Laptops In Education

Computers in education are a hot topic these days. Some colleges require students to have computers, and it's doubtful you could get through college today without at least rudimentary computer skills. Increasingly though, the question is whether computers in high school and even grade school are helpful or harmful. Half the world thinks every kid should have a computer in school, the other half thinks schools should concentrate on reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and reducing class sizes. A third half thinks both those first two halves are wrong. We're going to take a look at two proposals for portable computing devices in schools and ask for some input.

We'll start with the state of Maine, where the governor recently announced a program to provide portable computing devices to every public school student in Maine in seventh grade. The students would keep the devices after graduation. The specifications envision something that isn't a dumb terminal (thin client is the politically-correct name these days), yet isn't a full-fledged laptop either. They're looking to spend less than $500/device, and get something that runs all day without recharging, connects seamlessly via a wired or wireless LAN at schools or libraries, yet can dial-up from home, won't break when dropped, etc. Given my knowledge of the state of portable computing, their specifications look pretty optimistic for the dollars they want to spend.

A different approach is exemplified by a proposal before the New York City Board of Education, the largest educational district in the country. They plan to provide standard laptops at a discount to every student above the fourth grade. How to pay for the program? Simple: all students will be directed to and through a Web portal for all of their schoolwork, which will be loaded with kid-targeted advertising. Apparently representatives from IBM and Toshiba have been lobbying the school board for the last nine months to get this plan approved; a cynical observer would suggest that they plan to make a few bucks from the $billion or more that would be spent on this plan. What's the best way to keep deals like this from turning into boondoggles and pork-barrel projects? What's the best way to keep kids from being bombarded with Nike advertisements during algebra class?

Conventional wisdom is that commercial off-the-shelf equipment is the best deal. That may not be true in these situations. One commenter pointed out that a specially designed red-and-blue laptop adorned with a NYC logo or something similar would be the perfect theft protection -- since you couldn't sell it to anyone, it's not likely to be stolen.

Some companies are already angling for this market. The people at Netschools are selling a system complete with ruggedized, kidproof laptops. And their internet access is pre-censored; how nice. By press time, Netschools hadn't responded to me with cost information about their systems, but my guess is: not cheap. Not cheap at all.

So Slashdot the Forum is open. Are laptops useful in education? People have looked at this question before, it's even been discussed on Slashdot before, but the jury still seems to be out. What's needed, a proprietary device that downloads homework or a real laptop that can do anything? How much money should be spent? What sort of device can you get for X amount of money? How can you get a device cheap enough for everyone to have one but rugged enough that it doesn't break the first time you drop it? Schools, naturally, want completely closed devices which students can't alter in any way; subversive folks like me and Lord Finkle-McGraw would probably prefer devices which students can alter - and which the more creative, hackerish ones will. How can you avoid the situation presented in Right to Read, where the students don't have the root password to their computers?

"You yourself said that the engineers in the Bespoke department -- the very best -- had led interesting lives, rather than coming from the straight and narrow. Which implies a correlation, does it not?"

"Clearly."

"This implies, does it not, that in order to raise a generation of children who can reach their full potential, we must find a way to make their lives interesting. And the question I have for you, Mr. Hackworth, is this: Do you think that our schools accomplish that? Or are they like the schools that Wordsworth complained of?"

The tech push in schools is mostly marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll agree that it's useful and important for kids to learn about technology before they enter the workplace. Very important. But I think that most proposals like these that I've heard are less designed to help students and more for marketing -- either marketing hardware/software or marketing the schools themselves. I think it's pretty much patently obvious at this point that the US spends far too little of its resources on education. And we're not just talking laptops here. We're talking roofs that don't leak, we're talking hiring extra teachers so there aren't 50 students in a classroom. Considering that money is so scarce in public education (unless you're one of those anti-DOE nuts who thinks money is being wasted feeding public schoolkids caviar), money spent on one area inevitably means money NOT spent in another area. Public schools don't have the privilege of choosing "all of the above" when they decide what they need to fund. If you buy a $500 piece of equipment for a kid so they can learn about technology, that's great. If you're buying it so that that kid wants to use that brand of equipment when they grow up, you are the worst kind of capitalist (why don't you sell them crack while you're at it?). If you're buying it so that it looks like your district cares about the students who cram 50+ into their classrooms, you are selling out kids for PR. Personally, I think the money spent on computers in K-12 classrooms can usually be better spent on hiring teachers, counselors, buying textbooks that were published this century, and things like that. Even bulletproof vests would be a better investment IMHO. When schoolkids have their basic education needs met, then we can buy them computers. I would gladly pay double my current income tax so that they could have both.

Re:Laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Asking whether it should be a desktop/laptop/palmtop used in elementary education is like arguing about which kind of wrench should be used to pound in this screw.

Were schools worried about whether children would develop "ball point pen and notepad" literacy when those technologies became not just new but cheap and ubiquitous?

Kids learn. They soak up *everything* around them like sponges including advertisements. Pick a random jingle from when you were about 8 years old. Sing the first line to a friend who is the same age as you. Most folks would not only be able to finish it, but tell you what television shows that commercial would normally show up during.

Kids will get their computer literacy just by being members of modern society. Yes, make them available at school. Maybe even have school programs to assist families in acquiring computers for the home. But it is not a necessary component of instruction.

School kids need personal laptops about as much as they need personal overhead projectors.

Re:GET A LIFE!

[Alex Belits]

I am a teenager and by far the most computer competent student (I'm 14) at my school (not only am I the only person to ever bring in a laptop, but I scare the bejeezus out of the techadmin)

Then your admin sucks.

, and I know 5 different languages, including html and java.

And excluding C, excluding a course in data structures and excluding every other course that a programmer should take before (or, better, instead of) touching java, what makes you useless (if not plain harmful) at any programming job.

While it seem expensive to invest in thin clients or laptops now, it is an investment in your future. Keep in mind that while not many people become programmers, the internet wouldn't exist without them, and you wouldn't be able to make comments on slashdot without them.

So, if 98% of kids will play Quake, 1% will become half-assed programmers, and 1% will learn how to change school's database with their grades, we will get something other than one more generation of ignorant idiots?

I'd love to hear you defend your position to paul allen, steve jobs or bill gates. Gates was quite technically competent as a teenager, and look where he is now. Don't take your future for granted.

Gates was a son of rich lawyer, and his aunt was a friend of IBM executive. That's all his "competence".

Re:The intellectual model is broken.

[Alex Belits]

Lack of diversity and choice in education isn't the worst problem with education in US -- in Russia public schools were even less diverse than here, but they were better funded, school programs and textbooks were written by competent people, kids were prohibited from being employed until they finished 8-th (later 9-th) year of secondary school, and people actually studied before becoming teachers. Turned out much better than what I see here -- most of kids got decent education (contrary to the popular in US belief, communists didn't replace math, physics, chemistry and biology with their ideology -- the amount of bullshit was above what I consider to be acceptable, but way, way below companies' influence/advertisement and "sport" in public schools, and religious mumbo-jumbo in private ones in US).

Re:society just adapts?

[Alex Belits]

I seem to remember how our school system adopted summer vacations to accomodate an agricultural society (kids needed time off in the summertime to help with the farm).

Now it's more like summer being a season when kids are least inclined to be indoors -- and long vacation is useful for showing a "milestone" in the education.

Now it seems our school system is just adopting to a new "office" society. Computers skills are needed so computer training in school is emphasized. Laptops facilitate ease of use with their portability.

Schools are now supposed to produce office-dwelling paper-pushers?

Or do they just get in the way?

[bluGill]

I remember a promotional video for work, one shot of the "future" was a class room, about 4th grade. Each kid had a desktop comptuer on their desk. And I remember clearly this girl who had to stand up and shift a foot to the side (of her desk) and raise her arm - the comptuer was in the way, and she had no hope of seeing the blackboard or of the teacher accually seeing her.

A laptop is smaller, but I think the point is clear: comptuers can be a tool, but they cannot get in the way of teaching.

I remember in school we went to the computer lab to type up an english assignment. We spend two days every couple months in the lab. The rest of the time was in class and we didn't need or use the comptuer.

My aunt teachers kindergarden in Texas. She has no idea why she has a comptuer in her classroom - kids in her class aren't expected to read. Some of the kids play a game in freetime. The rest ignore it. She keeps asking what is the point, and comes up with (whichever governer, I don't track their politics) won some brownie points with the voters when he could say every classroom had a comptuer. If that had been done right, every school would ahve had a comptuer lab.

Through 7th grade there is no point in having a computer. Even though I cannot read my own writing (as my teachers obserbed, when I try my hardest I'm still worse then other kids at their sloppiest - some physcal thing that they cannot explain) I need to know how to write. Today when I have an idea, paper is much easier to use they any comptuer to work it out - even if I then write a program to do that. Likewise, I do all my calculations with a calculator, but I need to know how to do it in my head. I cannot spell (as you probably have noticed), and I depend on my spell checker (where I can use one) - but I still think everyone should be thought to spell. Once you know the hard way let someone use the easy one.

after (about) 7th grade things change. I know you can multiply, so why would I make you multiply pi (to 2 decimal places) by 7.60 (or whatever the diameter of that circle measured to be) - I don't care that you can do the math, I care that you can find (in this case the circumfrence though you can find many other examples) Likewise my english teacher assumes that I can write (by hand). She cared about my report on Hamlet, not if I could correctly form my letters.

Despite all the hype about the paperless office, the old way will never go completely away.

Would you stand for advertising to your kids?

[bluGill]

I know if I were a parent I'd refuse to let my kids use a comptuer that is advertising. I refuse to allow a TV in my house because I cannot stand the mindless stream of sex and violence. Kids see some of that, and as a parent I have the right to censor what my kids see. (Note that this is my kids, you can allow your kids to see porn if you want)

Case in point: At a friends the other day, and he had the tv on. He called me over to see a comercial on tv. They showed a lady in her underware. To me that is porn, and I would not accept that in my home. To others that is normal. The point is I don't trust advertisers.

Now I'll agree that I cannot get away from advertisments. Nor can I shelter my kids from all kinds of what I consider over the line that others would not. That is not the point though.

Then we get into the issue of target. Advertisments are ment to get you to spend money. Kids do not have the judgements of adults (though some adults have poor judgemetn and some kids do well) Keep your spend money propaganda out of my kids mind! (Keep it out of mine too for that matter) When you require me to go through a portal you are forcing it on me. Let me at least choose the portal - ideall one with a privacy policy that I can agree with.

Please do not respond to the values of the above. I know many /. readers disagree. While my leanings are in the direction of this post I intentially went much farther then my beliefs to make a point: parents have the right to make choices for their kids.

Re:Why laptops?

[CaseyB]

I see some reason is supplying kids with free/cheap/subsidized computers -- desktops which they'll have at home. I don't see much use in giving them laptops to be used in class. The problem is that effectively using laptops in class is very complicated.

Using desktops is even more complicated. You need a 'lab' to use desktop machines. The classroom will be effectively useless for any non-computer based work. If the computers are to be used 'ubiquitously' for parts of all classes, every classroom would have to be a 'computer room'.

I think we're a couple years -- but not much longer -- away from a feasible classroom notebook solution. In terms of the hardware.

A classroom network will have to be wireless, I don't see a way around this. So we need wireless networking. And we need at least 8 hour battery life (wireless means power too) for the computers. They'll need to be ruggedized, commodity machines in a very standard configuration. These things aren't yet available on the cheap, but they will be shortly.

Re:Why laptops?

[CaseyB]

Now, the chair/desk assemblages...the chair is ABSOLUTELY necessary, as is some sort of writing surface. So, let's throw a 10.5" cheap LCD (akin to the ones used in the iOpeners) under some sort of VERY durable/abuse resistant clear polymer cover, and mount this where the desk normally attaches (usually right-hand side) - the clear top serves as a writing surface, while still allowing the screen to show.

This kind of custom unit sounds nice, but in reality it's terribly inflexible. You're locked into a very specific model of seating, you can't repurpose the desk for anything other than classroom computer use, and it will likely become obsolete very quickly. A laptop and a plain old table or desk is very simple and very flexible.

Well, in the above circumstance, there could simply be ethernet hookups run to each of the desks. In a circumstance where there are full-fledged laptops being used, just build an ethernet port into the existing desks.

I think wireless is required for a couple of reasons:

1) Classrooms are not offices. They have to be very flexible environments, that can be rearranged on a moment's notice for a variety of roles. Working in groups may mean shuffling desks around, having school events may mean clearing out a room to make way for bake sale tables. You can't have a hardwired network in this kind of place. Classrooms are also rough environments. I'd give any classroom about a week before kids had stuffed gum into half the RJ45 connectors...

2) Schools can't afford good technical administrators. This will be a critical problem in any implementation, but maintaining hubs and wiring in every class will only exacerbate the problem. Wireless would lighten some of the load.

Re:Good, but flawed

[CaseyB]

At HS they decided to give everyone an email account (and webaccess). I'd say a good 80-90% (students and teachers) of people use it. Step into the computer lab at a given day, you'll see 1 (maybe two, if a paper is due) people working on homework, and about 12-15 people writing email.

This doesn't address your point, but take a step back and look at what those kids are doing -- they're writing! Granted, it probably ain't Shakespeare, but I'd be ecstatic as an educator if I could encourage kids to sit down and write mini-essays to each other without even asking them. Getting a kid to write the equivalent of a 2-300 word email down on paper, in a classroom, is like pulling teeth.

Computers in school

[fialar]

We had Apple //g's in High School. At the time I was there they were just being replaced by Mac Plus machines.

They were great to learn on, but kids like me and my friends would hack them a lot. One of my friends brought in MacTools and we changed one of the computers to read "Welcome to Fuckheads" (instead of "Welcome to Macintosh") where the smiley computer comes on at boot time.

Needless to say the teacher was not impressed. On lunch hour we'd go into the Apple // room and play games, and most of the time the teacher sitting in the room there had no clue what we were doing.

I think computers in a school can be a two-edged sword. They can be great time wasters (games) or great tools in learning. We have to use them wisely.

Linux is becoming more and more popular in schools, and let's face it, it has better security so we can keep the hacking to a minimum.

I often wish I had a laptop when I was in high school to take notes on, but I didn't think they made laptops then. (If they did, they were huge and properly bigger than my backpack!)

Fialar

Thin Client

[slim]

Putting aside for one moment the question of whether computers should be a major part of a child's education (I say yes):

I worked for 2.5 years as Sysadmin at a large 11-18 school in England.

Although the powers that be did not allow me to pursue it, I am absolutely convinced that thin client terminals (X/VNC/ICA, whatever) are the right way to go for schools, for the following reasons:

• Upgrades are at the server side, and therefore cheaper and easier
  
• Old PCs can be reused as clients
  
• New terminals are cheap
  
• A complete new environment can be created in one fell swoop, it's all on the server side
  
• Strong security
  
• Network-centric, like computers should be
  
• Allows for remote support (you can ghost student's screen to help them out)
  

I'm afraid that for the moment it's going to have to be Windows in the classroom at least some of the time (we were looking at Citrix Winframe, now Microsoft Terminal Server) -- lots of schools have made a large investment in Windows software which they can't afford to replace, and for which there is no Linux/whatever equivalent. For example, our Maths department made heavy use of a package called Global Maths, which was a Windows maths teaching package specifically designed for the British National Curriculum. Until Global do a port, moving to a different platform is *not* something the maths department would have tolerated.

Same goes for English, RE, Technology etc.
--

A question for a question

[jd]

To decide the best solution, you must FIRST know the problem. Unless you're in sales.

So, if I were to examine these proposals, I would want to know the answer to the following questions:

• Which SPECIFIC problems are the computers intended to solve? (Generalised "they've gotta have them" won't wash. I want specifics, cause and effect, not fad-speak.)
• Where's the money coming from? Students don't usually rank in the top 100 richest in the world. Nor is segregation, based on wealth, going to promote standards of excellence.
• Where's the infrastructure? Universities are screaming at the use of Napster and Gnutella, as it is. Adding another 10,000 machines isn't going to cause network congestion, is it?
• Academia funded by advertising is knowledge controlled by markets. What happens to those who choose for themselves? Or are unlikely to buy the promoter's products?
• What are the alternatives? If you've only one proposal to choose from, and you can't choose "nothing", it's no choice at all.

Re:Yeah right.

[Malc]

I couldn't agree more. Some of people I grew up with seemed to think that the quicker they destroyed their possesions, the quicker it would be before that got a newer replacement. Then there were those who thought it was cool to deface all of there stuff - how anarchaic!

I think I was quite respectful to my stuff. Even so, my school bag wouldn't last a year. No matter how hard I tried, my folders, text books, excercise books, etc were all falling apart by the end of just one term. How the hell can you expect a laptop to last? It's a crazy waste of money. It had better be subsidised by the government or something otherwise many people will be excluded because they can't afford it (come on: there were people at my school who had difficulty affording a school uniform, and there was help available for that). Imagine if you have four children, one of the parents has been injured or for some other reason cannot work, how are they going to keep up with constantly replaced damaged equipment, on top of replacing rapidly outdated hardware?

Additionally, everybody should have the same spec laptop or else some people will not have respect for their property because it isn't as good as somebody else's. It can be hard enough psychologically having inferior clothes, calculators, etc. This will just help emphasise the financial differences between people. It's not all Beverly Hills 90210 where even the "poor" kids are well off!

Re:We have to have laptops in school...

[thomasd]

You know, I was thinking much the same thing all the way through the article. The `laptops' in Ender's Game are interesting on the basis that they are (probably intentionally) hackable. Sadly, I'm not sure any current educational authority would follow that kind of logic...

Clifford Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil" and "Heretic"

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

Clifford Stoll, the hacker and astronomer that wrote "The Cuckoo's Nest" on his adventures chasing crackers, also wrote "Silicon Snake Oil [amazon.co.uk]" (1996) and "High Tech Heretic [amazon.co.uk]" (1999) on this very subject of "who needs computers". He makes interesting points, that probably you won't share.

(The links are to Amazon, if that's not kosher to you, find better links, I couldn't.)

(To non-+1ers: you can win karma by linking to that Mexican project to bring Linux into schools. You are welcome.)
__

Re:Why laptops?

[Genom]

Using desktops is even more complicated. You need a 'lab' to use desktop machines. The classroom will be effectively useless for any non-computer based work. If the computers are to be used 'ubiquitously' for parts of all classes, every classroom would have to be a 'computer room'.

Desktops, while taking up more space (at least "traditional" desktop systems) aren't any more complicated to operate than a laptop. They're also MUCH cheaper. Add a zip drive, and give the students a zip disk, and they can take their personal info, as well as a couple/few programs with them wherever they go.

You wouldn't necessarily need a "lab" either. Just rework the conception of a classroom to include the computers.

If you're like me, your conception of a classroom is a smallish room with a blackboard/whiteboard and largeish desk on one end, and the rest filled to capacity with as many small, cheaply built chair/desk assemblages as possible. Partially, this has to do with the overcrowding problem (which really isn't what we're dealing with here, but is one of the MAJOR problems with our educational system today).

Now - let's take 1/2 that blackboard/whiteboard, and use a projector to throw a display from the teacher's computer up there. Keep the other half for written stuff/examples/static info.

Now, the chair/desk assemblages...the chair is ABSOLUTELY necessary, as is some sort of writing surface. So, let's throw a 10.5" cheap LCD (akin to the ones used in the iOpeners) under some sort of VERY durable/abuse resistant clear polymer cover, and mount this where the desk normally attaches (usually right-hand side) - the clear top serves as a writing surface, while still allowing the screen to show.

With a cheap keyboard and mouse (read: easily/cheaply replacable) attached to minimal hardware stored underneath the seat, you'd satisfy the space requirement fairly well. As I mentioned before, a zip drive would allow students to take their work from place to place without the problems associated with notebooks.

By making the hardware minimal (probably little more than what's found in an iOpener, aside from the zip drive) the costs wouldn't be all that high, compared to full-fledged laptops. There might even be enough money leftover to afford a cheap desktop unit for the student to use at home.

A classroom network will have to be wireless, I don't see a way around this.

Well, in the above circumstance, there could simply be ethernet hookups run to each of the desks. In a circumstance where there are full-fledged laptops being used, just build an ethernet port into the existing desks.

They'll need to be ruggedized, commodity machines in a very standard configuration. These things aren't yet available on the cheap, but they will be shortly.

Definitely agree with you here - although the stuff I mentioned above shouldn't run more than $400 or so per seat right now - with prices dropping all the time, in a couple years it could actually be a possibility.

Ruggedness is key though. Most of the desks I had the pleasure to use had at one point or another been gouged with knives, burned, scratched in all manner of ways, drawn on, etc...

Those things, of course, would wreck havoc with a screen...

Regarding Netschools

[drix]

I attend one of the Netschools pilot high schools where these laptops are actually distributed to every single incoming freshmen. In fact, I'm actually an employee of the Netschools Corporation; I worked in the Netschools office at my school for awhile. Here is what I can tell you:

w/r/t cost, it's about $1500 per "StudyPro". They consist of a 486 and a 32mb compressed flash card holding Windows 95.

Theoretically they are "ruggedized," but in reality you should never overestimate a typical idiot freshman. For some reason Netschools chose to paint their plastic case with a magnesium colored paint, which is both an interesting marketing ploy and complete idiocy. The laptop does look a lot cooler, but most of the kids think they are slinging around a hunk of metal when they are not. This leads to quite a few problems; I've seen StudyPros used as stepladders to high lockers, kids piling three or four of them up and jumping them with their skateboard, and assorted other activities that would make whoever was paying for these things shit in their pants. Invariably when we questioned them they would answer with variations on the same response: "It's metal; it's indestructable." Wrong.

This problem could be fixed by actually using a metal case, but those are too expensive for most school districts to justify an expenditure. Other problems that make me wonder if having laptops in a rugged (read: non-collegiate) environment? LCDs, mainly. There's really no way to protect (cheaply) an LCD screen from puncturing/cracking. Invariably we'd have 3-4 laptops a month come in with orangish goo emanating from the LCD along with an assorted & amusing explanation - "shot it with a BB gun," "tried to crush a nut between the screen & CPU," etc. This is a $400 repair and there's not a cheap way to guard against it. Truly tough LCDs, supposedly, cost much more money, more than the laptop itself. Yet this was probably one of the more common repairs.

Concering the pre-censored aspect: all the laptops are forced to run through a proxy server, yes, but calling it censorship does not do justice to the full issue. You cannot expect to use the laptop as an educational aid without some form of content control. When a teacher tells students to research Africa on the Internet, they need to actually do work, and not surf over to www.slashdot.org, as about 28 of my friends tried to do. Also, there is a possible liability issue here; a parent would have a real case if their student learned how to make a bomb off his StudyPro at school and ended up blowing himself up. It is censorship, yes, but the alternative is no program at all. So it's either: limited access to the web, or no access to the web. I think it's clear what most people would choose.

--

Re:Laptops?

[drix]

Agreed. I attend one of the pilot schools for the Netschools program, and criticism has been far and wide. Our school sunk about $500,000 into the project and two years later they don't have that much to show for it. There is little proven correlation between test scores and the presence/absence of laptops in the program. Having kids type up papers and surf the web in class is nice, but is it really worth it when there are certain classes at my school that can't afford textbooks? That's a question we've been pondering since 1998, and the answer seems to be no. The laptops are distributed only to freshmen, who routinely trash them (see other posting regarding this), and generally don't use them to the fullest of their potential. The web as a learning source is a novel solution, but one that's in its infancy and really not much better than a well-written textbook, at this point.

Also, the laptops cost over $1500 per unit. If they we're $200, as you mention, I'd be all for it. But the return on investment, as it stands now, for this program, just isn't good enough to take money away from other programs in our cash-strapped district and divert them to things like this.

--

This reminds me of a short story I read.

[Glytch]

It was about an advanced human civilization that had become completely dependant on computers. Humans were unable to even do simple math, so when a government researcher discovered an old man who could perform math in his head they government was amazed. They started a crash program to discover the ancient arts of handwriting and computerless math. Apparently the humans were in a stalemate in a war against another similiar civilization, so they thought that this new amazing science of "graphitics" (I think that's what it was called) was thought to free up the need for computers in warships, thus enabling them to build ships faster and win the war by sheer numbers. The old guy, heartbroken that his hobby was used for the purposes of war, kills himself.

I don't know if anyone cares at all, but there it is. Does anyone who recognizes the story know who wrote it? I'm sure it was in one of those old sci-fi short story collections my father and I enjoy reading...

Re:Keep computers out of high school

[Windigo The Feral (N]

Dionysius dun said:

On Computers in the Classroom * Whenever I point out the dubious value of computers in the schools. I hear, 'Look, computers are everywhere, so we have to bring them into the classroom.' Well, automobiles are everywhere, too. They play a damned important part in our society, and it's hard to get a job if you can't drive. In fact, cars count for more of our economy than do computers. But we don't teach automotive literacy.

Actually, it depends on what state you live in. In Kentucky, for instance, not only is Driver's Ed a required credit in school, but is actually a requirement to get a driver's license or even a permit if you are under 18. (Folks over 18 are exempted only because, well, it is next to impossible to get a free Driver's Ed course once out of high school--the cheapest courses I've been able to find run over $100 :P)

Pretty much, if you are still in high school, you HAVE to take some kind of Driver's Ed before being allowed behind the wheel at all. :P If you don't, you are essentially farged till you hit 18 and can get a course through Yellow Cab or the like (there are some schools here that--even for gifted/talented or higher-level high-school work or most electives--are ALREADY having to ship kids out to other schools; those kids are positively screwed unless the state gives vouchers for Driver's Ed...then again, at least one school for which this applies is a school for the "emotionally disturbed" (read: those kids unlucky enough to get "geek profiled" or having bad probs with their folks), another is (perversely) the major gifted/taltented magnet school here (!)...

Then again, Kentucky has downright strict laws regarding teen driving, period...you must keep a permit for six months, you cannot drive after sundown if on a permit (this screws a lot of kids over, especially with magnet schools--it was originally meant to keep kids from "cruising", but some kids in HIGH SCHOOL don't get home till almost 6 pm anyways due to multiple bus transfers--yes, this is regular yellow school bus transfers, folks--there are bits about nearly the entire high school system being made up of magnet schools that sucks), the person who must ride in the front seat with you must be someone over 21 who has been licensed for at least two years, there is "zero tolerance" for ANY alcohol (if you take communion and then drive--and are stopped by a cop and alcohol is found in your bloodstream--you can lose the right to get a permit or license in Kentucky till age 21), if you have been placed in juvenile hall you can lose the right to drive till age 18/21, and Kentucky has "no pass/no drive" (basically, if you make below a C on any report cards or progress reports your license or permit is revoked until either you get all grades with a C or better or you hit the age of 18, whichever comes first). I'm really surprised they just don't up the driving age to 18 and be done with it... :P

Kentucky's teen driving laws are supposedly among the strictest in the US according to both MADD and AAA, though (I think only New York has more severe requirements, and their driving age is 18 in NYC), so I don't expect most of you have it QUITE that bad :)

Re:A good thing

[bonehead]

Here's my thoughts:

Computers (including calculators) are tools used for getting work done. School is not about getting work done, school is supposed to be about learning.

I firmly believe that there is no reason at all to have computers in grade schools. This is a time when these kids need to be learning how to read, how to write, and how to do math (on paper, not on a calculator). This is all important background information that kids need to have before they are capable of making the most of the "easier" ways that technology provides us.

Now, given that computers are, in fact, important tools in the daily life of many adults, and that it is the school's job to prepare kids for daily life as an adult, there does come a time when they should be taught some basic computer skills. I don't think that should happen in grade school, perhaps in the last year or two of high school. And even then, I'm talking _basic_ computer skills. Word processing, spreadsheets, etc... If you want to learn about OS design, college is the place.

I'm a bit frightened for our future. It seems to me that there is such excitement, almost hysteria, about computers and technology in general, that we're forgetting that our kids also need to learn the basics.

(Or maybe I just want the next generation of grads to be computer illiterate in order to increase my own marketability in the work force. :)

"Silicon Snake Oil" doesn't do its subject justice

[Thag]

Silicon Snake Oil was one of the most disappointing books I have read recently. I frankly woudn't quote it as a reference: someone might actually read it, and it would undermine your case.

I'm fairly sympathetic to the idea that computers won't solve all of our problems, and I really enjoyed The Cuckoo's Egg, so I had high expectations for the book. At the very least, I thought Stoll would have something interesting to say.

Sadly, although he does have a lot to say, Stoll makes his arguments surprisingly poorly. Over and over again he simply repeats the pattern of setting up a straw man, knocking it down, than making claims that are too big to be supported by the example. He claims that computers don't make publishing better, for instance, because WIRED is so ugly. Ignoring the fact that print production has become several orders of magnitude easier to do well these days, because most of the mechanical work is done for you by a computer now instead of having to be done by hand.

Also, he weakens his case by claiming that computers are bad for EVERYTHING, and everthing that involves a computer is bad. This is patently false: there are some things like calculation that computers are clearly superior at. If he had taken a "good for this, bad for that" approach, his book would be a great deal easier to swallow.

Overall, the book is deeply flawed, and in my opinion, just not worth reading.

Does anyone have an example of a better book on this topic?

Jon

No use without teachers who understand computers

[colinscott]

It's of no use whatsoever giving every kid a computer if the teacher doesn't understand computers. I'm not expecting every teacher to be a programmer, but they need a decent grasp of what computers are and are not, as well as what they can and can't do if they want to use computers effectively in the classroom.

Both my parents are teachers, my mother teaches year 2. Our family system is runs Windows, and I end up explaining what seem to me to be fundamental things over and over. I suspect I'd be a bad teacher, because I get very frustrated over my mothers inability to grasp what I feel to be obvious (it probably isn't to many people, but it is to me), and her preference to get me to work things out rather than mess with the system to work it out. Her instinctive belief is that I understand computers, therefor I know every application every written inside out. I don't know Microsoft publisher, and I have no intention of wasting time learning it.

I believe my mother is a good teacher. I don't believe my mother would be a good computer teacher, and I don't think she'd think that either. And I think many teachers would be the same. Before a lot of money is invested in these systems, what kind of checks will be done to make sure that they'll ever even be used?

Of course, as an Australian taxpayer, what American taxes are spent on isn't really one of my concerns :)

Colin Scott

Re:How to fix it.

[elflord]

Ah yes, I see. We use money. If you don't have enough money, you don't get to go to the good high schools. Great idea ! Why didn't I think of that ?

Kids, Computers, & Teachers - realworld experience

[UncleRoger]

My wife teaches first grade (normally; she's had a K/1 or 1/2 split for the last few years) and is extremely well respected in her district. She arrives at school before 7am and rarely leaves before 5pm. She always spends at least an hour working at home, often 3 or 4 hours. Lately, she has tried to keep the amount of work she does on the weekends down to 3 or 4 hours, total.

She is not a "techie" or a "geek", though she is very intelligent. Her level of computer literacy in general is what I would call adequate. (Her formatting skills in Word are, IMO, atrocious, but she gets it to do what she wants it to, usually.) Mostly, she does word processing, sends/receives e-mail, and surfs the web.

Actually, that's not exactly true. Of the stuff that most people do, that's what she sticks to. Word, Netscape, and Eudora, on a Mac.

But she uses a lot more than that. She has 10 computers in her classroom (bought/scrounged/refurbed by me, for the most part) and uses them all the time. She must have 100 different kids' programs that she has evaluated, tested, and put to use in the classroom.

She is working on her masters (edtech: how best to use technology to better teach language arts [aka reading]) and has taught a number of workshops in the district to show teachers how to put computers to work in their classrooms. She is on the technology committee for her school (or district?) and is working on all kinds of technology-related issues.

She doesn't know, or even care, what a "partition" is, or why SCSI is better (or even different from) MFM. She's seen the inside of a computer, and if forced, could probably name the major parts, but then I've taught her to be able recognize Santana, BB (and Lucille), Eric, Mark, and all the other guitar greats too. But she really doesn't care about MacVsPC/WindowsVsLinux/Overclocking/etc.

I have a point here, honest.

A large portion of the readers of Slashdot see computers as a subject in and of itself. They read reviews of hardware, try different software, maybe even write their own programs. They're into computers.

Rachel, and other teachers, however, see computers as tools. The way Slashdotters think of, perhaps pots and pans (why spend $100 on a calphalon saucepan when you can get a saucepan at the Salvation Army for $1?). Something to be used, and that's it.

Yes, some teachers are into computers as a hobby, just as some Slashdot readers probably know how to -- and do -- work on their own cars. But the majority want to put them to use as teaching tools, along side their unifix cubes, pocket charts, books, crayons, overhead projectors, etc.

So he question of what hardware is best for a classroom, or should kids use computers at all is missing the point entirely. The question should be what is the teacher's teaching style, and do computers fit into it? Should there be computer use in the classroom during regular classtime, or should it be left as a homework/research time activity? (Hint: little kids benefit a lot from computers integrated into the day, older kids can get away with using them more for homework or out-of-class research.)

And how do you teach a teacher? Everyone, I think, agrees that you can't just dump a bunch of computers in a classroom and think you've made a difference. You have to train the teachers.

But it's wrong to think that teachers need to know how to format a hard drive or write a shell script. Instead, they need to know how to integrate the computers into their lesson plans. They need to know what software is available, what areas it's relevant to, and how best to use it.

We are nearing the point where computers are no longer a novelty and are becoming more mainstream. Just as automobiles were once a rarity, and you had to be pretty adventurous to own one, so too were computers once unusual. Now, however, they are becoming an accepted part of our culture, just as cars have. Now we have to concentrate on putting them to work in the best way, not just on getting them to work at all.

I had to buy a slide rule

[ch-chuck]

in Electronics Tech class... cost, oh, $3.75 for the beginner plastic model (but calculators were soon to become ubiquitious).

Wow, a notebook/laptop in every knapsack - that's gonna be a whole lotta you know what OS bit-rot that's going to need maintenance ("Mommy! Word keeps giving me 'illegal operation' and I have a book report due tomorrow!! Waaaaaa!!!!")

Re:Another advantage of webpads

[Syberghost]

And within a year, school cafeterias would be serving nothing but hot grits, poured directly into the student's pants.

Jon Katz would be Secretary of Education, but no-one in the Senate would publicly admit to having voted to confirm him.

School policy changes would be decided by poll, with the most common new policy change thus being "Hemos".

And, last but not least, there would be a naked statue of Natalie Portman outside each school.

Keep computers out of high school

[Dionysus]

Clifford Stoll has a very interesting book on the subject: "High Tech Heretic - Why Computers *Don't* Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a COmputer Contrarian".

Excepts from the back of his book:
############
On Computer Literacy:
* I don't think our suffers from a fear of technology. If anything, our problems are rooted in a love affair with gizmos.

* Sure, kids love computers. I met an eigth grader who told me he'd spent his summer vacations logged onto the Internet for seven hours a day. Every day of the summer. A thirteen-year-old girl looked at me with a fresh face and asked, How can I meet boys if I'm not on-line?

On Computers in the Classroom
* Whenever I point out the dubious value of computers in the schools. I hear, 'Look, computers are everywhere, so we have to bring them into the classroom.' Well, automobiles are everywhere, too. They play a damned important part in our society, and it's hard to get a job if you can't drive. In fact, cars count for more of our economy than do computers. But we don't teach automotive literacy.

***********
I think he's right in one important aspect. Most people who are really into computers will learn it sooner or later. Why force it on everybody else? I didn't have computers in grammar school. It was more important to learn to read, write, do math, and learn to interact, to communicate with other people. Why learn to read, when you can have the computer read back the book for you? Why learn to write, when the computer can correct your spelling, and your grammar? Why learn to think when you can just have the computer spit back the homework answers for you?

And no, not everybody has an interest in learning everything there is to know about the computer. Heck, most people shouldn't have to. Technology should work, and otherwise keep the hell out of the way. I don't know how the radio captures radiowaves and send out the sound. Not my point of interest. All i know is,it is works.

And is it really useful for classrooms to receive old computers? Sure, it might run Windows 2000 today with Office 2000, but how will that help if it won't run the next version? Doesn't it cost more to keep upgrading all the time? And if you don't want them to upgrade, wasn't the point of the exercise to give the students proficiency in today's technology? Of will that help if they are 3-5 years behind? Again, not everybody wants or needs to know how the compiler works. How useful is it to teach them the UNIX command prompt, if in college they need to learn the Mac interface and at work they need to learn the newest GUI "innovation" by M$?

Wouldn't the money spent on computers be better off hiring more teachers, increasing the salary so that more quality people will be interested in becoming teachers?

Finally, isn't it more useful to learn a new language rather than learning of the latest software package (which will be useless by the time they graduate anyways) works?

Sheesh

[Graymalkin]

I think that the TEACHERS ought to become a little bit more wired and let the students use devices to access the teacher/school's material. I think a much better idea than a true laptop would be something like a ruggedized Clio or Jornada, under a thousand dollars but versatile enough that they could do many of the things the students needed. The teachers are the people that are under-wired. While they shouldn't be forced to change their teaching style to revolve around computers, I think computers could really clean up the clutter in the classroom. I remember in high school the teachers had papers and more papers piled in stacks on and around their desk, even the cleanest teachers always has a messy desk. I used to have to clean those things as a TA, it was killer to keep those damn plastic sheets clean. Single use overhead sheets and paper could be replaced by computers that hold the same data but a little more efficiently. Having electronic notes would also be a boon to students if they could download them or assignments. As for the students, I think they could benefit from computers also. The ability to translate documents into other languages is a big plus, especially for places like California where Spanish is a very widely spoken second language. Stuff like this could be affordable if the schools buy things on lease and pay them off over a number of years. If they start with high school freshmen and get a 48 month lease on the portable they wouldnt have to pay very much per year to pay off the equipment. Considering California spends almost 5000$ per student per year 200 some dollars isn't that much extra. The whole thing only works if the entire school is wired at the same time, the electronic framework for the teachers has to be in place before you suddenly wire all of the students. Of course there is the problem of the students selling their stuff which could easily be remedied by making the things so garish that you couldn't sell them to anyone. I don't know if we'll see this soon, my jr. high school couldn't budget free three ring binders for its students.

Education is more than just 'learning'

[orpheus]

1) Kids should have free and open access to computers for familiarity and because they are generally useful tools. Eventually, many will develop an interest in hardware or software, or user interface design, -- or just learn that a good script can *really* help you work faster, better, smarter ... and one hopes, learn the benefits of sharing custom scripts and respecting the author. Most will simply go on to use the tool with no more concern than we use a desk -- but they will at least have had computers/digital tech in their *culture* growing up.

For some reason, I am reminded of the ban on pens my school had. We used them at home, but only 4th grade and up were allowed to use them in school. Why? because they leak, are indelible, and were generally a pain. Of course, by 6th-8th grade, 'ink' was mandatory for major assignments - pencil was unacceptable)

It's the same with computers. They are a pain and an interference - until they're essential. And kids *can* wait until the age when they're ready to get them in the schools. It doesn't have to be from birth.

2) Computers in school is no different than nature studies, art, (non-spectator) sports, or any number of other "generally good things" we expose our kids to. I wish we could offer more active exposure, but there simply isn't time, and we can't expect to shotgun all our values into all kids uniformly.

Exposure is good. Farm kids rarely grow up to be rabid vegetariam PETA maniacs, they aren't disconnected fromthe facts of life. If they decide to hold such views, they do so with a more reasonable outlook. Similarly, we see anti-art reactionism (Tell me Jesse Helms wouldn't be lambasting the painting of nudes, if the majority of Americans hadn't already learned that this was a staple in the developemnt of art] and anti-science and anti-tech luddites.

Our kids grow up to be voters (and shopping mall petitioners, and state house lobbyists) FAST. If you have kids, you know: ten uears from the times tables to the legal vote! So much to learn (so little of it in curriculum) so little time.

3) Over-integration is bad. While a generally open approach that permits and hints at the general interconnectedness of all subjects and skills is useful, I think we go way to far sometimes. Any systems analyst can tell you how fast complexity builds in interrelated systems.

So I don't want to see 'computers in art' class -- 1-2 class days a year is plenty. Same for computers in Social Studies, language, home ec, etc. Either the kids will form those associations or they won't. Many won't care about the underlying subject(french, home ec) anyway. Don't steal learning time from the ones who do care about a subject trying to 'enlighten' the ones who don't, about "computers in X"

__________

Laptops shouldn't be Maine's first priority

[BonzMan]

The title says it all. Born and raised in Maine, I took certain interest when I read about it in my campus newspaper. Wow. Gov. King wants to give all the kids laptops. That's a lot of money. Yeah, we've got a huge surplus here in Maine this year. And Gov. King wants to make sure he goes down in infamy. But I don't think it'll work. The plan the state legislature has proposed has half the funds coming from the buget surplus, and half coming from the educational department. Good idea, unless you've visited one of Maine's many, many delapidated schools. Sure, we've all seen the news specials on the inner-city New York schools which have no heat, leaky roofs, small classrooms, etc. Now, put that school hundreds of miles from a city of any sort. Share that school between a half dozen townships and villages. Make some kids ride on a bus for an hour to get there. Now put them in a broom closet for their day's education.

