Dark_Magician_Girl_9
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- Posted: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 03:58:31 +0000
Introduction: I currently live in Henrico County of Virginia, USA. So far, my county is the only county (supposedly) in the entire country to provide its students with the ibook as an educational tool.
Most of the students use the same ibook throughout your years in the same school, and once you leave that school and move/transfer to another school, you will be issued another laptop to use. If you don't understand, I used the same ibook in 7th and 8th grade, but when I moved up to 9th grade, I was issued a different laptop to use, and the one I used in middle school is issued to a 6th grader of my middle school.
The ibook is your responsibility, meaning it's your job to bring it to school, take it home from school, bring it to school charged, try your best to not damage it, take it to the help desk, etc.
This program started four years ago during the 2001-2002 school year for high schoolers, and expanded to middle schoolers during the 2002-2003 school year.
When they say ibooks are meant as an educational tool, they mean it. There's no DVD drive, you can't burn CDs, you can't install programs, you can't have games, you can't have pornography (oh noes! eek ), you can't modify any of the settings placed on your computer, in fact, you can only do with what limited programs they give you. Of course, that's to be expected when you use anything that's not yours. When you're at home, those who connect with a cable modem are out of luck because you can't connect it to the ibook. It's either wireless or dialup (MSN or AOL). Our county uses the 8e6 internet filter, and it sucks. The filter recently changed to tell you if your internet privilages are suspended. Mine was suspended for ten minutes for looking up a diagram of a tongue...
Now the ibooks, speaking from my personal experiences. My ibook works great... when it works. So far, it has spend over half of the school year in the help desk because of backlight problems, reimaging (twice), latch problems, loose frame, keyboard, battery, and a few others I can't think of at the moment. It also works great when it doesn't spend over ten minutes trying to open up a program, only unsuccessfully. In other words, I hate the ibook. I only got it because I thought my teachers might actually use it, unlike the last two years when only two or three teachers use it frequently. If these three years are an indication of anything, then I'm opting to not get one next year.
Here's a recent news article concerning our internet filter:
As you can see, they're (Henrico County) is trying to make the internet filter stronger than it already is! I oppose that idea because I feel that as long as we're not in school, we should be able to use the internet on our ibooks almost any way we wish without the interference of a force beyond our homes. Of course, it wouldn't matter to me personally because the ibook won't even connect to my modem.
Discuss: Does your county offer a similar program?
Would you get an ibook?
What do you think about the internet filter?
Are you willing to use the ibook at home with the activation of a school block?
Most of the students use the same ibook throughout your years in the same school, and once you leave that school and move/transfer to another school, you will be issued another laptop to use. If you don't understand, I used the same ibook in 7th and 8th grade, but when I moved up to 9th grade, I was issued a different laptop to use, and the one I used in middle school is issued to a 6th grader of my middle school.
The ibook is your responsibility, meaning it's your job to bring it to school, take it home from school, bring it to school charged, try your best to not damage it, take it to the help desk, etc.
This program started four years ago during the 2001-2002 school year for high schoolers, and expanded to middle schoolers during the 2002-2003 school year.
When they say ibooks are meant as an educational tool, they mean it. There's no DVD drive, you can't burn CDs, you can't install programs, you can't have games, you can't have pornography (oh noes! eek ), you can't modify any of the settings placed on your computer, in fact, you can only do with what limited programs they give you. Of course, that's to be expected when you use anything that's not yours. When you're at home, those who connect with a cable modem are out of luck because you can't connect it to the ibook. It's either wireless or dialup (MSN or AOL). Our county uses the 8e6 internet filter, and it sucks. The filter recently changed to tell you if your internet privilages are suspended. Mine was suspended for ten minutes for looking up a diagram of a tongue...
Now the ibooks, speaking from my personal experiences. My ibook works great... when it works. So far, it has spend over half of the school year in the help desk because of backlight problems, reimaging (twice), latch problems, loose frame, keyboard, battery, and a few others I can't think of at the moment. It also works great when it doesn't spend over ten minutes trying to open up a program, only unsuccessfully. In other words, I hate the ibook. I only got it because I thought my teachers might actually use it, unlike the last two years when only two or three teachers use it frequently. If these three years are an indication of anything, then I'm opting to not get one next year.
Here's a recent news article concerning our internet filter:
Richmond Times Dispatch
Laptop filtering concerns raised
Education officials in Henrico seeking bids to enhance protection
BY OLYMPIA MEOLA
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Apr 2, 2005
Steven Bass' son will soon enter a Henrico County middle school and receive a county-issued laptop.
