What is Digg?112 Comments
- lesskiller, on 10/12/2007, -8/+92Would've been better without the Bon Jovi.
- Rigbymatt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+37Good god mrASSMAN, how much money does your school district have?!?!
Our school has maybe 2 computers per classroom, a mobile lab and 3 regular computer labs, 100% dell, 1300 students, maybe 4 smart boards in the entire building. And we're the richest school in the county - crammaz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+34Who took the jam out of your dohnut???
- penguinix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27I've always wondered how those programs worked. Do the schools just give the students the laptops to keep or do they expect them back at the end of the year? Are the students allowed to do whatever they want with their laptops? Does the school put some sort of monitoring software on the laptops? I can imagine that most kids would just use these things for playing computer games, myspace, instant messaging and really anything but school work.
- fsnuffer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+30You are paying more because American tax dollars are used to subsidize students tuition. It is the same reason why someone who lives outside of Pennsylvania pays more to go to Penn State than an in-state resident. Pennsylvania tax dollars go to that institution. That is the reason why, not because you are a foreign student. California subsidizes its schools at a VERY large scale. Get off you soap box and quit whining.
- hiro, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26Then don't study in America, I sure as hell wouldn't. Have you seen how stupid most of the "educated" ones are?
- kafitz22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22Man, and my school doesnt even give us paper agenda books like they used to.
- bobasaurus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Modern day treasure chamber. Abu, don't touch that laptop!!! *lava flying carpet scene ensues*
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Your comment is much more difficult to understand than the video description..
My highschool gave us all macbooks too.. 2000 of us. The teachers got Macbook pros connected to 20" Philip LCD monitors connected to smart boards which use projectors from the ceiling..
All the classes have enough 20" iMacs for all the students too.. and the graphics class i'm in has the quad-core macs with 23" apple studio lcd and graphic tablets.. there are tons of interesting technology that I'm not mentioning.. maybe I should make a Flickr set and submit it to Digg sometime.. - mrgreen4242, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16This pretty much shows the massive disparity in the US school system. Some schools drop $1m+ on computers, while others can't afford to make sure they all get lunch. I'm not saying that it SHOULD be fair, I'm just saying this is the core reason there is a widening class divide in the US.
- Dames, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19As a Maine high school student given an iBook I have to say, the program is beyond pitiful.
I used to attend a larger city school, and the "Network Administrators" simply thought they were the coolest ***** ever to use Remote Desktop. They would freak us all out by randomly seizing the laptop and taking control. The teachers, only complained about how slow the computers were, and how much they "hated apples." We used Appleworks, and an outdated version of the operating system. No access privileges were given to anyone. Hell, we couldn't even change our backgrounds. Basically, these people knew nothing about Apple, or their technology, and it was evident in the way they ran the laptop program. The laptops given to us had 256 mb of ram.
I witnessed kids throw them, drop them, and even one kid took a crowbar to his. Every day, it was a new problem, not because they had one, but because we were simply given laptops and told to be happy. Most kids had no idea how to use one, and some of the teachers were even more confused.
When I moved to a rural community, the situation got even worse. The people who administered the laptops got even dumber. I had a teacher click an advertisement in IE because "His clock was wrong", and believe me, I've seen worse. At my high school now, the iBooks are seen as "second resort" because they don't automatically save things to the server, you have to manually drag it over. I was pissed to come to school this year and see easily 10k dropped on new dell computers, flat screen monitors, that were LOADED. No one needs a workstation in a classroom setting, and instead they could have dropped more ram into the i-books [256 MB of ram still] or done something else. Every room has a smartboard in my school, and I have ONE teacher that knows how to use it. Someone needs to step in and explain that if you're going to get all of this stuff, people need to know how to use it. An example is how our "media technician" came in to fix a dell laptop that wasn't displaying on a projector. Her answer was literally "Oh, turn them both off, then the projector first".
I could go on and on, about how uneducated this is, and how this is nothing but a bad image for Apple. I'm glad to see some schools kicking it up a notch [I would love a Macbook], but in Maine, the laptop program they boast about sucks.
It sucks hard. - pcheaven2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I think at 34 it is time to go back to high school and get my diploma.....Can someone please tell me a good school in Florida that gives out FREE MACBOOKS? Preferably in the Fort Lauderdale, FL area!
- Wonotch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Wow. Can't be a very good school if the in-state kids are only paying $500 per semester...
- mynamewontfitin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Everyone at my school got a Sony Vaio laptop. It's really useless for the most part. They block almost anything useful, even Notepad. We don't even have a desktop, just a window that everyone calls "The Box" which contains the programs we can use. Downloading and installing of any new programs is prohibited as is running an .exe that hasn't been approved.
The first year the laptops were distributed (2 years ago), nothing was really blocked except certain websites. Everybody ended up playing games during classes and emailing each other. One kid even stole a bunch of laptops and attempted to sell them on e-bay. As for me, I had my fun pissing off everyone in the entire school with "net send * Please come to the General Office immediately." in the command prompt.
So the next year when we got our laptops back (everyone needs to hand them in at the end of the year so they can do updates and crap) everything was blocked. It was ridiculous. So now we have to carry around the things when they don't even serve much of a purpose. The only class I really use mine in is Computer Science (JAVA) and maybe Physics sometimes to draw up some graphs.
Also, they told us we wouldn't need to carry around textbooks anymore because they would all be online. That was a big lie. Now we carry around all of the textbooks AND the laptop and if we don't have it in a class, we get a 0 for participation, even if we aren't using it. So in conclusion, I think my school should have invested the money in air conditioning instead of laptops... - cannibaljp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13that room would make me weak in the knees.
visiting a friend at berklee was almost too much for me.
apple goodness and os x smiling out at you from every angle. - MicrowavedH2o, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12"8x more tuition (4000 dollars per semester)"
Wow, are you saying that the normal tuition is 500 bucks a semester? Sign me up. Over here on the East coast, you have to pay atleast 5 grand a semester (and thats if you are in-state).
In the case that you are paying $32000 a semester.... wait a second. - DuoPros, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12@penguinix
I'm pretty sure they have to give them back at the end of the year, unless Apple subsidized them so much the school can afford to give them away. As for the protection aspect, I would think none of the students are given superuser privelages, and probably cant install stuff. The internet would be through a school managed proxy server, so you can be reasonably sure that social networking sites would be blocked.
Hope that answers your questions.
@12 CHARS
Shut. The. *****. Up. You. Dickwad. - MicrowavedH2o, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12oh wait you must have missed the memo--
they aren't Dells! - MicrowavedH2o, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Apple in schools???
Not anymore.
Back in the day we actually had nice labs full of iMacs (that were good considering the time). Then, the school systems signs a deal, and all of them get replaced by crappy HP "slow as balls" towers. Hello Novell. We all quickly figured out that you can type C:/ or even 'My Computer' in internet explorer and have access to all the 'blocked files'.
This is completely subjective, but with their one piece enclosures and interesting outer design (not to mention the stereotypical more user friendly interface) I would say that the younger population is more likely to want to use a computer (and have a good experience doing it) with a mac. - trylleklovn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11And I have to settle for my schools crappy old Dell's :/
- letaalio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10At least 769300$ worth stack of laptops
- ramsinks.com, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8lol
boot up knoppix/ - anonymouse91, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Think you've got the wrong story
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10>You're pathetic. Anyone without a college degree by the age of 34 is garbage. I make more money than you, am happier than you, and ***** your wife.
it's a pity your degree didn't include teaching you how to write above the most basic level. perhaps your degree in wood shop isn't worth the paper it's printed on. - bioret2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8damn, my school has 100% crappy dells too.
- jvicinanza, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11yeah AND you are a complete and utter *****. Congratulations.
- DEIx15x8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7$797,300+ with the educational discount, we upgraded the ram to 1 Gig and everything else is the stock low end MacBook. To the random shut down comment, that hasn't happened at all. The biggest problem we have had is that about two weeks into school for one week tons of hard drives died. I'm guessing there was a bad batch sent to apple and we got them.
- osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Rigbymatt - Not sure of your age, but I am 23 and for as long as I can remember, even in elementary school, we had apple labs. Apple has always basically given away their product to schools in hopes they become used to the OS and the machine - it looks like that may be the demographic that is making them so successful today.
- Sweener, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7ok so im confused, how do these highschool students get free macbooks? is this a rich private sschool or soemthing? and do they get to take them home?
- Jcrizzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6how the hell is Wii relevant to 700 Macbooks? lol
- rickcarson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@TheWiseFlea
Both companies knew there was a problem with the Sony batteries
Here is how you tell them apart:
Dell waits until the laptop bursts into flames before doing a recall
Apple does the recall *before* any laptops burst into flames.
A small, but somewhat important detail... - kimos, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9I know! That's all I could think about!
Don't understand why people do that... It doesn't make your video about laptops any cooler! :P - simpranos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Whoa small world. Didn't think my school would end up on digg. As for those of you who say our school is rich or we are overpriveleged, not quite. 3 years ago our school was faced with two options to replace its computer labs which had gotten quite long in tooth. They had the option of rennovating all of the computer labs and replacing the 8 year old compaq desktops or to accept a new tech proposal from apple. The entire high school got iBooks that could be taken home by students for the low price of a $50 insurance payment once a year. This year the school was given brand new macbooks to replace the obsolete laptops.
No our school district and taxpayers are not paying out the ass for this plan. No we aren't rich. The whole setup including new network hardware, bags, and fully loaded laptops only cost a few thousand more than redoing all of the computer labs. This is impressive considering we are a small hick school surrounded by farms and amish people. - ethicka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/kutztown/
They were profiled by Apple a little ways back. - Applemacmad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Also, the only Apple ones that exploded were the more recent Powerbooks and iBooks NOT Macbooks
- Lardquake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4As a foreigner who lived in the US for quite a few years, I feel I must ask the question... If you are so miserable there, what's stopping you from getting the ***** out? Masochism?
- aznboi04k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i wisht he video had a better descriptions becuase i have no idea why they're handing out 700+ macbooks. are they free? who is it for? why do they need it? and finally, how can i get one too?
- mightymouse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I have to say that I'm happy that I have a black macbook after watching that video.
- bebop717, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10Life is better without Bon Jovi.
- Twev1701, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Say what you will....seeing that many Macbooks is just hot!
- DEIx15x8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Kutztown Area High School, and the school has a four year lease where after four years the school has the price of the laptop paid off and then apple replaces them and the cycle starts over. Our first iBook cycle only lasted two years though because Apple always likes to use our school for testing since we fully take advantage of them like they are supposed to be.That's why we got these new ones early without any kind of penalty for canceling the first contract.
- doctorcaligari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ Dames
You are absolutley right. I am a technology facilitator for a school district, and I have seen some of the other facilitators/technicians do the same things. It makes me look good, though, as I can fix most problems in under five minutes. You are dead on about the LCD projector thing (I get called about that at least twice a week)...I like to watch everyone fool around with it before I come up and save the day by pushing a couple of keys.
Administrators are just simply amazed when a salesman shows them a "cool" technology, and they spread their wallets open like a loser at a strip club. Once they get their new "toys", we'll get to do some cursory training and throw it to the teachers. Teachers make the worst students (I should know...I'm one of them), and only 20% really care about the technology training. The rest are usually over 35, and technophobic at best. It's an uphill battle, and quite frustrating. Our students get shortchanged in the end. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2as far as i know they don't give out the admin password - one kid, somewhere, got his and changed some stuff and they charged him with 'hacking.'
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@12_CHARS what is it with you and dicks?
- simpranos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2darkomen, i dont think you quite grasp the potential of giving adequate technology to students. we are a public high school in a rural community and we have proven that high end technology is not just for rich kids.
This wasn't a frivolous waste of money. Our IT department was going to be overhauled one way or another and it just so happened that we were blessed with a good IT director at our high school, and we were lucky enough to be given such a favorable proposal by Apple. If the laptops are considered a waste of taxpayer dollars then so are computer labs in general. This change allowed us to get rid of obsolete computers and allowed us to show other districts where the future lies in computers in school.
If i could point you toward the one laptop per child initiative, distributing notebook computers to the masses and giving them access to the internet is a valuable way to improve education, especially considering the 20 or so percent of our high school students who lacked internet access. - nmec, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Just wait til apple rolls out the new macbooks next month...
- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My school does that. Except for my old-school 70+ year old english teacher
- Thor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Buying all of these laptops is a waste of money. Providing basic desktop computers for those that can't afford them might be a better idea. It would be nice if schools would publish the assignments, test results/answers, class instruction, blackboards notes online. That way:
o if you miss class you can easily catch up
o you can see what mistakes you made on your tests so you can study for the final
o you can re-watch a class on a subject you are having difficulty with
o you can listen to the instruction and not waste your time taking notes.
The schools could get accounts on 24/7 for all books. Save your kids back. - Klitzy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wait, so the school gives out macbooks to the students? What school is this? And does the school have to buy the laptops?
- RowlandPhysics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> Free macbooks. Just because they're american students. What a fair and beautiful world.
They are certainly not free. The schools have to buy them. The program is called 1 to 1:
http://www.apple.com/education/k12/onetoone/
It is generally a lease arrangement with the cost per computer being spread out over 3 years. Some schools do mega fund raising, some get grant monies, and some charge parents $500 / year. This was very controversial in my community because at the poorer schools in the area, the computers were paid for by the school district but at the schools in "richer" parts of the city, parents were asked to pay $500 / year. Parents balked, the ACLU intervened and a compromise was reached:
http://www.aclu-sc.org/News/OpenForum/101947/101956/. -
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