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I’ve been writing for magazines for about a decade and on occasion the publisher or Editor-in-Chief objected to the content of a column and refused to punish it. On other occasions I would not make changes I felt would dilute my argument or insult the intelligence of the reader.
It seems like the blogosphere is a good place to share these “controversial” articles.
Think Different – Lose the Cart was an open letter I wrote to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2002 imploring the company to stop selling laptop carts.
The magazine thought that Apple might be offended. I stand behind the article six years later at at time when schools are inexplicably tethering laptops to desks.
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.
Apple tried to get us to order a cart with our laptops for one campus recently. Told them no thanks since they were meant to be portable and not necessarily stuck in groups of twenty. I am using the Higher Ground cases since they offer the opportunity to utilize the laptop while still in the protection of the carrying case and extra protection while in storage. I did order the battery kiosk where anyone can grab a fresh battery as they check the laptop out of the library, though.
Some are nervous about the whole individual checkout deal, but we will see how it works out. I expect that the flexibility of getting one when the urge/need strikes will spark some creativity in our students. If all goes as planned, we might look at a 1:1 program, but it is not in the financial cards right now.
Thanks for the article link.