Our school district won $15-20 million from the Race to the Top Initiative and was going to use part of the funds to purchase MacBook Airs for every student. Without getting into the details, the school board needed approval from the County Commissioners and the CC rejected it. We have a neighboring school district that has been providing computers to all of their kids for several years now and there is a lot of envy.
My understanding is that the neighboring school uses the computers at home to work on IXL plus they do some internet search projects and I believe have access to some sort of online calendar and email system. It seems our school district has similar plans as there has been no mention of software or how they will use the computers.
Do others believe that too much is being spent on the technology without really thinking about if it is needed or how it will be used? I can understand there may be kids in the district that do not have access to computers at all and I can understand the need for them to get computer skills, but most kids in our schools nearby have access to computers so it seems that software or various programs would be more important than buying kids computers.
I am really just interested to see opinions around this as it seems the overwhelming majority of folks think we absolutely need to buy the computers but I still am not certain.
I would add that the neighboring school district has been having quite a bit of success since they purchased the computers so perhaps they are doing more than I could find out about or maybe having a school-purchased computer helps more than I imagine possible.
