs. Pushing the Mac platform is a horrible idea and a form of playing russian roulette with their computer skills and future job possibilities.
Regardless of anyones personal opinion of computer OS's, Windows still rules in both the personal and business OS level. And I don't care what anyone else has to say on the level of 'but, but, Macs are slowly gaining.' Thats great for Mac. But here's a good dose of reality. OSX was released in March of 2001. Its now June of 2010, just over 9 years later. Mac has been able to improve its market share from 1-2% to 6-9%. That means less then one in 10 computers is a Mac even after 9 years and one hell of an aggressive marketing campaign (we've all seen those 'Pc vs Mac' commercials). This idea is set to be set in motion for 2011, and considering it takes on average a person to graduate from HS a total of 4 years your looking at someone graduating with Mac-only education in 2015 being 5 years from now. I don't see Mac being over 50% market share by then to even consider itself the OS leader let alone getting over 33% if the market can even fragment enough to split evenly between Windows/Mac/Linux (without going into others like BSD, etc...). That means you will have students that can work with a small segment of the computers which will seriously hurt their chances. Any employer that has computers needed in the job will just look at the young adult and see that not only will they need training on the basics of the job, but how to use the basics of their workplace OS that is the business leader. And training isn't free, it's expensive and they will be more likely over looked for someone with Windows experience which means less training and money saved.
The school is also mentioning security as an issue, but thats getting more and more of a questionable problem. Fact of the matter is, Windows 7 is pretty secure (but not the most secure). And computer security is no longer as simple as how fast a virus/worm can spread. This keeps being shown on the Pwn2Own contests, as security is now based on what else is running on the computer. The biggest security risk seems to be running Flash on the system. If I remember right, Flash is not installed by default on Windows 7 and since many businesses won't let you install programs from the internet by default, that makes a big security hole gone. Not so on OSX where Flash is installed as factory default, a huge security hole. Another thing to consider as mentioned by Pwn2Own winner Charlie Miller: Windows 7 or Snow Leopard, which of these two commercial OS will be harder to hack and why? Windows 7 is slightly more difficult because it has full ASLR (address space layout randomization) and a smaller attack surface (for example, no Java or Flash by default). [oneitsecurity.it] So in the end, security to no longer one sided, each OS is now more secure in same ways then its competitions and less secure in other ways.
Also to consider is things like hardware compatibility. Most hardware is written to support Windows, with some to little to no support for Mac. Sure, Macs play great with other Mac hardware but if Apple doesn't make it things get iffy (again, depends on what it is your talking about exactly). These students go home and will want to use their laptops with their devices at home. Have a blackberry phone? Good luck doing anything but the basics of syncing (and no, showing me some complex set of instructions doesn't count. We are talking students of different interests and backgrounds, not the slashdot crowd). Printers and scanners? Again, depends on which ones and how old they are
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Funny)
Taxes are voluntary as well... just sayin'.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Insightful)
And then they'll get a project, or a homework assignment, or just plain harassed and abused in one way or another until they cough up the $$$.
This is a SCHOOL we're talking about.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>They just get the option of paying for the school's crazy Macbook program either directly or via taxes.
Yes. They also pay taxes when they don't send their kids to school at all (i.e. homeschool). Or for Amtrak even if you've never set foot on a train. That's the unfairness of a monopoly in a nutshell. It's the government equivalent of having to send $1000 to Microsoft every year, even if you never use MS operating systems.
In European countries the money follows the kid, so if they choose to go to Apple Elementary or Montessori Ed, or wherever, then the dollars go there. So if the parent decides this MacBook idea is stupid, he can just quit that school and go somewhere else. There's no negative consequences of that decision.
Re:Don't let reality get in the way of your anger (Score:4, Informative)
They probably mean the file server will use AFP [wikipedia.org], which few clients support. However there exist a client FUSE module [sourceforge.net], so linux & BSD should work OK. Now there are other server bits that Apple provides, such as calendar servers [apple.com], it could get hairy.
What are they going to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to do homework if you can't do it at home.
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Parents can pay for the computers upfront or lease them from the district, with the option to buy after three years. The payments should work out to about $20 to $25 per month, Hayes said. The cost also includes free tech support. "We realize for some families that will be a stretch," he said. In those cases, the district will provide financial assistance. Students who don't participate will be able to borrow a school-provided laptop during the day, but they won't be able to take it home, Hayes said.
