If You Give a Kid a Laptop

[MTI]

Why one New Jersey school district killed its student laptop program | Ars Technica

“We bought laptops that had reinforced hard-shell cases so that we could try to offset some of the damage these kids were going to do,” said Crocamo. “I was pretty impressed with some of the damage they did anyway. Some of the laptops would come back to us completely destroyed.”

[elchivito]

Poor implementation and hardware choice, probably worsened by poorly trained and underpaid IT staff.
I know one district here in backwater AZ that did away with paper texts over 10 years ago and gave every kid 7th -12th an iBook. Remember iBooks ? Now they get MacBooks. They've saved tens of thousands on absurd paper textbook costs over the years and never looked back. The laptops are text, research and word processing devices. Everything else is locked out and locked out well. Parents sign an agreement to pay replacement cost for damaged devices and they are held to it. Owe money for a MacBook your kid buggered? Want his diploma? Write a check or he doesn't graduate. EZPZ

[spdrun]

“A lot of people knew the username and password,” Toback said. “So a lot of people were able to walk by the building and they would get wireless access. Over a period of years, you had thousands of people. It bogged it down, it made it unusable.

So no one in Hoboken has ever heard of filtering by MAC address? Or expiration of login credentials, for that matter?

[jake12tech]

Exactly reason why you don't invest in anything good until they start paying for it themselves. Value of money. Learn it.

[Simpler=Better]

Originally Posted by spdrun

So no one in Hoboken has ever heard of filtering by MAC address? Or expiration of login credentials, for that matter?

Shhhhh!

[kmaysob]

Originally Posted by spdrun

So no one in Hoboken has ever heard of filtering by MAC address? Or expiration of login credentials, for that matter?

EXACTLY! try explaining this to my boss. he is terrified of wifi. i have tried to explain how secure we can make it. there is just no convincing some.

[aklim]

Originally Posted by elchivito

Parents sign an agreement to pay replacement cost for damaged devices and they are held to it. Owe money for a MacBook your kid buggered? Want his diploma? Write a check or he doesn't graduate. EZPZ

It began five years ago with an unexpected windfall of stimulus money from Washington, D.C., and good intentions to help the district’s students, the majority of whom are under or near the poverty line, keep up with their wealthier peers.

Windfall stimulus money with good intentions? What was the road to hell paved with again?

Do I give a crap about his diploma? If not, send the bill if you want. Besides, I don't have a penny to my name so good luck with that. Just because you sue me, win in court and have the judgment in hand and a legal paper to garnish my wages doesn't mean squat if I have nothing for you to garnish or give a damn about my kid's diploma. Legal judgment is only worth what you can squeeze out of the person. Otherwise, all you have is a piece of paper that costs more than it is worth.

[Diesel911]

Originally Posted by aklim

Windfall stimulus money with good intentions? What was the road to hell paved with again?

Do I give a crap about his diploma? If not, send the bill if you want. Besides, I don't have a penny to my name so good luck with that. Just because you sue me, win in court and have the judgment in hand and a legal paper to garnish my wages doesn't mean squat if I have nothing for you to garnish or give a damn about my kid's diploma. Legal judgment is only worth what you can squeeze out of the person. Otherwise, all you have is a piece of paper that costs more than it is worth.

I am going to shorten the above. The Parents of the Kids don't care so they don't keep their Kids from damaging things; and I am not just thinking of School things.

When I was a Kid and I accidentally hit a Base Ball through someone’s Window I was expected to go over there and say I was sorry and My Parents Paid for a new Window (or My Father did the replacement).
After that I was expected to be more careful and if My Parents though I broke a Window on purpose there would be some serious Punishment.
I am not sure what would happen to Me if I purposely damaged an expensive School Equipment?

All of the above because they cared about Me and also cared about My Neighbors.

In any event taking away the Computers as a result of the abuse inflicted might be the only lesson that some of the Students learned.

[Diesel911]

I have giving it more thought. If the Parents signed an agreement to pay for damage to the Computers and they cannot pay Money there is Community Service.

On of My Friends Teenage Daughters started to go wild. Two Weeks of cleaning the Local Parks started Her on the Road to recovery and She stopped hanging out with the so called Friends that She had gone a long with that got Her in Trouble.

No reason why the same might not work on Parents.

[aklim]

Originally Posted by Diesel911

I have giving it more thought. If the Parents signed an agreement to pay for damage to the Computers and they cannot pay Money there is Community Service.

On of My Friends Teenage Daughters started to go wild. Two Weeks of cleaning the Local Parks started Her on the Road to recovery and She stopped hanging out with the so called Friends that She had gone a long with that got Her in Trouble.

No reason why the same might not work on Parents.

Better yet, money down held in escrow. Equipment damage? Lose escrow.