March 1, 2010

I just turned in my website design!!!!! Be still my butterflies!!! I hope it looks ok to Dr. Ingram. I can't wait to neve read another word about butterflies!!!!

So I saw an interesting news item today. A school district in Vail Arizona installed wi-fi on its school buses to create a rolling studyhall. It is commonplace there for students to take long bis rides and they often became rowdy and violent. The bus drivers are saying that they wifi has improved the students' behavior. They stated that the boxes cost 200 and monthy service ran 60.

I thought the idea of the "rolling studyhall" was a good one on the surface. I thought. "hmmm...interesting...." but as I fixed dinner and thought about it more, I found issues with it.
1. cost. 200 per bus and approximately 600 per year per bus in service fees. That's 800 per bus per school year. How many buses in this disctrict? It seems like a lot of money as an extra.
2. monitoring. How will the students be monitored? How do parents/teachers/admins know what is being viewed? Certainly the driver can't monitor. Even with parental controls and such, things get through. Are we letting busloads of students run free and unmonitored on the web?
3. have v. havenot. We have discussed again and again about students who don't have access at home to computers and technology. Are those studenst being left even further behind? Are they on this bus without a laptop or smart phone or other device? Are they even more excluded? But on the other hand, if there are computers available- is this giving them more time to have access if they don't have it at home?

I am still not totally sure how I feel about it. I keep thinking more as I process it further. Any thoughts from anyone else??

Take care and have a good day!!!