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, having had some experience with the Maine Laptop Initiative [maine.gov], their MacBooks did experience downtime due to system problems, and of course inevitable hardware failures.
School administrators that I worked with (I did Novell support for a few schools, and integrating their MacBooks into NetWare was nontrivial, but went pretty well) complained the most about having to re-image drives. They spent quite a bit of time optimizing that process, but there are only a few ways to re-image a MacBook, and none are fast enough. I could not get ZenWorks to do it, despite some heroic work by Novell engineers as a pet project. Oh well...
We were required to re-image the machines to a base system image after many repairs, most specifically hard drives and system boards. Data backup and restoration was the responsibility of the student and local administrators. It's their policy, we just had to follow the rules.
Our little business did well providing non-warranty repairs until both Apple and Apple dealers realized they were being cut out of the loop in a big way. I left before Apple got hard and cut off parts access. That was the end. But we saved some schools a little money along the way.
The MLTI has many lessons for other systems. Worth looking into before your school board leaps off the cliff.
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:4, Interesting)
"School administrators that I worked with (I did Novell support for a few schools, and integrating their MacBooks into NetWare was nontrivial, but went pretty well) complained the most about having to re-image drives. They spent quite a bit of time optimizing that process, but there are only a few ways to re-image a MacBook, and none are fast enough. I could not get ZenWorks to do it, despite some heroic work by Novell engineers as a pet project. Oh well..."
Jeez, why not use Apple's own Disk Utility software, which works great for re-imaging single machines, or their Server tools which allow you do the same thing for multiple ones.
Sounds like you were trying to use every method but the one that's obvious.
"Our little business did well providing non-warranty repairs until both Apple and Apple dealers realized they were being cut out of the loop in a big way. I left before Apple got hard and cut off parts access. That was the end."
You can't order your parts from a distributor like every normal person?
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:4, Informative)
I would have looked to ThinkPad T series first, but Vaio gets mixed reviews. ThinkPads are only notebooks I would buy used, and I've never been disappointed.
Toughbooks are the best, but that's a different category. Some people claim Fujitsu makes good stuff, but not in my limited experience.
So there is nothing that I would consider to be in the median price range that compares.
And for a school, good enough should include being tough enough to live through a high school career. Maine's Laptop Initiative gave them to middle schoolers. It was comical to hear the explanations for cracked screens. There is, of course no explanation for a cracked screen, certainly not for one with a .22 hole in it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Y
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or how about "No, I'm not going to buy my kid a POS Mac."? I'm sure at least one Windows or Linux adminstrator's child goes to high school there.
Don't you think a Windows administrator would be very happy to know that they can put their feet up when they come home from work and don't have to administer their kid's computers as well?
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:5, Funny)
You're overstating OSX's abilities... a kid can trash a mac just as easily as a PC. One of our designer's mac's fell to his stupidity just last week. He installed something like 5000 fonts... brought the system to its knees.
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Replying to myself, but I just remembered why this is probably should be illegal: In other government endeavors, vendors bid for contracts. The organization (in this case the school) defines its requirements, and different vendors submit solutions that fill those requirements. The organization selects the vendor that can fill its needs at the most reasonable price. The school obviously didn't do that, or even consider it. They externalized the purchase so it isn't absolutely a contract-requiring program, circumventing measures meant to save the government (and ultimately, taxpayers) money.
Or they did a bid for some software that they wanted and the cheapest bid was for some OS X software. Now they need computers to run the software and Apple has the cheapest bid for a computer than can run OS X software.
Or even more likely they did a TCO study based on how much they were spending to support Windows machines versus OS X machines in the district and the Apple machines came out to be cheaper in the long run (as if you read the article the school district itself is providing full IT support for all of the laptops - think about how many viruses several thousand horny teenage boys could inflict upon those machines on their quest for the female anatomy).
Sounds more like parents will (Score:5, Insightful)
A new program at Beverly High will equip every student with a new laptop computer
Odd, from reading the summary, it sounds more like the parents will do that, while the 'program' will just require it.
My two cents (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really necessarily to require every student to have a laptop in order to learn? Are they saying it's nearly impossible to correctly teach students without this technology?
