At Freeport Middle School, students in algebra class play “Battleship” on their laptops as they learn to plot coordinates on a graph. At Massabesic Middle School, eighth-graders surf the Web on their laptops to create their own National History Day websites. And at King Middle School, students carry their laptops into the field as they chronicle the civil rights movement through eyewitness interviews.
In Maine, state tax money pays for one white Apple MacBook for every seventh- and eighth-grader in public schools.
More than 10 years ago, Angus King, then Maine’s governor and now a U.S. Senate candidate, pushed the $10 million- to $11 million-a-year program through a reluctant Legislature. King sold it as a way to give the state a competitive edge and provide computers to low-income students. His Republican opponent, Charlie Summers, recently injected the issue into the Senate race when he mentioned the cost of laptops in a broader attack on King’s spending priorities.
Experts say the program has achieved technological equity, but the broader goal of linking laptops to improved student achievement has been more elusive. An August 2011 report, commissioned by the state Legislature, concluded that the laptop program “has had a significant impact on curriculum, instruction, and learning in Maine’s middle schools,” but also that it had been carried out unevenly across school districts and subject areas.
“The benefits are difficult to quantify,” said David Silvernail, the report’s author and co-director of the nonpartisan Maine Education Policy Research Institute. “So many other things are going on in schools, it’s difficult to classify what makes the difference. The laptop is a tool, just like a pencil.”
Maine’s 29,000 seventh- and eighth-graders use the laptops during class and take them home at night and on weekends. The laptops have Internet access and can be used for writing, research, communication, homework practice or simply surfing the Web. Students are responsible for keeping them charged and in good working order.
“It’s my baby,” said seventh-grader Jacob Gregoire at Massabesic Middle School in East Waterboro. “It’s so much better than going to the computer lab.”
Teachers in grades 7-12 also get their own laptops under the program, which began in September 2002. Under a contract with Apple, the state pays a discounted rate of $242 per laptop per year, which includes software, training, technical support and repair. That adds up to about $10 million this year and about $11 million in previous years — or less than half a percent of the state’s $2 billion education budget.
Raymond Grogan, principal of Freeport Middle School, was a teacher when the program first started. He says that laptops in the classrooms have helped teachers stop lecturing and start tailoring lessons to individual students.
“From a teaching perspective, it changed everything,” Grogan said. “It revolutionized the classroom.”
King said he came up with the idea for the laptop initiative in 1999 after a conversation with technology guru Seymour Papert, a founder of the MIT Media Lab. At the time, Maine had a budget surplus of $70 million. King had been thinking about bridging “the digital divide” as a key to state’s economic development, but he wasn’t convinced that handing out laptops to teenagers was the best approach.
He remembers Papert telling him that adding a few computers to schools wouldn’t do much.
“It is only in the one-to-one that the power occurs,” King said Papert told him.
It was not an easy sell. From educators to ordinary citizens, people thought it would be a waste of money.
“It was not popular at all,” recalled Bette Manchester, the first director of the laptop program and now president of the Maine International Center for Digital Learning in Lewiston. “People thought the money would be better spent on fixing a lot of broken buildings.”
King, who is running as an independent for Republican Olympia Snowe’s U.S. Senate seat, now counts the laptop program as one of his central achievements as governor. He said he never promised higher test scores; he wanted to connect Maine students to the world.
“Teachers tell me, ‘I thought you were out of your mind when you first proposed this, but now I can’t imagine teaching without it,’” King said.
Summers didn’t return messages left with his campaign asking for comment about his assessment of the laptop program.
The state Legislature will consider renewing funding in January, the third funding renewal since the program began. State Rep. David Richardson and State Sen. Brian Langley, Republican chairmen of the Legislature’s joint Education Committee, said they don’t anticipate a fight over funding because the program has become so much a part of the educational landscape.
“Putting all the partisan stuff aside, at the time when this was introduced it was highly controversial, spending all that money,” says Langley, a retired teacher who taught culinary arts for 27 years at Hancock County Technical Center in Ellsworth. “But having students in rural Maine be able to have access to the world has been tremendous. I think that is probably Angus King’s legacy.”
Maine’s program inspired state-funded programs in Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Dakota. But those states abandoned their programs when they ran into politics or tight budgets. At the same time, Idaho and Alabama are moving toward state-funded programs.
In a study last year, the One-to-One Institute in Mason, Mich., a national nonprofit that advises school districts about technology programs, found that 2,000 sites nationwide — either entire schools or entire grades within schools — have laptop programs.
In Maine, statewide evidence of how laptops affect achievement is scarce. Test scores for Maine from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, show that the percentage of students scoring proficient or above in eighth-grade mathematics rose from 30 percent in 2000 to 39 percent in 2011, but that was part of a national trend of rising math scores and can’t be linked directly to laptop use. Between 2002 and 2011, the percentage of Maine’s eighth-graders scoring at or above proficient on the national reading test barely changed, rising from 38 to 39 percent.
Silvernail’s report used online surveys to get general impressions and gauged achievement through small research studies in math, science and writing. The surveys revealed that Maine’s math teachers use laptops less frequently than teachers of other subjects and that, according to Silvernail, too few teachers use laptops to teach “21st century skills” such as problem-solving, collaboration and evaluating information.
In math, Silvernail’s team found that test scores were higher in the classrooms where teachers had received special training in integrating laptops into their lessons. In the writing study, researchers linked writing multiple drafts on the computer to a three-point increase in statewide writing test scores between 2000 and 2005. And in science, they compared two eighth-grade science classrooms — one in which students used laptops to create narrated animations about the angle of the Earth’s axis, and one in which students used traditional paper diagrams. The students who used laptops scored higher on tests given after the unit.
The program’s possibilities are on display every day in three schools with vastly different profiles.
At Massabesic, more than its share of students’ families struggle economically. Its seventh-grade science students are exposed to the wider world through the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Vital Signs program. Through fieldwork, students study invasive species growing in their area, and then use their laptops to record, analyze and submit their results to the group’s website.
“I’d put my students up against any others in the state in regards to their fieldwork and investigative skills,” said science teacher Patrick Parent.
