'Sims school' abandons books for laptops [warning: bite]
- From: J Flenner <varney@[redacted]>
- Subject: 'Sims school' abandons books for laptops [warning: bite]
- Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 08:41:02 -0400
[NOTE: "SIMS" (in the headline) is an acronym for "School Information
Management System". jf]
* * * * * * *
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/12/school_no_books/
Tuesday 12th July 2005 | The Register [UK]
'Sims school' abandons books for laptops
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
...[A] high school in Tuscon is abandoning textbooks entirely, at the
urging of the school district's technology evangelist, who appears to
have caught the religion big time.
Instead of spending $600 per head on textbooks, Vail High School in
Tucson will buy each of its 350 sophomores an $850 laptop. . . . But the
Tucson school district's superinterindent, an enthusiastic technology
evangelist called Calvin Baker, candidly admits he doesn't know quite
how it will all work.
...Perhaps this site <http://www.internetisshit.org/> answers Calvin
more succinctly, in eleven short paragraphs, than we can. Or perhaps he
can look at empirical evidence gathered from over 30 countries around
the world, which discovered that computer use actually reduces childrens
numeracy and literacy skills.
Schoolchildren were developing a "problem-solving deficit disorder", and
losing the ability to analyze, the Royal Economic Society concluded.
(snip)
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