And sure, while technology makes things easier to do, it almost feels like they're blaming the lack of technology for not being able to properly teach the students. But, that's my opinion.
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose with QuickTime X ability to record the screen they can show their work, if you can call mindlessly punching keys work.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really necessarily to require every student to have a laptop in order to learn?
Albert Einstein didn't have a laptop in school.
Ben Franklin didn't have a laptop in school.
Stephen Hawking didn't have a laptop in school.
Thomas Edison didn't have a laptop in school.
Nikola Tesla didn't have a laptop in school.
Even Bill Gates didn't have a laptop in school.
They turned out okay.
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Interesting)
Albert Einstein didn't have a laptop in school.
Ben Franklin didn't have a laptop in school.
Stephen Hawking didn't have a laptop in school.
Thomas Edison didn't have a laptop in school.
Nikola Tesla didn't have a laptop in school.
Even Bill Gates didn't have a laptop in school.
Oddly enough...
Einstein dropped out of Luitpold Gymnasium (=high school)
Franklin dropped out of Boston Latin high school
Edison went to school for a grand total of three months
Tesla dropped out of Graz University
Gates dropped out of Harvard
Hawking was the only one to stay the course...and yes, he did get a laptop.
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Informative)
Einstein finished secondary school in Aarau (Switzerland), and then graduated from the Polytechnic in Zurich, and even finished his doctoral studies. So he very much did stay the course. It's just like a student changing one high school for another.
Einstein is definitely not one of those "succesful dropouts". Please stop spreading misinformation.
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's crap. Today's kids can't read or write worth a damn. They'd be better off just eliminating computers from classrooms altogether, and concentrating on teaching the basics. I never needed a computer, or anything besides a calculator, for high school or any of the basic college classes (obviously, computer programming classes were a different matter).
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it really necessarily to require every student to have a laptop in order to learn? Are they saying it's nearly impossible to correctly teach students without this technology?
And sure, while technology makes things easier to do, it almost feels like they're blaming the lack of technology for not being able to properly teach the students. But, that's my opinion.
It's amusing isn't it! Yet another example of technology being used to hide inadequate education. The real solution to most teaching problems is to hire good teachers, pay them enough to make them want to keep the job, and keep the class sizes small enough so that the teachers can actually interact with all of the students.
I'm a math prof, and I've found that the best way to present complicated material is a chalk board. Sometimes I get all crazy and use advanced multi-media like "colored chalk".
Really, though. Why do they need Macbooks? If they are teaching them computer science, then part of the learning is figuring out how to handle your own computer (whatever OS it might be). If they want them to typeset their term papers then they should just say that, not require a specific proprietary product. Part of being a savy computer user is developing enough skill with manuals and search engines to figure out how to solve $common_problem on $your_platform.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it really necessarily to require every student to have a laptop in order to learn? Are they saying it's nearly impossible to correctly teach students without this technology?
I went to a privileged school, and when I went to high school years ago they brought out their first laptop policy. In many ways, the laptops were "wasted" for official classes, and it was quickly learned that 95% of classes didn't need or use the laptop. For the other 5%, it was really very useful. The side effect of everyone having laptops was a lot of tinkering by all the students, and that had real benefit too.
Laptop schemes are nothing new. There are two questions in this case: why standardise on MacBo
Wrong To The Root (Score:5, Interesting)
Public schools should never require parents to pay for expensive items or programs. This is dead wrong. Many parents no longer have a job nor savings. How will their children get by in school? Further why in the sam hell would anyone push Macs on the kids? There are alternatives such as Linux that could save these families a fortune on PCs.
That's hardly fair (Score:5, Insightful)
How can you expect Americans to have aristocracies if you stand in the way of holding back or penalizing the poor!?
Linux Netbooks (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone gets in a huff... (Score:5, Informative)
FTFA:
"Parents can pay for the computers upfront or lease them from the district, with the option to buy after three years. The payments should work out to about $20 to $25 per month, Hayes said. The cost also includes free tech support.
"We realize for some families that will be a stretch," he said. In those cases, the district will provide financial assistance.
Students who don't participate will be able to borrow a school-provided laptop during the day, but they won't be able to take it home, Hayes said."
---
IMO, $20-25/mo is a fair plan. That should be well within the finances of most families, and as they noted, they will provide financial assistance.