King Middle School, in downtown Portland, is the state’s most urban school, with a student body that collectively speaks 28 languages. At this school, students participate in interdisciplinary projects combining research and fieldwork and then create original works such as documentaries. Using laptops, seventh-grade students are working with Portland arborists to take a computerized tree inventory of their city.
At Freeport Middle School, a few blocks away from L.L. Bean’s flagship store, math teacher Alex Briasco-Brin decided to create his own online math curriculum that he hopes will instill a deeper appreciation of algebra. Last year, he took a year off from the classroom as a “Distinguished Educator of Maine” to turn the curriculum into an online math textbook that could be used across the state.
On a recent day in his class, 18 eighth-graders used laptops to work alone or in groups on algebraic equations and graphing. Briasco-Brin did not lecture or write on the blackboard. He just wandered around, keeping kids on task and guiding them toward answers.
“If the state took away our laptops,” he says, “I’d have to find another place to teach.”
This story was produced in partnership with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University.
The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service based in Hallowell. Email: mainecenter@gmail.com. Web: pinetreewatchdog.org.
jlong:
Byline: Ricki Morell, ©Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting
Do you suppose Angus King owns any shares of Apple? I’ll bet that he does. Nice cozy little deal Angus, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Next.
Yeah, and what impact does this program and any investment he may or may not have on Apple’s bottom line? The iPads are what drives that company.
This has a huge impact on Apple’s bottom line, it creates a user base for Apple products. Apple now has every 7th, 8th and about 50% of the High School kids and all of the teachers for those grades and more hooked on Apple. Most of whom are not smart enough to realize that once they leave school they are at an instant disadvantage to the rest of the world. But they are quite happy to buy “i” anything… iGnorance is bliss I guess.
It’s not cocaine. :D
And though Benjamin brought up a good point about macs not providing the universal skills at the origin of the initiative, the newer OS’s and more importantly, the programs, are essentially identical. PC or Apple doesn’t make a huge difference today as far as preparedness.
Know anything about Microsoft’s newest OS? I haven’t used it, but based on reviews, it is a big change from old systems, and likely to cause even more defection to the growing Apple base.
The trendy “i” stuff is obnoxious certainly, though denying that Apple has a very good product is rather “i”gnorant. ;)
Actually I am using Windows 8 at this very moment and had run the public beta this summer. I find it very stable, user friendly and all my old programs work. Yes it is different than XP and even Windows 7 but it is a good change and as time goes on and people learn to use it it will be proven to be a solid operating system. The only reason people would “defect” to the Apple OS is because they do not want to learn something new and would rather have a computer that a monkey could use. The sad part is that the majority of teachers are not even up to “monkey” level when it comes to technology.
As to your reference to cocaine, the laptop program and Apple’s influence draws very similar parallels to how drug dealers work if you look beneath the hype.
Try to open a document created with iWorks, which is on the laptops, with any other computer not using the Apple OS. I can open a Word Doc on any computer including a Mac. Teachers in general are not teaching the kids to use standard universal programs, they are teaching them all the “i” software which only works on a Mac.
I repair both PC and Apple products and can honestly say without any bias that the build quality is better on the PC side. Yes the outside of the Apple is nice and shiny but the insides are far from the perfect product that they advertise.
Heh. You don’t come off as un-biased given your monkey comment. :D
The big cartoonesque touch screen in windows 8 is geared toward a sophisticated market is it? No, I haven’t tried it, though it appears to be geared toward the younger generation that has been raised on iphones to tell you truth, not seasoned business professionals and certainly not the elderly demographic.
I’ve honestly never used Iworks, though as I understand, files from word and excel can be opened and vice versa, though translation can be imperfect. The fundamentals of the programs however are the same. A word processor is pretty much a word processor, as a spreadsheet is pretty much a spreadsheet. There might be a learning curve associated with changing from one to another, though it would be minimal.
If I were a mac fan, I would not want the user base to grow….why do you think there are essentially zero malware programs for macs?
Malware and virus coders want to make as large of an impact as possible, which is why they target Window’s based machines.
It’s a good point – minority users are always going to be a smaller target – though Apple’s minority status hasn’t prevented them from focusing on security. They are less susceptible for both their minority status and by design. They’d have their work cut out for them if they ever took the market share though, no doubt.
Not at the time this deal was concieved.
iPads are not what “drives” Apple. It’s the iPhone.
of course he has stock in Apple. Angus never does anything which does not posititively impact his own finances.
And that would be different from Romney … how?
I was commenting on this article, what one are you talking about?
I wasn’t responding to you, entitled. Are you the same as not4us?
Who doesn’t?
I certainly don’t (doing much, much better in PMs, mining and energy stocks) and I get a chuckle out of reading how everyone is way, way, way over invested in Apple, Google, Facebook etc.
The bankers are gonna use to market to roll you folks like a bad case of fleas
I can only hope that little man king has a substantial position…
If you have a 401K most likely there is some stock in there somewhere.
So sayeth a Gossiping Hen. Cluck, cluck.
This was a hair-brained scheme from the beginning, developed and forced down our throats by King Angus. Kind of like Obummer stuffing the ObummerCare down our throats, to pick a direction. By the way, has anyone noticed he has omitted the imperial “King” off his campaign road signs?
What you mean is “hare-brained,” as a quick check of dictionary.com (possibly on a laptop) would have told you. It took vision, imagination and political courage to put laptops in the hands of every seventh grader, and to begin reforming this country’s corrupt health insurance system. It takes none of those things to just say no to every new idea.
Right! He should have stepped into office and immediately given several family members taxpayer paid middle class jobs, then handed out a nice little tax cut to the wealthiest within our poor little State. That would have shown us all how much he really cared about Maine’s future (i.e. our children’s education). Ha!
Vote King (Sorry Ms. Dill but you don’t have a chance and we can’t afford to have another creepy GOP/Tea Party kook like LePage/Summers slip into office by virtue of a split three way race), then vote for every Democrat running for every office available.
Go easy on Summers. He is not in the same bottom dwelling league as LePage. I am voting King, but let’s play fair with the criticism.
Well I will admit that he has prettier hair, his kids are currently too young to take State taxpayer paid jobs and that he’s not half way through the hole in the bottom of the barrel like LePage, but he ALSO clearly has no substance of thought that he can call his own. More so than ever in our history Maine needs leadership coming from real leaders here not more airheads who simply follow the dictates of others who sit way up high and live far-far away.
