Are you familiar with the concept of "Return on Investment"?

Ok. I know you probably aren't capable of understanding anything I wrote in that other thread, so I'll type it V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y so you might understand better. You obviously didn't complete your MBA if you are having this kind of comprehension problem.

I never said an MBA is worthless, I just said that in cases where someone younger (Like Dan) has an MBA, it probably wouldn't give him any advantage versus someone with more experience. All of this is of course dependent on what field he is working, and what field he might want to go to. If he is going to start fresh somewhere in an entirely new industry, I don't think an MBA would do anything. If I got a resume of someone who had got their bachelor's degree 3 years ago, and worked for those 3 years, and I got another resume from someone who never worked in a real career, and was just a career student who just got an MBA, I'm probably giving the job to someone with experience almost every time. That's what I said.

But continue to speak in absolutes and say that an MBA will get him a higher paying job, more interviews, and Frank's jealousy.

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It could just be me showing my age at creaky old 26, but I can't help but be cynical about some of this stuff. I'm not going to be so atavistic as to say that kids should schlep around a backpack full of giant textbooks and write all their essays longhand, but for context, I was in high school from 2000-2004, when fully embracing new technology was still in its infancy and being done rather poorly -- at least by my horseshit rural school district. The year before that, in 8th grade, we had just gotten a new middle school building that was going to be on the technological forefront with "tech modules" replacing home ec and wood shop and art class, and all they ever did was break themselves or get broken by asshole kids, and the whole thing was just a waste of time and money. That's not even getting into how all three grades were given two 25-terminal computer labs, most of which sat vacant 90% of the time, to say nothing of the computer lab in the library, the one for teaching keyboarding, and the one at the end of the hallway that had no discernible purpose for any special class or grade level but was there just in case someone might have needed it.

I guess where all this is going is that when we needed a new roof on the high school and a new music wing, the money wasn't there till it was too late -- for the class of '04, at least -- because we had already dropped so much money on all these computers that never worked or no one used that we couldn't get the funding to put the wind ensemble in a practice space that they could actually fit in, or walk from class to class without having to sidestep the giant garbage bins being used to collect the rainwater seeping through the ceiling. So when it comes to giant expenditures on technology, no matter how well-intentioned or how different their circumstances are from what mine were, I can't help but get a little itchy at the likelihood that the money they're dropping on this stuff is being diverted from somewhere that the money could be allocated more effectively.

So if SHS's roof ever caves in and inundates a box full of iPads, don't say I didn't I warn you!

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Maybe they should use this money to figure out how to get these dumbass kids to school when it snows instead of technology most of them already have access to at home.

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Doesn't apple partially/subsidize all of these ipads so the kids are indoctrinated to their little cult? I'm pretty sure that's how it worked when I was growing up, going from the apple IIe to the apple IIgs to * puts arm around buzz lightyear * macintoshes, macintoshes everywhere!!!!

you think these kids are gonna want a google nexus or a proper ipad when it comes that time to bow down and accept the future?

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Funny you mention that. Every school I went to as a kid (gifted school in Mt. Prospect, public school in Arl. Hts., public school in Lake Geneva) had Apple computers, until we switched to Gateways in 1999 with the aforementioned computer shopping spree. I guess Apple can only go so far.

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I'm watching Toy Story 2 with my two year old right now.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

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Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Cynicism is fine. sini is right in that it's not a coincidence that they're buying iPads (and not, say, Chromebooks or whatever); my fiance works for a school-research think tank, and her former officemate drew a second paycheck from Apple for basically infiltrating school-research think tanks and surreptitiously suggesting that they move everything to Macs, or incorporate iPods in the curricula they write, or whatever. And my high school's "media center" was (I assume) just as expensive and (I'm certain) just as unused as yours. Though I support this purchase wholeheartedly for a number of reasons both personal and professional, you could certainly make a case that this money would be better spent elsewhere, and I don't begrudge you your itchiness about infrastructure. I do, however, bristle at the idea that a suburban school's purchase of instructional technology is grounds for a fucking tax revolt. Hey, if these greedy schools are going to throw away their money on stuff that helps kids learn, by golly, they'd better not expect me to vote for their budget next year!

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

School text books (from grades K-College) are a huge racket, a huge ripoff and a large waste of resources. I like the idea as long as there is an actual well thought out curriculum to actually pursue "self directed learning" and such. Often times, in my experience, it's "Fire, Aim, Ready" and they grand new ideas gain zero traction and are a detriment.

Wife just received 10 new iPads for her classroom. Wrote a proposal for some sort of grant and she got them. Whole school received 20 I believe.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Oh, of course. I did my share of bristling when the referendum for the music wing and roof failed. All that "b'awww, them kids are fine" crap. High school is anything but fine as it is, and that's presupposing that your roof isn't caving in.

And I might as well be honest: with every school district looking to slash funding for performing arts, I really care more about protecting that fiefdom than anything else to the point of irrationality. It seemed like more often than not when it was time to drop big money on gadgets, the first place that saw its budget reallocated was performing arts. Core academics were fine, athletics were fine because SPORTS, you couldn't cut the trade-school stuff because we're allegedly creating jobs for the few-chore, and so that pretty much leaves music to get squeezed -- never mind that the one thing that my high school has produced, almost in spite of itself, has been performers. I'm a true believer in everything music education has to offer. I owe a great deal of my career (such as it is) and quality of life (such as that is) to the performing arts. If we can put a tablet in every kid's hand without starving music departments to death, let's do it, but only then.

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No shame in your game. I would agree with all of that. And in the interest of full disclosure, the reason I got so pissy about the creating-their-own-knowledge thing in the first place is that that specific term is a fairly strong indicator of where those iPads will get the most play; if it's the subject I'm thinking of, then it happens to be the one closest to my heart (and my paycheck).

@SomeGuy: Generally, yes. One reason I support the iPad purchase is that it's an intermediate step toward making student inquiry and differentiation of materials major goals in and of themselves, which in turn is an intermediate step toward eliminating textbooks from certain subjects entirely.

@badrogue: The Borg claims another victim. Seriously though, that is awesome. I really do love iPads for classroom use.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

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Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

I agree with the final part of this comment. My district spent a year teaching the teachers how to leverage the devices in their classrooms and only rolled out two grades in year one. Next year will bring 3 more and the remainder is year 3. While maybe too methodical, I'd rather do that than throw devices over the wall and say use them.