Education in the DR

[bob saunders]

Originally Posted by London_Calling

"He said that with the advent of 21st century technology, the need for classrooms was diminishing and that soon the students would be carrying their studies around in their pockets." I should be interested to know what a professional teacher thinks of this comment? - how realistic is this given the primary and secondary education standards in the DR?

IMO seens as likely as the paperless office.

I had a good chuckle over that line. The actual education standards(on paper) are not that bad, it's just that there are few teachers that are up to the standard to be able to teach the standards.

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by PICHARDO

Well! it turns out that Codetel is trying to land a deal to fit the school kids, college students with 3G handhelds able to stream away media real time and on demand from a Dept of Education server...

Which means (as the president so indicated) that students would even be able to “attend” classes by using a gizmo right off their pockets...?

Something that got my attention was that they aim to roll out the new system in rural areas, most in hard to reach places unlike the cities like Santiago, SD, etc...

I think that they intend to work out the kinks in smaller controlled areas, rather than expose themselves to ridicule by rolling out in big populated places and have the students come face to face with a glitch or security issue during actual class...

The other thing that took me by surprise was that why was Codetel showing off their new investment, when the Mini-PC's were the only thing on hand during the tests?
I'm not sure what changed, but whatever it was, took place in the last two months!!!

We saw three demonstrations with handheld Mini-note pc's and one apple mini less than 4 months ago, now we hear the blah, blah, blah with Codetel this and that...

I don't know anymore! Nobody I know in the loop seems to know either!

Maybe somebody that works for Codetel here in DR1, could gives us an inside the biz look??? At least a little tip? I'm curious to know how they're going to do the cell thing for something that looked hard enough already in a mini-book!

Anyone?

What happened to those 15,000 laptops?

Obsolete before they could get distributed?

[PICHARDO]

Originally Posted by cobraboy

What happened to those 15,000 laptops?

Obsolete before they could get distributed?

They were handed out already Cobra! Not 15,000 but well over 27,000 to date!

What changed were the actual parameters of the plan as we understood it was going to be rolled out.

About four months ago we witnessed a nice demonstration with handheld mini-books but the when using the software it seemed to be a bit overwhelming to task. With that in mind, now we got news that Codetel is pushing their soon to expand 3G video/demand network and that it was shown with a portable version of the same software we tested...

I'm not against taking the latest technology and using it, what I'm not for is to give a single Dominican entity monopoly power over such system.

By going that way with Codetel, you're just placing a cell phone from that company alone in the hands of students of the DR, pretty much the most wanted chunk of the market in the country...

I believe in going with the best technologies that could help our kids and higher learning institutions, just not at the price of creating a new monopoly in the country. We should also incorporate other carriers if the system is to be like that, not just favoring one of the bunch.

But that's just me!

[pkaide1]

Originally Posted by Frank the Tank

Pichardo, please take off your purple tinted glasses. If this program actually happens, those laptops will end up in the hands of the politicos, their families and cronies, not public school students. If by chance a few do make it to pupils hands, how long will it be before there are news headlines about robberies of laptop computers. There are much better and less fantasy filled ways to improve the education system in DR.

Just to make it easy, it is not an advantage for the local politicians that the people in DR get educated. The motto is Keep them ignorant and stupid, so we keep running to bank. Just my observation in many years of living in this country.

[LaTeacher]

archaic teaching in the classroom will translate to archaic teaching on a streamcast. what´s the difference! it´s just like the metro. it looks really good on paper, and leonel thinks the whole world is stupid enough to believe it actually works... except he forgot that the ENTIRE world has a better education than dominicans. only dominicans are fooled by his plans!

i saw a political billboard with a PICHARDO running here in santiago and i got really scared. hm.

[El Rey de Mangu]

Originally Posted by LaTeacher

archaic teaching in the classroom will translate to archaic teaching on a streamcast. what´s the difference! it´s just like the metro. it looks really good on paper, and leonel thinks the whole world is stupid enough to believe it actually works... except he forgot that the ENTIRE world has a better education than dominicans. only dominicans are fooled by his plans!

i saw a political billboard with a PICHARDO running here in santiago and i got really scared. hm.

This is an unsubstantiated generalization. Very insulting to Dominicans who may read DR1.

[windeguy]

I find this topic to be as fantastic as the upcoming cashless economy, the dream of 24/7 electricity and the ultimate utility of the Metro. Will such unrealistic plans every cease being made in this country? In the case, trying to jump over the basics of education by using technology might help, but I don't expect it will. I need to see what more educators think and not what Microsoft and the Government think.

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by PICHARDO

They were handed out already Cobra! Not 15,000 but well over 27,000 to date!

-->Link?

[Barbie38]

Fantastic idea, but the current curriculum needs to be overhauled! Why not spend their government funds on this instead and actually educate their children to a level equal to many other countries. My husbands nephew had to wait 2 months for the teacher and school he was attending to decide when he would attend classes this past fall! Not to mention my inability to understand how they will fail children over and over without looking at how they are teaching, methods they are using and why the student isn't excelling!

Technology is a great thing, I guess what's next they'll be buying SMART BOARDS for all of the classrooms?

[LaTeacher]

Originally Posted by Barbie38

Technology is a great thing, I guess what's next they'll be buying SMART BOARDS for all of the classrooms?

there is a program right now in santiago that is equipping classrooms with cable. internet? who needs it. books? yah, right. we´ve got discoverykids! this may be perhaps the program pichardo is talking about because it´s codetel doing it.