And apparently you pick your “real leaders” by what political party they belong to?
“vote for every Democrat running for every office available”
Sheep.
You should pick who you vote for based on what they are running on, and then HOLD THEM TO IT.
If a candidate doesn’t do the job they were elected for, vote them out.
Oh really, and you have evidence for your wild claims?
Shovel and Mop 101 would have been preferable I suppose. :D
apple products are good for image, music, and video manipulation and production.
If you have a degree in those fields, then I hope you enjoy working at mcdonalds.
I work with Apple products. I have a degree. I make a good living.
Never had to work flipping burgers after high school with my degree.
Nice try at dismissing certain occupations.
Perhaps 10 years ago that tired stereotype would hold true, though businesses and corporations of every type use both operating systems and hardware today.
I can see why you’re not called ContemporaryLegacy. ;)
I fail to see how my username has anything to do with the discussion.
Hey clammy, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
It’s a great concept that has not worked in execution. It makes no sense to have laptops appear in 7th and 8th grade and then disappear again in high school. It also makes no sense that teachers are not required to use them. Some of the teachers I’ve encountered aren’t even literate when it comes to basic computer use.
It has been my impression that by now most high schools, students and teachers now have a State issued laptop. I’d don’t know that for sure that’s the case, but I do know that’s the situation in my community and our school is one of the poorest in the State.
No laptops in Bangor outside of 7th and 8th grade.
I believe about half of the school districts chose to expand the program to high school. It is not statewide.
The Maine Learning Technology Initiative, as the laptop program is officially known, was expanded to include grades 9 through 12 in 2009:
http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=MLTINews&id=69209&v=Details
Thanks for the confirmation. Hope this clears things up for everyone. Can schools (like Bangor perhaps) opt out? I’m not all sure why anyone would but Bangorian usually knows what he’s/she’s talking about.
But the local district can choose to opt out. Most do opt out, because they would have to pay for the grades other than 7-8 and they can’t afford to.
Then we should urge the local districts to opt out. The kind of thinking that is necessary to function well in the world is negatively impacted by the use of laptops and the internet. See And we shouldn’t be paying for them. Know the technology – yes. But give us real, live, qualified teacherss.
See, for one, Nicholas Carrs’, The Shallows – What the Internet is Doing to our Brains http://www.theshallowsbook.com/nicholascarr/Nicholas_Carrs_The_Shallows.html
“Then we should urge the local districts to opt out.”
You can certainly urge your own local district to opt out, but what makes you think you have the right to influence the thinking of any other district? It’s their children and their money; mind your own business.
“The kind of thinking that is necessary to function well in the world is negatively impacted by the use of laptops.”
The kind of thinking necessary to get a job at McDonald’s nowadays certainly doesn’t require employees that had laptops in school. High-paying jobs can also be had by employees that didn’t have laptops in school, but they will spend extra time and money learning how to use technology in college when they could have started learning 6 years earlier and at no cost to them.
Then your school has “opted in” to provide the laptops to grades other than 7-8. The State only pays for the ones in grades 7-8.
Note that training and service comes with the package deal. Maybe you should make a point to promote computer literacy among teachers. You are in Bangor, aren’t you? Or are you an expat?
The training is for “i” applications like iMovie and iWorks not on how to actually use the laptop as a tool. They have started offering training on Google Apps which is a good step as it is more universal than the Apple applications but still only requires a room temp IQ to learn to use.
The laptops are supposed to be replaced every 4 years. The schools have the option to purchase the old laptops to use in other grades as needed. Around 50% of the schools opted out of the High School MLTI program and came up with their own programs at a significantly lower cost than what was being pushed by the state and Apple.
They do NOT disappear…they start them in 7th grade and keep having them through their high school years. I had several that had the the 6 years.
That’s simply not true.
ha! It simple IS true! I don’t know about Bangor- but elsewhere in the State it most definitely is! Believe me, I am one person that does NOT think they should be available!
It simply ISN’t 100%true. In some cases they DO disappear. I am an IT administrator for several districts. The laptops are provided (paid for) by the State for students and teachers in grades 7 and 8 ONLY. Some districts DO extend the program to the high school grades, but they must do it at their own cost.
I can think of only one teacher in our system who is not big on computers. The rest are not only literate, but highly capable and all of my son’s classes (senior, high school) have integrated them into the classes. I am a die hard Windows fan, but I do believe the Apple is equal if not better in some cases. It is harder to hack Apple programs, they have better versions of creative software, press, pre-press etc. Windows may have the better business software, but there are many that work on the Apple platform.
My son got his first school issued laptop in 7th grade and has been been issued one right through High School. He has had access to a computer since the age of 3. Back then, the classroom he was in (special ed for speech/communication delay) had a cranky old Mac that one of the teachers did not knowhow to even turn on, but my son could turn it on and make it work when it balked. I worked then, in a highly specialized technical field, and he would watch me work at home and he learned at a very early age.
I think without this program we would see more young people with a serious deficit in technical skills they will need for the real world.
I’ll bet King Angus would have made this laptop program work if it was HIS money being spent.
entitled seems to think it is his money :-)
Alot of laptops for sale on ebay. Another waste of money.
But those don’t come with training and service, points other critics assumed was absent. Try and set up a reliable program with eBay scaavanged computers. Buy cheap, get cheap (very).
State surplus takes the old computers, strips them of software, and sells them for $60-$75, putting the money back into the state. If they end up on eBay it’s because people are buying them from the state and trying to turn them around for a profit.
It seems sensible to conclude, after so many years of the program, that the reason the benefit of laptops is so hard to rate is because there isn’t one.
Great program, rather than the political snark it’s drawing.
When it was brought up, it was also sold as a way to increase science and engineering potential of students. However, how many people in science and engineering use the Mac OS to complete their tasks? From the engineers I know, none. Simply, the programs they use do not run on Mac OS. I was a student, a few years beyond the 7th grade when the program was implemented and I said back then that it made no sense to buy Apple laptops. They were giving out spoons when students needed forks.
