semi_guy

Median Family Income:

Some of these figures are misleading. Student debt has grown due to college cost increasing, plus recession made more people stay in college longer with dual degrees or go back to college to get another degree:

The local elementary schools here had a mandate to use technology. Some grant got them a whole bunch of iPads. The grant did not include any training for the teachers (none of them owned an iPad) and no budget for software. Software was not considered technology. So teachers downloaded free software. Many of them had iAds, so kids would tap on the adds instead of using the software. Once I explained how to lock the iPad to one app and a region that did not include the add, things started to work better. Then we asked for a budget for some decent learning apps. Then you got into the problem of can we have one account for all this apps and who owns the Apple-ID account. I also showed them how to use AirPlay so that they could mirror the screen of the iPad on the projector or SmartBoard and teach the kids what they were seeing. One of the most interesting benefits with e-books is that the teacher set each iPad to the page in the book for the day's lesson. When the kids arrived in the classroom, they turn on the iPad and it was set to the right page. No more wasting time getting 20 kids to go to page 100 (No Johnny not page 110, page 100, look at the lower right corner what number do you see...) In some areas the iPads were tremendous success, in others utter failures. Now the school prefers Chromebooks since the kids can make their papers on them, go home and get their files without any complicated issues, and they are very cheap. The teachers are more comfortable with them since they use a lot of Google tools already. However, the school ignores or is not aware of all the privacy issues. So the big problem is: - lack of school and district actually asking the teacher what are their needs - lack of understanding what are the best tools to fit the students and teacher needs. - lack of training - lack of curriculum targeting the technology - lack of proper budgeting training and software into their costs