Palms for better test scores - dubious way to spend money

A "low-performing" school district in St. Louis has thrown their money at the Palm T/X in an effort to raise test scores. I found this one a little hard to believe. At $400 each, the T/X does cost less than a computer, but is there really any evidence that using one of these can improve test scores? Is there any software to help students with the tasks which are being tested? Is that even a good strategy to begin with?

A Jennings administrator acknowledged that the recent purchase was a gamble.

"We're rolling the dice on this," said Steven A. Schmitz, 53, the district's technology director. "It's unknown whether they'll raise test scores. But we're assuming."

Students in grades three through 12 are scheduled to begin using Palms in summer school.

The graphing calculator on the Palm is cited as the most useful feature for the students, but there's no research which supports a connection between this and test scores. The bigger issue is that it certainly is going to take years for teachers to adopt and integrate these devices into their teaching, and by that time, the test score issue will probably be a moot point. I don't think anyone is going to be happy waiting 3-5 years to see better test scores. This was a bad move. The million dollars would have been better spent on additional teachers, tutors, better instructional materials for math and reading or many other things which would have produced results in a shorter time frame than a hand held computer which has little or no software designed for students. Certainly there are successful projects like the HI-CE effort at the University of Michigan, but these use a totally different model of learning than one which would emphasize improving test scores.

Subsitute teacher convicted for school tech screw up

The story of Julie Amero and her conviction for exposing 7th graders to porn on a classroom computer is like something written by Kafka. The school's spyware license hadn't been updated because the renewal was sent to an incorrect email address. She allowed students to use the computer and they inadvertently clicked on a link that generated a bunch of pornographic pop-ups. She didn't know how to deal with it although she tried to keep the students from seeing what was there -- she had been told not to turn off the computer for any reason. So she ends up being convicted for exposing students to pornography. The whole thing is absurd and the prosecutor didn't do his job. The computer wasn't checked for spyware and adware by the prosecutor and an expert for the defense who did check it wasn't allowed to testify about it. There is a potential 40 year prison sentence in this case, but the whole thing is ridiculous.