RSSU.S. Schools Falling Behind in Tech Use
By Ed Oswald | Published January 7, 2005, 12:48 PM
Schools in the United States are falling behind society in the use of technology according to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Education. However, the report did find that virtually every school is connected to the Internet, and there is an average of one computer for every five students.
Education Secretary Rod Paige blames the resistance to technology by educators on lack of training and understanding.
"Education is the only business still debating the usefulness of technology," Paige said in the National Education Technology Plan, scheduled for release Friday. "Schools remain unchanged for the most part despite numerous reforms and increased investments in computers."
The report also contains several quotes from students who say they are taking notice of the technology gap. "I think that students should have laptops to do everything in class," one student says. "We should not have to carry heavy books all day long."
The report was created to fulfill a requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2002.
I can't speak for this article alone, but I will add my 2 cents and state that this article is not very true.
I work for a school district, located in the state of Delaware. Since 2002, we have migrated 19 schools over to Windows 2000. Deployed zone printing, completely outfitted class rooms with the top of the line pc's and laptops. That doesn't even take in account projectors that are being deployed as I type this for presentations, nor the tv's that are deployed into libraries for educational viewing. Also schools have mobile carts with a minimum of 10 laptops for quick access, and for class projects.
At least in my district, we have done what was needed to bring the technological level up to surpass the benchmark, and we are pround of it. However, dispite what we have done, students use the technology to play games or screw around on the interent. With such as vast disposal of resources, that rather see who can break a cdrom drive, or see what they can take out of the machine.
A laptop for every child? LOL!!! Right, and who's gonna pick up the tab if it gets stolen, broken or used in attacks?
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|I think that the type of "laptop" that would be used in such a case would be one of those NCs (Network Computer) which go for under $100 and are only configured enough to access the internet where everything is stored on the server end.
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|one student says: We should also be given free cell phones to help us learn... and free laptops will really help us learn, because books are too heavy..... WAH, WAH, WAH! Cry me a river!
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|Yes, it would be really nice if we had laptops! I already have a family one so :P No more misplacing trash either.
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|In one of the local universities a laptop is part of the tuition.
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|The problem is that most American Students aren't interested in doing into the maths and sciense, but instead they are going into careers they feel will bring them the most money. I.E. The US has 5% of the world's population and over 30% of its lawyers.
Many foreign students are taking their maths and science cources in American Universities, but when they are finished they are usually not allowed to remain in the US, though.
The way things are going soon in the US there will be nothing at all produced and only everything consumed. There are even some law firms which are outsourcing much of the legal work to India now.
The US is really going down the crapper and many Americans don't care, afterall they re-elected a moron to office who is screwing them over, as long as they get cheap oil and cheap merchandise.
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|Talk about the lack of education. You may want to go back to the school you came from and ask them to teach you somthing besides arrogance.
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|Thanks for proving my point, Mr. Wal-Mart. You're your own worse enemy. Imagine, for decades Americans have been wasting trillions of dollars on fighting communism and here they are just handing their entire economy over to them for a song. I guess they found your price for your dignity. And the price was surprisingly low as well.
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|Ouch, touché ;)
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|The problem is that most American Students aren't interested in doing into the maths and sciense, but instead they are going into careers
Science is spelled with 2 Cs and 1 S.
Thanks for proving my point, Mr. Wal-Mart. You're your own worse enemy. Imagine, for decades Americans have been wasting trillions of
The expression is you are your own WORST enemy.
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|I wonder if companies will use this as an excuse to continue to export jobs because "Americans" are dumb. That is export our high paying jobs.
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|They've been doing that for a while now already.
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