[OLPC-Chicago] laptop backlash in USA

[Scott Van Den Plas]

I think there needs to be a clear delineation between these types of
programs and the OLPC program.  This is fairly clearly a fault in
implementation and design for the Liverpool program.  I believe this is the
school we're speaking about: http://www.liverpool.k12.ny.us/laptops.html

How can OLPC focus on educational reform and avoid comparison to simply
placing laptops into a traditional setting?


On 5/7/07, Michael Tobis <mtobis at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The NY Times had an article last week about schools backing off the
> idea of laptops for students.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html
>
> a snippet:
>
> ==>
> So the Liverpool Central School District, just outside Syracuse, has
> decided to phase out laptops starting this fall, joining a handful of
> other schools around the country that adopted one-to-one computing
> programs and are now abandoning them as educationally empty — and
> worse.
>
> Many of these districts had sought to prepare their students for a
> technology-driven world and close the so-called digital divide between
> students who had computers at home and those who did not.
>
> "After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact
> on student achievement — none," said Mark Lawson, the school board
> president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York
> State to experiment with putting technology directly into students'
> hands. "The teachers were telling us when there's a one-to-one
> relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the
> way. It's a distraction to the educational process."
> <==
>
> It's not surprising, really, but the timing is not good.
>
> mt
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