It wasn't surprising that some kids started downloading pornography shortly after Virginia's Henrico County Public Schools distributed over 11,000 Apple iBooks to its high school students.
Nor was it surprising that they surreptitiously played games in class and gobbled up bandwidth trading music and movie files.
And what savvy person would have raised an eyebrow to hear that one ambitious yet misguided student was caught hacking into a teacher's computer in an attempt to change his grade?
So it shouldn't have been surprising, either, when the district decided to recall all of its high school laptops when the shocking news was brought to light.
The district's reasoning, however, was a bit unexpected: They planned it all along.
"Last summer, before deployment, we had looked at this issue," said Superintendent Mark Edwards. "(We) knew we wanted to upgrade memory, we wanted to get alignment with state testings, and knew that (the laptops) would need to be brought in because of students loading the machines with peripherals."
Regardless of the rationale, the scenario is bound to be played out across the country as more and more school districts head toward the inevitable day of One Student, One Wireless Laptop.
How will school districts keep their students focused on schoolwork and not on nefarious extracurricular activities?
News source: Wired
