Maine lawmakers seek to break Apple iBook pact.
This is sad news from "The Bangor Daily News" in Maine...
[quote] AUGUSTA ? Two lawmakers have asked the attorney general?s office to determine the state?s liability if it breaks a contract with Apple Computer for thousands of laptop computers.
Reps. Phil Cressey, R-Baldwin, and Brian Duprey, R-Hampden, asked Attorney General Steven Rowe to determine if there?s an out in the $37.2 million contract. They said the money would be better spent to offset a looming $180 million budget shortfall than on computers.
?This laptop program here in the state of Maine does not have the support of all the people of the state of Maine,? said Cressey. ?When we?re trying to deal with the state budget, everything should be on the table.?
Legislators last year approved a $30 million plan to provide laptop computers to every seventh- and eighth-grader in Maine.
In December, the state signed a four-year deal to lease 36,000 wireless iBooks from Apple. The Legislature later cut the laptop plan to $25 million.
Two thousand of the computers have been delivered, and 16,000 more are set to be shipped next month. <hr></blockquote>
[quote] AUGUSTA ? Two lawmakers have asked the attorney general?s office to determine the state?s liability if it breaks a contract with Apple Computer for thousands of laptop computers.
Reps. Phil Cressey, R-Baldwin, and Brian Duprey, R-Hampden, asked Attorney General Steven Rowe to determine if there?s an out in the $37.2 million contract. They said the money would be better spent to offset a looming $180 million budget shortfall than on computers.
?This laptop program here in the state of Maine does not have the support of all the people of the state of Maine,? said Cressey. ?When we?re trying to deal with the state budget, everything should be on the table.?
Legislators last year approved a $30 million plan to provide laptop computers to every seventh- and eighth-grader in Maine.
In December, the state signed a four-year deal to lease 36,000 wireless iBooks from Apple. The Legislature later cut the laptop plan to $25 million.
Two thousand of the computers have been delivered, and 16,000 more are set to be shipped next month. <hr></blockquote>
Comments
[ 07-11-2002: Message edited by: G4Dude ]</p>
Education is not about having the latest and greatest and coolest technology in the classroom. It is about having good teachers and students who have been properly prepared to learn. We live in an age where people can?t do basic math without a calculator, or basic writing without a word processor.
Expensive laptops for 12 and 13 year olds? How about up to date text books? We need to quit using schools as social experiments and start teaching our kids how to read. A bit of American and world history wouldn?t hurt either.
PS. Finally, something I can agree with G4Dude about.
ditto
ditto
Kids will just mess around with their computers instead of paying atention to the lesson and learning.
Sorry Apple. But I'm siding with Maine on this one.
[ 07-12-2002: Message edited by: G4Dude ]</p>
<strong>Even though this deal is good for Apple, I agree with the rest of you that laptops do not belong in the class room.
Kids will just mess around with their computers instead of paying atention to the lesson and learning.
Sorry Apple. But I'm siding with Maine on this one.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, I agree. Although I reckon they should still give Apple something... it's their own fault for signing up for the deal in the first place.
Surely one or two well-equipped IT suites is enough for an average high school?
Amorya
<strong>Agreed!
Education is not about having the latest and greatest and coolest technology in the classroom. It is about having good teachers and students who have been properly prepared to learn. We live in an age where people can’t do basic math without a calculator, or basic writing without a word processor.
Expensive laptops for 12 and 13 year olds? How about up to date text books? We need to quit using schools as social experiments and start teaching our kids how to read. A bit of American and world history wouldn’t hurt either.
PS. Finally, something I can agree with G4Dude about.
Couldn't have said it better myself. We should stop perpetuating the myth that Computer in every household will make us smarter.
I agree too though, although I think that Maine should be responsible for the iBooks that have already been manufactured.
Steve's classroom in a cart was actually a decent idea though. Instead of the kids going to computer class, the class could come to them, you save a room, and a class load of snotty brats tramping up and down the halls twice a day. But as with all things technical, they aren't for small children. Grade schoolers certainly don't each need their own individual notebooks to distract them.
- "I dont know, sweetie. Maybe you should ask the state legislature or Steve Jobs."
I lay fault at the teachers curricum for not using the ibooks effectively.
Firsty, computers are merely tools, and ibooks are effecive mobile tool's.
As with classic appeals,
1 ibook can replace 4 books.
1 ibook can replace 10 pages of bad xerox copy
1 ibook can replace needing 1/3rd of the time copying down notes(though penminship might suffer)
1 ibook can instantly change a misguided homework assigment.
Get the point?
If teachers are teaching the old way, they just just buy themselves a scanner, or type up their next-day assignment planners instead of spending 2 hours on the blackboard.
The whole idea of "Lan party" wouldn't happen as the same fact can instantly get traced and properly punished. The more children cheat with computers, the more that can be logged.
Too bad teachers aren't trained for that.
Even so if the grade schools are going on line for pornos, games, etc. Those are some dang SMART gradeschools. They can do what 30% of adults can't.
Lawmakers though....usually care about other things.
~Kuku
The maintenance issues are huge.
Sakes alive, that RDF is inCREDible. I just wish that NASA would hire Steve Jobs and get him a television show. We'd have hotels on Pluto in ten years.
D
<strong>I'm afraid I'll have to disagree even though I'm a believer in the "trendy doesn't mean it's good"
I lay fault at the teachers curricum for not using the ibooks effectively.
Firsty, computers are merely tools, and ibooks are effecive mobile tool's.
As with classic appeals,
1 ibook can replace 4 books.
1 ibook can replace 10 pages of bad xerox copy
1 ibook can replace needing 1/3rd of the time copying down notes(though penminship might suffer)
1 ibook can instantly change a misguided homework assigment.
Get the point?
If teachers are teaching the old way, they just just buy themselves a scanner, or type up their next-day assignment planners instead of spending 2 hours on the blackboard.
The whole idea of "Lan party" wouldn't happen as the same fact can instantly get traced and properly punished. The more children cheat with computers, the more that can be logged.
Too bad teachers aren't trained for that.
Even so if the grade schools are going on line for pornos, games, etc. Those are some dang SMART gradeschools. They can do what 30% of adults can't.
Lawmakers though....usually care about other things.
~Kuku</strong><hr></blockquote>
First, an iBook does not replace text books. Every middle schooler in Maine would be wearing glasses right now from reading their damn text books on their computers. Also, how are they supposed to highlight and take notes in the margins???? And I wasn't suggesting that a LAN party might occur, I was telling you that it DOES HAPPEN. I have been there. Except for CS teachers, most teachers aren't nearly as smart as students when it comes to computers. They don't know when you are playing games.
You're also telling me that 30% of adults cannot find porn on the internet, I don't believe that at all, where's the proof? I agree that they help with taking notes but that's about all it's good for in the classroom. But, people do need to know how to write. As for college, that's a different story, you NEED a laptop there.
When did using computers in schools become evil? When budgets for equipment get cut, so do budgets for teacher training, text books, art supplies, classroom space, school librairies and all of the components that make up the tools of a good education.
I'd rather see my tax dollars here in Maine going toward education than toward other budgetary items, but education will not be the only area hurt by the money crunch (and we are one of the highest taxed states in the country). Bush's federal budget is now billions of dollars in the red, and every student in the country will pay for that.
If parents really care, they will put off buying toys for themselves, and spend the money on their kids and their learning needs. Or will they blow it all on a new mega-SUV, flat screen TV or the latest golf clubs. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />