Technology In Primary Education, Boon Or Bane? 571
code_rage writes "This article in the San Francisco Chronicle attacks the zealous use of computers in grade school. In a time of teacher layoffs, San Francisco schools are buying 450 new computers with federal and state grants. The effects on education go beyond the initial costs: educational methods are suffering, as children are learning PowerPoint and teachers are becoming unpaid SysAdmins and content censors. This article is a well-written and brief update to Cliff Stoll's book High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom." Update: 12/01 00:40 GMT by T : Ooops II-- "Classroom" is now correctly spelled.
School Computers.... (Score:4, Funny)
So they underclocked them so people can't play games any more.
Re:School Computers.... (Score:5, Interesting)
What Happened to the "Apple" Plan (Score:3, Interesting)
I seems like a very logical business plan.
Should we be donating a bunch of *nix boxes to our local schools? I know that my learning curve would have been much more enjoyable if I had been introduced to unix in grade school than my senior year in high school.
By then I had little chance o
Here is the real truth. (Score:3, Insightful)
I read only the first para of that sf chronicle article before I decided to comment.
The governments are fucking stupid.
Roughly 4 years back when I was at michigan tech, I found out that a masters student(mech) was from some university of wisconsin college(hard to remember but I think it was Eau Claire). That college, had more computers per student than mtu. Increased productivity at his college. But only because the students using them k
Blame the teacher! (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, I'd love to have a kind of computer 450 of which cost just short of 1M$ -- that would be almost 2K$/computer. Not exactly a budget cut type of purchase, if you ask me :-)
Second, they would not be having the technical problems they do now, had they not gone with that infamous OS from Redmond, plus they would save much on the OS/support costs.
But this is all secondary. The most important fallacy in blaming the computers for dumbing the classrooms is in that the teachers don't have a clue what the computers are for. Where I went to school, the games were prohibited. You had do write you program using pen and paper. Then you had to prove (in D. Knuth's way) to the teacher that it works. Only after that you were allowed to type your code in and try compiling it.
As for the web, IM, chatrooms, etc, one has to be blind not to recognize this as entertaintment which is not the purpose of the school. I would not have internet connections from classroom computers. Local network is fine, but one would have to prove than (s)he really needs Internet access for that project before the access is granted.
It's like bringing TVs to school. While they can definitely be a source of important information, hardly anyone would fancy buying TVs for the school to close information divide :-) How is the (internet and games enabled) computer different in that regard?
Alex
Re:Blame the teacher! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, computer science is not what most students are being taught with computers. Many teachers, like most people in our society, do not entirely realize that computer programs are mathematical functions, nor that they are something that ordinary human beings can learn to write.
(Yes, you read correctly: "ordinary human beings." The cult of the "computer nerd" or "wizard" -- the idea that only a tiny few exceptionally intelligent people are capable of understanding computers -- has existed for only a short time. The vast majority of computer programmers have never been computer fanatics. In science and industry, most still are not. Microsoft and the computer game business are exceptions which deliberately cultivate the "nerd" or "wizard" attitude -- regardless of whether the code or the games are any better!)
Much of the use of computers in schools has nothing to do with programming. Some of it involves playing "educational" computer games. Some of it involves vocational training in the use of word processors and spreadsheets -- which in my opinion is improperly generalized to too much of the student population. (See below.) Some of it involves online research, which has become connected these days to library science. None of these have anything in particular to do with computer science.
It is unfortunate when students are given vocational training on particular pieces of software, and which skimps on the underlying concepts necessary to learn other pieces of software. Teaching students Microsoft Word is giving money to Microsoft. Teaching students basic ideas about operating systems (such as "A computer can be running programs in background, which you don't necessarily see") would be rather more valuable.
Trying to teach students computer science itself early on may not be the best approach to cultivating future computer scientists or programmers. Logic, reasoning, and mathematics are prerequisites to computer science ideas like algorithms and correctness. Training children to use critical reasoning, not just guesswork and opinion, in their everyday studies, is probably the best step towards a better understanding of computing.
Re:Blame the teacher! (Score:3, Insightful)
That won't happen of course because it's even more of a dangerous skill than firing a gun. Why they might start applying those skills in examining political advertising and the truthfulness of political promises. It would comp
Re:Blame the teacher! (Score:5, Informative)
You would have killed my grade. Our school library is too small to carry that much on any specific topic unless it is one that is explicitly studied in several courses. The internet is an astounding tool.
For instance, senior year I had a semester class entirely devoted to researching, writing, and presenting one research topic. The grade was based on a topic proposal, early bibliography, outline, rough draft, final copy, and presentation. My report (~35 pages of stuff I personally wrote, plus several pages of supporting photographs and a three page memo as appendices) was on the Challenger disaster. The school library system had exactly one book on this, and it was a secondary source and somewhat small. Many of my sources I got off the internet. (As distinct from "internet sources.") I searched NARA, NASA's photo galleries, etc. My main source was the Rogers Report, which is on NASA's website. In short, without the internet I would have been dead in the water. Once we actually got started researching, virtually all our classes were free periods spent in the library. Not having the Internet would have meant I would not have been able to use this time for what it was meant for.
I'm not saying that Internet access can't be misused or isn't misused. But IMO it's a far too valuable source to just cut off because some people choose to do so.
Re:Blame the teacher! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blame the teacher! (Score:3, Insightful)
Such as ?
The simple fact is kids with puters are reading far faster and typing far faster and that is a very useful ability.
Trouble is that fast writing they're doing is with atrocious grammar and spelling - assuming th wrds r evn rl wrds. Not to mention all that reading they're doing is probably three-quarters *listening* - another reason they can't spell properly.
I grew up learning Reading, Riting
Re:Blame the teacher! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you can get away with "just writing it", but that is how buggy software is born. Mistakes will be made, code will be messy above a certain level
A Quality Edumacation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A Quality Edumacation (Score:3, Funny)
Well, you're right, dictionaries can correct some errors...
Ooops -- one "r" is enough to spell "errors."
Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Like a language (Score:5, Insightful)
Learning to use a computer is just like learning a new language!
Expose the kids to computers, foreign language, poetry, or whatever--the younger the children are when they are first exposed, the better their minds are going to adapt to this type of input/output device.
Should computers be used for everything in education? No, of course not. Either should books, TV, lectures or anything else... the more variety the better.
Teachers can be lazy and use computers... just like they can be lazy and use videos.
Re:Like a language (Score:4, Informative)
Frankly, it isn't. Language is one of those fundamental skills that your brain is hardwired to pick up during the initial boot (0-5 years). Basic motor skills might be comparable, but computer skills are not. If you deny a child exposure to language for the first ten years of life, it is physiologically impossible for them to ever become as proficient as someone who was exposed to it.
Computer skills, however, are a whole 'nuther ball of wax. The specifics of any given computer task will be obsolete within a decade, and most end user software goes well out of its way to keep the user from having to deal with the system internals. Exhibit A: Every secretary who manages to work productively on a computer, even while thinking of it as a magic box.
Nobody is suggesting eliminating computers from the classroom entirely. All we're asking is for a sense of perspective about what computers are capable of, what students really need to know about computers, and how the rush to pump taxpayer dollars into sophisticated computer systems is harming other aspects of education.
Re:Like a language (Score:5, Insightful)
Basic user skills are not very related to language, in this we agree. Those skills can be learned by most anyone at any time. However these are not the skills that people need to make the most of their computing experiences. Only having these sorts of skills are a large part of the problem we have with computing today.
Nobody growing up today should be considering the nature of a computer as a 'magic box'. Early on, this was true because computing was new enough, but today that has changed.
Computers are basically everywhere today and they are only going to become more pervasive in the years to come. Understanding the core nature of computing is important and is related to language more than you are giving it credit for.
You are dead on in the last paragraph regarding perspective. Most schools are missing it and the questions you raise are good ones more folks should be asking before sending their kids into the computer enabled classroom.
(BTW, I believe we should not see computer use prior to 6th grade. --Kids need time to gain mastery of the three R's before getting to use the computer. If you think of the computer as a tool to help think, which is computing when you really think about it, one must be capable of thinking on their own in order to get the proper benefit of the tool.)
What students need to know? (6th grade - HS)
(About computing)
0. Computers do exactly two things, in general. They add numbers together and move numbers around.
1. The nature of information and how it is processed. Basics only here, RAM ROM CPU Storage, I/O concepts.
2. Why base 2 numbers? Logic AND, OR, NOT, XOR and others. Make kids give instructions for general tasks using these operators when they make sense. Use plain english for these and include problems and situations that require some simple basic logic to express.
3. The representation of things using numbers. This is where computing is a lot like language. We make up new words all the time to define and convey ideas in a shorthand way. --This makes things easier for us. Example: Joe is an asshole. What combination of words replace 'asshole'. A large part of the problem understanding computers is directly related to the concepts inherent in this type of discussion.
4. Types of computers. Embedded, complex, cluster, personal. Compare and contrast the microwave controller, personal computer, cell phone computer, game machine. How are they different? What representations of data are important to their function?
5. Computing concepts. Basic programming using some semi-natural language. Anybody should be able to ask a computer to perform many basic tasks. Everyone should have written a simple program or two to get the computer to do exactly what they want instead of learning which software to purchase or how to combine functions to get the same result. Text files should be important.*
This is not a UNIX thing, or an anti GUI thing, it is a language thing. Learning how to manupulate representations of things we find important in a form the computer is good at processing in a meaningful way. Having grown up on the 8bitters, this comes naturally, on todays computers this information needs to be taught because the higher level representations possible today allow the core of what is happening to be glossed over too easily. --"Magic Box"
6. Software. All software is simply information just like anything else we put into a computer. What makes it different from data?
7. Ethics. The computers of today, for the most part, do what we tell them to. Lets hope that continues to be true. Given this, what responsibilities do we have? Compare and contrast 'hacking' to 'cracking'. Why are they different and how important is that difference?
8. Culture. Once people begin using networked computers (0-6 do not require th
Re:Like a language (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to say, if the schools in my area were using your outline as a basis for their computer curriculum, I don't think I could find anything to complain about.
As it is, they're teaching kids to make words fly across the screen using PowerPoint Jr. I think that the misuse of computers is just a symptom of a very real problem with the teaching profession as a whole, but that's a rant for another day
Re:Teaching position (Score:4, Insightful)
The requirements of this program are directly tied to funding at both state and federal levels. Basically this system assumes that:
- teachers need to be told what to teach because they won't do it right without help from the state, (I call bullshit.)
and
- the students and their parents need feedback that is easy to digest and quantify.
The result being:
- teachers have little time to really teach things that matter because they have to meet the testing goals early and often;
- students go through school learning a bunch of task based information that does little to foster critical thinking skills;
- the state of Oregon spends a bunch of money on out of state developed testing programs (figure that one out...) to get information that does nobody any real good because:
it takes months, on average, for the results to be returned ruining the feedback loop for the most part. (Students are already onto the next task by the time they get the results from the first one.)
This means:
the best shot for the teachers is to simply teach to the test, or suffer the consequenses,
and
teach to the lowest common denominator because of the funding and job performance issues.
To top this off, the state uses the schools as a lever to prop up its excessive spending in other areas while the teachers hands are tied and their compensation is low.
This whole thing sucks and most folks here do not even know it. Teachers cannot say anything negative about the system. Parents can withhold their kids from testing, but the school is encouraged to fight that because of the funding issue. Many schools do not even know parents have an option. (I read the statutes and printed them for the school along with a letter detailing my reasons. They 'did research' and found it to be true. They fight me on it all the time, even said it was because they get comped on the tests.
The schools cannot really inform the parents because they have a conflict of interest. The State is not going to do it because the program looks good to the powers that be, plus they get dollars for doing it. Teachers are all quiet, unless they know you and can safely speak their mind. Students are simply trying to do what they are being asked to do. All of the positive information you will find on the net regarding the CIM/CAM program is State produced.
Sure there are bad teachers, but where I live, the problems appear to come from higher up. One good thing to note though:
Last year my son asked me about Open Office. He was doing his powerpoint slides on it using the Linux LTSP lab at the school! Cost of software is an issue that is leaving room for multi-OS exposure which can only be a good thing.
The problem I have with the whole mess is this:
Most teachers are behind the times on computing issues. (Other issues as well, but I am not qualified for those.) The education they go through prepares them well for the three R's, but is seriously lacking in computing.
Our state has a ton of out of work computing professionals, many qualified to teach some of this stuff with authority. They can't actually do that because they don't have the education background!
If the state was smart, they would find a way to get folks into the K-12 classrooms for subjects not covered in the basics and give their future taxpayers an education that might actually give them a fighting chance at making some real dollars to tax...
Sorry for ranting, I guess I am trying to say it's not all the teachers fault... --at least here anyway.
Reading webpages can be reading-intensive (Score:5, Interesting)
When I taught, the computers were kept in a separate classroom and only accessed once a week. It certainly held their attention, and the appropriate webpage can test their reading skills.
What I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I think that technology should be taught, but not used to teach, at least not up until a certain age. The classic forms of learning reading, writing, and arithmetic worked -- and they worked much better than any new fangled and more expensive method we have today.
It's not about the methods, it's not about the standardized tests. It's about the learning. Schools need to be reminded of this.
Instead, all they care about is high scores on the standardized tests. Damn the students beyond that.
Read Orwell's "Such, Such, were the joys" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, true, but what percentage exactly of young people were attending those schools up to that level?
It's not about the methods, it's not about the standardized tests. It's about the learning. Schools need to be reminded of this.
I think a lot of the problem is low expectations. Students will rise to the level of expectation - if you don't expect and demand a lot of them, they won't do that much.
As to learning - ultimately school should be about learning how to learn for yourself. Or, from a nice Zen perspetive, "teaching a person to not be taught". Of course that's pretty hard to do, so mostly you just aim at making sure they're literate and numerate.
I've always been a big fan of teaching some basic philosophy and algebra in primary school. It's okay if the kids don't get it all right then - it makes it much easier later, and it starts earlier on training them how to really think for themselves.
Jedidiah
Knowlege Progresses. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is only so much time in the day to teach kids stuff. As time progresses, certain things become deemed more and more elementary and are delegated to automation, hence calculators taking over most of math. But this doesn't mean education is necessarily suffering - it's progressing. People who graduate from HS today have as much (even more in some fields) raw knowledge as someone who had a doctorate in the 18th century. Would you rather them spend more time on basic math and less on science and advanced algebra? Of course not.
If in 20 years, my son knows the fundamentals of string theory in junior high, at the expense of having to use a calculator to be able to do simultanious equations, I'll consider that a *good* thing. Leave the mundane tasks to the machines, leave the ones that require actual thinking to the humans.
Re:Knowlege Progresses. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will ever understand "the fundamentals of string theory" without first learning a whole lot of "mundane" things. Having a cartoon picture of string theory is
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the main problem with our educational system is that it clings too tightly to outdated classics. They end up taking up all our time and resources when we should be teaching other subjects like logic, programming, communication (speech/debate), psychology, sociology (religion), and law.
what happened to the classical forms of educ
anyone who knows about teaching (Score:2, Insightful)
dave
--> tech stuff with a cause [homelinux.net]
Computers in the classroom aren't the answer (Score:5, Insightful)
If we want public schools to improve, funding should go toward increasing teachers' salaries. After all, if you graduate from college with a degree in chemistry, are you going to teaching science in a rural or inner-city school system for $30,000 a year or go to work for that pharmaceutical company for twice as much?
Re:Computers in the classroom aren't the answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Computerizing an inefficient process just means that you can be inefficient faster. You have to redesign the process to take advantage of the computer's strengths if you want to see some sort of ROI.
Re:Computers in the classroom aren't the answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Higher salaries would tend to increase the supply of teachers, (and therefore the supply of good teachers) but without some method for selecting the higher quality ones, it only marginally improves the average teacher.
IMO, what we need is real competition in education.
Right now, the quality of a teacher is largely measured by the grades their students get.
Teachers grade their own students.
On certain rare occasions, the managers of the teachers grade the students.
And as if that's not bad enough, the information is held in strictest confidence, which means you can't use it to make decisions.
Imagine the difference if grades were assigned by an independent testing board,
and the average grade achieved was publicly available.
-- this is not a
don't stop there (Score:4, Insightful)
hmm we heard this before (Score:3, Interesting)
rather than focus on the computer we should focus on the fact that is a tool and that its cost is hgiehr than other more appropiate tools at the primary education level..
Both apple and thje wintel monopoly tout computers in shcools when it benefits them but often do not when it just benefits kids..
we should be asking who's hand is in the wallet of our education system budget now and why shoudl we allow them to take moneyout or dictate money choices to us?
Re:hmm we heard this before (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the answer is keeping the technology away, though. I think the answer is instructors that do not allow the technology to become a crutch.
Bane, and I work for a school district (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet, here I am, geeking out regularly, working to support a district technology department. This is in spite of not having much in the way of computers at school. All of it happened due to my experiences out of school, since the classroom was not a place to explore or go outside the strict curriculum.
I see it every day in the applications that are rolled out to the computers in our schools. We're buying these extremely expensive machines, and they're little more than video games or porn outlets. I don't have a problem with porn myself, but do it on your time at home, already. The kids just sit there and leech ISOs all day long, or go play games, or anything but what people had in mind when they voted for the bond proposal so many years ago.
I still believe that schools should be networked and that we should have computers in the classrooms, but we should stop pretending that they are some kind of magic bullet. They do let the teachers work more efficiently. They provide some degree of improvement when a teacher bothers to create a lesson plan which happens to use them. The problem is that most of these classes seem to be turned loose for an hour, and all hell breaks loose.
You can't encourage the kids to explore, since they're all using a brittle OS (you know which one I'm talking about) which breaks if you look at it funny. They add programs that "deep freeze" the machines, but then that conflicts with the antiviral stuff. You have to have the AV software, since the machines are so vulnerable to so many nasty things. If the kids do explore, they get caught and they get in trouble. So they either stop exploring (bad) or they start hating the people who run the schools and networks (also bad).
In the 70s, the trick was open concept schools. All of them have been rebuilt to have walls now. In the 80s, the magic bullet was video. How many schools have headends and satellite dishes that sit idle now? In the 90s, it was the Internet, and we're still playing that card. What's next?
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
2. Spend $1 million on computers
3. ??????
4. Education!
Apple ][ was good enough! (Score:4, Insightful)
In my primary education, I was introduced to computers in Kindergarten. Thanks to the wonderful products of MECC such as Number Munchers, Oregon Trail, etc. I was able to enjoy my math, history, and improve my typing skills.
LogoWriter introduced me to programming in third grade. From there, it was integrating BASIC.
I am of the opinion that these types of programs should still be sufficient for today's youth. After all, with crippled (censored) Internet connections, research is out of the question. (Ex: "breast cancer" -- a typical blocked search.) The whole point of the computers in the classroom is to learn valuable, transferable skills (math, programming, etc.) as opposed to "how to use PowerPoint."
Computer is Kindergarten (Score:5, Informative)
Over the Thanksgiving weekend I stayed with relatives in Minnesota. My aunt is (essentially) a teacher's assistant for a rural school district.
Her (Kindergarten!) students would spend 2 hours of their half-days of school multiple times a week using computers. As she described the system, the computers worked quite well. The official pace of the class was set by the teacher. Students could practice letter identification, counting, money arithmatic, basic reading, etc. Students who were ahead of the class could keep busy. Students who were at or below level could be easily identified and the specific skills they were lacking would be exercised by the software.
I have no idea of what platform, software, initiative, etc. were at work here, but in the eyes of one Kindergarten teacher, this system was a good thing.
I was surprised. My instinct is that computers in the classroom are hard to get right--especially at such an early age.
It's the teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
For the most part computers in the classroom are a case of "now go use the computer" with little direction, or teachers having to rack their brains for some sort of lesson that will mean they'll use the computer somewhere in it all.
