Laptops In Education
from the Word-ate-my-homework dept.
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?"
Re:Laptops? (Score:3)
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.
Would you stand for advertising to your kids? (Score:4)
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.
Computers in school (Score:3)
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
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
Re:A good thing (Score:3)
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.
No use without teachers who understand computers (Score:5)
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
Kids, Computers, & Teachers - realworld experience (Score:3)
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.
Keep computers out of high school (Score:3)
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?
Laptops shouldn't be Maine's first priority (Score:5)
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... (Score:3)
- 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! (Score:4)
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.
---
Why laptops? (Score:4)
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
How to fix it. (Score:3)
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. (Score:5)
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
Are calculators Good Things in schools? (Score:3)
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:Indeed, ask the people teaching the teachers! (Score:3)
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!"
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.
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eMate (Score:3)
My high school did it (Score:4)
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 (Score:3)
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.
Laptops are only a tool to aid learning... (Score:4)
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... (Score:3)
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
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!!! (Score:5)
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 (Score:5)
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.
Good, but flawed (Score:3)
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... (Score:5)
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
Laptops? (Score:5)
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).
We have to have laptops in school... (Score:5)