Danville schools getting iPods and laptops

read more recent story comments Reader comments

Rebel64 Tuesday, November 3, 2009: 2:04 pm

Great job Kathy, you continue to do a wonderful service for all the local schools.The general public would be amazed at the amount of money you have gotten in grants for the local districts.

mdenis46 Tuesday, November 3, 2009: 3:56 pm

Coming from a classroom in Maine where EVERY 7th and 8th grader in the state had a laptop beginning in 2002, I can verify the ways my teaching and their learning changed. Being able to research topics in my history class while in class, rather than waiting until we could get to the library or students got home, greatly enhanced and broadened my students' knowledge base. I was also able to work on their research skills, including how to tell a "good" website from a "bad" website -- being discriminatory. WAY too many people today simply say, "I saw it on the Internet" as though that makes their statements or opinions more valid. My ONLY hope for Danville is that you use PC-based computers. We had Apple iBooks, and though they were fairly good computers, they were in the repair room way too often (mine included), and kids had difficulty doing work at school then transporting it home to use on the PC they had at home. Apples WILL teach kids the computer skills they need to know (after all you can learn to drive a Ford, and still use the same skills on a BMW), but PCs are so much more flexible in today's real world situations. There are still those in Maine who consider the laptop program a waste of money. Of course, these are the same people who think that kids should be using pencils and slide rules in trigonometry instead of calculators! One of these people had the nerve the other day to tell me that he talked with hundreds of people and only found two that liked the laptop program. Excuse me, I TAUGHT with 35 in one building who liked the program. I guess he never talked with the people who actually USE the laptops.

2 comments found