Not my idea of a good time.

I was lucky, I grew up in Bangor, a bustling metropolis of 33,000 (The 3rd largest city in the state...please don't laugh) My school was one of the largest in the state, about 1400 people by the time I graduated. But the building was designed only to hold about 1000. What happened? They converted some of the labs into classrooms. Electical lab? Buh-bye. Woodshop? Now a lecture hall. It's not that the classes weren't being used, it's that they found "better" uses for them. Study halls had a higher priority then learning the difference beween ohms and hertz. But I had it good as far as most of the state goes.

Gov. King should be thinking about spending the money to improve the standard of Education of Maine. Repair some of these run-down schools. Give some low-interest loans to school districts to build new buildings. Give the teachers of the state a frickin' raise. We have some of the lowest-paid educators in the country. Ooh, now let's give them the extra burden of having to teach with laptops now, too. Maybe buy some books for the students...$500/student could go a long way as far as books could go. I remember using a book printed in 1979 as my US History book in 7th grade...Well, it missed everything in MY lifetime.

Gov. King's plan is quite lofty, and it sure has put him on the map as far as news goes. Ooh, look at the great Independent Govenor of Maine. Look at his great plans.

One thing his plan DOESN'T cover is the extra training the teachers will have to recieve in order to effectively use these computers to actually teach. Otherwise, I think King is setting himself up for a very expensive free round of solitaire machines to buy for all the 7th graders of Maine.

Oh well. Maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't get a laptop as a 7th grader...

Bonz..

Re:I can't speak for colleges, but...

[tuxpenguin]

I work as a technician for a school district that has a setup very similar to yours. I realize that the frustration level is high among the students/faculty at your situation, but let me tell you about the other side of the coin.

• We have over 500 pc's, 100+ printers, and 18+ servers spread over 50 miles from the farthest points.
  
• Until last year there was only one person (my boss) to handle *all* computer problems (plus writing grants, planning the networks, budgeting, proposing plans to school board, and coaching track/soccer)
  
• I was hired last year, and all tech work, network administration, planning,tech support and occasionally purchase requests was passed on to me.
  
• A school system is one of the only places where a third of the users you must support are actively trying to break the equipment/software/security.
  
• Around half our teachers are actively trying to understand and use the technology, 1/4 consider it a necessary evil and try to use it only after being threatened, and another 1/4 want nothing to do with it and will break it before they'll try to use it.
  

I don't think it's wrong to want technology that works, I also don't believe that any of your expectations were too high. But it's never just as easy as saying "let's do it" with a school system. Very often schools make the initial commitment, but there is never a follow-up plan or budget for taking care of ongoing maintenance. There are a lot of teachers and administrators who want to give the students the best they can offer, but often the needs in a school are so varied, and each just as urgent as the next, that sometimes you have to decide which one will get taken care of, and which will get left until later.

So what's the answer? More money is first thing most people say. That's fine but it's not really the solution. More *resources* would be the way I'd phrase it. In our position we need updated facilities, more techs, training for teachers, up to date equipment . . . oh wait, I guess you need money to do all that. Well that means higher taxes. Nevermind, no one will vote for that. Three years running the people in this district have turned down a bond that would have built new buildings at each school, and repaired the old buildings, as well as funded all sorts of other improvments. With a school board trying to keep 50+ year old building from collapsing, Technology funding takes a back seat. If it hadn't been for E-Rate and other grants, we would have what we've got now.

So the frustration builds. For me because I can't keep it running smoothly. For the teachers because it never works like they expected. For the administrators because they can't fund what they feel is important to education. And for you because you can't use the technology that's there. All I can say for now is sorry, we're doing the best we can.

Technology Saves the Day!

[sterno]

That's right folks, the school system can be saved by simply giving every kid a laptop. You know why? Because:

1) Laptops are technology and as we all know, technology solves all problems
2) Its spending money and as we all know, spending money solves all problems

Say, I've got a wacky idea! Why don't we pay teachers good salaries? Why don't we invest some of that money set aside for the laptops into funding teachers who know how to make use of them.

Technology is an ethically and practically neutral thing. You can use it for good or bad. You can use it to be productive or waste time. You can use it to learn or you can use it to play Quake in class. Just simply dumping into a classroom without taking the effort to train teachers to use this stuff (and perhaps make it financially rewarding even) then this is all money flushed down the gaping toilet of rapid obsolescense!

I'll be really amused (in a grim depressed kind of way) when a few years down the road, the economy is in the toilet, the schools are out of neat-o computers, and the schools are still in the same sad shape they are now.

---

Educational software and teachers

[domsol]

I code educational software as about 50% of my living. Granted, it's aimed at HS and above, but I *do* work directly in this industry.

Most .edu software in the K-12 realm is pretty poor. A huge number of "click next to continue" linear crap that was better in the original book. This is one case where Sturgeon's Law applies ;-) So, for a teacher to have a prayer of having any "good" stuff on their student's machines, they have to learn a *lot* about what's out there -- and not just what the district curriculuum committee gives them on the PO sheet.

Most teachers don't have time, expertise, or inclination to bother. Those who do are the ones who've been writing their own Hypercard stacks or VB stuff for the past years already. Putting state or city money into laptops without a concommitant investment in relevant teacher training is *insane*. And about as useful as a fish with a bicycle.

If the districts are going to hire dedicated computer instructors (the way that we had the traveling music and art teachers in my KCMO grade school back in the '60s), there is at least a chance that a "laptop for every child" strategy could be successful. That would give the classroom "primary instructor" time to learn what the hell this computer is *for*, because there is someone there they can *ask* periodically. The Maine example could allow that, iff the districts hired them. Though $500/box is not going to meet any performance bar for the "good" software, in my experience.

The NYC option is far uglier. I wouldn't allow advertising in a school setting -- if I wanted a kid to learn jingles I'd let them watch TV at home ;-) And the likelihood of any .edu software with embedded advertising meeting even a minimum bar of instructional robustness approaches 0.

I just hope the parents and voters in these jurisdictions are whinging loudly about the proposals.

--jas

Why laptops?

[Kaa]

I see some reason is supplying kids with free/cheap/subsidized computers -- desktops which they'll have at home. I don't see much use in giving them laptops to be used in class. The problem is that effectively using laptops in class is very complicated. Not only you need networking infrastructure, both hardware and software (and no, 'wall' doesn't cut it), but you also need teachers who understand all this. And most of all, you need a teaching methodology that makes use of all that computing power. To date I haven't heard of a single successful project (but some unsuccessful ones) which intergrated laptops into classroom teaching. Computers are good for doing homework, but not for the classroom, at least not yet.

I have no objection to giving technology to kids -- I am sure they'll discover many uses of it (like playing network games during class and making the teacher's computer crash). It's a good thing and will feed their brains. However, the resources of our educational system are quite limited and I am afraid that this is going to end up being a very expensive white elefant. I am sure 95% of teachers won't know how to use it, or have any clue what to do with it.

Kaa

So give them laptops...

[figment]

So we give them a laptop/webpad/whatever, now what are they supposed to do with it? When i was highschool, i took a particularly hard courseload, and i had maybe say, 1-2 papers due a week. That translates into 2-3 nights actually banging at a keyboard with it. So they're going to spend $200+/person for a crippled computer to do a job that they could have easily done in a computer lab, at a fraction of the cost.

In order to deploy this program (or at least to convince me that it's a goodidea) they have to justify the cost, and that the benefits outweigh it. They have to make classes web-aware.

How easy is it to make a class web-aware? Easy. Scan in your assignment sheets, pdf it, do some adobe pagemill (or whatever), and *bam*, you have a webpage. Internet-aware? Yes. Useful? Marginally. Effective teaching tool? No.

I've seen web-based homework, and never found it effective. Sure, you can do multiple-choice, true/false questions easily (hell, i wrote a program that does that) but anything past that is very difficult, or has bad implementation. I particularly love my physics web-based homework, where i have to integrate some godawful function, and only get credit if i get the answer within 1%. Partial credit doesn't exist.

I had a Chem Teacher who felt this push to 'use the internet' from above, and came up with this (imho) stupid idea to put all our lab reports on the web. Neat, possibly. Useful to us? No. She's a great teacher, we did all our other work by conventional means, and we actually learned from it. She knew of this internet thing, and wanted to use it, but didn't know how. Our school administration really didn't give a flying fark what it was, as long as something was internet-based.

I'm not saying the internet can't work as learning tool, just that 1) i've never seen it yet, and 2) these schools certainly can't do it correct yet. Until the schools get the infrastructure set (train the teachers, do research, find what works) so that the computers would be an effective learning tool, giving every kid a laptop is frivolous.

Re:Good, but flawed

[figment]

At HS they decided to give everyone an email account (and webaccess). I'd say a good 80-90% (students and teachers) of people use it. Step into the computer lab at a given day, you'll see 1 (maybe two, if a paper is due) people working on homework, and about 12-15 people writing email. Of that 12-15 people, I'd say (purely guesstimate, but i don't think i'm that far off), 8-10 of them are reading and forwarding flame mail. If you ever need to type out a paper, good luck, it's almost impossible to get a computer during peak times. It's rediculous, all the 7th-8th graders (7-12grade is on one campus) sitting down at a computer email the person next to them.

They don't know how to use the computer, they know how to click on 'Connect to ', then type in their username and password. If all the macs were full, we'd get questions, 'how do i get to e-mail on this windows computer?' I've seen people write down directions, (Start->programs,etc) so they could get to it every time.

Then they learned how to ytalk to the person next to you. It got to be so disruptive we removed permissions, then they found the write command, and did cat | write . It was follow the leader, one person borrowed a book from the library, and found all the obnoxious things that could be done, and told everyone else about it. There was a printout of every obnoxious command a person found, he typed it out and distributed it out to everyone else. We finally through them in a custom unix shell, where you could enter pine, or finger. So now they sit around mailbombing each other with those windows mailbomber programs.

My point is, it's not going to work. Not for 7th graders, even up to 10th graders were doing these things and being generally obnoxious. It's quieted down some, but sitll people spend all their free time reading and forwarding chainmail. Current /var/mail size is 1.4G for ~1800 users (cat /etc/passwd | wc), while at the ISP i now work at, /var/mail is ~2G, for about ~6000 users.

From what I can tell, this is a purely middle-highschool phenominon. In college, there is the few people that still forward chainmail and the like, but it's few and far between. On the student cluster, i don't regularly get spammed w/ banners and lastlogs from other people using the 'write' cmd, even though they have perfect permissions to do so. 7th grade (even 9th imho), is way too early to be giving students net access while expecting them to use it responsibly.

Re:The intellectual model is broken.

[SuperKendall]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss homeschooling - for areas your parents are not familar with, you can either learn on your own, get a bunch of other homschoolers together to pay for a lab, take a community college course, or use the local schools for that one class (if they'll let you).

Homeschooling gives you the time and freedom to choose the method and pace of learning that suits you best. I'll admit it's ot for everyone (it takes a lot of work on the part of the parents) but it is a wonderful alternative for a lot of people.

Re:Home Schooling

[SuperKendall]

My local high school wasn't too bad, but the last thing it was good at was "helping people grow socially".

How are you going to learn to interact with people well in high school? You might end up being a great person to hang around bars with, but I doubt it would help you be personable in the right way in the normal business environment or even in many real life situations (well, perhaps sales...).

The social argument is I think the worst one of all against home schooling, as I have seen first hand how untrue it is. I have seen a lot of well adjusted homeschoolers that relate well to the world around them, even more so than in college (which is actually where most people seem to learn how to relate in a mature manner if they haven't already figured it out).

no one will read this but..

[troutman]

Damm. I hate it when I come into a discussion late.

I have read most of the comments thus far and I am struck by how negative and uninformed most of them have been, which is really an unusual combination for Slashdot (usually if they are negative at least people know what they are talking about! ;-P ). And it seems that only the most negative ones are being moderated up. So here is my RANTMODE=1 on this topic.

I am a Maine resident, and I am pretty familiar with Gov. King's laptop plan. I am a freelance techie (sysadmin/network hacker), but I am also heavily involved in K12 education. A lot of my customers are school systems, and in the past I have been a K12 school district technology coordinator, a technology consultant for the Maine State Dept. of Ed., and done some substitute teaching and taught several adult education courses. So I think I can lay claim to having a few clues about this stuff.

Yes, the plan has some serious drawbacks. It was developed almost entirely in a top-down fashion. A lot of the details were not worked out until questions surfaced after the announcement, and many other details are still unresolved. The Gov. and his staff did not try to get the backing of the state's K12 technology professionals [k12.me.us] and teachers until afterwards.

Training *is* part of the plan, but not in the same "pot of money". The plan is for the State Dept. of Education to spend $1mil/year on staff development for teachers out of their regular budget. Yes, they should be spending more than that, but it isn't so bad since we are a small state (1.2 million total population). One of the good features of the plan is that is setup as an endowment -- only the interest on the $50 million fund would be used to provide the equipment on an ongoing basis. If the program doesn't work out, the money is still there to be spent elsewhere.

Still, I think the idea (especially the on-going funding aspect) is worth pursuing, with some broader oversight and input from the educational community.

I have noticed that people seem to get all hung up on the word "laptop", and immediately think of a big, expensive and fragile device. Laptop was a poor choice of words by the people in the governor's office to get a cutesy slogan ("lunchboxes to laptops").

