Check out apps on yours to see!!!

My grandkids are much more proficient on our computers, iPads, eReaders and iPods than most of the people I work with (who can barely understand how to enter data or print an email), It can only be to their advantage in their future.

An ad agency near Columbus just donated 200 iPads to elementary schools in the area.

Those iPadder's are tomorrow's HT crowd. :)

Should schools supply iPads?

YES

Providing iPads for the children who can't afford them makes the classroom equal and fair.

I say, provide school owned iPads to all students, then nobody can chatter about who is too poor to afford one.

Times are changing, kids who do not have access to technology are seriously disadvantaged. Too bad we don't put as much money into education as we do into running elections........

Or football.

tobr there are so few kids that make it to the pros to take them out of poverty so sports are not helpful.

Given the right educational tools we will have more Bill Gates than Star Sports players. If they do not make it to the Gates status they at least will make it to the middle class employable tax payer citizen.

Investment in our young is going to be the best defense we have of not paying higher taxes to support jails, taking away Social Security, Medicare. We need wage earner population to contribute to run the country.

And those schools who can't.

And there is much more one could do. In band, there is an online metronome and tuners. If you wanted to hear how a Latin or French word was pronounced, you just look it up! It's what I do at work (and freetranslation.com too). I could think of endless possibilities. Right now, if son forgets his text book, he can access it online. Seems like one step away from an iPad! And, he has to check out books form the library. There are limited copies. That would end the problem of being last in line and having to find it from another source. This is sounding better all the time!

My city has free WiFi hot spots. Some areas only allow 4 hours a day other areas no time frame.

They will need the connection to download the apps. The Apps could be pre-installed but the connection would be good for research.

And those schools who can't.

Therein lies the discrimination and competition between school districts. Competition is okay for sports teams, but not district funds. All schools should receive an equal share. There are millions of smart poor kids who are neglected because they don't attend school in an affluent community.

Of course it's all their fault. :(

For example. The county I left has just invested $3.4 million dollars in a high school football stadium. Just 20 miles east of them, schools were closing due to no funds.

My DD did 3 years in middle school with a "21st Century" program, using lap tops and the internet. "virtual textbooks" may well exist, but they didn't use them for the very reason of cost - but there is so much other, free content out there that a teacher with reasonable skills can find all kinds of programs and sources.

Brushworks, Colorado continues to cut funding for K-12, and yesterday on the TV news was a segment about how charter schools were now starting to close because of the drop in funding. They used to get about $7,000 per pupil from the state, now its down to $6,500.

Of course, private high schools, with tuitions north of $25,000 a year, are doing fine.

Some of the issues they face is that they're constantly selling their notebooks, netbooks, tablets, iPads, iPods, iPhones when they need cash, these items are often stolen, often damaged, plus not insured or covered by extended warranties.

Rather than using these devices for education, many use them for music, movies, games, chatting etc.

Many have no internet access, or they've had their internet shut-off due to not paying their broadband/cable/phone bill. Many subscribe to internet, phone, cable, satellite, DVR bundles, so their monthly bills are quite high, especially once teaser rates have expired.

Broadband is unavailable in some regions, plus expensive in many regions, especially those only served by DSL.

Many receive internet via prepaid iPhones, or Android phones, however they're often out of minutes, or they don't have the money to renew their plan.

On a positive note, many of the kids that don't have computers, tablets, handhelds and broadband tend to be more physically active and more into outdoor activities.

Chase, stealing your neighbors wifi is not realistic, most have them locked down.

LOL. No, however I often upset many people due to my strait shooting and/or knowledge of unintended consequences from hands on experience.

Many of our relative's and their kids have never paid for internet. They surf the net, watch streaming movies, download movies, games and music, plus run VOIP phones off leeched/hacked or shared connections.

Many run an Alfa Repeater with an Alfa card and/or run Connectify to broadcast the leeched signal to their other notebooks, iPads, iPods, iPhones etc.

They even have some iPhone, iPod, iPad apps to crack WEP.

Many kids share their passwords with others as well.

Some of the war drivers are into more advanced cracking and attacks.

Recently I was working in a small village with 15 unsecured APs viewable with my Alfa USB adapter - 10 of them named Linksys - all on channel 6.

The customer had been connecting to a neighbor's AP for years. They thought Time Warner made a mistake and didn't turn off their internet a couple years ago.

In the cities it's pretty common to see literally dozens of unsecured APs at many locations.

Not only is WEP 100 percent crackable, but many residents use their phone numbers as security keys.

There was a waiting list of 200 kids to get into the program which had space for 100. Due to budget cuts, they had to cut the program in half, down to 50.

There certainly is the risk of kids at home just wasting time on the things. DD15, now in high school, currently has her laptop confiscated due to way too much of that.....

iPads, iPods and iPhones have an incredibly good resale/barter value in comparison to other electronics, so they're often stolen or sold. These units would last less than a week in many poor urban households.

Many are better off with an older desktop and CRT monitor.

Even many thieves won't steal these units, plus they have a very poor resale value.

They're also less likely to be damaged by dropping, crushing, liquid spills etc.

It wasn't too long ago that students in a relative's school system could sign out desktops and LCD monitors to take home - Dell Optiplex Slim Towers and Mini Towers with 15 inch LCD Monitors.

Many students had a monitor and peripherals at home, so they only needed the tower.

Many of the computers were sold cheaply, or given to households with needy students.

Many of these units are still in service. I just worked on two in the last month alone that still had the school district tags on them. Someone took a Sharpie and wrote on the inside of the tower "This PC Sucks Donkey Balls".

They used to be pretty slow since they shipped with 128MB Ram.

I gave him a half-dollar.

He said, "I have never seen one of these. What is it worth?"

I think it goes way beyond ipads.

Yet when Preschool is suggested we think the kids need more me time.

Our kids do not need anymore me time. They need education.

Many of these units are still in service. I just worked on two in the last month alone that still had the school district tags on them. Someone took a Sharpie and wrote on the inside of the tower "This PC Sucks Donkey Balls".

*

It may have been an accurate statement, but that's gratitude from the "needy" for you.

Besides coming back with damage, many units would come back with porn, illegal music, movies, games, software etc.

So they pretty much did all their work "in da cloud" using Google docs as the main way to save and present their work.

My college going kids also save and back up their work in the cloud as well.

I should also mention that this middle school program made a special effort to enroll the under-served, poor family background, minority kids in the district. They did fine with them as well. The 2 or 3 kids who were trashing the computers and were thrown out had other issues than poverty.

The best education money could buy. and....

Wikipedia........
When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.[21] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer.

The best education money could buy. and....

Wikipedia........
When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.[21] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer.