RSSMicrosoft's High-Tech School Opens in Philly
By Ed Oswald | Published September 8, 2006, 11:10 AM
The school bell rung for the first time Thursday at the School of the Future, a joint project between the School District of Philadelphia and Microsoft. The two groups say the school is the most advanced high school in the nation, with technology deeply integrated into the curriculum.
Construction began in November 2004, and the project was billed as an integral part of a $1.5 billion plan by the city to reform the city's schools. Mismanagement and low test scores even prompted the state to take over the school district in early 2003.
Entry into the school was selected by lottery, and the students live in area neighborhoods. Additionally, the group is nearly 99 percent minority, with all but 15 percent of them coming from low-income households. Administrators hope the school will have a positive effect on these students that might otherwise slip through the cracks.
"This is how schools of today can and should be designed and developed to adequately prepare students for life and work," school district CEO Paul Vallas said. "I hope the school leaders who come and see what we've accomplished here in Philadelphia walk away saying, 'We can do that, too, and we can start now."'
Microsoft echoed Vallas' sentiments, adding that it believed tech companies had a social duty to education, and that use of technology would help to create a more personalized education experience.
The company may also expand the concept to other cities: a meeting is scheduled in New York City next week to discuss a school there. Other schools around the world have also expressed interest, Microsoft said.
Students will use smart cards and Tablet PCs for many of their daily activities, and will be able to connect wirelessly to the schools internal network. Teachers will have less paperwork, as everything from grades to student testing will be handled digitally.
Those involved in the school district said Microsoft's hands-on approach in building the school made a big difference in ensuring the project was completed.
"Education is too big an issue for any one organization to tackle by itself, and the hands-on contributions of a partner like Microsoft will prove to be worth more than any dollar amount," said James Nevels, chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission. "This collaboration accomplished in three years what no single entity has ever been able to do alone."
I wonder if the statement, "Teachers will have less paperwork..." will turn out to be true. I suspect that, despite the wonderful technological innovations to which these high-school students will have access, teachers, if they do their jobs well, and students, if they achieve and work hard, will produce piles of paperwork. I do not believe this is necessarily a "bad thing"; I am merely sceptical about the veracity of the aforementioned assertion.
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|It really depends on the teachers. Technophobes will not reduce the paper load. Technophiles will virtually eliminate paper from their classrooms.
I know a teacher using Smart Science who grades science lab reports online at the rate of two a minute. No paper is involved, and that includes writing comments back to the student.
Other teachers insist on printing out the reports and grading them by hand with a red pencil.
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|Amazing the amount of money we can spend to prove that thugs and can taught (fails every time), they produce one in a thousand and show how well the system worked. Students that REALLY want to be educated can't get funding for futher education while moron's with a 1.2 grade average (these are the truly smart ones) can get free education all the way to a doctorate. Darwin is rolling over in his grave as he watches the downfall of what could have been a great society.
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|...
"Amazing the amount
of money we can spend
to prove that thugs
and can taught (fails
every time)"
...
Bill Gates has been walking around with garbage
bags full of cash trying to prove he won't go to
Hell when he dies if he gives enough of it away.
The Philadelphia School District had already tried
Hip Hop High, and Microsoft High ain't going to
be any more successful.
The DataRat suggests the only rational alternative:
Abu Ghraib High !
If what President Bush described as "tough"
interrogation methods work on international
terrorists, why not on neighborhood terrorists ?
Any teenage boy with a shaved head, and any
teenage girl with her belly button showing,
ought be renditioned to Abu Ghraib High secret
locations in the school district where National
Guard troops will lead them around on leashes !
[ Renditions shall last only 18 months, because
-any longer- parents might notice their kids have
disappeared. ]
Classrooms will be tiny cells crammed with too
many prisoners (so, in this way, Abu Ghraib High
won't be dissimilar to current high schools).
But toilets won't work, and students have to
wear black hoods over their heads at all times.
Pupils will be forced to kneel naked stacked
in pyramids while being menaced by snarling
dogs. THAT will take their dirty little
teenage minds off sex for a few minutes !
...
The Computer Rodent
...
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|...
"Microsoft High" is based on the release cycle
for Windows. Thus each step -freshman,
sophomore, junior, and senior- takes over five
years and still may not get done !
There's different diploma's, too: "Home",
"Premium", and "Ultimate".
Graduates with the Home Diploma won't be able
to do much more than read and write. But with a
Premium Diploma they'll be able to watch DVD's.
And, Ultimate Diploma grads will have capability
to perform vaguely defined 'advanced' tasks
Microsoft shall tell us more about later.
