tkt8763-01: Donated Computers

["Vickie Brown" <VBrown@alumni.msstate.edu>]

Three-year-old technology may be too old to some, but it is much better than having very little and definitely better than having nothing.

I am one of those students who attended a disadvantaged county school.  I was taught typing on an old manual typewriter that had the keys blacked out.  This was during the time when much more advanced manual typewriters and even electric typewriters were readily available and had probably been available for ten years.  However, because my school was "poor" we continued to bang away on the "hit-em-hard" keys of these old manual typewriters.  Also, because there were around fifteen students in the class and only six typewriters we had to trade-off days so each of us would have a chance using these precious typewriters.  Just think how much better it would have been if each of us in that class had been provided with a typewriter.  Even having more just like the old ones would have allowed each student up to three times more typing time.  Did I learn to type well on those old manual typewriters?  You bet I did.

So, when I hear that companies are being encouraged to donate three-year or less old computers to disadvantaged schools, I say YES!  YES!  YES!

So what, if they are not the top in technology.  What may not be needed in one school may so desperately be needed in another.  I don't know of a three-year old computer that can not be used in a lab to teach keyboarding techniques or one that most teachers would not love to have access to at home.

Remember, what may be trash to one person, may be treasure to another.

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