Now, fast forward a little bit and you see another trend with Angus King, and that’s his tendency to just go with popular brands and ideas. Apple was the “cool” company compared to Microsoft, and it shouldn’t be surprising that he jumped on the wind power bandwagon to try to profit from that. More efficient power generation elsewhere with a lower cost and still better than what we have? No, let’s go for the wind power because that’s popular.
That’s Angus.
Definitely some truth in that. While Macs were and are great machines, then and now, at the time, they were not nearly as versatile and universal as PC laptops would have been.
Macs were, and still are, the industry standard in creative fields such as publishing, animation, film/video etc. What would work best is to get the right tool for the job at hand. I think we’ll eventually get there.
By the way, what is the private sector solution to this problem? Gates Foundation funding? Romney foundation funding? Maybe if some of the extra points Wall Street siphoned off municipal and state bonds had gone where they was supposed to, towns and states could afford such investments.
I wonder what the researchers at CERN use?
oh wait,
Windows.
good luck in the real world, students.
The point is to use the best tool for the job at hand. Sometimes that’s a Mac, sometimes a Window machine. My kids are in the arts and Mac it is, all the way!
Touche’! You just said it all. To each his own and using what works best!
So, all students should use Macs so they do well in the arts? Is that going to prepare them for a job marketplace that is looking for science and engineering?
Note the earlier comment regarding sciences and engineering. I didn’t mention music, art, and whatnot. That being said, you can get many of the same programs for Windows while the opposite is not true of Windows programs for Mac. While industries may predominantly use a Mac OS for certain things, it’s more out of habit and what’s “hip”. I can guarantee you that many people buy the Apple brand instead of the best product for the best price with the best capabilities.
And where the heck does the Gates/Romney funding thing come from? Do you think there is some amazing deal Maine is getting? I can guarantee you that you could buy a comparable laptop for less than what the state is paying. I remember looking up the prices at one time and I want to say a Windows based laptop was running about 30-40% cheaper.
Hi Benjamin,
It was not my intention to disrespect you or your comment in any way.
I think we should use the best tool for the job, whether it is a Mac or Windows PC or a hammer. Science & engineering are wonderful fields. Some branches actually use Macs. Others use Windows-based PCs.
The Gates/Romney funding thing is a purely political comment.
Maine & its communities got the shaft from Wall Street when its members colluded to set artificially high interest rates on bonds, skimming something for themselves in the process. Just another way the public gets ripped off while enriching a few in the process. It may seem off topic but it does relate to the ability to stretch our tax dollars to pay for things like laptops.
Mac versus PC, Jetta versus Malibu. The important thing is to include IT education in schools. Like it or not, the IT revolution is here and expanding into every corner of our lives. A broad ability to use PC or Mac is essential today, just as good modern auto transportation is an integral component of life. I use PC, but when I visit my kids and their spouses, they use Macs. I have jumped in to use the Macs whenever I wish and don’t find the transition from one platform to the other difficult. I’m in my 60’s and I’m sure today’s young kids are much more adept at switching paltforms. The same also applies to the engineers you cite; they use relevant programs and platforms because of their extensive understanding of IT offerings.
You are so right. It also hardly matters that some teachers don’t know what they’re doing with computers. The kids figure it out and switching platforms isn’t such a big deal. If I could do it in my 40s & 50s, the kids can do it in a snap.
he owns stock in apple and i’m sure he gets some sort of back room kickback.
why would he continue pushing apple products?
now auburn has tablets for kindergartners…
So sayeth a Gossiping Hen. Cluck, cluck.
what, you can’t come up with anything else aside from “gossip hen”
lol
of course I can … but then I would not be as accurate.
cluck cluck little hen.
The tablets are cheaper than computers and their small size, light weight and touch screens would be ideal for small children. Microsoft didn’t have a tablet out and is just now is coming out with one called Surface. The other thing to keep in mind is that Apple made a concerted effort to get into education early on while Microsoft was busy replacing IBM as the business computer.
Computers and mobile devices have replaced a great many “tools” in my house. I use them for work, entertainment, communication, research & reference, language translation, alarm clock, address book, calendar and the list goes on. It is inconceivable to think we wouldn’t have these devices in schools.
As to brand (Mac, Dell, Samsung, Acer, HP, Blackberry, etc, etc.), I’d be in favor of a variety of choices and I’d get families involved in choosing them for their kids and paying for at least part of them on a sliding scale to promote better care of the product.
Schools generally take a one-size fits all approach because it is easier (and cheaper) for them to manage. Beyond the initial cost of the device, you have the cost of maintaining them (including software & hardware).
The concept of having computer literate kids is great, the fact that they used Apple computers is the sad part.
My kids have had the Apple computers. They have always had Windows at home but I think it is great they can use both. I had to learn Apple at work for image manipulation and it was difficult but not impossible. It is easier to go the other way from what I understand from those who have done it.
I think Angus King did the state a huge favor with that program. Both of my kids are very proficient researchers, writers, and both have excellent keyboarding skills. Our children will not be lacking in computer skills when they go out into the world for more education and/or jobs.
Great comment. Being cross platform is a little like knowing two languages, though a lot easier. I primarily use Macs because that is what my industry uses. My first couple of computers were Windows machines and I work as a consultant for organizations that use both. So I really know the Macs best but I can certainly use a Windows machine too. I agree completely that Gov. King did the state a favor by getting laptops into the schools.
Education is not just one method, but many. Laptops are a vital component in a complicated mix of instructional tools. Clearly, we are no longer teaching children as if they were in the 1960’s. Angus King insisted that Maine come kicking and screaming into the 21st century and we are better for it. Knowledge and competence are great equalizers–Maine’s kids deserve every chance to succeed in our brave, new world.
Yes, it can’t be emphasized enough that technology is not just an educational tool, it is a workforce development tool. Visionary with respect to building the workforce of the future too!
This was a good idea with poor execution. After talking to a couple of college bound seniors last year I realized that not a great deal of value was being accomplished with the lap tops (kids in our high school have them). I asked a teacher why this was the case and she said that most teachers aren’t that comfortable with technology.
Had this program been executed properly the first thing they would have done was to invest in the teachers so that they would be able to get the most out of the lap tops. Instead we got a grandstanding program that made King and the other politicians look good but with a limited benefit to the students.
