On Feb 5, 2012, at 1:00 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
Now, I would assume that most on the parents in this discussion are qualified professionals with reasonably well paying jobs, and I would not be surprised if most had multiple computers at home, etc. Let's face it, it's not a representative sample of the general population. IMHO, "it's not that expensive" just doesn't cut it.
It's not necessary to own a computer. Almost every school in the country has computers in the classroom and a computer room for the overflow. Student's are given "study periods" to do their homework.
There are also plenty of programs out there to provide new and used computers to poor people. I constantly see adds for people selling used computers and people asking for gifts/donations of them. I even see adds on the English language lists for people looking for the latest laptops free, or even a "basic" laptop which to them includes Windows and Word and Wifi.
I don't know if they get them or not, my requests for something older, e.g. a 386/486/Pentium(I) have gone unanswered.
When my youngest son was 4 (he's 13 now) I bought him a microsoft trackball (the one the size of a grapefruit) to try to get him to use a computer. He was at the time in a school specializing in educating students with physical limitations. It was a waste of money because he had been given lessons on using a regular mouse as part of his regular instruction.
As for emailed homework, Oleg, when you were in school, part of the instruction was to be able to pay attention in class, and write down your homework assignments so that you could do them at home.
These days part of the classwork is to be able to get an email with instructions and follow them. It also saves duplicating costs, and you can't say that you left your book at school or you were out sick that day.
Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count. :-( _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