When the next generation slowly fills the teaching ranks things will change somewhat, because they will see the computer less as a tool that they need to teach children how to use, and more as just yet another part of life. Internet searches replace encyclopaedias, animated computer presentations can supplement stories etc.
That is, the computer will simply become a part of the classrom in the same way that books, and building blocks, and painting materials are now.
Only until that happens will computers in the classroom be worthwhile.
SysAdmin vs Teacher Salary (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, this of course raises the more significant question, which is why we pay more to SysAdmins and Help Desk Techs than to Teachers who are educating the future of our country...
Re:SysAdmin vs Teacher Salary (Score:3, Interesting)
My point is not that teachers should know and understand the inner workings of computers, but that they should now about, and be comfortable with computers in general. That's hard for the current generation of teachers.
Computers COULD be useful. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think computers make a great place in the classroom when used with an actual purpose. Sure, teaching typing is useful. But you don't have to spend ALL the money on expensive computers when you could teach typing and letter formating on cheaper computers or even cheaper typewriters.
The school districts give computers to public schools, charter schools have to beg, borrow and bleed to get computers. But the charter schools actually can make better use of computers than public schools because its easier to integrate a new system into the curriculum.
"Using Computers in the classroom" is a far too generic concept. Give the kids similar projects that are to be done with and without computers. Show the good ol' way of doing things and how a computer can help with specific tasks.
what i worry about... (Score:3, Interesting)
i really worry about the excessive computerization of society; it's as for whatever problem you have there will be a digital solution of some sort that'll make you trouble-free, and worry-free. And we seem to be further instilling this mindset into kids.
I say this out of experience as i've depended on computing as a thought platform for 4 years till i recently adopted a different approach of going back to basics. If we are to teach kids anything of value, we need to teach them how to think for themselves, and thinking, actually, doesn't require computation at every move.
My life has been much better since i abandoned computation as a cornerstone of my work. Yes it's a useful too, but it's not everything. Kids need to learn how to use their memory, and how to use a pen and a paper. They need to use good ol' trusted methods of simplifying something until they are manageable and memorable, and seeking patterns and strategies that'll ease problem-solving. While computing might be useful, it might also hinder the development of such thinking.
My experience (Score:4, Interesting)
I see this sort of waste everyday (Score:5, Interesting)
Using a kids version of Powerpoint does not do much for a room full of schoolchildren.
I always ask the principal about the special things they do to make sure kids learn to read, or pass whatever standardized testing controls their funding. Invariably, they always talk about the positive effects of more one on one face time with kids having trouble in certain subjects - by taking kids out of class for an hour of tutoring in reading or math, or by having them stay afterschool an hour. None of the schools I visit ever have music programs, or dance programs. They can't afford to hire a new teacher, they need bathrooms that work, etc.
For as little computers do for kids in a classroom, their capital costs are incredibly high.
Which isn't to say that someday, or in some capacity, computers will truly serve an invaluable role in the education of our young. Their high costs, in an industry that is always cash strapped (at least in Southern CA) and whose staff and faculty are largely non-technically inclined, make them a poor purchasing choice for schools.
As a sidenote, I find it a little ironic that the S.F. Chronicle article spends a paragraph or two bashing attempts to objectively measure student/school performance - but then later on in the article points to a "100-point" jump in test scores as a sign that a non-computer learning program is doing well. They can't have it both ways. Attempts to objectively measure school performance have flaws, and are thus practically unusable, or they aren't. This sort of writing makes for a poor version of objectivity.
Kudos, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
However, as the technologically elite, is the use of computers in the classroom something we should start considering and preparing? Do we need to start building applications designed to educate children of all ages? Could a major selling point of Linux and open source software be its ability to teach young students not only how to use a computer but also how to read, write, do math, communicate with people, etc?
I see a tremendous opportunity for Linux here. If some organization developed a curriculum and program that would get young students learning, then we could get children using Linux and starting out with open source. What better community to educate our children than the open community?
Todd does this every so often... (Score:5, Insightful)
These guns-or-butter argument is secondary to the proper funding of education as a whole.
I'm sorry - but I saw my first Macintosh immediately after completing college and a year of grad school, and seeing the undeniable utility of nothing more than MacWrite/MacDraw was astounding. Computers do indeed beling in schools. To not do so would be denying students the power that everyone else has in dealing with information. The world has changed too much to go back.
I'm going to use the language of apple/mac for two reasons - I know it better, and because apple has been able to deliver secure-able workstations and out-of-the-box tools that get stuff done. Easy productivity tools for students at a wide range of ages. If you want to substitute comparable tools and systems from wintel or OSS, great.
Todd focuses on things like kids learning powerpoint, kids using turnkey learning systems, and teachers being ad hoc tech mavens.
He's right - these are problems, but precisely because they are the wrong approaches, not because computers in the classroom are inherently wrong.
Powerpoint - Unless there's a separate app, the student edition of MS Office is just cheaper. MS Office used by kids borders on mental abuse. No student needs a WP app with 1100 menu items. Our kids use Keynote and swear by it and mastered it in very short time.
Turnkey systems - these are the least proven of anything anyone ever thought of for educational use. Almost to a unit, they do not use proven techniques or leverage sound educational philosophy or psychology, or do it on a superficial or cartoon basis.
Teachers as techies - the focus should be on using computers as a tool to find, assemble, process, and create information and understanding. This is all using retail level stuff that all teachers can get to know easily: browser, wp, ss, paint, photos, movies, presentation...
As for the comparison to construction paper etc. - when we were in school (the 60s) the two slits thru which you were allowed to express yoursleves were book reports and shoebox dioramas. Compare this to what can be done out of the box with Safari, iLife, Keynote and AppleWorks. W much wider spectrum without so much as cracking a manual.
Shut down IMs, email, and other distractions. Make it accessible across the board. Do it right. But keep doing it.
PCs are nearly useless in the classroom (Score:3, Interesting)
But PCs were definitely nice in the library. The school had moved its entire book index onto the PCs, and it was easy to search and find materials, and allowed the school to rip out that massive card catalog and install shelves for hundreds of extra books.
We also had computer literacy courses that were mandated; nothing fancy, but it was a nice introduction to basic word processing and spread sheets.
My school also had a lab where it taught BASIC and C++. I took both classes; the teacher didn't really know what was going on, so it was really more of the play-Quake-over-the-LAN class.
But other than those 3 instances, I'm really pressed to think of a need for PCs to actually be in a classroom. Our math and science teachers wouldn't even let students use those $100 graphing calculators that they demanded we have, much less a full-blown PC. There were a few instances where our English and writing classes would allow us access to PCs to do research for papers, but in many cases, the content filters were so restrictive that many students found it impossible to do any research in school.
