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I own a service business. Predominantly tile restoration, natural stone restoration, polishing and staining. Professional carpet cleaning, construction clean up and hording. We also have a number of higher end janitorial accounts.
What line of work are you in?
I own a service business. Predominantly tile restoration, natural stone restoration, polishing and staining. Professional carpet cleaning, construction clean up and hording. We also have a number of higher end janitorial accounts.
I wish I knew a trade like that. That is big money up here in the Metroplex.
No joke. Up in north concrete work and natural stone like terrazzo, travertine and sandstone can bring up to 2 bucks a sqft and saltillo tile brings nearly 4 bucks a sqft if you're good. Sometimes even more.
I'm in a small market but we can still quote about 80% of those prices and make a killing.
Its been nice having the ability to sell the company and the quality over the desperation of needing to earn a commission. We've also been able to employ a number of people for janitorial work and pay them a lot high wage than most. I always hated seeing these guys work their asses off for near minimum wage.
The most important thing is the free time. I no longer have to work holidays, nights and weekends. A lot of times I'll even end up with a few days off during the week.
Technology will never replace a good teacher no matter how good it may be. For some classes it will simply turn into playing games.
That isn't the intent. It's implementing technology as a tool to enhance the learning experience and have kids actively engaged in learning.
I understand your sales pitch, but:
If the teachers have no clue how properly to use it, then it does no good. You can buy all the technology you want, but few schools use it the right way. Like those smartboards you sell: nine out of ten teachers at my kid's school have no clue how to use them despite the school offering training for two years. They use them as a screen on which to project plain PowerPoints. The kids are no more engaged and the school wasted a lot of money so they could say they had the technology. All kids need is a good teacher to be engaged in learning.
As for the iPads, it is a nice sounding fad, but schools are not properly prepared for their implementation. They have not done due diligence in investigating if they are even feasible for the given cir stance.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/20/tech/i...ion/index.htmlEven though Apple's first iPad textbooks will sell for $15 or less, they won't be any less expensive for schools than paper books. Vineet Madan, head McGraw-Hill Higher Education eLabs, tells Mashable that iBooks will be sold to schools rather than directly to students, but that schools will grant students access to those books through their personal IDs.
In other words, even if a school reuses iPads, it won't be able to reuse books. The books will be kept on individual students' iTunes accounts.
Schools reuse the same paper book for about five years, and those books usually cost about $75. Because a new book will be purchased every year, the iBook version still costs $75 for five years.
Relying on iBooks as textbooks isn't a feasible option for most public schools at the moment because Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson have each dedicated just a small number of les each. Madan puts the typical cycle for textbook approval in most states at about five years.
Unless the school happens to be using one of the selected les, it can't use iBooks yet. Most other options for digital textbooks that can be read on an iPad --including Coursesmart, Kno, Chegg and Inkling — focus on books for higher education.
Unless major publishers decide to add more of their les to iBooks, it won't be a feasible default reader in most schools. Madan says that McGraw has already committed to adding five additional les before September, but it will commit to additional les based on uptake...
In a FTC 2010 survey of the schools in its program for discounted telecommunications, almost 80% said their Internet connections don't fully meet their current needs.
"It's not atypical to see one classroom of students on connected devices bring down a network," Madan says.
Before schools introduce connected devices, many of them will need to introduce better Internet connections...
are you in kidding me??
If teachers aren't using their boards, then that's the districts fault for not getting them proper training and the company for not providing effective Professional Development.
Did you read - 2 years of training that they all had to attend. The teachers do not want to use them. Same story I know at other schools. Schools buy a lot of technology and only a few teachers use it. I know 2 teachers who use the Quizdom set they bought.
I know all about this because my child did a huge environmental science project at his school. He showed the school all the ways they could save paper by using technology. He would ask and teachers would not even let him print on both sides for assignments yet alone submit it electronically. I still remember a science teacher fighting the curriculum committee to allow students to create electronic type science projects, PP, website... Instead of those awful tri-fold boards. He had my child do his electronically to show the committee of what the students were capable but teachers are resistant to change or doing something different than what they have done for years.
Last edited by ploto; 07-17-2012 at 11:34 PM.
I haven't run into any teachers that don't want some type of technology in the classroom. For me, it's always teachers want more, but the school or district can't afford anymore.
They say they want it but many do want to put in the time to learn how to use it and to change the way they have been teaching for years. It takes time and effort to learn something new. Much easier to have the kids read the same old book and do the same old worksheets.
Funny thing- I even told the school. If they had students do more projects electronically there would be less of the parents doing it for them. Because the kids know more than the parents often do.
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