Bass trusts his son to view it as an educational tool and surf the Internet for class work only. And when the boy gets home, Bass knows the firewall he carefully designed will block unsavory sites.
Bass is tech-savvy. He worries about the parents who aren't.
Internet filters may be sufficient in school, but once students leave the school grounds they no longer have the same protection of the school's firewall.
"When you hand this loaded gun to a kid and the parent is either not involved or able to be involved, you're just asking for trouble," Bass said.
It's one of many issues Bass feels is not adequately covered in a request for proposals to extend a program that gives every county middle and high school student a laptop.
But school officials say they are trying to address that problem by asking bidding companies to suggest other filtering solutions. The officials are also seeking ways to gauge the program's impact on student learning.
The degree that the iBooks have positively affected student education has yet to be determined. About $27.9 million has been spent on the laptops in the past four years.
Internet filtering became a controversial element of the program several years ago when students were caught downloading pornography at school.
"We've been using the best piece of software we can find," said Dave Myers, the county's assistant superintendent for finance.
Bidders are being asked to supply larger bandwidth to the laptops' wireless card so the county could grant teachers the option to view all students' computer screens electronically. School officials are also considering a filter system that works when students leave school, said Lloyd Brown, Henrico's assistant director of technology and information services.
Bass and other parents see the omission of specific filtering requirements as a sign that school officials are trying to steer the contract to Apple, the current provider. Bass suggests that the request should be retracted and redesigned to seem less Apple-specific.
"It's a very slanted proposal," Bass said. If school officials would like to go with Apple again, Bass thinks they should demand that Apple come up with the solutions.
That's not the case, county officials maintain. Brown denied any attempt to again sole-source the contract to Apple. Superintendent Fred Morton IV has repeatedly said the same.
In fact, the county recently tweaked a hardware requirement in their request that made it easier for more laptop manufacturers to bid.
"Whoever comes out with the best response will win the [contract]," Brown said.
Education officials in Henrico seeking bids to enhance protection
BY OLYMPIA MEOLA
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Apr 2, 2005
Steven Bass' son will soon enter a Henrico County middle school and receive a county-issued laptop.
Bass trusts his son to view it as an educational tool and surf the Internet for class work only. And when the boy gets home, Bass knows the firewall he carefully designed will block unsavory sites.
Bass is tech-savvy. He worries about the parents who aren't.
Internet filters may be sufficient in school, but once students leave the school grounds they no longer have the same protection of the school's firewall.
"When you hand this loaded gun to a kid and the parent is either not involved or able to be involved, you're just asking for trouble," Bass said.
It's one of many issues Bass feels is not adequately covered in a request for proposals to extend a program that gives every county middle and high school student a laptop.
But school officials say they are trying to address that problem by asking bidding companies to suggest other filtering solutions. The officials are also seeking ways to gauge the program's impact on student learning.
The degree that the iBooks have positively affected student education has yet to be determined. About $27.9 million has been spent on the laptops in the past four years.
Internet filtering became a controversial element of the program several years ago when students were caught downloading pornography at school.
"We've been using the best piece of software we can find," said Dave Myers, the county's assistant superintendent for finance.
Bidders are being asked to supply larger bandwidth to the laptops' wireless card so the county could grant teachers the option to view all students' computer screens electronically. School officials are also considering a filter system that works when students leave school, said Lloyd Brown, Henrico's assistant director of technology and information services.
Bass and other parents see the omission of specific filtering requirements as a sign that school officials are trying to steer the contract to Apple, the current provider. Bass suggests that the request should be retracted and redesigned to seem less Apple-specific.
"It's a very slanted proposal," Bass said. If school officials would like to go with Apple again, Bass thinks they should demand that Apple come up with the solutions.
That's not the case, county officials maintain. Brown denied any attempt to again sole-source the contract to Apple. Superintendent Fred Morton IV has repeatedly said the same.
In fact, the county recently tweaked a hardware requirement in their request that made it easier for more laptop manufacturers to bid.
"Whoever comes out with the best response will win the [contract]," Brown said.
As you can see, they're (Henrico County) is trying to make the internet filter stronger than it already is! I oppose that idea because I feel that as long as we're not in school, we should be able to use the internet on our ibooks almost any way we wish without the interference of a force beyond our homes. Of course, it wouldn't matter to me personally because the ibook won't even connect to my modem.
Discuss: Does your county offer a similar program?
Would you get an ibook?
What do you think about the internet filter?
Are you willing to use the ibook at home with the activation of a school block?
