Microsoft kicks in $1 billion to help students buy under-$300 devices
The announcement was made in tandem with President Obama's ConnectED initiative to foster greater use of technology in schools.
"As much technology as we've brought into schools in the last 30 years, there hasn't been significant change," Cameron Evans, Microsoft's National and Chief Technology Officer said in an interview with CNET. He added that there still remain wide gaps in schools between students when it comes to who has access to technology.
To be sure, this remains the proverbial work in progress especially when compared against the investments made by some other nations. In Singapore, for example, the Ministry of Education has spent more than $2.6 billion so far announcing a master plan for technology in the late 1990s.
Proponents in this country have long maintained that greater spending on technology can help revolutionize education. A 1997 White House report got the conversation going in earnest but the results since then have often proved less clear-cut. A chicken-or-the-egg debate continues with some studies arguing the benefits of spending on technology while other data suggest that the focus ought to be on hiring better teachers.
Last year the White House announced a plan to ensure that 99 percent of students had access to high speed Internet within the next five years. Now, with the support of Microsoft and its partners -- a list that includes Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic, and Toshiba -- school districts will be able to source Windows-based hardware for their students at sharp discounts to what they otherwise might have paid.
The details are different but there are parallels between Microsoft's largesse and the discount programs Apple pioneered in earlier decades when it sold hardware to the K-12 school districts. The idea was to win hearts and minds when they were young, hoping that they would remain loyal Apple customers after graduation.
"Do we want to win them so they'll be customers later? Evans said. "I don't think anyone shies away from that. But there's nothing negative or sinister about that. So I'll concede that is happening."
That's in the long-term. More immediately, he said, there's great need for bringing more technology into the classroom and extending access in a bid to erase the gap between the tech haves and have-nots. For example, he pointed to the winter snowstorms which disrupted school attendance in West Virginia, where students lost 45 days because of the bad weather. "You and I been so accustomed for the last 10 years to work anywhere we wanted as long as we have a phone or a computing device," he said. "There are still gaps out there in terms of who has access to technology."
"It's a big deal," he added.
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