The point is: PCs in the school are great, but PCs in the classroom are a complete waste of funds. There's no reason for them to be there because most classes have no use for them, anyways. Schools should funnel some of that extra money they'd save into employing more teachers and making the figures on their paychecks look a bit less sparse.
Low % spending on IT (Score:4, Insightful)
An IT budget of 2.2% seems very small when you consider the information-intensive nature of education.
Paper and pencil (Score:3, Insightful)
Before that, you used to have to be attentive and had to learn by listening, watching, and doing.
The damn paper and pen has replaced all that, and what do we have? Dumber people.
Students take improper notes
The reason we have a somewhat OK educated people is cause the oral tradition remains
an interesting recent essay (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html [gnu.org]
I'm not a fan of computers in schools, well maybe one or two hours per week in a designated computer room is okay, but Stallmans point is important about how we shouldn't teach our kids not to share.
An audio and a video recording that includes most of this essay is also available on the GNU philosophy recordings [gnu.org] page.
From the article: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, you can say that again. With the typing skills I got in high school, plus the basic computer literacy they gave me, this is the number of jobs I could get: 0. As much as I tried to get a job in data entry or secretarial work, it just wasn't there, and I didn't have the skills to qualify.
Perhaps the sort of jobs that exist for the computer literate are the same kinds of jobs that have always existed before. It's just that now if you want to work in a grocery store or a warehouse, you have to know how to at least use a computer. But getting work that purely deals with computers? Forget it. Welders and mechanics are paid more than sysadmins, especially with how those fields are in demand and aren't flooded with qualified applicants. A lot of people of my generation bought the hype that we were fed in the 80's about 14 year old whiz-kid millionaires, followed by the hype we were fed in the 90's about a critical shortage of computer techs. In the meantime, the wrenchheads that took mechanics in high school and went on that path instead are getting paid twice what I am.
I think I just got 0wn3d.
School Board Reasoning (Score:3, Funny)
Homer:"Having kids is great, you can teach them to hate the things you hate, and they practically raise themselves what with the internet and all."
I think that explains why we need computers and not teachers! Any questions? Look it up on that internet thing and get back to me...
Band-aids (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that computers can be added to the curriculum as they are required, and used for their logical and reasonable purposes. When kids start doing "reports" in the middle grades, computers become tools for research. Later on, they can serve many purposes, with those kids who show interest and aptitude learning to write programs, while everybody learns the basic word-processor/spreadsheet/database triad that keeps the office world going.
It seems to me that simply throwing them into an already-troubled system simply robs kids of "face time" with their teachers while lulling the rest of us into thinking all's well in our schools. All's decidedly not well.
Anne
My School (Score:3, Informative)
As an employee of a school system.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Computers are tools (Score:4, Insightful)
Properly harnessed, computers can massively enhance the learning experience. Used just so you can use them, they will at best be a waste of money, at worst interfere with learning.
Don't throw computers at teachers. Make sure there is a lesson plan where the computers actually let the teacher do more than he/she otherwise could. Don't give it an internet connection if it doesn't need one. Dont' put any software on it that does not support the educational mission of that specific computer.
And don't buy brand new computers- except for computer science students(and even they don't really need it) you don't need top of the line, or even mid-range, systems to run useful educational software. Those Apples in chem class, they had been marked for the trash heap when my teacher grabbed them... ten year old+ systems, yet he made use of them to do things safer, cheaper, and more effectively than he could have done so without those computers. Got more out of those things than the 486's the computer lab had.
As with anything else in education, creativity and discipline is the key to effective use of computers.
Who really controls how the money is spent... (Score:3, Informative)
That said -- it may not be so unreasonable for the school(s) in question to spend the millions on the computers, even as teachers were being laid off. Should a school turn down free technology money? Understanding HOW schools are forced to spend their money and WHY is essential to understanding this (rather common) situation.
So, perhaps we need to bug the state and federal governments to redirect THEIR funding priorities. When we blame "the schools" for situations like this, let's understand who we're really blaming, and let's change the systems that really need to be changed.
Experience from the trenches (Score:5, Interesting)
Computers may be overrated in many schools,
but in some of the poorest and worst schools,
I absolutely advocate computer classes.
Here's why.
My best friend teaches basic computer skills
in one of the worst San Francisco high schools.
She regularly has problems with guns, drugs,
gangs, riots, pregancies, attacks, abuse,
lack of funds, bad admins, you name it.
In spite of all this, her kids are learning:
they learn to use the web, email, and Office.
These are the fundamental tools of research,
communication, and business presentation.
Why are these important?
Not because of what they are--
but because of what they inspire.
When these kids see that they can use these,
They are inspired, and see real-world success
as within their reach if they can work hard.
They gain confidence, which these kids *sorely* need.
They gain ways to learn more, even on their own time.
Should these kids learn critical thinking?
Read Shakespeare? Write essays? Of course.
But until they are inspired, all of that's moot--
and computers are inspiring these kids.
Would love to hear feedback about this,
or similar stories from other teachers.
Cheers, Joel (joel@school.net)
In the trenches right now. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have people who can't turn a TI calculator off telling me I have to use those same Calculators in my classroom. Meanwhile, at the beginning of the year I had to show kids in Trigonometry how to do long division, square roots, and exponents before I could even begin to touch on sin, cos, and tan.
Yeah technology is wonderful at helping people bridge the concrete with the abstract. But if they have no clue about the basics do you think technology will save them.
Personal observation #2: All you parents and future parents pay attention to this. The kids who succeed are the ones whose parents actually show interest in their kids work. Some things that accomplish this is to make sure they are doing their homework, know what classes they are taking, and actually go to parent conferences.
Final observation: It'll get better as the hierarchy at the schools themselves end up being more computer adept. You wouldn't believe how useful a Smart-Board and other technologies can be in the classroom if the teacher knows how to use them. Same goes with calculators and other technologies. Right now there is a feeding frenzy going on with the idea that every child needs to learn technology out the yin-yang while in high-school. Once people start realizing that most of what we teach them they will pick up on their own if left to their own exploration.
BTW: All you unemployed Computer geeks. You might want to look at your state's Non-Traditional Licensing office and go into teaching. It is a great job. (Except for the pay but hey, I get vacation out the wazoo.)
Planned obsolescence = expense (Score:3, Interesting)
One point that has not been adequately made is that this will be a recurring expense. Computers obsolesce quickly, to a degree such that 5-year-old computers will generally not run new software. Not only are computers for each student a significant expense, but the investment must be made again in 5 years!
At North Hollywood High School, where I teach, each classroom was recently equipped with three or four modern PCs. Less than six months later, perhaps 80% of them were nonfunctioning, generally due to abuse by students or teachers. In some cases, kids actually opened up the cases to steal the RAM or hard drives for use at home.