I am sure that some school systems are doing a good job and they should be models for others to follow. Parents should be demanding that their school boards hold the superintendents accountable for far greater progress than we have seen to date.
What bothers me about the program is that kids aren’t being taught how to type, how to use common software applications (word processing and spreadsheets) unless they choose to take a certain class, and aren’t being taught proper ergonomics. I agree that it was a good idea but the execution has been poor. Yes, the students can use a laptop and surf the Web, but in the practical workplace applications they have little to no skills.
Sad isn’t it. They aren’t even getting all the basics. The kids I talked to didn’t even know what a spreadsheet was let alone how to use one. I also know there are good educational programs out there because I watch my grandson age 5 use them on his ipad and it’s amazing how quickly he learns math and reading using them. Its his dad finding the programs not his teacher.
But I just don’t see parents demanding their kids learn and as a nation it is damaging.
Our school system has computer skills labs in grades 7 & 8 and there are requirements in High School. Both of my children have excellent keyboard skills they learned in school. Both know how to use MS Office and other business software. Both can surf the Web, but also use it proficiently, to find information on almost any subject. They have access to so much more.
I home schooled my daughter for one semester and part of her daily work was to read the news on CNN, Fox, ABC and two international sites and see how they compared. She was amazed by the different slants on the news domestically and internationally and still reads the news on all of the sites. My son loves video games and has found many content related sites that he visits regularly. My son is preparing to go into the Marine Corps but has yet to take the ASVAB, which is using online sites to prepare for.
A good idea?
what would be wrong with keeping the laptops at school and issueing them as students come into the classroom or have computer labs/stations?
students abuse the laptop program.
I spoke with a student recently that stated that all he uses his apple laptop for is to play games and circumvent the software restrictions on them.
There probably are some benefits to letting them take them home. I guess allowing the kids to take them out for home work would be one good reason. Kids can learn a lot from playing if the play is structured appropriately. I am sure that games have been developed that can teach kids and that they would find fun to use on their own time. Yes they probably are doing things they shouldn’t but do you think the travelogues were my main reasons for pouring through the National Geographic?
School can be horribly boring for many kids and with good computer programs we can make learning a lot more fun and exciting for them. Even playing with social networks teaches them something useful as a lot of marketing is now being done on them.
http: Error 404 “Academics Benefits Results page not found”
Another fluff “King Angus” promotion courtesy of the BDN. Vote Dill and Democratic!
king is a democrat
keep telling yourself that.
can you refute the claim?
nope, didn’t think so.
Some people aren’t worth the time to reply to. Probably the case here, since you have been all over the place in here with nothing but negative jabs at people.
I state facts, people reply with “jabs”
Though I think Apple software is easier and better than MS, and less prone to Malware, etc. Over 50% of the business world works in MS. I understand schools choose apple b/c it’s overall savings over MS, but we are doing a disservice to the kids by having them learn on software and then when they get to college, have to learn somthing else. The kids are smart and adapt, but shouldn’t have to.
I disagree,
microsoft offers volume license agreements and huge discounts to educational institutions.
People don’t realize that it’s not just the laptops that the taxpayer is on the hook for.
The laptops themselves are expensive, but support, proprietary configurations, networks, and software are a huge burden as well.
when software comes out for a pc, it’s usually a couple of months before it comes out for apple.
Having worked with this laptop program for over 10 years now
I can honestly say that it is a disaster and a failure.
The teachers have had 10 years on a platform so easy to use that any monkey
could use it and the majority of teachers are still computer illiterate and
seemingly proud of it. In the real world
these people, even with their advanced degrees, would be under qualified. These are the people that are supposed to be
teaching the kids how to properly and responsibly use technology and they
cannot even manage to use it themselves.
Granted, there are some teachers in every school that actually use the
laptops as a tool and not as a babysitter but they are in the minority. Test scores have not improved over the past
10 years and there have been no studies done on the effect of the laptops on
education other than the anecdotal stories on how a handful of kids have used
them for something other than downloading MP3’s and stealing images off of
Google. The laptops themselves are substandard;
most schools have sent almost every laptop in to be fixed for a manufacturing
defect. The volume of laptops being sent
in for repair was so great that the repair depot had to hire additional staff
over the summer and had to arrange for special shipping arrangements so that
they would have any hope of having the laptops back in the schools in time for
the start of the year. This
has been an issue since the first year of this set of laptops. The last set of laptops had bad hard drives
and the set before that had bad main board issues. So either Maine is getting
the castoffs and manufacturing rejects or Apple products are simply not as well
built as Apple would have everyone believe. Either way Maine is getting the
short end of the stick. The state is to start taking bids on the next set of
devices to be deployed for the next school year and it will be interesting to
see if they will choose another Apple product with its poor quality at a premium
price tag or go a different route and invest in something more robust and
affordable. Jeff Mao, one of the head
honchos in the MLTI program has said in past meetings that going to iPads would
be a step backwards from the laptop format, so it will be interesting if the
new device is an iPad like was given to every teacher and student in the new
Hampden Academy or the even less capable iPad mini. For 10 years you have been paying for a
program that has produced no verifiable results. For 10 years you have been paying for a
program that has not improved the education of the children of the state of
Maine. For 10 years you have been paying
for a program that has not improved the teachers educating your children. After 10 years of paying for this program isn’t
it about time we see the benefits of this program? How much longer will the taxpayers in the
state of Maine blindly go along with this program before they require proof
that the concept is actually working and worth spending more money on? It’s your money…
If your school system really does have that many computer illiterate teachers, then every parent should be talking to every member of your school committee to find out why. In our school system, we have one or two dinosaurs who are not really up on the computer, but do teach how to cite work done on a computer.
All of the other teachers and administrators in our schools are very adept with the computer and integrate them into classroom work. I didn’t the area I live in to be so much different from other areas, so I am surprised by the number of comments I am seeing here. When the program first started, maybe, but not today.
If your school system had so many computers going back over the summer, your program needs a new administrator. The person in charge in our schools is very capable of solving some of the problems and gets the computers back as soon as issue he cannot solve arises. We definitely don’t have that problem here. Yes, many computers, are massed produced and defects are not uncommon, but someone with just a little training can usually sort out the issues and return those computers that need to be returned. The program comes with a service and maintenance agreement so teachers really don’t need to be so much hands on with repairs, just know when to call for service. Our school has access to all of the software it needs, can install or have it installed for projects etc.
