British school chooses PSPs over textbooks

The Nintendo DS may currently have the better reputation for educational-related activities, with Brain Age and similar titles molding minds young and old alike, but a school in England looks to be doing its best to sway things in the PlayStation Portable's favor, announcing that's it'll soon begin employing some of the handheld's non-gaming functions to take the place of old school textbooks. According to The Daily Mail, some 30 students will be given PSPs as part of the pilot program, which apparently could be expanded nationwide if it proves to be successful (one sure way to boost sales). While we're all for putting the PSP to some non-intended uses, we can't help but think that the school is overlooking some of the educational benefits of the PSP's gaming options. After all, you never know when the life skills learned from guiding all those LocoRocos to safety may come in handy.

[Via The Inquirer]

[dov @ Mar 31st 2007 6:43AM]

I feel a bit sarcasm on the end.. :)
I have my timetable in jpg on the PSP, also using Bookr, viewing study-aid PDFs..
but most of the time we're just playing Burnout in multiplayer :D

[Leoedin @ Mar 31st 2007 7:08AM]

"A buzz going around the school"...

Well duh! What do you expect a school full of kids to do when faced with the prospect of getting a free PSP...

However, surely a laptop (either second hand 500-700Mhz Pentium 3's or some sort of OLPC type thing) would be far more effective for a similar price.

Leo

[Jamar @ Mar 31st 2007 9:15AM]

Unless said laptop is one of those old Sony laptops that ran on Transmeta processors (predecessor to their TR/TX series of laptop) that won't work very well. I already thought that the iBooks were too much to carry around- who knows about an old, enormous laptop (I have one of those "500-700MHz PIII laptops- it's a PITA to carry in a laptop bag). Or they could work out something with Panasonic to get in those Words Gear e-book readers (probably easier on the eyes, and no possibility of playing games on them) but there is a language barrier involved there.

[Bruce @ Mar 31st 2007 7:30AM]

"Students will not be allowed to play games on them."

I don't think there's really any way to stop them playing games on them is there? They're basically handing them everything they need to procrastinate during class and trusting them to use it for educational purposes. I'm all for putting faith in people's better side, but we're talking about teenagers, you may as well give them free reign on the Internet and hope they won't look at inappropriate material (read: porn) or similar :(

It's nice that they're finding a use for a Sony product in their classroom, but short of having them specifically altered to prevent anything unauthorized from being done most kids will simply waste time with it. I mean let's face it, when given the option of listening to history or playing a new game, what would you do?

[Pedro @ Mar 31st 2007 8:31AM]

"Yeah, I uhh... 'lost', yeah, lost, my PSP. On eBay. And I'll be needing a new one."

[Aaron @ Mar 31st 2007 8:49AM]

This is hilarious and awesome at the same time. When I was in high school, we played games on our damn calculators. What will happen when you hand the kids an actual VIDEO GAME SYSTEM??? Hahaha... Still though, I think it's great. I've always been a fan of what my PSP can do besides gaming, so this is pretty cool. I hope it works out, and it may even persuade Sony to open the thing up a little bit...

[dont hate the player @ Mar 31st 2007 8:58AM]

wow, some Sony salesman hit the jackpot.

[BloodFalcon @ Mar 31st 2007 9:16AM]

I for one am suprised that LCD screens, laptops and televisions haven't totally obsoleted the wasteful nature of paper production.

I like to see innovations like this because I believe digital media should ultimately take the place of paper. Instead of a huge damn textbook, students could walk around with nothing more than a PSP and a 1 Gigabyte memory stick. (the only dissadvantage being the power requirements, howeverin a classroom/hoom, they can plug in)

With PSP's wifi, new content can be added as required.

To those who say, you can't stop em from playing games, all you'd need do is install a patch that rejectects Game UMD's. Only the ultimate hackers could crack it - kids aren't that clever.

The reason I'd think that some are resisting the movement to digital media in the classrooms is because they'd lose millions (publishing contracts, paper shipments, paper mills, etc).

[Jamar @ Mar 31st 2007 11:01AM]

But that one hacker could publish it all over the internet. The more ideal way is to create a device only for reading (Sony Librie/Panasonic Words Gear, both of which have articles about them on this site). That, or make the UMD rejection part of a custom firmware and lock them out of upgrades. Also because after school isn't really any of the school's business they could set the software to allow UMDs (and ISOs- I'll admit that I use them because I saw first-hand how easy it is to break a UMD) after school hours.

[John @ Mar 31st 2007 9:28AM]

Yeah, it's Birmingham for ya! 30%(ish) non-white!

Just look at the government pages for Birmingham. Spot the white person in the blue banner!...?

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=26205&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=11333

[BatteryAcid @ Mar 31st 2007 10:17AM]

I think this is a great idea. I've been trying to get my school to replace our bulky, expensive, lo tech TI-84s with the slimmer, cheaper, color, hier resolution, touchscreen DSs and a calculator program that changes what buttons are displayed on screen as your need change, sort of like office 2007.

[WhoDatNinja @ Mar 31st 2007 11:05AM]

What happens when all the batteries explode?

[Excelsium @ Mar 31st 2007 11:48AM]

This is stupid, choose a device that is DESIGNED for the purpose.

[Joe @ Mar 31st 2007 12:49PM]

How about actually teaching kids instead of looking for some electronic device to do the job for you?

[pyro @ Mar 31st 2007 12:55PM]

ya, this is pretty stuoid, the screen is way too small. Some kids in my school got tablet PCs and the school was saposed to put all their textbooks on them, but they never did, so all the kids just play games on them in class.

[mean2u @ Mar 31st 2007 2:45PM]

That's great.

[pixelator @ Mar 31st 2007 7:02PM]

What WiFi enabled laptop could they buy for $200?

What device is 'designed' for this purpose that's this price?

[Seventhexile @ Apr 1st 2007 12:13AM]

...F*$K I bricked my PSP... what am I guna do I cant study for my test 2morrow..

"back when I went 2 school u could go 2 the library and check out a book"
- the library?.. check out a book?.. paper?..

[Alex` @ Apr 1st 2007 9:41AM]

Bloody ridiculous. If my tax money is going towards this, I'm writing a very strong letter to my MP.

[J. Evans Turner @ Jun 6th 2007 2:36PM]

I wonder if students will get into trouble for installing one of Dark_Alex's "Open Edition" firmwares.