Think "thin client webpad" instead.

Also think about what sort of technology might be available as "commercial off the shelf" or nearly-COTS soon, and how prices will decline in the next two years -- the program really isn't going to start until fall of 2002.

I am envisioning something like that looks like these [transmeta.com] (color webpads with a transmeta CPU), but with flash storage, wireless 802.11b ethernet, USB ports, and some sort of keyboard/screen cover attachment. Running linux, of course. This seems reasonable for $400-450/each, if you were going to be buying 18,000 of them at once.

The whole project must be done with wireless networking. Maine may lead the nation in having nearly 100% of all schools and public libraries [msln.net] connected to the Internet (with at least a 56k Frame Relay connection), but most buildings still don't have any network wiring outside of a few labs or office areas. Building cabling is still pretty expensive (minimum of $100/port to do it right). Wireless can get the job done a lot cheaper. It also enables the devices to be used anywhere, without any cords, which is a real enabler.

What I envision is that most of the real software and content/reference material would be on central network server (a mix of HTTP based and PDF-type resources, along with remote X or ICA sesssions for running some software packages). The student's work and information (email, notes, etc.) would be synced onto the server every time they were in the building, where it would be backed up in case they break their unit and need a replacement.

I think having some sort of information appliance like this available to all students (and teachers!) in a school setting could be a tremendous tool for learning. -- if used properly. Imagine being able to share test probe data from lab equipment in a science class with everyone at once, collect field data, etc. Even kids in Jr. HS can do meaningful real-world science, especially with the appropriate software [umich.edu].

Forget all that advanced learning stuff for a minute -- I think most of you forget that the average teacher doesn't have an email account, let alone one that they can access from their desk in their own classroom. How well could you do your job if you could only read your email for 10 minutes a day and had a to travel to a special room in your building to do it? Oh, and also remember that this applies to telephones too. Imagine a school where everyone has email -- students, teachers, and administrators -- and they use it. I have seen first hand how something as simple and basic as an email account for everyone in the building (and the equipment to use it) can have a profound change on the culture of the school, and improve the communication all around. It isn't the highest and best use of the technology, but it sure beats paper cubbyhole mailboxes and reams of paper killed every time the morning announcements are distributed.

Here is another thing -- people complain that textbooks are expensive and often out of date. It can cost between $50-100+ for a single copy of a science or history book that might be outdated in two years, but generally won't be replaced for 10+ years. If you look at the number of text books that the average college track high school kid will need during his/her HS career, you are talking about many hundreds of $ and dozens of pounds worth of text books (yes, they are reused several times over many years). Some of those books could be replaced with electronic versions, especially if the webpad device had a high quality display. Doesn't anyone remember having so many textbooks that is was almost impossible to shoulder your fully loaded book bag without incurring a muscle injury?

Some have stated that the money would be better spent on repairing buildings, higher teacher pay, more textbooks etc. I don't disagree that those needs are there. But, a lot of money is already spent in all of those areas -- not adequate, but at least the bulk of the needs are being met. Technology in education is not generally being funded at a level that leads to successful projects that have an impact on learning.

Most schools spend FAR more money on custodians and school buses than they spend on technology and curriculum integration. This is not to say that buses and custodial services actually get all of the money they need either, but they are generally funded at a multiple of the per capita technology and curriculum budgets.

Blah. I'm tired now. Looks like the latest budget deal [portland.com] hammered out between the state legistature and the Governor has reduced the fund to $30 million and it is now a general "technology for education" fund. At least it is a start.

Re:I can't speak for colleges, but...

[extrasolar]

I think high schools need to offer a *require* computer literacy or advanced computer literacy course. The advanced course would only be offered to students who pass a proficeincy test.

But true computer literacy, in my opinion, is truly transferable knowledge that will be applicable quite a few years ago. Concepts like hardware: RAM, memory, periphreals, processort, printers, scanners; software: operating systems, OS commands, filesystems, file management, GUI concepts (menus, common dialogues), and, of course basic vocabulary.

If we had a course like the above than kids will stop wasting their time learninng software that will be obsolete in a few years.

Re:Rather Use Palmtops?

[Valdrax]

PalmPilots would be a Bad Idea. For one thing, many educators have already banned them from classrooms because of the IR communications features which make cheating easy. For another thing, you'd have to teach every student how to use PalmPilot Graffiti just to use the darn things. Special Ed. students who have a hard enough time learning to write English properly can learn to type (albiet often very slowly) but might have an incredible difficulty with Graffiti.

Furthermore, you'd be training them on a task only applicable to using PalmPilots, unlike teaching them typing on a laptop. You'd also have to spend valuable teaching time getting the students (and the teachers!) proficient with the devices.

All in all, a laptop, while bulkier and more expensive, is a better choice for students. Of course, I can just see the excuses now: "But, Ms. Gulibelle, my laptop battery just died! I can't take the test today."

Re:Home Schooling

[Russ Nelson]

You can't build people skills if you spend all your day shut up in a classroom. Home schoolers aren't shut up at home. They go out into the community. They volunteer at the animal shelter. They visit with the elderly. They do community service. They deal with adults instead of hundreds of other children all the same age as them.

Socialization is important, yes, but it should be done by society, not a group of your peers who don't know any more about how to act politely than you do.
-russ

Re:and democratic societies

[Russ Nelson]

there are serious problems in funding and alocation of resources

This is primarily due to the non-market provision of schooling. If you want socialism, you're going to get inefficiency and waste.
-russ

Not hard; impossible

[Russ Nelson]

I didn't mean that school, as currently constituted, was a hard problem to solve. I mean that it is an impossible problem to solve. The very problem itself is stated in a manner that is impossible to solve.

Yes, people need to be educated. That is obvious. What is also obvious (at this point, to anyone who's paying attention) is that the method of education we have chosen does not succeed in its stated goals.

Just look at the fact that rank amateurs (homeschooling parents *always* do better than teachers no matter their level of education) can produce better results than trained professionals. Isn't this a very strong result showing that our method of education is broken?

Re:Parents know best, my lilly-white 4$$.

[Russ Nelson]

No one is proposing to take children away from parents before the age of three (except those who grossly mistreat them), and yet that is the period during which the child learns to walk and talk, and during which the child's basic personality is set.

What teacher could possibly know a child better than the person who taught the child to talk?
-russ

Re:How to fix it.

[Russ Nelson]

There won't be any bad schools. That's the whole point. The bad schools will go out of business, because everyone wants their child to get a good education.
-russ

Re:separate but equal

[Russ Nelson]

You're never going to get equal education, because you're never going to have equal children. Isn't that obvious enough?
-russ

How to fix it.

[Russ Nelson]

The solution is to allow parents to select the best educational system for their children. Nobody knows better than the parent how the child learns best.

This is completely independent of who pays for it. Personally, I think that school will be more valued if the family is seen to give up something. Of course, they're giving up something now -- school taxes, but there is no choice. People behave differently when they choose something, even if the choice they make is the same thing they would be forced to do under a different system.

But even if you want to force people to pay for education, the parent should still be able to choose. Freedom makes all the difference in the source code, and it makes all the difference in the education.
-russ

The intellectual model is broken.

[Russ Nelson]

The intellectual model being public schooling is broken. It's presumption is that you can take ALL the children born within one year of each other in a given geographic region, and teach them the same subject at the same time at the same rate.

Won't work. Can't work. Why bother tweaking it with computers? No amount of patching can remove the bugs from badly designed code. No amount of tweaking (or school reform) can fix our system of public education. Our nation's children would be better off if we closed the schools tomorrow.
-russ

Down Under

[laptop006]

Down here in Aus several schools give (forced sell) laptops to students, and if it's done well laptops help with things like research & writing reports (I think the last time I handwrote anything was in 1994 before I got my first laptop...). But even the public schools here are starting to give students laptops, and there has even been a case where a student has been suspended for NOT having a laptop.


And yes, for those of you who wearn't wondering this message is being posted via a school laptop.
333Mhz celeron 64Mb 6.4GB, great except for one thing, NO FSKING CD OR FLOPPY DRIVES, but that's no problem for me due to a strange thing called Linux, it runs on my old laptop, the one that does have drives, and it lets me acsess anything that I need, really advanced stuff, you people probably wouldn't get it.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Laptop006
Melbourne, Australia

Need real computer education.

[Chandon Seldon]

If students are to have computers, *everyone* (teachers, students, administraitors) need to go through a good computer education program.

When most people I've talked to hear "computer education program" they think "learn how to use Windows 98 and MS Office 2000 in a step-by-step task-based manner". That's an absoute waste of time - when they try to use something else they will have absolutely no useable knowledge. (Note that it's not 'if they use something else', it's 'when they use something else'. Even Windows ME will be sufficiently different from '98 to break this type of education model).

What would work better is a generalized course on "using computers". That would include modern GUI usage, CLI theory, a quick overview of GUI design and event driven app theory.

Students and teachers don't need to learn how to use Microsoft Word, they need to be able to sit down in front of *any* program that uses *any* user interface, and be able to use it fluently within 5 minutes of experimentation.

In the current a current computer education class you might hear:

In the bottom left corner of your screen there is a button lableled start. Click your mouse on that and a menu will pop up. Move your mouse over 'Programs' and then click on the program labeled 'Microsoft Word'.

Instead, I want to hear this on the first day:

Welcome to Basic Computer Usage. In this class we will explore the how and why of using a computer. You use the computer through something called the 'interface', that's a relitively self consistant way that the computer software designers came up with to display the data in the computer to you and to allow you to control that data. Origionally programmers controlled computers by directly entering binary data into the computer through a set of switches on the front...

People shouldn't be tought when to single click and when to double click - they should be taught to recognize the difference between an icon and a button, and that if you experiment with an icon and determine how it works, what else is also an icon and has the same rules.

Are calculators Good Things in schools?

[HMV]

Sure they are...to a point. With programmable calculators that most are using now, one can program all the formulas you'll need to get by that next test or whatever.

But then take the calculator away...the student is lost. We teach them how to punch in the formulas that will solve the problem, but we have slowed down in our teaching of the theories behind the problems. A financier can punch up most any asset pricing model she wants, but without an understanding behind those theories, the wrong model may be applied.

Education in part is to give students basic principals which can be applied later. If those things just get programmed into a calculator or computer without much teaching as to the "why", you'll have problems.

Re:I can't speak for colleges, but...

[gonzocanuck]

Excellent point. What about your library? Do you still have science books from the 50s in there? When I volunteered at my high school library in 1995, I destroyed a heck of a lot of outdated materials. This included books on Jamaica that were hideously outdated and fairly racist, books on countries that were obviously out of date (ie, books on Russia...), some rather cheery books on the benefits of nuclear power and the like. Printed information goes stale. I hate to think that classrooms are using science texts from the 80s still (heck, here in Alberta they are using ones that first came out in 1990 - the Science Directions series Gr 7-9)...indeed, what is more important, a bunch of computers that ultimately no one knows how to use or fix (and that happened at another school I volunteered at) or decent heating, abestos removal etc etc.

The computer room in the schools I went to were unique, usually ran by one gung ho teacher. Hmmm...let's see, I was in Grade 8 in 1990...and we were still using Apple 2e's. Decent, sturdy machines that taught me a lot about computing without a mouse.

I didn't get my own computer until 1996. It's a Pentium and keeps on trucking - very adequate for my needs and newly upgraded with 64MB of RAM. I was in college then and lab shortage space at SAIT compelled me. Plus I had discovered the net and I really wanted access :-)

I have to agree to, not all ppl are machine-compatible. My mom hates the computer. I know ppl my age that hate computers. What can you do? You can teach a person so much, but it's up to them to use that learning.

mixed feelings...

[M-G]

I kind of sit on the fence on this issue. Some of my thoughts:

• Many tout computers as the magic pill that will cure all ills of the public schools. Some of these (such as IBM and Toshiba, as mentioned) have a strong financial incentive to promote this idea. But if we have difficulty finding enough teachers that are even competent to teach the "basics", imagine how hard it will be to find and retain people who can actually generate useful computer-based instruction. Remember all the teachers you had who had to have a student get the VCR working? A wholesale revamping of the educational system would be required.
• What about support people? It appears to be a rarity among school districts that they actually have enough and/or competent technical people on staff. The tech staff would have to be beefed up greatly to deal with this. From that standpoint, it would be best to have the systems locked down as much as possible to prevent the student hosing the system.
• What is the appropriate age level for this? Grade schoolers should probably be content to play with LOGO on an Apple II, and maybe some interactive educational games. Even all the way up to high school, I'm hesistant to endorse the personal laptop even all the way through high school. Remember that through high school, the kids are forced to be there. Those kids who don't care in the first place aren't going to suddenly become interested in school because they're provided a laptop. Once you're in college, I think the laptop becomes useful.

Realize I'm not trying to be a Luddite here. I certainly think that kids should be exposed to technology. I simply feel that it should be age-appropriate, that the people "teaching" the technology have a clue, and that the students are also properly grounded in "traditional" studies...putting together a multimedia report with information you found on the web is fine, but you still need to know how to produce a written paper and use other information resources.

Re:The intellectual model is broken.

[goliard]

Hear, hear!

Meanwhile, all these poor people trapped in these institutions can't be hurt (I don't think) by being given computer and net access.

With net access, they might even manage to get a little education while doing their time. (Presuming, of course, the machines aren't crippled.)
----------------------------------------------

Re:Laptops are only a tool to aid learning...

[goliard]

before you can develop any of these skills you need a good grounding in the basics - basic mathematics/literacy and so on...

You presume the point of giving kids laptops is teach them about computers. Maybe it is -- we really don't know from the information published so far.

