Apple gaining MacBook deal with Maine schools
updated 10:30 am EDT, Mon March 16, 2009
Apple, Maine school deal
Apple stands to benefit from a new deal being negotiated with the government of Maine, writes the Associated Press. Members of the state's Education Department are said to be negotiating a four-year lease, which would see 100,000 MacBooks handed out to students in grades 7 to 12. By this fall the state hopes to provide all students in these grades with a notebook, expanding on efforts first begun in 2002.
In order to supply 120 high schools and 241 middle schools, the state will have to pay approximately $242 per computer, per year. The new Apple deal is expected to cost about $25 million in total each year, as compared to the $13 million currently being paid to Apple annually for 47,000 notebooks used by students and school staff. Some 53,000 new students should be covered by the beginning of the 2009-2010 school season; state governor John Baldacci claims that the effort should not require an increase in taxes.
The program is mainly aimed at improving the performance of poor students, who may lack easy access to a computer whether for writing reports or accessing research material on the Internet. Bundled software will also link students to state career centers. It is not known when a deal between Maine and Apple might be formalized, the AP comments.
Cool...
03/16, 01:11pm reply
I wish more schools would do this with apple. It is also a good venue to show students that macs are not the way they were in the 80's. :)
Fast iBook
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2003
What! No netbooks?
03/16, 01:14pm reply
I'm really surprised a school would go with the Apple MacBook when when they could get three times as many netbooks and have spares left over. In this economy I'd think that school boards would try to maximize any money outlay they could. I'm not putting down the usefulness of MacBooks but so many people are claiming you don't get enough bang for the buck when purchasing Mac products.
Constable Odo
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Joined: Aug 2007
Nice price...
03/16, 01:41pm reply
"the state will have to pay approximately $242 per computer, per year."
Uau!!! That is a great deal! Nice for the schools and the kids.
The kids are the future.
IxOsX
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Feb 2009
Re: Nice price
03/16, 02:51pm reply
Um, how is it a nice price. It's $242 per computer per year, in a four year contract. That comes to, gee, $968. Wow, talk about a discount! They save almost $30 per computer. Maybe a little more, depending on when the bills have to be paid.
And this is a great advance! Just think of all the poor kids out there who've never been able to get on YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr, Digg, MacNN, etc, etc, etc.
Just hopefully the schools will install one of those "conspiracy theorist free zone" filters so students don't start reading how the secret US gov't is on the verge of creating the New World Order, or how we faked the moon landing, or how science in schools is all theory and can't match up to the truth that is in the bible, or how we've been hiding proof of aliens on Mars for 30 years, or... well, you get the idea...
testudo
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Joined: Aug 2001
but
03/16, 02:51pm reply
Hey, it would give me a whole new audience to annoy the h*** out of!
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Never saw crappy macs
03/16, 04:31pm reply
"...show students that macs are not the way they were in the 80's."
There ARE no students that were alive in the 80s. All current k-12 students were born after 1990. Most high school students barley remember the 90's and were on average 7 years old when OS X came out.
Makes one feel old, huh?
Gavin
Grizzled Veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Why
03/17, 12:49am reply
Why not netbooks? Gosh, so many ways to count...
1 - Cost: yes, you can buy a cheap netbook with some linux derivative pretty cheaply. Then add in having to support those systems (which you'll have to do yourself, as the manufacturer sure won't).
2 - Usefulness: netbooks are underpowered vanity items that you can do basic Office type tasks on, but multi-media? Forget it! Statistical analysis? You kid, right? Design? Not happening.
3 - Usability: why cripple a child with a tiny screen and ugly input devices? Trying to turn them off of technology forever?
4 - Security: obvious.
5 - Compatibility: able to run any current Mac, Windows or Linux app, versus being able to run, well, linux.
Netbooks have a market: geeks with a computer already. For education, OLPC would be the only slightly-makes-sense option, and that'd still be a very small 'slight'.
Point 6, annoying testudo, is also compelling however.
dimmer
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2006