Security is always an issue at high schools.
Students (to be called "users") will have to
provide passwords just to walk down the halls.
At Microsoft High, students won't be able to
write graffiti directly on the rest room walls !
Best they can do is make temporary dirty remarks
on Post It notes.
Adopting Microsoft corporate culture, classes
have been abolished and everyone spends the
first half of the day in meetings to discuss
what announcements they're going to make
...then everybody goes home early !
Actually accomplishing anything tangible is
viewed as "too traditional" and shall be
discouraged.
Apple will be opening a competing school across
the street. Not many details are available yet.
We only know that students there will be called
"dude", and teachers addressed as "hey, man".
...
The Computer Rodent
...
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|LMAO! Funny stuff!
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|...
"LMAO! Funny stuff!"
...
Seriously, though, if Microsoft High is supposed
to be so cutting-edge, how come they have a
physical campus ? One might think it would've
been an on-line virtual campus. Let's see the
neighborhood thugs, er, Bro. Rat means "pupils",
destroy a ~virtual~ campus !
And why is Microsoft's corporate culture held up
as a model here ? Is the educational goal for
every student to have bad public relations, treat
customers like idiots, and get emeshed for
~years~ in law suits ?
This reminds the PC Rodent of people in Hollywood
who -because they're successful actors- think they
also know something about politics. Does making
billions selling computer software also make
Microsoft expert on the subject of public education ?
...
The Computer Rodent
...
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|Household of 5 with a 60k income and a smart child in public university can't even get student aid or scholarship but illegal MEXICAN'S get free healthcare, food, and shelter and more respect than our fallen soilders.
Welcome to the new AMERICANA.
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|I couldn't agree with you more PostDeals
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|Sad, but true.
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|Sad but true. I remembered my freshmen year that I was denied finaical aid because I made "too much". I was in the military that privious year, making a hugh 15k gross, and I was told I made too much. I screamed into financial aid office demand my aid or else, they eventually gave it to me.
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|That sounds great. Now let's see if the students actually learn more. There's a whole lot of research out there that shows that increased use of technology does not improve learning, but this should prove to be an even better test. Will they learn or spend all their time IMing, playing games, and devising new ways to cheat on tests?
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|Or even better yet PROMOTE MICROSOFT's philosophy.
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|Partisan ******** aside, ask yourself this: Why is it that every election we hear (from both parties) how important education is and then 2 minutes after the election is over we cut the education budget?
******** adult word too sensitive for delicate BetaNews readers
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|I'm sure it'd be a great incentive for students to shape up their grades, if they want to remain students at the school of course. Come to think of it, they should forget about the techy crap and hire models for all teachers..who will spank you if you are being a bad bad boy.. ooops did I just say that out loud?
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|Every school would be able to have complete funding for all their needs if the g** d*** country didnt vote for Bush and his g** d*** war. F0ckers.
Really?
Why didn't they have funding for the entire 8 years Bill d*** was in office?
Oh Right
Bush ANT THE REASON!
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|Bell probably blue-screened on the first attempt and didn't ring. Then they probably had to reboot the school. Oh yeah, all the electronic textbooks are probably named something like "Microsoft Live Algebra .NET 2007 Ultimate Premium Extras Edition". Ok, I'll stop. The puns could go on and on forever.
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|Every school would be able to have complete funding for all their needs if the g** d*** country didnt vote for Bush and his g** d*** war. F0ckers.
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|You're an Idiot.
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|I voted for Bush. That vote moved the war to the middle east instead of in NYC and other major American cities.
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|al Qaeda proper, launched a series of terrorist attacks against the United States, beginning with a failed attempt to target U.S. troops in Yemen in 1992; subsequent attacks include numerous embassy bombings; a failed attempt to blow up the U.S.S Sullivan; an attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000; a series of bombings of airplanes and movie theaters in the Philippines; truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy, Nairobi, Kenya; and of the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998; the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan; ordering the killing of an American citizen, an American diplomat in Jordan, Mr. Foley; and on a nightclub in Bali; the World Trade Center; a commuter train in Lisbon Spain; and the subway in London.
And that ignores the Lebanese barracks bombing by Iranian backed Hamas in 1993 and the first World Trade Center bombing.
al Qaeda's second-in-command and functional chief of operations Ayman Al-Zawahiri. A lifelong jihadist, Zawahiri was previously a top leader of Islamic Jihad, who joined forces with bin Laden sometime in the 1990s as al-Queda's brain and traveling the world working for al Qaeda and other jihad organizations. He was charged with complicity in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. On two occasions during the early 1990s, Zawahiri traveled to the U.S., where he reportedly raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for terrorist operations under the guise of charity. Zawahiri is now the second-most wanted terrorist in the world.
