Well, the 30-year debt has been issued and the iPads have been purchased and distributed. Sources tell Encinitas Undercover that the iPads are a big hit with the kids, so much that many kids now prefer playing Angry Birds over playground games and social interaction with their peers.
And in today's LA Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik discusses the technology scam.
"The media you use make no difference at all to learning," says Richard E. Clark, director of the Center for Cognitive Technology at USC. "Not one dang bit. And the evidence has been around for more than 50 years."Click on over to read the whole thing, but it comes down to two points:
Almost every generation has been subjected in its formative years to some "groundbreaking" pedagogical technology. In the '60s and '70s, "instructional TV was going to revolutionize everything," recalls Thomas C. Reeves, an instructional technology expert at the University of Georgia. "But the notion that a good teacher would be just as effective on videotape is not the case."
Many would-be educational innovators treat technology as an end-all and be-all, making no effort to figure out how to integrate it into the classroom. "Computers, in and of themselves, do very little to aid learning," Gavriel Salomon of the University of Haifa and David Perkins of Harvard observed in 1996. Placing them in the classroom "does not automatically inspire teachers to rethink their teaching or students to adopt new modes of learning."
1) It's the content and the teacher that matter, not the medium. Better a good teacher with a chalkboard than a program on an iPad.
2) Technology purchases are pushed by the corporations like Apple who profit from them.
Encinitas homeowners who just got 30 years of debt to pay off, you've been had.
I am a teacher and I couldn't agree more! Thanks for your comments WC!
ReplyDeleteBaird can sell off the community legacy at Pacific
ReplyDeleteView for a few more iPads. Instead of a community center or Arts Studio, we'll have jam packed condos. The citizens need to arise and stop the lunacy of these self-appointed tyrants that are lining their own pockets ($tock$, Bond, Muir, Gaspar, Baird to name a few)....
Thanks for posting this, W.C. I was going to send you the link to the LA Times column when I discovered you had already posted it. The arguments against buying into the newest technology were ignored by the school board. They will be back to ask for more money, and Baird will have moved on to another gullible school district.
ReplyDeleteI hope someone who lives in the district passes Hiltzik's column on to the board members. I live in Cardiff, so I'm spared the board's foolishness.
I lived in Cardiff for awhile, and the schools there are superior, from my experience, with my children. Tim Baird is awful, and the only member of the Board of Trustees worth her salt is Mo Muir who ran and was elected on a platform of saving Pacific View from privatization, Baird's scheme of selling off irreplaceable, donated assets for short term profit, and another "star" on his resume.
DeleteNow Baird has had the EUSD attorney instruct Mo she must recuse herself due to a (non-existent) "conflict of interest" manufactured to stop ANY dissent, because's her husband is Councilmember Mark Muir.
Baird tried to sell out Ojai citizens, then came here, only in 2009, when he began trying to sell Encinitas out! He was in Ojai, through 2008, making $165,000 per year, so got a hefty raise, when coming here. He just got another raise, from the EUSD Board, whom he leads around by their noses, from an excessive $200,000 per year plus benefits, to $215,000 plus benefits, now, when teachers are being given their pink slips, he complains, while wasting school reconstruction money on IPads and sticking more and more school bond debt on us taxpayers!
Parents should take the ipad away from their children, return them to the district and DEMAND that teachers teach.
ReplyDeleteMr. Baird should be fired by the school board. Only in Govt and education does mediocrity raise to the top.
We've been told that the district will have a $1million-plus deficit next school year, which will be covered by reserves. However, as a basic-aid district, the state may require us to give back money (a fair share plan to help even the playing field between basic aid and regularly funded districts), but it's unclear how we could do that (there's been talk of raising class sizes in primary grades again to cut back on teachers). And SDUHSD is gearing up for a similar facilities bond measure this year, though I don't know how they are doing budget-wise. This will be a very big election year for parents, not just in terms of the state but also school board members and the high school bond. Keep covering this, and thanks for the efforts you put in.
ReplyDeleteNo more taxes.
DeleteNo more school bonds.
No more incumbents.
VOTE NO!!!
here is where the $ is spent, go to this link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/App_Resx/EdDataClassic/fsTwoPanel.aspx?#!bottom=/_layouts/EdDataClassic/finance/GeneralFund.asp?reportNumber=4&level=06&County=37&district=68080
I am absolutely not saying anything in support (or against) of this issue, as I do not know enough about it (I only moved here 18 months ago). But I remembered your blog post when I read this new article today:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/education/mooresville-school-district-a-laptop-success-story.html