I'm about to lay out to you my personal "Idiot's Guide To How Things Should Be: School Edition"
Now, I think we all know that it's the year 2008, and ABOUT to be 2009, right?
We have technology now, people!
We use it every day. In fact, if you weren't using it, you wouldn't be able to read my garbage right now. SEE?
Your pal Joe is always looking at things...always figuring out how other people are doing things wrong. He can't seem to figure out how to fix things for himself, or use any of his "You're so stupid, let me show you how it's done!" attitude to make any money or anything, but he spouts off anyway.
So let's begin.
Textbooks Think The World Is Flat
Is there anything so antiquated as a textbook at this point?Think about it, the idea of carrying around all those thick books for all of your classes...it's stupid, right? And what about the cost to produce and supply these books to our schools?
What about all the paper?
In today's world, all of this:
Bunch of NON sexy textbooks
Bunch of NON sexy textbooksCan EASILY fit on this:
One ULTRA sexy 16GB Flash DriveIn fact, you could probably fit a whole library of text on a 16GB Flash Drive.
I've seen these drives for about $50 currently, and by the time ANY of what I'm saying here would actually be implemented, they'd probably be about $10. I could have mentioned the Sony E-Reader or Amazon Kindle which are actually far more practical as far as being an all in one tool for this kind of application, but they are also FAR more costly...and we're talking bang for the buck here, people...TRY to keep up, will ya?
So, you cut out all the waste of paper and production costs, you DRAMATICALLY reduce the money you would have to pay out to publishing houses, by now purchasing a license for their current versions of said books, and you make ALL books available on the school's website for download.
(Don't worry, we're gonna get back to THAT next...Joe has you ALL covered!)
The School Website 2: Website Harder!
Right now, your child's school website is probably pretty much useless, am I wrong?
I mean, it probably has some "Calendar Of Events" on it that never gets updated, and a basic email system for the teachers.
But what if just a little more went in to it?
What if each teacher had it's own Myspace within the school's site? No, I don't mean that in a Debra LaFave or Mary Kay LaTourno kind of way...I mean in a useful, non sick way.
We'll call it...."TeachSpace" for our purposes here today.
On TeachSpace, your child's teachers could have a simple database that they could update, that would allow them to post homework assignments ON their Teachspace page. These assignments could either be printed out and returned at school when they were due, OR, could be completed as a .doc, and emailed back to the teacher to be graded.
Now, kids may hate me for that, but how do you pull off "I forgot my homework" now?
By the way, do you think kid's still try "My dog ate my homework?"...eh, nevermind.
Furthermore, if your child is sick for several days, they could still keep up with their work through TeachSpace, because after logging in with their personal student ID code, they not only get their homework, but downloadable copies of all their books would be available at all times in case the flash drive is misplaced.
So now the "I lost my flash drive" excuse is already eliminated, BEFORE it's ever been used.
I'm like Back To The Future 2 up on this piece! I'm takin' care of things before they ever happen!
From the Teachspace section of the school website, the student could also email their teacher, BUT, the input of a parental code would be required to prevent any further Mary Kay LaTournos from taking the spotlight with your special little angel!
As you can also see from my design, your child's current grade in each teacher's class would be displayed at login, SO, there would be no more surprises come report card time. You would immediately be able to see exactly where your child is doing poorly and could use improvement.
Then, there's the stuff like the Student Of The Month section that could be added which could result in some sort of prize of some sort...and so forth and so on!
On a side note...when I was in school, they would try to get us to sell things by dangling the proverbial carrot of a "Weepul" in front of us. Weepuls were a colored cotton ball with eyes glued to it, antennas, and sticky feet.
That's it...that's all....
...And we clamored for these things like a junkie needing a fix. It was pathetic to say the least.
I wonder if you could get today's kids to do ANYTHING for the school with the enticement of a cottonball?
You would be right to think these things. BUT, I would think it's fair to say that *most* households in this day and age, have ONE computer. Furthermore, even if you are on dial-up, we're talking about downloading TEXT documents. And what was it Spock said about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few?
This Asus can be had for about $279 at Best Buy as we speak. It can handle all of what I've spoken of here, and as you can see, is very small and lightweight.
SO, maybe the kids don't need an XBox360 AND a Nintendo Wii if money is so tight, right?
Although, I've been playing Dead Space recently, and it is SOOO much cooler than Geography!!
But I digress....The Asus even has WiFi, so your little angel can do their homework while you sit here reading my inane ramblings!
But wait, there's more....I've recently read that in March, Coby, the maker of those little flip open DVD players, is going to release a $100 netbook that will be comparable to the Asus in functionality.
So, where's your Jesus now?!?!?
Wait....wrong argument....oh yeah.....my point is, most everyone CAN afford to get their child some sort of computer in the near future...if they PRIORITIZE.
But I'm sure you're saying to yourself "Christ Joe...you've really laid it all out here...you even gave us website mock-ups and everything because we have a stunning inability to visualize unless we see a picture, and you cared enough to take that in to account! You sir, are the most awesomest awesome that could ever be awesome!"
And you would be right to think that too.
I mean, it probably has some "Calendar Of Events" on it that never gets updated, and a basic email system for the teachers.
But what if just a little more went in to it?
What if each teacher had it's own Myspace within the school's site? No, I don't mean that in a Debra LaFave or Mary Kay LaTourno kind of way...I mean in a useful, non sick way.
We'll call it...."TeachSpace" for our purposes here today.
On TeachSpace, your child's teachers could have a simple database that they could update, that would allow them to post homework assignments ON their Teachspace page. These assignments could either be printed out and returned at school when they were due, OR, could be completed as a .doc, and emailed back to the teacher to be graded.
Now, kids may hate me for that, but how do you pull off "I forgot my homework" now?
By the way, do you think kid's still try "My dog ate my homework?"...eh, nevermind.
Furthermore, if your child is sick for several days, they could still keep up with their work through TeachSpace, because after logging in with their personal student ID code, they not only get their homework, but downloadable copies of all their books would be available at all times in case the flash drive is misplaced.
So now the "I lost my flash drive" excuse is already eliminated, BEFORE it's ever been used.
I'm like Back To The Future 2 up on this piece! I'm takin' care of things before they ever happen!
From the Teachspace section of the school website, the student could also email their teacher, BUT, the input of a parental code would be required to prevent any further Mary Kay LaTournos from taking the spotlight with your special little angel!
Here's an example of what I envision:
As you can also see from my design, your child's current grade in each teacher's class would be displayed at login, SO, there would be no more surprises come report card time. You would immediately be able to see exactly where your child is doing poorly and could use improvement.Then, there's the stuff like the Student Of The Month section that could be added which could result in some sort of prize of some sort...and so forth and so on!
On a side note...when I was in school, they would try to get us to sell things by dangling the proverbial carrot of a "Weepul" in front of us. Weepuls were a colored cotton ball with eyes glued to it, antennas, and sticky feet.
That's it...that's all....
...And we clamored for these things like a junkie needing a fix. It was pathetic to say the least.
I wonder if you could get today's kids to do ANYTHING for the school with the enticement of a cottonball?
What Am I Thinking Now, Kreskin?
See, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Joe, you do realize that not every kid has a computer to do these things with. Computers cost MONEY, and some parent's just don't have it."You would be right to think these things. BUT, I would think it's fair to say that *most* households in this day and age, have ONE computer. Furthermore, even if you are on dial-up, we're talking about downloading TEXT documents. And what was it Spock said about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few?
I'd like to introduce you to the Asus Eee PC:
This Asus can be had for about $279 at Best Buy as we speak. It can handle all of what I've spoken of here, and as you can see, is very small and lightweight.SO, maybe the kids don't need an XBox360 AND a Nintendo Wii if money is so tight, right?
Although, I've been playing Dead Space recently, and it is SOOO much cooler than Geography!!
But I digress....The Asus even has WiFi, so your little angel can do their homework while you sit here reading my inane ramblings!
But wait, there's more....I've recently read that in March, Coby, the maker of those little flip open DVD players, is going to release a $100 netbook that will be comparable to the Asus in functionality.
So, where's your Jesus now?!?!?
Wait....wrong argument....oh yeah.....my point is, most everyone CAN afford to get their child some sort of computer in the near future...if they PRIORITIZE.
In Closing
I think I've covered most of everything, and if I've missed something, I either haven't thought things out that far, or to be honest, I've simply lost interest in typing this any further. I have a short attention span, and I'm easily distracted.But I'm sure you're saying to yourself "Christ Joe...you've really laid it all out here...you even gave us website mock-ups and everything because we have a stunning inability to visualize unless we see a picture, and you cared enough to take that in to account! You sir, are the most awesomest awesome that could ever be awesome!"
And you would be right to think that too.
6 comments:
Ok, so we've already spoken about this prior to the post and I said no doubt it is a good idea and could be adopted by the gov and EASILY implemented. It would be green and satisfy all the freaks, and save us tax payers some loot (well maybe, software licensing would propably cost around the same)BUT what about ALL the workers that produce, make, write, deliver these text books? Now they are all out of work, and in the current economy that we are in now, those folks would be FUCKED! So good job dude, on increasing the countires unemployment rate!
So in conclusion....it is not always about $$. Well not this time anyway....SUPRISINGLY!
Well, that's a good point, but we can't put off progress for the sake of keeping certain segments in a job.
For instance...once upon a time, there were ice delivery men...milk delivery men..etc.
Should we have not used refrigerators so we could keep those guys in a job?
Maybe, those people could all get jobs at my new TeachSpace company?
:)
What you didn't mention is that school administrators and teachers get kick backs and free vacations from publishers for using which ever text book pays the most.
Joe has a good point about the workers in the printing houses. So a thousand or so jobs are lost compared to maybe 150-200 million workers in this country. Millions of dollars saved would flow back into the economy creating more jobs.
Touché on the milk/ice men comment...
But dont be fooled that, the money saved (1/2, 1/4 or however much)would be seen by any of us "the people" it would be eaten up by the gov's spending on some other stupid thing in a heartbeat.
The whole idea was to get rid of stupid government spending. If they put the money in another wasteful program it will just give Joe another blog to write.
Indeed wes, but neither one of them will EVER happen....
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