I think, if you are seeing this kind of failure in your school system, you might want to look at the system and not the overall program which works so well for some schools.
While we do have some teachers that are computer literate there more that are not and that is a failure of the administration and the Teacher’s union, both of which allow this to take place.
Yes, defects are common in mass produced items but there is something drastically wrong when the defect is across an entire model line and is never corrected by the manufacturer.
The Macbooks have a design flaw that causes a strip of plastic to crack and come off of the top front edge of the keyboard area where you would rest your wrist. This crack creates a sharp edge which can and has cause injury to students. This flaw has never been corrected and is inherent in all of the plastic Macbooks both white and black. It is a $14 part that could be replace by any reasonably skilled Tech but because it is Apple it has to be sent away to be fixed.
The teachers are using the computers to teach kids that are barely into their teens; they are not designing airplanes. To use your line of thinking, kids shouldn’t use numbers until they are capable of doing calculus. For what they are used for and for the price, both the MacBooks and the teachers are adequate.
Actually the Macbooks are over priced and the teachers are under-qualified. I think that kids should be able to function without having to have a computer in front of them and realize that it is a tool. I remember having to learn to do math without having a calculator then being given a calculator once mastered the concepts so that the calculator would not become a crutch.
So if the laptops are only $242, then why do the schools tell parents that if they had to replace the laptop it’s $1200?
The laptops started at $1000. After 3 years they are charging less to replace them, they buyout at the end of the school year will be around $47.
Maybe because they have to sign a whole new bundled contract i.e. maintenance, service, and replacement costs of software licensing.
99.9% of the software that comes with the laptops is either already comes with any macbook, provided at no cost by Apple or is freely available. There were so many defective machines that a repair depot had to be built in Westbrook because Apple could not keep up with it at the regular Apple repair depot in Texas. Any Technician hired by a school system or local repair shop should have sufficient skills to repair a PC base system, which would cut repair costs and the need for a special repair depot. Every JR and SR High in the state should have the wireless infrastructure that was provided by the MLTI Program and is Cisco base and will work just fine, if not better, with a non Apple system.
King’s laptop level playing Field . Schools must do much more to level playing field than laptops . I think Ted Kozynski would have a lot to say on that subject. Now what about the kids who have no internet at home? Most who can afford internet already have computers . I gave away many computers to low income people now thinking back I might have done them a disservice. Mac laptop are cool but I would bet they could find have found basic laptops for less than 1/4th the cost and run a linux based operating system for free and gave the kids the laptop at the end of the 8th grade school year. We are way to dependent on computers . Part of the social problems we see today.
Eeee crow…Stopped teachers from lecturing???? Any good administrator could simply say to a teacher… “Stop lecturing.” End of case. Where did these teachers learn to lecture. Not one…not one piece of research shows that lecturing is the best way of teaching.
When Anguish sent all those computers out I remember one teachers saying, “Books are old fashioned; computers are exciting.” Who hired him???? Books are oldfashioned…Good grief.
When our kids got to college, nearly all of their work outside class (including many exams) were done by computer. They are an essential piece of academic equipment now. Though we were able to afford computers for our kids, we supported giving them to all Maine 7th & 8th graders just as we now support health care for all. The world is a much better place when everybody has an opportunity to live with basic dignity and to get ahead. My two cents.
If there is no assessment of academic benefits, how do these machines “level the playing field?”
King has been getting daily political ads in the BDN for free. Even when the paper runs a story about the candidates debate, it is a picture of King that graces the front page story. This suggests that if the newspaper had ANY evidence of the academic success of the laptop program, they would have published it front and center.
BTW if we want children ready for the business world, maybe we should be sure there is U.S. business out there hiring. The current “APPLE” technology is made in Red China. I buy NOTHING made in communist China, but my tax dollars go to support them anyway.
If I said King was a communist sympathiser would I be wrong?
Nothing? Nice in theory, though highly unlikely.
“Under a contract with Apple, the state pays a discounted rate of $242 per laptop per year, which includes software, training, technical support and repair.” If the state is paying this amount, and it includes repair, why do I have to spend more than $60 per year for the schools insurance plan? If I don’t pay it, my child cannot bring the laptop home.
Because most damages are not covered by Apple, and the school has to pay for the repairs. If the tech at the repair depot looks over the laptop finds any indication that the laptop may have been dropped or mishandled in any way they deem it to be not covered and charge the schools for the repair. If the tech finds anything else wrong with the laptop that would normally be covered, even if it is not related to the “non covered” issue, the repair depot will charge to repair the issue that would normally be covered. If a school refuses to pay for the covered repair the depot just sends the laptop back to the school un-repaired. I have documented cases where the depot charged to repair the topcase crack that is usually covered.
So $60 a year is a pretty good deal if anything happens. Some schools offer a rebate if the laptop is never sent in for repairs.
Laptops in school — brilliant! Teachers assign homework in class and also email the assignments to students. Homework, such as essays and reports, are sent to teachers at night and on weekends via GoogleDocs. The laptops are used for research, essays, papers and to learn software applications that are used in many work settings. For math homework, students do the problems on paper and put the answers into the computer. It comes back whether they had the right answer. If not, students go back and find out how to do the problem correctly thus reinforcing the skills.
Yes there are “games” — all educational ones that help sharpen match, language-arts, critical thinking, problem solving and other skills. Kids can go online and check their grades as well as find out if they’ve missed turning in any assignments. What I find is that teachers and students interact more often in the same amount of time thanks to the speediness of technology.
Entrepreneurs and creative thinkers — those willing to take chances — bring society forward. Gov. King’s vision for laptops not only advanced how students are taught, but makes them interested in learning.
I’ve used Apple products for many years and find they cause far less problems than a Windows run PC. The laptops are still an invaluable tool in education.
yeah, because it totally prepares students for the real world LOL!!!!
Scientific labs, local, state, and federal governments, and the rest of the business world use windows pcs.
all the laptops did was give king some extra money, give students an easier way to slack off, and give the taxpayers of Maine a billion dollar, unnecessary program
They are great tools. I’ve used them and still do, many people do. Nice try at dismissing people who use the products.