That said, using a unified platform is not a bad idea, but why make students buy heavily marked up hardware? Why not Netbooks with Linux?
Re:Before anyone gets in a huff... (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked, every child in the United States is entitled to a free education up to the 12th grade. If one has to pay even $0.01 a month to get an education, then the education is not free.
Re:Before anyone gets in a huff... (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume you've never sent a kid to school. They constantly come home with lists of required purchases. Tossing a laptop onto the list is a larger scale, but no different in spirit than requiring: 5 spiral bound notebooks, 2 sewn binding composition books, a hand-held pencil sharpener, 10 number 2 pencils, etc...
Re:Before anyone gets in a huff... (Score:4, Informative)
If your school did that, then they probably violated the constitution of your state. The school is supposed to provide all those sorts of things to any student - anything else is discriminatory towards poor students (not that there aren't other ways public schools do this, but this is particularly blatant).
Because a Mac zealot set up the program (Score:3, Insightful)
That is usually how these sort of things come about. I mean when you get down to it, there is no good reason to require students to have computers. It makes sense to have computers at your school, and to use them for various things and tech students about them, but it does not make sense to try and make everything computer based. I do not believe everything is made better by computers, and I love computers. Sorry, but I don't see math being better done on a computer. I think a book, a calculator (for more a
Re:Before anyone gets in a huff... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this was a private school, I'd have no problem with it. Private schools can do what private schools want. This is a public school, and they are requiring students & their parents to pay out extra money for laptops. And it's not just any laptops, but they must be MacBooks.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for teaching kids about technology. But requiring them all to have MacBooks, even if they already have their own non-Apple laptops, is absurd. What can they teach about technology at large, using a MacBook, that they cannot teach using Windows? Furthermore, it is likely that when these kids graduate high school and go to college, they will find Windows machines far more readily accessible than Macs. After college, most of these students will find that prospective employers won't even give them the choice to work on a Mac.
I could possibly get on board with the school requiring laptops, but requiring them to buy (or lease or borrow) new machines, and not giving them the choice of which OS they can use, to me, crosses the line.
PS - How long until the first pics of some kid popping Mike & Ike's surface on the net?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
FTFA:
"Parents can pay for the computers upfront or lease them from the district, with the option to buy after three years. The payments should work out to about $20 to $25 per month, Hayes said. The cost also includes free tech support.
"We realize for some families that will be a stretch," he said. In those cases, the district will provide financial assistance.
Students who don't participate will be able to borrow a school-provided laptop during the day, but they won't be able to take it home, Hayes said."
---
IMO, $20-25/mo is a fair plan. That should be well within the finances of most families, and as they noted, they will provide financial assistance.
That said, using a unified platform is not a bad idea, but why make students buy heavily marked up hardware? Why not Netbooks with Linux?
Why is a unified platform necessary at all? My objection to this whole plan is that they require MacBooks. Yes, they may be offering them to families at a reasonable price, but what about parents who just purchased their kid a Windows or Linux laptop? All three platforms run office suites with enough compatibility that students can do essays, spreadsheets with charts, and PowerPoint-like presentations. And all three support all the major programming languages, so that students can learn comp sci, which
Laptops in High School? Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Matlab (no h) is very much most highschool math. Heck what it is used for is shot more towards Graduate level courses and above.
I mean I suppose you could pay $10k seat for matrix algebra.
Maple would be closer to what a highschool student needed.
Oh, really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a lawsuit to me. The school board is requiring people purchase a specific computer without reimbursement to get an education. Last I checked, everyone in the U.S. is entitled to a free education up through high school.
I'm not an apple guy, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
So if the purpose really is for the kids to learn subject material that doesn't include how to fix the computer, then the apple probably isn't a bad choice after all.
Re:I'm not an apple guy, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
If they instead opted for a Windows laptop it would be nearly impossible to standardize
it's not like they will be writing device drivers or hooking up exotic peripherals. they need a browser, email, IM, and maybe an IDE. they'll need to standardize on those anyway, but windows wouldn't make it any harder.
Stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Outside of a programming class why the hell do high school, hell even college students, need a laptop for school? I guess it's because of idiocies like this that we spend more, by far, per student than the rest of the world.
