We have some of the same questions I noticed on your page. Our
faculty have had tablets for 3-4 years (depending upon department).
We've only been using our Toshiba M700 tablets w/kids for a year, so
it's not a step backward for us if we decide to implement Classmate
tablets. Our current 7th graders (first year of tablets) will keep
their school machines in 8th grade and purchase a tablet in 9th as
they enter upper school. Next year's 6th and 7th graders (currently
not take home 1-1 in 5th/6th grade) have had minimal exposure to
tablets other than in use by teachers, so the Classmate isn't a
downgrade to them. Instead, it would be purchasing an economy
model. We've had parents say for years that spending $1500-$2000 for
a machine for a middle school student was too much. A $500-600
machine is more in line with their requests. The Classmate would
become the training model - in use in MS while they learn care and
feeding. Kids would learn the skills/strategies necessary to
properly care for a professional grade machine used in US by the time
they purchase in 9th grade. Ideally, this would mean they'd get four
years out of the machine.
On Feb 18, 2009, at 7:01 PM, Sarah Hanawald wrote:
> We''ve been testing the Classmate this past week, along with a Lenovo
> netbook. Some preliminary thoughts: we already are using laptops,
> so this
> would be strictly a downgrade unless we went with the Classmate.
> Then, at
> least we get the tablet functionality. You can see the teachers
> thoughts
> here:
> http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df43s5zk_16cktz6fd7
>
> Sarah Hanawald
> Greensboro Day School
Tami Brass
http://www.tech4teaching.org
http://www.diigo.com/user/brasst
tamilb@mac.com
tbrass@spa.edu
In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned
find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no
longer exists. -- Eric Hoffer
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