What do you gain by dissing people? What exactly are you hoping to gain by dissing my statement saying I use the products and with great success and I’m happy with them, they serve me well.
Apple only makes a handful of different models which use a very select set of hardware and they create the operating system that runs on that hardware, it should have a 99.9999% up-time That, sadly, is not the case.
Microsoft produces the Operating system that has to function with billions of different hardware configurations from hundreds of thousands of manufacturers (same with Linux). With all of those variables Windows and Linux systems are very stable and reliable.
When Apple was first popular it was the better choice for the artistic types because it had the better software for that type of work, but that is no longer the case. The majority of movies are created using custom unix software. PC’s run the same (non proprietary) software as the Macs do, but at a lower cost and greater flexibility than is offered by Apple.
Technology is a valuable tool in education but far from invaluable. If a teacher says they cannot teach without their laptop, you may want to find a new teacher. If a child cannot learn without a laptop setting in front of them then the teacher has failed. The laptop is a tool, not a method. What happens when the power goes out or the internet connection is down for a prolonged period of time? How prepared do you think the kids would be to cope with that?
I have said it is a great tool for teaching. As for myself I’ve had one since college and use Mac’s in my business. Malware is never a problem, viruses are virtually non existent.
I prefer them. To each his own.
MacBooks are easy to use for the home user also. It beats dealing with the many patches needed for Windows.
I wonder how king’s stock in apple inc is doing?
… said the Gossipy Hen.
Mediakjonline.com shows this scan (PDF – click on the form then scroll about 1/4 of the way down to “Part III A – Publicly Traded Assets and Unearned Income Sources”) of Angus’ March 13, 2012 financial disclosure which says he owns between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in the Vanguard 500 Index Fund mutual fund ( VFINX ).
Yahoofinance.com says the Vanguard 500 Index Fund on June 29, 2012 was the 5th largest mutual fund holder of Apple stock, which dropped 1.95% at 12:09 PM EDT from market open.
“Thinnovation”
thank you.
You’re … welcome.</A.
Ask the students how much school work is based upon their laptops versus time spent cruising the Internet, playing games and Facebook.
Because computer technology and software technology are still growing fields, it may be difficult to quantitatively measure the results of the program. I know from my kids and their friends, this program has added immensely to their educations. That is more of a qualitative statement, as I believe the value of the program has grown exponentially over the years it has been in existence. I think it has opened whole new worlds to teachers of science and history especially.
Both of my children are very proficient at doing research on the Internet on any subject at all. They learned these skills integrated into classroom work. I think this program has had a very positive impact on our students. There were more homes without a computer and internet access when this program first started, but today every student has the same level of access to research resources as every other child. And I think our kids will be better equipped once they leave schools and go out for more education or jobs.
“very proficient at doing research on the Internet on any subject at all”
um, Google.
not that hard.
As a student who experienced the first wave of laptops, I will describe my experience: english class turned in to computer class, reading class turned into computer class, and science class turned in to computer class.
Oh, and Club Penguin…..
As long distance trucking jobs can’t be filled by our youth,too busy multitasking
In March 2011, the Sun Journal took a look at the laptop program on its 10th Anniversary. From their piece:
Teachers, students and administrators interviewed for this report said laptops are giving several kinds of return on that money.
* Laptops make learning and schoolwork more interesting, students and teachers said. “When kids are engaged, you can teach them anything,” said Jeff Mao, who oversees instructional technology for the Maine Department of Education.
* Writing test scores have improved. Angus King is quick to point out, “I never promised higher test scores,” but a study indicates laptops have improved writing statewide. A 2009 study by David Silvernail of the Maine Education Policy Research Institute at the University of Southern Maine showed that laptops helped students become better writers, boosting writing test scores statewide. Silvernail is working on a comprehensive report about laptops. He’s scheduled to give that assessment to state lawmakers in mid-April.
* Freeport math skills have jumped. The number of Freeport students who need remedial math in the ninth grade has been cut in half. Educators credit the method of teaching math in middle school: laptops, no textbooks.
In 2001-02, Freeport Middle School’s eighth grade passing rate on basic math tests was about 50 percent. In 2009-10, it was 91 percent, math teacher Alex Briasco-Brin said.
http://www.sunjournal.com/state/story/988012
“Freeport math skills have jumped”
with built in scientific calculators and google, of course they have.
I can find the answer to complex math problems by just using google.
why would i actually have to understand the math behind it?
Why think ?
Simple: Class, when we work to solve the quadratic equations on the test tomorrow, you will not be allowed any aid except a simple, hand-held calculator. Don’t forget the pencils! Good luck!
I can’t help wondering how many commenters on BDN’s website could solve a quadratic equation. And if even if they could, could they say why that was of any significance?
Of course, if they suddenly felt the need to know something about quadratic equations, say, to impress someone in a bar, they could grab their laptop and within seconds become quite knowledgeable.
Just like most liberal programs sold to be the best thing since sliced bread. Spent 11 miilion dollars but 10 years out the benefits aren’t really clear. The teachers can’t teach without them…..Hhmmm maybe that’s what it was all about all along making the job easier for the teachers.
Obviously you have never stood on your feet all day in the classroom.
If you envy the job you should have had the ambition to become one.
An easy job! Pfft!!!
Obviously 11 million to make the teachers jobs easier is more that worth it, Especially when it’s other peoples money that everybody else has plenty of. As far as ambition goes I’m working 2 full time jobs to keep my head above water and pay my taxes.
A vote for Charlie
November 6th looms large, and there is a lot on the table. Voting in
the upcoming election is an awesome responsibility to decide the future direction of the state
and country. So please be thoughtful and consider a few facts.
I have no ax to
grind with Senate Candidate King, and I have no reason to dislike the man. I’m
just old political operative looking through the lens of historical facts. Here
are the facts. Maine, back in the year of 1974, elected James B. Longley (I), the first
independent Governor in U.S. history. He
did a remarkable job in his one term, that is a fact that cannot be argued.
