HISD’s proposed laptops for all proposal has been scaled back from an 18 school pilot to a ten school pilot in response to concerns that they weren’t quite ready yet for anything bigger than that. Lenny Schad, chief technology officer for the Houston Independent School District, told the school board via email this week that [...]
Posts Tagged ‘computers’
HISD to begin laptops for all program
Starting small, and presumably growing from there. Houston ISD officials announced Thursday that they are prepared to give students at up to 18 high schools their own laptops next school year, becoming among the first big-city districts to launch a one-to-one computing program. “This is a way of transforming what and how we teach,” HISD [...]
Laptops for all
HISD Superintendent Terry Grier would like to bridge the digital divide in HISD. Superintendent Terry Grier said his goal is to equip all 130,000 students in grades three through 12 with a laptop and hopes to start with at least some high schools next year. He will try to rally community support for the concept [...]
CompSci in the curriculum
HISD Trustee Paula Harris coauthors an op-ed in the Chron advocating computer science to be part of the standard school curriculum. While STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education is a hot topic in education circles these days, only math and science courses are required for graduation from high school. The few computer science courses [...]
Computer recycling
As a state, we do a pretty lousy job of recycling old computers and computer components. Texas ranks last in recycling computer parts among states that require manufacturers to take back their electronics, according to a report by an Austin environmental group that tries to keep computers and other electronics from landfills. The report, by [...]
Space travel: Not as high tech as you might think
It may be the final frontier, but that doesn’t mean we’re using bleeding edge technology. [The International Space Station's] 44 primary computers that do everything from guide the station around Earth at 17,000 mph to monitor for fires are powered by Intel 386 processors, first built in the mid-1980s, with a clock rate of 16 [...]
Mainframing
Ah, memories. As hot new servers have grabbed more attention, mainframes have been plugging away behind the scenes. For decades, they have been the technological backbone for banking, finance, insurance, defense, health care, education, government and other industries. “The perception is we’re old and gray,” said Jim Porell, an engineer who works on mainframes at [...]
Close enough for computer work
Very cool. Engineers have long lived by a simple, seemingly obvious rule when designing new computers: The machines have to deliver correct answers. If asked to compute two plus two, a computer should answer four. But what if computers didn’t always have to answer correctly? Nearly a decade age, a Houston computer scientist posed this [...]