But that's different than giving them access to the net. The net is not the computer. And the net, for all it's pretty pictures and internationalization, is still very much about using English. Participating in fora (such as this one) is a great way to develop skills in reading, writing and rhetoric.

On the net, spelling counts.
----------------------------------------------

Re:Good, but flawed

[goliard]

Oh my goodness, all those rascally students, learning new, obscure commands! Using *cat*, looking things up in books in libraries! Consuming precious resources communicating with one another! Sharing security work-arounds with their peers!

Where ever would the net be if we had behaved like that when we were young!?

----------------------------------------------

Re:Keep computers out of high school

[goliard]

Your position may have merit, however...

Most people today don't even know the difference between "your" and "you're" because their spell checker doesn't flag it. They can't do symbolic math because their calculators don't solve it.

*coff* Speaking as someone who taught English composition to HS students back in 1989 and was a docent on the main floor of a science museum on weekends, I think I can say pretty authoritatively that most people didn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" before the age of spell checkers, and most people were pretty hapless confronted with anything past pre-algebra.

Blaming technology for the failings of education is just wrong. Those failings were there (and well documented by much more exalted personages than me) long, long before high-tech came on the scene.
----------------------------------------------

Re:Laptops are only a tool to aid learning...

[goliard]

But that's the point. Most people suck at English (not just Geeks, btw, you should see what suits write!) and that is amply demonstrated on the net. And where, did these people "learn" their command of English? In schools.

But you know what? After being on the net for a while -- not just surfing other people's web pages, but actively participating in the discourse -- people get better. The net rewards good writing. You get more status, esteem, and slack if you write well in both content and form.

What kind of composition skills are we teaching kids (or adults) by constantly posting bairly readable posts?

We're teaching them that people who write poorly look like bozos. A better lesson could not be had.

The English of the classroom is an empty exercise which fails to get "buy in" from the students unless they have some particularly strong calling to the craft. But on the net, written English is important in a viceral, obvious way. People start writing better than they otherwise would when they become not just passive consumers but netheads.

----------------------------------------------

Re:Parents know best, my lilly-white 4$$.

[goliard]

Ah, you mean the way Kayla Rolland was protected by her school -- or for that matter the way her killer was protected from his crack-addict parents by that school?

The victims of dangerous people are often themselves dangerous. Simply lumping them in with other vulnerables is as reckless as it is ineffective.

I agree: the schools are the best we've come up with -- which is why we're in such dire straights. We'd better come up with something better.

----------------------------------------------

Re:How to fix it.

[goliard]

( for example, most parents believe their kids are of "better than average" intelligence, because noone wants to believe their kids are dumb )"choice" is good, but you get all kinds of "races", ie people rushing to the "good" schools. So how do we determine who gets first choice ?

Funny, MIT, CalTech, CMU are all "good schools" in exactly that situation and they don't seem to have a problem with it.
----------------------------------------------

Re:The intellectual model is broken.

[goliard]

[Homeschooling]

takes a lot of work on the part of the parents

I might as well say this here as anywhere, since people keep talking about the demands on parents. Parents aren't the only ones who can homeschool. Grandparents, aunts/uncles, elder siblings, even friends of the family can homeschool a kid, all or in part.
----------------------------------------------

Re:Indeed, ask the people teaching the teachers!

[goliard]

The truth is that even though we don't know ActiveFoo98 and don't care to, we know how that breed of programs work and can deduce the right answer faster than it would take for them to read the docs.

The big difference between Us and Them is that we're willing to play around, try things out, investigate menus, etc. and they aren't.

The real difference is we're willing to risk being wrong and screwing up. They, by comparison, are uptight about exploring the software themselves. They don't read error messages because they're too busy feeling ashamed of having "screwed up" -- just like kids who don't want to know what grade they got on a test they think they flunked.

The bitter irony of this is that, of all the populations I've worked with, teachers are far and away the worst about this: they are the least willing to risk being wrong, the least willing to explore their software. It stands to reason, of course. School teachers spend their days telling other people when they're wrong, and trying to make people care very much about being right.

Around tech support people, they behave like little kids sure that if they try anything, they'll break it, and then the tech support person will treat them.... the same way they treat their students.

A favorite fantasy dialog -- Me: "I thought you said you were a Constructivist? That the student was supposed to construct their own understanding through hands-on experimentation?" Teacher: "Yeah, so?" Me: "SO PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE KEYBOARD AND CONSTRUCT YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING!"

The real problem comes from those teachers who see the computer as competition or replacement rather than as a tool.

Schools are deeply competitive places. That's what grading on a curve means. It's a culture of competitiveness, in which the students are pitted against one another on the criterion of competency.

The world in which teachers operate -- their classrooms -- is a world in which, when two people compete at the same task, one is considered a winner and the loser is punished by loss of status, privileges, etc. The loser is told they aren't good enough, they are lazy, they aren't worthy of trust, they don't meet their superior's approval, or any a number of other manipulative things. It is a world in which competence is only measured in competition.

So of course teachers are twitchy about anything which might excel them in any way. They live and work in a world in which being less good at something means you get the short end of the stick.

Contrast this to a cooperative or collaborative environment, where people's strengths are complementary and excellence is measured in results not comparison. That has more to do with the working world most of us know as adults. But that's not the environment teachers work in.

The idea that teachers themselves are immune to effects of the policies they institute in their classes is wrong. If they pit people against one another, they will wind up paranoid about being pitted against other people -- and things.
----------------------------------------------

Re:Binomial Benny

[Mr. Slippery]

Ideally, what computers can do is routinize the stuff that is trivial and allow students to focus on what's central and important.

Yes, but it's only trivial after you thoroughly understand it. Using a calculator (or a spreadsheet these days, I guess) to do the arithmetic on your high-school physics lab report makes sense; using one in first or second grade doesn't.

I had a nifty calculator-like gizmo when I was a kid that helped with learing arithmetic. It didn't give you the answer to a calculation, but it checked the answer you gave and told you if you were right or wrong. Instead of punching in 2 + 2 =and getting 4, you'd punch in 2 + 2 = 4 ?, and a green or red LED would light up. (Yes, this was in the days when calculators and watches had LED displays. I think this thing took a 9 volt battery. Heck, I used to have a TI programmable calculator with a rechargable battery and a wall wart! But I digress.) Maybe we need programs that work along that line.

Re:The intellectual model is broken.

[Mr. Slippery]

It's presumption is that you can take ALL the children born within one year of each other in a given geographic region, and teach them the same subject at the same time at the same rate.

Is that the way schools work where you are? Around here, the public schools move kids ahead or keep them back if needed, and have accelerated and remedial programs in different subjects. (At least, that's the way it was 13+ years ago when I was in high school. I get the impression it still works that way today.)

I can't speak for how things are in other places, but I got a better education in the Baltimore County Public Schools than I could have gotten at private schools (which were all religious, or military-style academies) or through home schooling (my parents are intelligent, and taught me extra stuff outside of school, but by the time I was in high school I was well beyond subjects they were familiar with).

And polictical indoctination was kept to a minimum. Teachers can be surprizingly subversive - their boss may be the local government, but don't we all know how worthless our bosses are, and love to put one over on them?

But there's not one public school system in the US, there are hundreds, maybe thousands; and that's a status report from a decade and a half ago. Your mileage may vary.

Re:alphasmart

[Mr. Slippery]

http://www.alphasmart.com/

Hmm, brings to mind the venerable old Tandy Model 100 [obsoleteco...museum.org]...

Solitare in the Classroom

[ddstreet]

I had a class some time ago (in college) where laptops were provided (ie. chained to the desks). I played solitaire all class, and I suspect many of the other students did so too...I'm not a slacker either, I got an A in that class, but only because I read the book. I didn't pay attention to the professor at all.

The point is, students already feel like classes are boring (not all, but more than a few, I'll bet) and look for something to distract them. If laptops are in the classroom, this will only distract students, not help. I fully, totally, agree with everyone having a computer (laptop, whatever) at an early age, but I don't think it belongs in the classroom unless it is being used properly. For example, a lecture on computers or the internet. On the other hand, if it's only to let everyone view a certain web page with educational info on it, it's going to be much cheaper to get one computer and a projector (that can be shared in the school).

eMate

[charlesc]

Wasn't this exactly what the Apple eMate was going to accomplish a few years ago? Somehow it just never took off, but it was quite a cool little device that seemed to have promise in the educational hardware area.

Re:This reminds me of a short story I read.

[CJ Hooknose]

You're thinking of Isaac Asimov's "The Feeling of Power." Not a bad read.

Laptops in school would be a good idea if students knew how to use them or had something relevant ot do with them. 50% of the future-PHBs-of-America who go to school where I work have laptops. As far as I can tell, most of them know how to use M$ Office and I. Exploder. They are completely lost when it comes to doing anything else, and they don't need/can't understand a general-purpose computing tool.

Then again, these students are studying for MBAs, so their brains have mostly ossified. Elementary or junior high students would be more likely to pick up on the possibilities. Especially if {Perl, Python, gcc/Cygwin} were available.

Indeed, ask the people teaching the teachers!

[devphil]

Qualifications for posting: my mother is Director of Education Technology for the city schools back home; that means she calls the shots on which hardware/software gets purchased and deployed, and in what ratios, to a half-dozen elementary schools, a junior-high, and a high school (big district). She and I talk shop a lot.

It's of no use whatsoever giving every kid a computer if the teacher doesn't understand computers. I'm not expecting every teacher to be a programmer, but they need a decent grasp of what computers are and are not, as well as what they can and can't do if they want to use computers effectively in the classroom.

Exactly. And the teachers don't even have to "understand" the computer to make it an effective teaching aid. The real problem comes from those teachers who see the computer as competition or replacement rather than as a tool.

(It's either ironic or disgusting that we've had this discussion on /. before. :-)

On a different subject:

Her instinctive belief is that I understand computers, therefore I know every application every written inside out.

That's going to happen to anyone who ever does any kind of "tech support" for friends or family. The truth is that even though we don't know ActiveFoo98 and don't care to, we know how that breed of programs work and can deduce the right answer faster than it would take for them to read the docs.

Re:duh...

[Junks Jerzey]

Forget about programmers. Only a small percentage of students will ever become programmers, so let's not put them before everyone else.

As for learning "how to function in business," come on. There's nothing particularly difficult about using a computer. Any fool that's never touched a computer could just take a junior college course and be set enough to be a receptionist or database entry type. It's not like this needs to be an integral part of education from grade school through college. The fixation on so-called computer literacy is from an age gone by.

Re:eMate

[imac.usr]

The eMate was indeed suposed to be a "Newton for education" -- read about it in this developer announcement [apple.com] (which is about the only place on Apple's site you can still find information on these wee beasties).

I think what hurt the most was the $800 price tag. Even today, that's too much money for most schools to even contemplate spending per kid. Much cheaper to soldier along with all those old Apple ][s or IBM PC/XTs.

Don't laugh - the last time I was at my old community college campus, they were still teaching Photoshop and QuarkXPress on the Mac IIci, a machine that was discontinued before Mosaic was even conceived.

Anyway, the eMate would have been a good solution to the getting-kids-to-use-computers-without-having-to-ca rry-around-a-$3000-PowerBook problem, if it had been a bit cheaper, and if Apple had been more focused on the platform (by the time the eMate was readily available, the Newton division was already in danger of being Steved, which it of course eventually was). Maybe now that Apple is back on steady ground, they might consider reentering the market for this type of machine, something small that can run a mini-Darwin OS, perhaps. Before the iBook was introduced, there were several wild speculations on how it would function (it would have a touch screen, it would fold in half like a writing tablet, it would have a hand-crank battery just like a military field radio, etc.). These sorts of things are unsuitable for a true laptop, but make more sense in something designed for all-day school use. It's also well-known that not only is Apple working on some sort of Palm-like device, but that Steve Jobs actually tried to convince 3Com to sell the Palm division to Apple. Put it all together, and hopefully the eMate will rise again.

Only this time, it better not cost as much...

Laptop Program at OU

[Capt_Troy]

I worked at the University of Oklahoma for 3 years for the organization in charge of maintaining the wireless network for the laptop program we have there. Basically, all incoming students to the college of engineering must buy a laptop to meet that year's standards. Personally, I have a problem with the program...

Many students end up dropping out of the COE and are stuck with a $4000.00 laptop they won't use. Also, many of the professors are having trouble trying to figure out what to do with the laptops in a classroom enviroment. They have to lecture so the students will learn the concepts, so why do they need to bring their computers? Most of them end up typing email and surfing the net durring class. And it also presents a support nightmare... Students came in all the time after trying to install Linux or Solaris onto their laptops... Some spilt pop on them, some got viruses, etc... You can hardly blame them for the first one, it's their computer. But it becomes very hard to keep a standard, and it becomes even harder to support all the variations of problems that come up.

I think it's a good idea who's time hasn't come yet. Bring the books to class, and leave the computer at home!

-capt.

Computers for all?

[toup]

Are they serious? Whatever happened to the idea of having computer labs and just having computer classes for kids? I think that would be just as effective, if not more, than giving every kid a bare bones computer (which is what I am understanding to happen here).

Shouldn't kids learn the basics first, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, before they starting trying to have machines do it for them?

Maybe we should have that 'third half' work on the basics too...

Kiddy Komputers

[DerMarlboro]

A 6-year-old really has no business with a computer in school. Computers are a poor choice as a teaching tool, unless you're actually teaching kids about computers themselves. Reader Rabbit and what-not are fine games for kids. But those educational games are no substitute for a teacher sitting down with a kid and teaching him to read.

If you're going to use computers in elementary school they should be used to teach kids how computers work, how to plug in peripherals, how to use a word processor or spreadsheet. These are things that kids will really learn from. Kids don't learn math from typing answers on a computer. They learn math by study and practice. There is no reason to use computers as the medium for that study and practice.