But not according to the Clinton's and the Dems!
Bill Clinton and the Dems are STILL trying to decide if they pose a threat... Let alone what they should do about it other than hide under their beds and blame Americans.
And they call others idiots. Ignorance is indeed bliss.
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|Nice to see you took notes at the party meeting, comrade. Well done.
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|LOL! And you're a one-man brain trust, right?
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|You might try reading (or watching) at least one more news source. You seem to possess only half of history.
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|Great rebuttal.
This should Really confuse you:
And since the era of big government has now officially ended (yeah, right!)...During the first Bush term federal spending has increased a massive 28.8%, with NON-DEFENSE DISCRETIONARY spending growth of 35.7%, producing the largest deficits in US history and the highest rate of government growth since Johnson's Great Society. And all because Bush merely co-opted every Dem initiative and passed them as his own!
And if you recall, Gore's vote defeated the proposed Balanced Budget Amendment because it did not allow for deficit spending during time of war! Now I am sure that you will also miss the irony there, but the Dems got exactly what they wanted! Except that they still complain that not enough money is being spent!
So here we are back at the asinine Dem definition of a slowing in the rate of growth equated to a cut! No wonder new math was declared a failure.
Being if we redefine terms based upon principles and put deficit spending ('investments in the future' - ha) on the liberal side and pay as you go (balanced budget/no deficit) on the conservative side, and social engineering - using the govt and the coercive rule of law to change thinking and behavior by threat of fine or imprisionment rather than debate on the liberal side, be it socialist left wing thought or social/right wing religious pandering; & the idea that govt should be limited and strictly defined in scope as per the Constitution where positions are presented with logic and (those dangerous, unpredictable & not to be trusted) individuals' decisions are are based upon free choice (oh, the horror!), on the conservative side; what we are left with in the vast majority of both parties are simply right and left wing liberals. As NEITHER party is currently advocating fiscal responsibility nor less social engineering!
Bush is just a liberal light who fails to allocate as much spending as his more socialist Dems would like.
And using the above criterion, Bush & Congress are neither socially nor fiscally conservative. And hence why his & their poll numbers are falling through the floor.
You can have them both!
Unfortunately, in an age where neither party offers true leadership, one must opt for a return to the good ole days of gridlock, where it requires a 2/3 bi-partisan majority to override vetos - thus assuring that less (and thus more!) will be enacted by Congress.
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|You hit one thing completely right; neither show leadership. They're too busy being bought off to lead anything but the line at the bank.
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|I don't know if they are being "bought off", but they are both pandering to what they perceive as their core constituencies while ignoring their larger statements of principles.
The Dems are simply reacting without offering anything worthwhile of substance, while the Reps are pandering to the Social/religious right while ignoring their stated principles of fiscal responsibility and a smaller limited central government.
And I don't care what the elitist "I'm smarter than than the average citizen" Liberal or the holier-than-thou religious right zealot believes, they are free to practice their beliefs in their home, be it recycling or snake handling in their personal life, I just don't want either of them telling me OR OTHERS what our values and beliefs should be! And I will do the same by respecting Your right to be 'wrong' and to be responsible for your personal life as well! ;-)
So I guess that makes me a 90% libertarian who does not live in the idyllic world of the 18th century isolationism prior to the discovery that we live in a global environment, and the fact that, while I do favor drug law reform - at least to set reasonable limits based upon individual responsibile action based laws to empty the prisons of the pot smokers, while getting organized crime out of the picture without demanding the immediate legalization of heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, etc. The abstract reasoning pertaining to an equilibrium of drug use in society, while perhaps valid in the long term, does not address the short term consequences of a swinging pendulum and the social consequences (and moral backlash!) over the short term casualties of a wide open drug market currently dominated by organized crime!
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|"The Dems are simply reacting without offering anything worthwhile of substance,"
A man walks into a store full of expense antique vases. He shoves on onto the floor and breaks it into a thousand pieces. Another shopper walks over to him:
Shopper - You broke that vase!
Vandal - Yep. What are you going to do to fix it?
Shopper - Me?!
Vandal - That's right. I want to hear a detailed plan from you.
Shopper - I don't know. It probably CAN'T be fixed, now.
Vandal - Then you have no ideas. If you were a political party, no one should support you.
Shopper - But, YOU broke it!
Vandal - Yeah, making messes no one can fix is great politics.
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|Dang.... I wish that was my school..
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