Throughout
its deployment, ex-Governor Angus King's program
designed to place an Apple iBook in the hands of every seventh
grader in the State of Maine has been poked, prodded, questioned,
threatened, disputed, feared, loathed...enter your own skeptical
action in the blank.
But according
to this
article in the Morning Sentinel, the program is not only
going a long way toward expanding and enhancing the students'
education
(we
knew that part would happen), but also managing to bring doubting
educators on board as well. A recent project, which took students
to the bottom of the ocean on their iBooks, was described as
"one of the most exciting things I've done in my 32 years of
teaching" by one of the seventh grade science teachers whose
students were involved with the project.
Could this
project, which centered around simple Internet access, have been
completed successfully if the laptops in question were Windows-based
PC's? Probably. But that certainly won't be the case as the students
presumably move on into projects that involve digital video (iMovie),
presentations (Keynote), digital photos (iPhoto), and other forms
of multimedia whose results range from "mediocre" to "a complete
waste of the kids' time" when tried on Windows. So soon enough,
those in Maine will realize that the stroke of genius here was
not so much the idea of giving every student a laptop itself,
but instead it was the selection of the correct platform that
ensured that taxpayers are actually getting their money's worth.
This is something
that was totally lost on the buffoons in the Michigan State Legislature
who, after planning an entire laptop project
around iBooks, chose to go with Hewlett-Packard as their laptop
supplier. This nearly drove me to tears, until I found out that
the original Michigan program to give a laptop to every student
had already been scaled down (essentially cancelled), and the
"program" that was ultimately implemented was nothing larger
than a gnat on the sleeve of the Maine initiative. In other
words,
Michigan
legislators were trying like mad to bail out of their previously-announced
laptop program, and rather than face the bad press of canceling
it outright, they cut it down to a tenth of its former self and
then proceeded to go with whatever cut-rate supplier that they
could find. Rumor has it that few students will ever even see
any of the laptops, with the bulk of them being spread among
teachers and other non-students. In other words, the whole thing
was a sham, and perhaps it's best that Apple is no longer involved
anyway.
But I digress.
Getting back to the success story in Maine, it's nice to see
that a veteran teacher can proclaim that "the iBooks, when used
the right way, can bring a cutting-edge immediacy to learning,
an ability to obtain information still years away from becoming
part of a textbook." You know, if I didn't hate the cold weather
so much, I'd seriously consider traveling up to Maine and touring
the schools with iBooks just to be able to report on all of the
fantastic happenings in those classrooms. Of course, that might
take awhile, considering that would include every single middle
school in the State! And did I mention that I don't like the
cold? Oh well, there's always the springtime...
Educators,
you might want to take a minute to consider joining the
Billpalmer.net Online Mac User Group, or perhaps even becoming
the campus rep at your college,
or starting a local
chapter at
your K-12 school. Joining a MUG is one of the best ways that
you can keep in touch with what's going on in the Mac universe,
and keep in touch with other Mac users...and fellow Mac-using
educators! Click here to join.
And if you've got something to say about the laptop program in
Maine...or in Michigan...or in your neck of the woods, hop
on over to the billpalmer.net
discussion boards for educators and share your story!