Computers are an excellent research tool and can be a good source of explanatory animations for difficult concepts. However, they cannot teach students to think, which is the primary function of an education. They certainly have applications, but the idea that a regular curriculum should be largely supplanted by a computer-based one is absurd.
450 computers or 5 teachers? (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was in elementary school, we all had apple-IIs and we didn't do much with them other then learn to type. I remember once in middle school, learning to use a database, and a word processor on some more apple IIs, and playing around with some Macs in Industrial Tech class.
In High school we had Macs, and they were mostly used for surfing the web, writing email, and writing papers. I don't think they are a substitute for a teacher, and I think we should rely on them less, but that doesn't mean that we should have no computers in the class room.
I was a first grade teacher at a "Digital School" (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year, I worked at a private school as a first grade math teacher. Our principle was a technophile though he had very little understanding of computers and their uses. But he wanted computers in the classroom.
Private schools are businesses, and ultimately exist to make a profit, so like so many private schools his target customers were the elite, wealthy families of the area. He instituted a requirement that every child attending should bring a laptop to school. Part of this was marketing, of course: parents were keen on the idea of using computers at school, and so they were excited to be sending their children to a school that required them.
But these children were 6 years old. They came to school, toting their laptop bags, and I was under immense pressure to use these things to help them learn math.
The school had an IT department whose job it was to write flash applications to aid in learning and development. Now, I'm a technically minded guy and I often write myself programs to quiz myself on things I need to learn by rote, and so initially I thought, hey, I can have an influence on the programs these kids use, and thereby make sure that they are learning effectively.
That's not how it ended up happening.
When we did use the computers, I had to spend 90% of the time policing the children, making sure that they were actually using the educational software the school provided them, and not just playing games, watching moves, listening to music, or whatever. We got very little work done. 6 year olds are children; when one of them broke the rules and fired up winamp, it distracted them all.
Within a week I knew this methodology to be a bust. But I was under considerable pressure by my employer to use the computers, and so for several months I toiled with them, trying to "train" the children to use them responsibly in class.
With 6 year olds, even without computers, having a crayon in your desk that you can play with when you're supposed to be doing addition problems is already distracting enough -- we all remember getting our toys confiscated. A computer is just far too much of a distraction. Ultimately, our math marks were so low that parents became concerned. The principle told me: we need math marks up, I don't care how you do it.
So I stopped using the computers, and in a month, using the traditional methods with which I'd been taught, the children were competent at mental math, and were moving ahead quickly. And surprisingly, Math class was no longer "boring." Because they were actually using their brains, finally.
Once they were back on track, I started getting pressure to use the computers again. I told them that the reason their skills had been so bad was because of the computers and the distraction that they caused. I couldn't get anyone to listen.
So I quit at the end of the academic year.
Computers in classrooms? Ha.
From the viewpoint of a current student... (Score:4, Insightful)
My point: It all comes back to the excessive use of technology. I couldn't write a decent essay because I was distracted by IMing and trying to create a pleasing piece for my website while my teacher didn't care about my writing enough to actually try and understand my point since she was busy playing Flash games on her 17" LCD panel.
I should also note that it is interesting to me how a group such as Slashdot readers who understand tech on such a deep level are some of the biggest critics of its widespread use in public schools. Maybe we understand it as more than a wonderful cure-all to our learning needs.
Aaargh ! (Score:5, Insightful)
My fondest memories of middle school (in Israel, though) were the physics/statistics/Pascal/dBase linked courses. You'd learn about forces and energy in Physics (well, mechanics really); you'd learn about standard deviation in statistics; you'd learn about loops and such in Pascal; and you'd learn about tables with dBase. Then, you'd encode the statistics formulae in Pascal, so that you could analyze the data in your dBase tables which came from the physics experiment you did.
In order to accomplish all that, you needed to actually understand all the material in all these classes, because no one explicitly told you how to combine your skills -- they just told you to do it, or suffer the consequences (bad grades, that is). Thus, it was not enough to merely memorize some formulae, which is what most computer-less students do nowadays.
Similarly, in high school and junior college (this time in the US), I dearly loved my graphing calculator, ye olde TI-85. I wrote some Calculus and Physics (mechanics again, and some EM/optics) programs for it, without which I would have spent most of my lab time on simple arithmetic. When I didn't understand some concept, I didn't have to wait for the test -- I knew it right away, because my program failed to work. And of course, there's no way I could have went through all that English without a word processor -- the white-out expenses alone would have put my family deep into bankruptcy.
So, basically, my education was greatly enhanced by computers, not reduced to mindless data entry or whatever the article seems to claim. In addition, I was fortunate enough to be computer literate, and thus I could move ahead a bit by skipping all the basic computer literacy classes.
Note, however, that my education was better than average not because of computers themselves, but because of teachers who used them effectively. This is a critical point that all these "technology is evil !" articles always manage to miss. A good teacher, armed with a good curriculum, can teach physiscs to his students armed with nothing but an abbacus; a bad one will ruin their education even if he had his own personal Beowulf cluster.
Similar article in The Atlantic Monthly, July 97 (Score:4, Insightful)
Aptos Middle School's Tech Speaks (Score:3, Informative)
My mother ran a computer lab... (Score:3, Funny)
When the school bought new imacs to replace some of their older macs, instead of going into the lab the machines were claimed by some of the teachers for their classrooms, where they would collect dust.
At one point one of the teachers asked my mother for some help with her computer, as it wouldn't turn on. My mother went in, and traced the cable for the power strip that was wrapped crazily around the table leg and, in the end, plugged back into itself.
Even with all this computer spending, there is no reason to believe the students are even using the resources. If the teachers can't use the computers, why assume they can use them as teaching tools? While I can't imagine why you'd need a computer in the classroom (and I had a computer in every classroom since 2nd grade), it seems doubly ridiculous when the teachers can't use them anyway.
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Insightful)
* The people who put the men on the moon didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* The people who invented the computer didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* The people who cured polio, mumps, rubella, diptheria, pertussis, tetanus, etc. didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* The people who split the atom didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* Shakespear, Milton, Dickens, Twain, Dostoyevski, Joyce, Capote, Hemmingway, etc., didn't have computers in their classrooms.
Re:Flashback: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Flashback: (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't argue "better teachers," that's a given, but I don't think that smaller classes are necessarily better. I don't see any valid reason that it would be, except the mystical student-teacher ratio, which I don't really believe makes that much difference anyway.
The argument goes, as I see it, that with fewer students, they get less one-on-one time with the teacher. Since kids always have to rush off to their next class, though, th
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if a man of that intellect and motivation were to have access to the computational resources we have today. He really would change the world.