High school kids need to have a required class on using office software (preferably touching on several packages, and not just MSOffice), and a required class on basic programming. Computers remain a fairly esoteric area of expertise. This is going to cause a big wage gap unless kids get out of high school with a good technical foundation.

My high school did it

[Bastian]

And how did it work?

Within the first two months, over 30% of the kids' laptops had to be sent back to the manufacturer to be put back together because kids would drop them, pick them up and carry them across the room by the LCD, etc.

About a month after that, we had to quarantine the 6th graders from the network for a few weeks because in their warez-crazy fervor they had succeeded in turning our school's network into a hotspot for just about every trojan horse and computer virus known to the computer industry.

For the first semester, we learned nothing in class because the teachers didn't know how to use their computers and each period would begin with yet another session of me or one of the other computer geeks searching the teacher's computer's hard drive for the class notes or explaining that Microsoft Internet Explorer is not an operating system and Yahoo is not a web browser.

After they finally got the hang of the power switch, they went nuts trying to do everything in class. Which only wasted more time. Why? Nobody bothered to teach the teachers how to touch type.

In the second semester, the teachers gave up on the computers. Now, all through the day, we would go to class with $60,000 worth of electronics that was better put to use by leaving it all on the floor rather than having it get in the way of school.

So what DID I gain out of all of this? I didn't have to pay attention in my boring biology class because I could spend the time installing Slackware on my laptop and toying with programming plasmas and such. I learned to program and use linux (see above.) I socialized much thanks to the goodness of being in front of a $2,000 dedicated ICQ workstation all day.

It's been shown in studies (which I cannot quote because I can't remember their names - I'm posting this from a computer-assisted class right now so I don't have the time to search for them) that computers generally only help class if that class happens to be a computer science class. My high school's "computers in the classroom" program nearly sabotaged my education; I only saved it by choosing to learn in spite of class. I think that schools need to realize there is a reason why the biggest rhetoric spouters on this laptops in school are Microsoft, Toshiba, and IBM rather than, say, anybody who knows jack about education.

Interesting

[Peter Eckersley]

Interesting the way you say this. When I hear people railing about how children need to be protected from porn (eg our wonderful Australian internet censorship legislation), I get *really* angry. My instinctive reaction is "How can these people get worked up about something as hard to pin down as sexuality, while advertisers are allowed free reign to mangle the minds of vulnerable children?".

The real problem is that censorship is politically saleable, whereas protecting kids from advertising would anger a lot of wealthy corporations. Politicians don't do that these days.

Back onto laptops - at my university, there was a bit of a push to bring in laptops in a big way a couple of years ago. The reality was that it was inequitable and foolish - but certain senior staff were pushing it as part of their political games. Rather than providing labs or dialin facilities, they wasted a lot of resources on laptop docking points which went unused.

Support, anyone?

[himself]

I'm hesitant about this proposal, too -- mostly because I think teachers should spend their time teaching and not trouble-shooting a room full of computers.
I have a relative who manages technology for a whole school district. Teachers are busy enough with their own lesson plans, professional development, and having-a-life -- without the need to get up to speed on Level 1 Tech Support for the thirty to forty (or more?) kids in a typical classroom.
I imagine a lot of Slashdot readers do or have done support. I think it's fair to say that a 7th grader is about on par with an outside sales rep in terms of what they can do on their own with a non-functioning laptop. Or look at it this way: if you're in a room with someone whose computer seizes up, do you refer them to the Help Desk or "take a quick look at it"?
And how many more people will the schools have to hire to support all these systems?
One of the early Gemini (?) austronauts said the scariest thing about the untested rocket was that "every part was built by the lowest bidder"; who do you think will get the deal to supply these laptops? God luck, Mainers.
-wde

Laptops are only a tool to aid learning...

[StormChaser]

I think the idea of every kid having there only laptop is great - I know I would have loved one and learnt a lot from one when I was a kid - but I dont think having a laptop for every child should be getting the kind of attention it seems to be getting...

Basic computer skills are good for any kid to have and the analytical skills built through programming are also very valuable but before you can develop any of these skills you need a good grounding in the basics - basic mathematics/literacy and so on... I think every kid having a computer will add to the basic learning process or distract from it - flashy graphics might help kids learn certain things more easily but by that reasoning CNN should be a much better news resource then any static web page, and we all know thats not true, dont we?

StormChaser

Re:I can't speak for colleges, but...

[DGregory]

After reading through about 70% of the responses to the article, your post struck a chord for me since it hits rather close to home. I happen to live in Columbus too and someday if/when I have kids they'll probably be going to the Columbus city schools since I abhor suburbia.

I think that if you NEED to have that many computers in a school, the biggest problem is that they're Microsoft based. Schools that can barely afford to pay their teachers definitely don't need to hire full time help desk people. If I was in charge, I probably would've put in a Unix server with thin-clients in the classrooms.

When I was a kid, the first time I ever touched a computer at school were on Apple IIe's in 7th grade. We learned how to program some in BASIC, and those of us who had been using computers for awhile and got our work done could compete in some sort of "Tower" game. (I won :) 8th grade we had the IIe's and a couple Macs, we did LOGO programs (mine was an elaborate animation with birds singing an actual song... most everyone else just had trucks driving on a street) and students could go to the computer lab during study hall and play some of the educational games. (number munchers is one I recall vividly...) In high school we had a couple Macs in the graphic arts room that were used for layouts, and my English teacher had a classroom full of IIe's (VERY old by anyone's standards at that point) that she used for the students to write their papers on.

And how did I, or anyone else that I know who didn't have a laptop strapped to their back turn out, in the real world? JUST FINE. Just as knowing how to type LOAD "$",8,1 on a C-64 doesn't help me now, I really doubt that all the applications that kids learn on the computers are going to help them later, if the reason for having them is simply for them to learn the applications.

Back to the laptop subject, the problems that I see:
1. Damage control (Kids seem to find creative ways to break things. I remember kids breaking their toys cause it was "fun")
2. Theft control (people will steal things, just for the sake of stealing them. Even if you make the laptop so unusable outside of the school environment, people will STILL steal someone else's.)
3. Cheating (putting extra notes that you close the window when the teacher comes around...)
4. Cost (teachers can hardly afford to live and subsist in places like California, THIS is the real problem if you want to keep good teachers around!)
5. Distraction (game playing)
6. They WON'T teach kids about computers... they may be able to double click an icon, just as I knew how to type LOAD "$",8 on a C-64 or plug in a cartridge on a vic-20, but it doesn't teach them anything about the real intricacities of the machine. They are still simple users, and there's no reason why they can't learn that later when they'll get more utility out of it.
7. Vendor-centric. The world is really becoming too GUI based. They know how to click a button on a GUI but have no idea how it works underneath. People will know how to use Windows or Mac or whatever they decide to choose at the school, favoring one vendor over all the others.
7a. And even if they choose to have their own proprietary hardware/software/OS deal on the laptops, how is this really useful for home and in the real world?
8. Forgetting or not learning things they need to learn. Not being able to hand write very well, relying on spellcheck, etc. It's so easy to start relying on technology for things, but if you never learn the fundamentals to begin with, you won't be better off - you'll be WORSE off.

Oh yeah, benefits.
1) Becoming one with technology.

Let's save the technology for colleges.

No! No! NO!!!

[d-man]

My aunt, before she passed away last year, was a principal in a grammar school. I will never forget the day she told me that kids in kindergarten (kindergarten!) were using calculators. What possible good could come from kids that young using machines to do simple math?

Seems to me that the basic problem is this: People have come to look upon the computer (in any of its forms) as a panacea for all the ills suffered by the educational system. "This technology is great! Let's get it to the kids!" Very few people seem to have given any forethought to *what* kids will be using computers for, though. As stated countless times, a computer is a tool. Just as a screwdriver is useless if you don't understand how a screw works, a computer is useless if you don't know basic grammar or arithmetic.

I see no reason at all for kids that aren't yet in high school to have computers. People must first learn basics, and then learn how to learn, before being presented with fancy tools to get the job done. Imagine learning calculus before algebra.

Welcome to Consumerism 101

[BlackDouglas]

Ask any educators (and I've asked several) what, precisely, having a computer will accomplish for primary school students.

They don't know.

They just know that technology is hot, and so they want to look proactive by getting "computers" into the hands of kids.

Certain basic skills need to be learned before a student can even use a computer; a child who can't read won't gain from having a computer.

And what about people like my wife, who can't coexist with machines? She's a brilliant lady with a Master's degree in Geography, but computers and technology simply go bad in her presence. Don't write such off to inexperience or ineptitude; some people simply aren't "machine compatible."

Schools have been buying computers for years -- a time when educational quality has declined substantially. See, it's easy to slap some computers into the classroom; it is, however, *very* hard to deal with real problems, like hostile school environments, broken homes, and a society filled with commercials and irresponsible images.

That's just what these kids need: More advertising, to aid in their development as little consumer cogs. It started with the Coke machines in the hall and billboards on school buses. I'm waiting for for school stores to start "giving away" Coke & Nike t-shirts and bumper stickers...

Most (but not all) school administrators don't want to think, they just "want to do what's best for the kids." Of course, they haven't defined "best", and you can't really blame school officials for being part of a society that prefers greed and banal entertainment over constructive consideration.

In a way, this goes back to Jon Katz's concerns about surveillance and security in schools. Rather than address the serious social problems in our society, the schools (and people in general) would rather take the easy road of spying and blaming.

I don't object to computers in the classroom, per se -- I simply want schools to address more important issues first.

Re:eMate

[mr]

The e-mate never really had the chance to take off as the eMate. And, the eMate may never had made it, but that is why we are here asking if computers should be a standard tool in the schools.

Many school districts bought into the eMate because of:
1) the hard to destroy design. (6 foot drop tests, and it survived.)
2) the lack of hard drive
3) not running WinTel binaries ment it was hard to have viruses propagate, non-school sanctioned programs.
4) the suite of software was able to do base-line school-centric computing tasks.
5) cheaper than other portables.

Jobs killed the Newton due to his ego on Feb 27th. On March 1st, Apple reps were at the national education board and were quoted as saying "the eMate is still an important part of the Apple lineup."

(Huh? Important part of the lineup that is cancelled product?)

Good idea...in theory!

[artemis67]

Sure, we want our kids to be more computer-literate, but laptops in grade school seems like a bad idea, at least at the current price points. The two biggest problems schools are going to face are going to be THEFT and ABUSE.

"Hey kid, here's an $800 laptop...don't drop it and don't lose it!" Yeah, sure... ;-)

Good, but flawed

[stut]

I reckon it's fairly undisputed that kids need to learn at least a bare minimum of computer literacy at school, that being how to use a basic GUI, word processor, spreadsheet, etc., as they'll be unable to do a job without it.

The biggest problem in my mind is that kids are being taught to be computer *users* (set aside the obvious 'it will be M$ software' here), and nothing more. We grew up with minimalist computers: ZX Spectrums, BBC Micros, and the like, and learned your basic programming from them. Which means that we have a generation of good programmers at graduate level.

But now kids are learning how to use a couple of apps, and... that's it. Schools, which are very often underfunded, are spending tens, hundreds of thousands of pounds investing in glorified typewriters. Surely that's not a good use of limited resources?

Of course, there's internet access. Pre-censored, but I could happily argue both sides of that. Lovely, useful, but if all you're learning to do is type stuff into Yahoo and click on hyperlinks, again, you're not learning massive amounts.

There'll always be a need for kids at school to learn whatever communication skills are relevant at the time. Whether that's chalk and slate or Word 97 (painful as that may be). And they need that skill for when they leave. But not exclusively. You still need to be able to write, read and count. But maybe all those handwriting classes can be chucked out the window, and word-processing can replace it. And as you get older, learn some HTML, perl, VB, what have you. And get people into the right mindset to actually build new computer stuff, not just use it.

I can't speak for colleges, but...

[MrHat]

I attend a public high school in Columbus, Ohio (well, for about a month more). In the winter of 1999, our school system (the Columbus Public Schools) allocated some $2.5 million out of the system's budget in a deal with Dell to provide each school with one machine for every seven to ten kids. For our school, this means roughly 70 Dell Optiplex GX machines w/ 500mHz PIIIs and 128MB of RAM. I'm unclear exactly how much of the money for this endeavor came from public or private grants, but I've heard that at least $2 million was paid out of pocket.

We have a Physics teacher (who I respect a great deal) who flat-out refused to have anything to do with the program, turning over his allocation of 5-7 machines to someone else. Why? Here goes:

• The machines came with Windows 98 installed, as well as DOS-based add-on "security" software that essentially renders the Windows shell useless. You can't even write files to the hard drive, for God's sake.
• The internet connection is provided through what must be a shared dial-up line on some big quad-Xeon box in the office. I've seen faster 14.4K dial-up lines.
• Students and teachers are forced to sign a "terms of service" agreement to use the computers, including a clause that holds a person who finds a security hole responsible. The terms warn to "not look for security flaws". You don't have to look: they're everywhere.
• Along with the computers came a print network of about 25 printers. The last time any of them worked was three weeks ago. They have never all worked at the same time.
• Not one shred of educational (calculus, physics, math, history) software has been allowed on any of the machines. To install any software, apply to the board, wait 6-8 weeks.

What's really ironic is that on the same day that the machines were brought in, I counted three major roof leaks in our building, some of which soaked students as they were eating lunch. I've had bad experiences with "technology in the (secondary) schools", but it could work - if teachers had some say in the application of the technology. Our physics stuff could be modeled easily on a Linux-based 386: assuming we and the teachers had control of it.


43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr

This is retarded! Minimize computers in school.