God I love these "You must run xxx OS" edicts (Score:5, Interesting)
My daughters school added the requirement that she have a laptop for school. The school here said that it must run Windows and have Microsoft Office on it.
I gave her a new Toshiba with Fedora Core and open office. She is happy with it, then I get a note from the school that It must be Windows because they had software to install that required windows. I told then that if they would let me know what the software does I would be more than happy to find a similar package for Linux or to set it up in a restricted virtual environment.
Never hear another thing from them. IMHO if the school wants to require an OS or Specific software packages then they need to pony up the money for the laptop and set it up the way they want it.
Re:God I love these "You must run xxx OS" edicts (Score:4, Insightful)
Kudos to your daughter for willing to be the weird kid with the oddball computer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely SURREAL (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Mac user of 23 years, I've gotta say that this headline is abso-fvcking-lutely surreal.
It seemed like Mac users pissed and moaned for decades about being forced to abandon their platform as schools moved toward cheap PC running Windows 3.1 et al.
Is today backwards day?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What comes around goes around. Before Apple was the 'small elite' of computers, it was the 900-lb gorilla against the world of Commodore, Atari, and the rest.
The important take-home lesson here is that regardless of the platform, monocultures don't last. Unfortunately, the lesson seems to be lost on the decision-makers. (over and over and over and over...)
Please.. (Score:5, Funny)
Sales Rep WIN (Score:4, Insightful)
Who was the Apple sales rep on this account? Huge WIN - to FORCE parents to buy a kid a new machine when they might well ALREADY HAVE ONE that works perfectly well.
Asking the wrong questions (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just as bad as mandating all Microsoft software - I feel like I'm back in the 1990s.
They should be using the web to get any content out to students, and then students could use whatever sort of computer (or device!) they want, including ipads, thinkpads, or smartbooks or their latest phone which they use instead of a computer. Then in five years time when the next hot new thing comes along or their mac software is broken by a new OS, or Apple drops Mac OS completely (the last WWDC was almost entirely taken up with iOS), they will not be left stuck on an abandoned platform dealing with bit rot in old applications and wondering why they mandated that everyone must use this. You know, like those companies that still use Windows 2000 because they are tied to binaries on that platform and they don't want the hassle of moving on.
This is exactly what the web was made for. If they used platform-agnostic html to deliver their student content (no active-x, no binary plugins), they would have an always up to date resource which students could access from anywhere, and which did not mandate any particular technology to access it (every platform nowadays has a browser). Students could deal with their own tech support, and the school could issue free (far cheaper) web devices to those who needed them.
The question nowadays is not mac or PC, it should be binary or markup, and the answer is pretty obvious for the needs of a high school.
why not suspend the superintendent (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see requiring a laptop for students in the 21st Century. It's a lot cheaper to deliver textbooks on that platform and it's easier for students to carry a dozen textbooks if they're all on a hard drive and weigh nothing over and above the weight of a laptop.
If the IT people are incapable of delivering platform-agnostic documents and applications, they're either incompetent or should be under suspicion of participating in a conspiracy with the superintendent of defrauding the taxpayers.
My bet is incompetence (Score:5, Insightful)
Having worked with school districts let me tell you there is some supreme incompetence that goes on there. Also there's the simply Mac fanboy cognitive dissonance at work. What probably happened:
Superintendent gets a shiny new Macbook because it is cool looking and stylish. It works great for him/her because all they do is surf the web, read e-mail, simple stuff. A new, powerful machine without crap will do that blazingly fast and easy. Goes double because he has a nice new cable modem connection that is just super fast (or in reality more like 10mbit).
At work, however, they have old PCs running even older software to handle student records, grades, etc. These have problems, as old computers are wont to do, in particular when running software designed for even older architectures. Also, as with most schools, they have a slow network connection. The whole school has a connection maybe as fast as the superintendent's home connection, so simple tasks like web browsing feel slow.
Rather than looking at the situation logically, the superintendent believes everything is because of his shiny new Mac. Clearly that Mac is the reason everything is so good. Thus the solution is for everyone to have one! Things would be so much better. Nothing would ever break, because his never has. There'd be no problems, because he hasn't had any.
That's my bet. Nobody bought him/her off, it was just a case of someone who knows fuck-all about enterprise computing. They figure since their sample size of one is perfect, that will hold true for all the rest.
