Re: [school-discuss] $100.00 laptop

[Mark Rauterkus <mark.rauterkus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Laptops were given out a few years ago in a local school district,
Quaker Valley, in western PENNSYLVANIA. All the kids got iBooks. A
larger grant paid for the computers. Each classroom had its own cart
for instructional use, etc. Nice set-up.

However, there was a lot of broken equipment. The dog can't eat one's
homework -- but -- the screen can break, the hard-drive crashes
(mainly with abuse), etc.

I think there is still going to be a HUGE demand in schools for
servers so as to store the students' desktops (files, etc.).

But, then again, there might be a big push for napster type fileshares
among the laptops. One can back-up one's laptop content, in a secure
way, with three or so other friends who have laptops in a buddy
network.

So, if the equipment is cheap enough, AND -- if the content is
backed-up by design so that the kid isn't just hooked to HIS / HER PC
-- then we've got a winning combination.

So, back to the site's description: Yes, you don't 'share a pencil.'
However, anyone can use any pencil when needed. One doesn't need to
only use one's own pencil either.

Make sense?



Ta.

Mark Rauterkus     Mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://Rauterkus.blogspot.com
http://Rauterkus.com              http://Platform.For-Pgh.org
412 298 3432 = cell