... Or 3500 OLPCs instead ?

Quoting: Truth Seeker wrote: A real problem is the use of computers for education. I think it is great! A fantastic piece of equipment to have. BUT, for the parents who cannot afford computer for their children, I believe the children's education suffers from this. Even with comps in the classroom, research and homework assignments cannot be done from home if they cannot afford a computer. They may not live close to a library, or unable to have access to a computer. What do these kids do? Their grades should not suffer because they don't have a computer to do their homework with/on. Anyone know more than I on this? I know I don't know all the fatcs.

Truth Seeker,

You have touched on a topic that is near and dear to my heart - and I mean that in all sincerity.

short summary of what can be done: With the One Laptop Per Child project, a ruggedised computer can be provided to every child for less than $150 (http://www.laptop.org/ ). There are many *FREE* high quality software programs that can be used, among them gcompris ( http://gcompris.net/-en- ), OpenOffice ( http://openoffice.org/ ), 'Tux of Math Command' ( http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxmath/ ), 'TuxType' ( http://tuxtype.sourceforge.net/ ), and 'tipptrainer' ( http://tipptrainer.pingos.org/ ).

The beauty of all of these programs is that the source code is publicly available for anyone to use. This means that a programming course could be created for older students, and they could be producing software that could be used by younger students at no charge to anyone. It's called Open Source (http://www.opensource.org/ ).

The biggest obstacle for Lee County is that there is a heavy dependence on Microsoft products which are *not* free nor 'Open Source'. If Lee County Schools were to immediately move to a model like Brandon Elementary in the Atlanta School District, St. Mary's School in N. Florida, or the ACCESS program in Indiana, the District would see an *immediate* savings of over $500,000 annually.

It isn't because of ignorance that the IT department of the School District doesn't make the change, I've been forwarding the success stories of using Linux in schools from all over the nation and the world to Dwayne Alton and Dr. Browder for the last 6 months on this exact issue. The next step is to ask the School Board directly why nothing is being done to save that $500,000 (actually it will work to be more than that when you start cutting costs of computer infrastructure that is only so high because they base everything on the poor quality MS-Windows platform.) They really have no justification for not migrating at least 95% of the infrastructure, since the city of Largo FL had no real difficulty becoming Microsoft-free. Even the Ernie Ball Corporation realised a savings of $80,000 for 80 computers in the first year just by changing software and not hardware.

It's time to start asking the hard questions about this directly from the School Board, because it seems that the IT department doesn't want to realise that $500,000 annual cost savings since it puts them outside their comfort zone. You normally need fewer technicians to administer a Linux network compared to a Microsoft network.

I forgot to mention that about 4 years ago, Mr. Alton was given a live demonstration of setting up a Linux-based network for the entire district. This is not something that should take a lot of research or trial & error.

Quoting: DarrenR114 I do hear what you are saying, I do have and have had my kids use the computer to help them in a report. However, what do the parents do that cannot afford one. And I still stand by my thoughts on the calculator. That has gotten misused if you ask me & has become a crutch. So have the new computerized cash registers. Have you ever given anyone $5.03 for something that was $4.53 and they gave you a blank look? They are have no clue as to why you gave them the 3 cents... or better yet, give the 3 cents AFTER you gave the $5 and the register already told them to give you back the 47 cents... then they are even more confused! They don't realize that the 3 cents would make you be able to give them back 50 cents... I agree with outdated text books. Having kids in high school & college, I do see how fast the books become out dated when the college requires the newest edition the next semester! I understand all of that. I am just saying that if not careful, the computers will go the way the calculator did.... it is bad enough now, when they do a paper on the computer, they have the spell check & grammer check.. they no longer have to look a word up in a dictionary nor do they have to know correct correct grammer. Yes, I know I have a spelling problem Laughing I live with my dictionary.. not on here though Laughing kids don't understand what it is to look it up. They will not learn to spell it, it is automatically corrected for them. If they have to keep looking it up, sooner or later it might click in their head.... I am all for tech... but to a limit... and not all will be that way as it has already been proven ======= DarrenR11 Here is an example of what I am saying:

My daughter is in Edison College, second semester. She is in Eng Comp 2 (currently carrying a B+). She has passed Eng Comp 1 with an A & in HS she got a 5.5 on the FL writes. One of her Law prof's has asked the class to do a paper in a certian format. There was no one in the class that knew the format. He passed the comment that they must not know how to write then & obviously failed Eng Comp. My daughter spoke up & said that she even went to her Eng Comp prof and asked her what was meant by "yada yada".. she did not understand it either. He gives her a dirty look.. then another student.. this was an adult student.. not a kid just out of high school, he speaks up and says the same thing.. he went to his Eng Comp prof (different one than my daughter's) and his said the same thing. This Law prof gets very angry and says.. I don't have time to teach it.. look it up on a computer!! What the He!! We are paying for his salary... no one in the class understood the format he wanted nor did the 2 Eng Comp professors at the college.. here he is relying on a computer to teach his class for him... this is an example of a teacher, which when you boil it down, that is what he is... telling his students to look it up because he doesn't have the time to teach it Confused Confused Could the entire class be at fault, could 2 Eng Comp prof be wrong... ??? Yes, I know this is college. You do go to college to learn and when no one in the class knows it, that is telling you something.. teach it.. do not have a computer teach it.