This is great. (Score:3, Funny)
School requires macs (personal or loaned, wtfever). Kids do schoolwork on macs at school. Rich kids learn to have things handed to them. Normal kids learn to work to buy themselves a mac, or they learn to do things on the home PC and how to use compatibility tools and/or how to convert docs from one type to another for use across both macs and PCs. Either way, lots of people will learn how important a worth ethic is and how important it is to understand the PC world in general as well as knowing how to launch facebook on your particular device.
Win/Win.
is anyone learning yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
schools is where they begin to indoctrinate the young people to step the line, not to do anything that is even remotely different.
How is it at all sensible for a school to require everybody to buy a laptop, especially a laptop with a non-Free operating system?
this is insane, if a laptop is really required it must be a laptop with an operating system that is Free to look at the code and probably free to own.
What's better is when the laptops replace teachers (Score:4, Interesting)
They closed down one school in the district entirely, electing instead to privatize it and lay off all of the teachers to "save some money." The private company that came in was supposed to "specialize in teaching underperforming students using technology." Good luck with that... Remind me again when technology became better than books and teacher interaction for students.
Then again, I guess I can't expect much, given my state's history in education. (Hint: We're the dumbest, poorest state in the US.)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1: The ubiquity of windows in a work/real world setting makes forcing students to learn how to use it logical. OSX, less so.
2: An equivalent windows laptop usually doesn't cost $900 (hence why you can't ignore the price issue)
3: This is the first time I've ever heard of any school district forcing students to buy laptops at all let alone a specific made model and brand. I was required to have a computer for COLLEGE that ran windows but I fully free to pick the one I wanted. And laptops, whil
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that, by making this a requirement, this amounts to a tax to attend school. And, the tax isn't even being paid to the school district, it is being paid to Apple.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Macs are at least a step up from Windows in terms of viruses...
Yes (popularity).
...and security
Lol. No.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's built right into the hardware? That's awesome and creepy on so many different levels.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If we are training kids for the future we should definitely have them use a windows/linux variant.
Is using Windows so hard that you need training to use it? In that case, we shouldn't be training the kids to use it, we should train them to say "no" if their boss wants them to use windows. But you may not have noticed a subtle change: While the CTOs still use their Windows PCs more or less unhappily, their CEO bosses use iPhones and iPads and MacBooks Airs. When these kids leave school, the change won't be so subtle anymore.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
EVERY employer requires M$ Office experience...
This isn't always true either. I doubt the largest employer in the city where I work require any computer skills for the assembly line workers. Neither do the construction companies whose employees are expanding the building I am sitting in. If you are talking about white collar jobs, you might have a point but most of these require a degree of some sort. Anyone graduating with any sort of degree is going to have used Microsoft Office at least a little so what students use in High School is irrelevant to the real world.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't require a lot of experience to switch between Windows and Mac. I'd expect someone with experience with one platform and absolutely zero on the other to be up to speed in a day or two.
I switched from Windows to Mac on my work laptop about eight months ago, so I have personal and recent experience.
It is not something that takes a day or two. It takes a month or two to regain all the lost productivity. Most people where I work that have switched to Mac have a similar experience. Just getting used to the keyboard with the extra meta keys, and missing keys you're used to, takes a long time.
Once you're over the learning curve it's a better experience, but it's not as easy as you think it is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the school had said windows there would be many comments like:
Windows is evil!
Microsoft is evil!
Windows is the source of all evil!
Windows is making the kids dumber!
The school will be virus/malware central!
The school has been assimilated!
There are many others.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Prithee be true.
Because a future with Microsoft is as horrible to contemplate as a future run by Cardassians.
Would you trade one Microsoft for another? It's like driving the Cardassians out only to let the Dominion in...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't get why school/educational institutions use Macs. 99% of businesses use Windows. Don't they want there kids to be prepared when they leave schools? This is once again a dumb school administration making a decision in a vacuum
AC
A few years ago when I was in high school we had a similar program. I say similar because it differed in two ways. 1. We had iBooks and 2. the school completely funded it, like they already did with everything else that we used, like pencils, meals, bus tickets etc.
It made me think a bit closer on why we have these programs and my conclusion is that most people actually get it wrong at first. It is not about making students familiar with computers. It is not about teaching them Office. It's not about writin