Either that, or he'd waste his days using his computational device to download pr0n.
wbs.
Re:Flashback: (Score:4, Insightful)
* The people who put the men on the moon didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* The people who invented the computer didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* The people who cured polio, mumps, rubella, diptheria, pertussis, tetanus, etc. didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* The people who split the atom didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* Shakespear, Milton, Dickens, Twain, Dostoyevski, Joyce, Capote, Hemmingway, etc., didn't have computers in their classrooms.
* Pythagoras and Archimedes didn't need mathematics with zero.
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers at home (Score:5, Interesting)
When I got to junior high, I found there were lots of kids with computers, instead of just a handful of kids with forward-looking parents. (The country club area fed into the junior high.) Our 8th grade computer course was all about Logo for the Commodore 64. Because I only had a Vic 20 at home, I was suddenly in the same place as all the other kids who didn't have computers. I did know programming, so I managed an above-average mark of a B. But the kids with computers at home got A's, because they were able to spend extended hours working on their projects. As the years went by, these kids made great gains, as their affluence allowed them to move up to Amigas and PCs. Seeing that it was going to be a nighmare to get enough computer time for other courses, I bailed and took drama. I needed good grades to get into university, and these "rich kids" were wrecking the curve in the comp sci classes!
When I look at the kids from my inner city school and subsequent schools, it was generally the kids with computers at home who went into engineering and computer science. I don't think any of my other classmates went near the sciences.
Of course, the upper and middle-classes have more than just computers on their side. They have money for tutoring, weekend trips to science centres, parents who went to university, etc. Computers are just the start of this imbalance. If I were a school administrator, I'd put my money into making sure inner city kids have a mastery of the 3 R's as well as exposure to the arts and sciences. Computers are just a symbol, not a panacea.
Re:How are we supposed to teach calculus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even with a calculator, 90% of us can't do calculus. Hell, I'd be surprised if 90% of Americans can do basic arithmetic with fractions even with the assistance of a graphing calculator, a computer running Mathematica, and a math tutor! Honestly!
Once you give a calculator to a child, then your bound to show them how to use it. That's twice as much work -- learn the math & learn the box. Each calculator has its own menus/features etc. So either every student has a different calculator (which makes it difficult to lecture how to use it) or the class standardizes on one machine (so that the student won't be able to operate the myriad of other calculators). We call that PROGRESS.
Without the word processor half of us could not write a paper with perfect grammar.
Again, even WITH a word processor, a significant number of people can't write a paper with PERFECT grammar. Word processors can check the spelling, and not much more. Do they fix run-on sentences, comma splices, improper selection of words?
What a laugh. Show me where they teach 8th graders multivariable calculus. What planet do you live on?!? Anyone that needs to learn this stuff should be more than capable of learning it with pencil and paper. I hold a M.S. in mathematics, and even the lowly calculator was forbidden in every math class, with the exception of two courses in numerical analysis. Give me a break!
Re:How are we supposed to teach calculus? (Score:3, Informative)
You know that people have been learning all those things just fine without calculators or word processors up until 10-20 years ago, right? ever hear of a slide rule? typewriter?
Hmm. I feel a "kids today!" comment coming on, so I'd better quit.
BTW, it depends on the teacher; I learned more from my High school physics teacher than from 3 years at college level, because the guy was A) gifted B)insane.
Every day was a new violation of some policy or law.
Re:How are we supposed to teach calculus? (Score:3, Insightful)
The greatness of Newton (and all other scientists/mathematicians) is the creative spark that leads to their theories. Once the revolutionary idea has been put into place, usually the ideas themselves are simple.
The mindblowing part of Calculus was that someone had the idea of letting a slope's denominator "approach zero" when the idea of limits wasn't even really defined yet, and then relating this ne
Socrates was the first (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that this is precisely what happened to Socrates, is an irony that he might appreciate. Not to mention the fact that he was killed by a plant.
Re:Lets properly program the computers (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that there are no cool open source educational resources, but it's more about a fundamental distinction between the motivatations of open and closed source developers.
For ed
Re:Flashback: (Score:3, Insightful)
Parent is quite uninsightful if you ask me. So is this article. They look at all the problems surrounding the use of computers in the classroom, but instead of looking at how to improve their use they want to simply get rid of them. I don't believe that computers should be the primary emphasis in education, but I do believe
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Insightful)
Math classes (and computer classes) have become about the tool, not the problem. It's like spending a whole year in shop learning about one tablesaw -- it's not an useful skill. Teach a kid how to build something, and that the tablesaw is one bloody tool that you can use. Hell, make 'em use a handsaw for the first couple of projects so that they understand what the hell they're doing.
And I respond: Fuck you. Yes, I know, classic argument technique, but school shouldn't be about fucking productivity. If you rely on the spell checker to tell you when you make a fucking mistake, what the fuck do you do on paper when you don't have that tool? All of your examples are about knowledge, not a tool. Think about this: The computer is useless if you don't have a problem to solve with it.</rant>
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Insightful)
And about the rant below, I apologize for the language, but I stand by the sentiment. You should be able to at least pass for educated without a tool to do it for you. If yoo kant spelll at all without the computer to correct you, I feel sorry for you.
Re:Flashback: (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't taken a math class in 15 years (nor used it on a regular basis), but I remember many of the constants that I used up through my 500 level courses. That, despite being too lazy to memorize my multiplication table until the 6th grade. Until that time, I could traverse an imaginary table in my head faster than the information was needed. Sometimes, though, memorization is useful, and mine freed me up to do more important things wi
Re:Flashback: (Score:4, Insightful)
For one thing, people learned how to read, write and do math long before computers were ever existed. Now, even in districts with all the high dollar video equipment and computers, one can graduate without good language or math skills.
Film projectors and TVs were thought to be the "magic bullet" that would be so educational but really just allow the teacher and student to turn off their brains. Another problem with TV is that a lot of schools got them in exchange for running the advertising to the students.
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, and people probably bitched about filmstrips and movies as well. But all 3 were used very differently than computers are being used today.
Those TVs were well controlled in most cases and were probably only used for specified educational programming. They added to the educational process not took away.
We need all of these things to teach our kids!
The big problem with computers in the classroom is that they are being used the wrong way. Sit the kiddies down in front of some "educational" software and let the software do all the work.
As for networking the classroom, it's just not needed. Network the hell out of the library or computer rooms though. Teach kids these are tools not toys.
Primary school kids have no need to do "research" on the internet. They've not developed their BS filter yet and will be likely to come back stating something as fact that they read on some crank's website. Wiring a 6th grade classroom for net access in the name of "bringing the world to them" is the equivalent of dropping them off in a strange neighborhood and expecting them find their way home. Sure some rare ones can, but most are going to get lost and possibly harmed along the way.
