And now, a story of hope. Apple was once the dominant computer platform in education: I have fond memories of playing Number Crunchers in labs full of IIgs’s back in the day. In more recent years, PCs have encroached upon the education domain, but Apple has attempted to keep their presence strong by working with states to provide notebooks to children. One of my cousins, in fact, was a recipient of one of the iBook programs in Honeoye Falls, NY.
The latest state to jump on the Apple bandwagon? Lousiana. Often ranked among the lowest in terms of education, the state is attempting to help their kids out by providing MacBooks to around 3,500 sixth graders throughout Louisiana in a program called “Turn on to Learning.” Though the students at West Feliciana Middle School got their computer last fall, they’re just now being allowed to take them home for the first time. Some classes are even providing digital versions of textbooks in deals with publishers—man, that would have saved me a lot of time making those silly textbook covers out of paper bags.
Would that we’d been able to lug home a Mac SE back in sixth grade. Granted, it would have been kind of heavy…unless…
[via Infinite Loop]
I'm interested in how effective this has been in increasing the child's learning.
Do you have a lot of contact with your cousin? Has this helped her/him become a better student or has this ushered him/her into the "power point presentation" teaching that is being (over) used in college?