[alexhmit01]

I am a student at MIT. MIT is a relatively advanced school in terms of technology. There are no requirements to have personal computers, nor is their an intention to. We have an extensive system of computer "clusters" made available for students. They are UNIX clusters, and getting them to do anything useful beyond checking e-mail is a chore (I have no doubt that there is productivity software hidden in the bowels of the AFS cell, but I couldn't find it and stick to MS Office on my NT machine or Star Office on my Linux box), but it can be done. Many people don't have computers and they get their work done in clusters.

When I was a junior in high school, my high school was starting a program to require the students to get laptops. I was reading up on the thin-client stuff for a little business venture that went no where, and recommended that solution. Rather than trying to apply busted security to Win95 machines, you actually had built in security, and you could provide the features you want. Instead of people waitting to boot up laptops in each class, you'd have the applications available based upon the User (you'd only have access if you were in the class, perhaps) and location (so you would focus on the class you were in).

The computer staff agreed with me, but stuck to the laptops. The reason? With laptops, the parents had to pay for the equipment. With infrastructure, the school did. You couldn't convince the parents to pay more money to the school (even if the cost was MUCH less than the cost of laptops) because they would be buying equipment for the school instead of laptops that would be worthless in two years.

My brother wanted to take laptop classes, my parents refused. They were convinced that they would be counterproductive, they were right. The school NEVER developed a system to use the laptops, yet the students keep buying new ones in 7th grade.

The First Class P.O.S. mail system drove us nuts, but had VERY rudimentary groupware capability, and it went unused. No attempts were made to develop a real system for using the technology. The kids played games at school, could access a word processor, etc., but it was relatively useless. In the classes that it SHOULD be beneficial, say the science classes, laptops killed that. While the 2 year old machines in the science labs were old, they were setup with the software that was used year after year. Well, now we have laptops. Do you want to tell me how to get all the kids in the class to get the relevant software and everything setup right?

All in all, this has been a disaster, but the school can't admit its mistakes and keeps requiring the laptops. This doesn't seem to have an end in site.

A dumb terminal/thin client system would actually make sense, as you can customize the sytem for the classroom. However, schools won't support an IT staff, so you can't get a MIT style AFS/Kerberos environment, so they won't get a real system. They'll learn word processing and web browsing, wonderful.

I keep hearing about job skills... who cares? Middle school and High school are NOT vocational schools, they are to provide everyone with an educations. If you want to have a class or two teaching basic computer skills, find, we had that in my middle school, do not make job training the point of high school.

Yes, most students don't go on to college. In their cases, it is even MORE important to provide them with an education, as it will stop after high school. They don't need job training. They need an understanding of history, civics, English, and the sciences so that they can be functional members of society. They don't need to be turned into worker drones. If you want to use the computer science classrooms to teach job skills after school is out, fine, it is a good use of the equipment. Do not use school time to teach job skills because the local corporations are clamoring for it. If they want employees to have job skills, they have two choices: a) pay more in wages for employees with them, or b) pay the training costs. This refusal to train employees because they will leave is ABSURD. Of course you need to pay them more after training, but you shouldn't expect the school system to subsidize your training costs... what does that do to everyone in the workforce now? No problem, let the government pay them through welfare.

This is a horrible example of corporations buying the country; NOT education.

Alex

Laptops?

[DeepDarkSky]

I dunno...I got a couple of problems with laptops being used in schools. At the kind of laptop that most of us think of.

The best thing to do is probably for them to have sub $200 web pads that allows the students to save their notes and homework and stuff like that on the Internet somewhere (say if a storage service provider get a contract with an education system, etc.). I think if you are spending more money than that, it's too much.

It's either cheap portable computing appliances (not general-purpose devices like regular PCs) or ubiquitous computing, where the students can have access from almost anywhere. Of course, the trend right now looks like portable (wireless, mobile) is more popular, but maybe in a few years, it will swing back the other way again.

I think that for them to consider it at all, it's gotta be as cheap if not cheaper than the game consoles. Or at least that's the way I believe it should be (not necessarily the way I think it will be though).

Yeah right.

[Richy_T]

When I was at school, I couldn't keep a pencilcase for 5 minutes without losing it and in one particularly boring lesson, a friend of mine ended up with his ruler cut into millimeter slivers

Laptops? Hahah. Kids have no respect at all for their own property and (literally*) less still for other peoples'

Rich

*Literally used in it's true sense and not the mistaken false "literally" of "my schoolbag weighed literally tons"

We have to have laptops in school...

[gaudior]

or how else is Ender gonna kill the giant, and then find the Hive Queen?

The Slashdot view

[Animats]

Reading this, it's striking how few Slashdot readers, very knowledgable about computers, think computers in grade school benefit education. That's an observation worth getting to the mainstream press. orld of information is valuable.

Re:Would you stand for advertising to your kids?

[BlueBlade]

Kids see some of that, and as a parent I have the right to censor what my kids see.

Okay, you warned us not to criticize your values, as you probably know a lot of people disagree with them. I simply have to add my two cents however. You say you won't have a TV in your house so that your kids won't see all the violence/sex. I agree that there is a lot of mindless violence on TV, and that it *could* have a negative effect on kids (It's not been proved). But sex? Panty ads? Now come on, I think you should understand a few things.

When you see a woman wearing only panties on TV, you classify this as porn? Oh, of course, IT'S FLESH! IT'S DIRTY, DON'T LOOK! This kind of behaviour is much more likely to teach your kids a warped view of sexuality, instead of a healthy one. Now when your kids will be old enough to see a sexual scene in a movie,wether you want it or not, they'll react this way: "Oh, look, this is GROSS! They aren't wearing any clothes! And... Oh, they're... they're touching each other! DISGUSTING! It's bad, it's dirty!".

This is a lot more likely to cause problems than solve them. For example, the kid will be a lot more curious about sex, which can lead to premature intercourse, without the child understanding fully what's happening. It can also lead to obsessive behavior. Kids should be brought to sex early, so that they consider it a normal thing of life (which it is). Take a look at what they do in Germany. Over there, children are taught very early about their sexuality. Day care centers accept, to a reasonable limit, sexual exploration by children. Being curious about sex is normal, and this curiosity should be satisfied by clear answers from adults. The result? The child pregnency rates over there are not even a fifth of what it is in the US. Children act a lot more responsibly toward sex, they are less afraid of it, they don't think it's "dirty".

My point is that censorship is usually a bad thing. I'm not saying we shouldn't hide a murder scene to a child, so that he/she won't have nightmares about it. I'm just saying that we should teach children how to think, not what to think. Don't hide important things like sex from them, tell them exactly what it is and help them make enlightened decisions about it.

and democratic societies

[KahunaBurger]

Come on. Just because a job is hard, doesn't mean it's not necessary. The basic foundation to *any* industrial society is educating the population. If the children don't get the basic knowledge they need to do work on things people will buy, then the whole economy will eventually collapse, or not grow, because there won't be any valuable goods generated.

A minor addition - Public education began in america well before it could be considered a fully "industrialized" society. Public education is crucial not just to an industrial society, but perhaps even more so to a democratic one. Without an educated voter base, publc representation becomes (even more of?) a sham.

Educated voters are what we need to produce. Not employees who have been trained to show up on time and use a computer well. And while I am a product and a supporter of public education, there are serious problems in funding and alocation of resources that need to be addressed before we give everyone a laptop. Thats just as much a public relations stunt as the standardized testing craze.

-Kahuna Burger

Computers in School

[Ace905]

I'm Two years out of high-school; and there's a couple things I'd just like to mention about my experiences, in Canada at least.

First things first though, "One commenter pointed out that a specially designed red-and-blue laptop adorned with a NYC logo or something similar would be the perfect theft protection -- since you couldn't sell it to anyone, it's not likely to be stolen.". What reasons would I have to not buy a stolen red & blue NYC laptop on E-Bay? If you're going to wire everyone, I'm sure the thieves will get high-tech too, I know I would. Second of all, what are the odds that these laptops have specially designed software running on them. Odds are they are going to be made for MicroSoft software (I mean, who else in the world develops software right?). If they can work under MS Specs, I know a Linux OS will work on them too. At the very least they will require a floppy drive, and any type of drive access can be hacked. With millions of these devices in production and widely available on the black market, I know there will be hacks available even if they're a $200.00US hack.

Secondly, I've been using computers in school since kindergarden. My mother taught me Basic programming at home on a CalecoVision computer in grade 1, and I've coded in Basic on a home-made Apple 2c, TRS-80, IBM PC, and some entirely graphical workstation introduced to canadian schools around 1988 (ICONs); to name a few. I still remember watching the computer reps discuss the incredible possibilities of a wired generation in front of my teachers and my whole class.

The result of all this? I learned basic programming from my mother. No file reading/writing though, just INPUT A$ and PRINT. I tried to find books on ASM and at the very least file reading and writing in BASIC. To this day, I don't know if any of those old version of BASIC even support it. My teachers definately didn't know anything about it, and BASIC was even removed from the computers. My mother freaked on one of the worst teachers I've ever had because she Had accused me of being a slacker. When my mother asked her if she was challenging me and informed her that I programmed computers, BASIC went back on immediately (she wasn't aware). So 4 more years of elementary school basic were at my disposal. Whoopie. That was when I was finished drawing pictures on the computers for class assignments (All the way through school!).

When I was 14 I taught myself C, and took a course at a local college a year later. In high school my C teacher borrowed my notes in gr. 12 & OAC. A year earlier, in grade eleven I begged to take a C++ course because I was under the impression I was ready for it. Unfortunately my teacher didn't even know TURING, the required gr. 11 course - which was what he was teaching, and I ended up teaching the class when they felt like doing assignments.

I spent my years in high-school [edu.on.ca] troubleshooting network problems in the computer labs and recovering teachers personal files when they brought there PCs in for me to take a look at.

In OAC I was accused of being a "hacker" because after a co-op at the school board computer tech dept. one technician had it out for me. He did some hardcore investigating and discovered I visited www.2600.com and www.l0pht.com regularly (Though I used to show him the sites, the advisories, and check his NEW Win98 systems for security flaws). My Vice Principal heard I was doing something evil, and assumed I had been looking at pr0n, so I got a half-hour lecture on why Pornography is immoral and almost lost about 3 credits for that on top of the implications that I was a "malicious" computer user, though only the term "Hacker" was ever used.

I believe introducing computers in schools is the first step, and that was taken many years ago. Now I think we need to introduce users to the computers; I know things have not changed since I've left. In fact, my two favourite teachers left the school, one become a software developer, the other as far as I know dropped teaching computers though he's the only one in the whole area I know of that can.

College instructors and Certification programs need to be introduced to schools. Certifications that are standards and are not given out by teachers who have a vested interest in the pass/fail rate of there classes. Such as an A+ course or MCSE group of courses taught in high-school which leave students with the opportunity to call Sylvan or other testing centers to receive certification; and make the certifications count towards there marks in later courses.

Re:Pork and advertising

[PirateBek]

It frankly scares me to think that our children might be bombarded by more advertising than they already receive through numerous outlets - many of which they (or parents) cannot control.
True, the benefits of receiving equipment (TVs, VCRs, etc) seem -wonderful- to a cash-strapped public school, but the consequences of signing agreements to bring ad-sponsored equipment is something I'd rather avoid.
For the advertisers, it's a gold mine. Can you imagine the revenue that they can generate by -guaranteeing- that your advertisement will be impressed on the school age market EACH day? I can only guess that the ad revenues exceed what is spent on the delivery medium. Even the networks and their afternoon cartoon lineups of Pokemon and such can't guarantee that kids will see advertisments.
Consider also the parents that would rather not have their children bombarded by advertisements...many schools don't even garner parent/PTA input before signing these contracts.

-From Adbusters: Channel One Advertisement [adbusters.org]:"...Channel One is a 12-minute news program broadcast daily to over 7.8 million students in 12,000 US schools. Channel One describes itself as a "free" service, while selling four, 30-second spots per show at $200,000 each, to companies such as Nike, Nintendo, Pepsi and Burger King."
I highly suggest interested folks visit Adbusters [adbusters.org] and read the sections on advertising in schools...
/rant
-Ryan-

Never!

[WolvesEatSheep]

In high schools, middle schools, etc, students need to have applicable programming and computer use courses readily available. Labs need to be there, and need to be up to date. However, the use of computers in every aspect of the classroom draws the influence away from the instruction and towards the computer. English becomes a spellcheck/formatting class, Math becomes "how to use maple" and not "how to UNDERSTAND a derivative", and I don't know what the heck would happen to PE. Computers are not really even required in college, except for a matter of convience when sufficient labs are provided. I am a student at NC State University, where we learn coding and theory in class, not "How to use this program". Our lecture halls do not have computers in them, and we do this by choice. We are not going with a student-owned computing plan. This is great. The idea is you should be learning the material, not playing with a computer. I highly advocate everyone owning a computer, but computers should only be used in education for computer related subjects (computer science, typing, etc) and the occasionally really cool whiz-bang math or science demo. Computers should not be used in every class every day.

And your kid....

[WolvesEatSheep]

Your kid will never get to learn from the ZDTV either. What a shame. Or PBS (Nova, National Geographic, Scientific American Frontiers), The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, Animal Planet. Hey, my parents aren't scientificly minded, but they did get me interested in books that I did like about that sort of thing. Also, though, I can not discount the TV for sparking my interest in computers and science. It had a huge influence. There are some bad things on TV, but does that make a TV bad? No. It just means your kid is being sheltered somewhat. If he's young, that is fine. But the point is, you can learn from a TV as well. There are many GOOD things on TV, just not neccesarily on ABC, NBC, and CBS. And if you are worried about porn, wait till he sees Blue Whales having sex...personally, I like to watch giraffes :)

Excuses

[Mojojojo Monkey Inc.]

Hmm... I think now instead of kids saying "the dog ate my homework" they can claim "the virus ate my hard-drive".