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, me too. And you know what? When it comes to teaching, the TV is a double edged tool. It can be used effectively, but there's also the danger of sitting back and letting the TV do all the work. I had a professor in college (!) who would lecture for 10-15 minutes, and then plug in a documentary. Some of them were pretty good documentaries, but they were still no substitute for a real teacher who can answer questions.
Wrong. We don't need any of them. Education could proceed with nothing more than a teacher and a student, and maybe a stick to draw in the dirt. Televisions and computers and even books are just tools to make teaching and learning easier. Used in moderation, they can be phenomenally useful; but you can't substitute a machine for a teacher, especially at the earlier levels. Personally, I'd be happier if the elementary schools in this country would concentrate on strong reading skills, strong mathematical ability, strong writing skills, and a general grounding in science and history. If computers are part of that process, great! But they should be a supplement, not a staple. There's plenty of time for more computer-centric education during the later years of education (eg ages 12 and up).
What really worries me is that these schools are getting ripped off. A million dollars for 450 computers? That seems awfully steep. Since the article specifies that the cash is divided among multiple schools, I assume that the 1 million is all or mostly spent on hardware and software, rather than salaries for support staff or such. That means they're paying approximately $2,200 per computer, which is absolutely ludicrous. That's the kind of money you spend on a professional workstation. Either these schools are buying systems that are WAAAAAAY over-powered for their needs, or they're getting totally ripped off on software prices.
Heck, I could build those same 450 systems for approximately $320,000 using off-the-shelf commodity hardware and Linux (perhaps Debian Junior, [debian.org] a kid-oriented flavor of Debian). Budget another $120,000 to employ a code monkey for a few years to work on any rough edges in the systems. The rest of the money could go to other school programs in need of funding -- music, art, PE, free lunches for poor kids. It really pisses me off to see our schools spending huge amounts on exorbitantly priced licenses for proprietary software, when those funds could be better spent on other areas.
Re:Flashback: (Score:3, Interesting)
In my high school physics class, we dropped balls from buildings. And we were happy to be out of the classroom.
The "irregular" teaching styles are the ones that I remember. I remember very little of the sitting-at-my-desk-being-lectured-to stuff.
Re:Flashback: (Score:4, Insightful)
The brain learns better by experiencing different things.
For example, studies have shown that diverse experiences improve the memories of alzheimer's patients. In those studies the lessons learned near the "new" experience were remembered better than routine lessons.
Reading/lectures are vital keys to learning. Experience/experimenting, however, beats it hands down.
Re:Flashback: (Score:5, Insightful)
And now physics is indistinguishable from a Hollywood special effects extravaganza, and carries about as much reality to the student. Hate to be a luddite, but there's no substitute for running your own experiments and demos in situ. Obviously some are going to be out of reach, but multimedia is no subst for the real thing when it's at all possible.
Re:Flashback: (Score:4, Insightful)
In a typical physics classroom, can you
-drop a pair of iron balls of differing weights from ten stories up?
-fire a rifle through a pair of sensors to find the bullet's velocity? (Think again - guns and school don't mix, even when it's a benign demonstration like this. I hate overprotective conservatives. But I digress...)
-do simple collision and action/reaction experiments in zero-G?
You can do all of those and more with video presentations.
Is it less "real" than if we did it ourselves in the classroom? Yes. Is it better than nothing, which is what we'd have otherwise? Yes.
Video in the classroom, as well as computers, is a tool to help teach. It's not a substitute for teaching, and it should be used correctly. Too often administrators are throwing out needless requirements that students will know how to use computers, and teachers are misinterpreting that and misteaching by requiring needless use of PowerPoint, or the internet, or whatever the fad of the week is. But the computer is just a tool, and throwing laptops at fourth-graders isn't going to accomplish anything but burn money that could be used for better things.
Re:Flashback: (Score:4, Insightful)
Drop a monkye and fire a toy gun at it, and notice the bullet and the monkey fall at the same time (a classic physics demo).
You can roll a toy car down a track with a stopwatch and figure out its velocity.
You can do inelastic and elastic collisions with billard balls and clay, plus the classic tennis ball/beach ball supernova collision/bounce.
Seeing someone else do an experiment on a vid is not nearly as good as deducing the same principles _using a more reasonable experiment_ yourself.
Science isn't passive, it's about trying things.
That's ridiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
School isn't supposed to just be a difficult obstacle course you have to maneuver through. You're supposed to be learning things. What you should be complaining about is that, now that the time-consuming black-board scribbling has been done away with, your professors should be spending this extra time teaching you more
Dlugar
Re:Question: (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine that there are some schools so fundamentally broken that putting the kids in front of the computer could only give them a better learning environment.
The downside is, most students who are given a choice will create an even less hospitable environment for themselves than the classroom
Re:Like anything, they can be a boon, or a bane. (Score:3, Insightful)
It will but it will take another generation. A teacher with 30 years in more than likely will not take to technology at all. This teacher is also safe from any attempt to mandate a minimum level of competency with technology. Seniority counts for a lot in public education. It counts in ways that many people in the corporate workforce have neve
Re:Primitive Development (Score:4, Interesting)
Which explains why algebra is generally very difficult to teach to children less than about that age.
I'm not sure how much I believe that. My parents taught me algebra when I was in elementary school (I would have been about 7 or 8 at the time), and I managed fine. I don't think I'm particularly exceptional. I didn't understand all of it back then, but I understood the basic concepts, and understood the abstraction of logical puzzles involved.
Besides, a number in itself is an abstract thing. Do you not teach arithmetic until children are 12? Yes, 2 apple, plus 2 more is 4 apples - but does the same thing work for oranges? Only if you swallow the abstract concept of a number being an abstract property of all sets with 2 things in them. That's very significant abstraction in some ways. Most kids manage. They don't always get it right away, but that's no reason not to introduce it to them to give them more time to let the concept settle in their minds.
Jedidiah
Re:Primitive Development (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Primitive Development (Score:3, Insightful)
To which I can only ask... Do you consider this to be "normal" development? Can you imagine teaching children BASIC/FORTRAN whatever at age 6? Do you think it is optimum? Is it a necessary preparation for adult development?
And perhaps the most important question: How much time have you spent teaching small children?
I knew how to write basic BASIC statements by the age of
Re:Microsofts fault (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not 'conspiracy ranting' to complain that Microsoft claims tax write offs of full retail price for software donations which cost them nothing more than a few cents for a bulk produced CD.
one might say that their donations have gone a long way to bolster suppor
Surely you are joking. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have the time and inclination you should try and get a copy of Richard Feynmans Surely you are joking [amazon.com] book. There is a section where he talks about the folly of rote learning like this, and how the physics student in Brazil has a lot of mental "information" available but understand almost no physics.