Twenty years later in 1994 Angus King (I), became the second independent
Governor elected, and by all accounts did a fairly decent job,( considering his
predecessor and successor). Four years later in 1998, in the land of “L’etoil du nord”, State motto of
Minnesota, meaning “Star of the North”, their citizenry elected
Jessie Ventura (I), as an independent Governor. He governed that state well,
and accomplished much, to the great
surprise of many a pundit. So it’s fair
to say that electing an independent
governor might not be a bad idea, historically speaking.
Now let us take a glance at the history of independent
U.S. Senators. Number one Jim Jeffords of Vermont, 120 days after being sworn
in for his third term, as a Republican,
Mr. Jeffords gets hoodwinked by none other than Chris Dodd, and changes his
party affiliation from (R) to (I), and presto-changeo Mr. Jeffords (I) ,is relegated into
obscurity.
Number two, Joe
Lieberman, an accomplished and respected Senator, who rose to become a contender on the
Gore/Lieberman Presidential ticket, in 2000 (Florida re-count, “advantage
Bush”). However in 2006, Senator Lieberman is “out of
favor” with the party faithful,
lost his primary battle in Connecticut, runs as an independent and wins. Because the
people of Connecticut trust the man due
to his impeccable reputation. That being
said, he is diminished in stature and is stripped of most of his weighty
committee assignments. Why? Harry Reid
doesn’t like (I)s. Harry by the way, holds the distinction of NOT passing a
budget for three years running. We all know Harry, speaking that glowing praise
for the newly elected president way back
in ’08, and I quote, “He seems to
be an intelligent and articulate young man that doesn’t speak with a ‘Negro’
dialect”. Yes it’s the same Harry
who was joined at the hip with Nancy, “we
have to pass the bill first before we know what is in it”, Pelosi.
Number three, Bernie Sanders. Good grief! Bernie, the “distinguished gentleman”
from Vermont, running and winning his congressional seat from 1990 as a Socialist, until 2006. When he ran for
the U.S Senate seat being vacated by the afore mentioned Jim Jeffords (I), (apparently
Jimmy didn’t like the “land of
obscurity” in the Senate). In 2006, Bernie saw it more prudent to have an (I) beside his name on the ballot verses an
(S). Bernie, what a guy. He’s gained
Obama’s support for his wanting to make a constitutional amendment to Overturn
Citizens Rights. Yes you read that right.
Look it up, you can Google it.
The only point I’m trying to make here is that
independents don’t bode well in that coveted body of the U.S. Senate. As previously mentioned , Independents do very
well as Governors.
I have tried to state with crystal clarity, three
example of each. Lets recap, Longley, King, Ventura, successful Governors. Jeffords, Lieberman, reduced to impotency
after switching party affiliation to (I),
Sanders, has always been an embarrassing blight in the House and Senate without
having to change parties, just the
letter that follows his name.
This is Maine! Look at our history! Margaret Chase Smith(R), First woman to serve in both the U.S. House of
Representatives and the U.S. Senate, political giant. Edmond S. Muskie (D) Governor and U.S. Senator, Presidential
Primary Hopeful. Rose to become Secretary of State, political giant. William S,
Cohen (R) Mayor of Bangor, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Secretary of Defense,
political giant. George Mitchell (D)
U.S. Attorney, U.S. Senator,
rising to the position of Senate Majority Leader, Special envoy to war
ravage hotspots. Accomplishments, too many to mention, political giant. Olympia
Snow (R) U.S. House, First Lady State of Maine
U.S. Senate. Thirty-three years of distinguished service to the State
and Country.
Funny, there’s no (I) beside any of the names
referenced above.
Charlie Summers (R) Hopefully to be addressed as “Senator Elect
Summers” on November 7th.
The choice for the next U.S. Senator from Maine, at
the risk of plagiarizing a Geico commercial. It’s so simple, even a cave man
can figure it out.
The 2012 budget was enacted by Congress through public law 112-55 on November 18, 2011, public law 112-74, December 23, 2011, and public law 112-77, also December 23, 2011. Revenue 2.469 trillion, expenditures 3.796 trillion, deficit 1.327 trillion. And should Charlie Summers be elected, don’t hold your breath waiting for him to referred to as a giant. Stubby, maybe.
I wasn’t for the laptop program when it first came out, and I was in high school then. I’m still not for the laptop program. I can understand the benefits of it, but, really, we’re creating a society of people who are becoming completely dependent on technology and cannot function without it. Yes, I understand that some Maine families cannot afford computers (big screens are the priority these days), but there could be some sort of a better way to teach people without the technology being right there.
Maines simpletons are fair game for Angus..
Vote Dill!!!! Maines only choice for senate.
Vote for Cynthia Dill and end up with Charlie Summers.
Though i am a big fan of Angus King and will vote for him for senate, the laptop idea wasn NOT a good one. Unfortunately, what we see in school now is a generation of children that no longer learn to spell, learn to write properly, and learn to investigate and study without the technology. Technology is important and the easier it is to learn, makes sense, but not at the expense of using an encyclopedia or a dictionary or learning how to add and subtract without the use of a calculator. Spellcheck is nice in business so that you dont look un-educated, but shouldnt our children first learn to spell dictionary and use one before looking it up on Wikipedia? Just my opinion…
This is a general comment to those complaining about the cost of Apple computers vs. Windows-based PCs manufactured by a variety of companies. I’ve used both and prefer Apple computers for their ease and pleasure of use. One reason they are easier/more pleasing to use is the integration of hardware and software. Apple computers come loaded with several pieces of software that function well with each other right out of the box. When shelling out cash for a new computer, I also consider expected lifespan. My Apple computers have lasted 4-7 years with no major problems while my Windows machines have lasted 1-3. Our school district switched for a short time from Apple computers to Windows PCs but their maintenance costs skyrocketed and users didn’t like the Windows OS or the hardware. Excuse the pun but you are comparing Apples & oranges here.
Nice, our children learn on macs…and then leave school to a world that is over 80% windows based.
Not mine, by the time they reach the grade where the laptops are handed out, they will have windows/linux based machines with superior hardware that they will not only know how to use well, but how to repair them down to the components.
It doesn’t matter whether someone learns to use a computer to do work on a Mac or a PC any more than it matters whether you learn to drive in a Chevy or a Nissan. If you learn how to use computers effectively with a Mac and end up working with a PC, you will very quickly learn how to work with a PC.