Slashdot Mirror
Laptops In Education
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?"
However, I have noticed a tendency (prevalent on this forum) for the younger element of society to use computers for destructive purposes. I can imagine kids not doing their homework because they are too busy having a Quake3 deathmatch, dowloading pr0n, trading illegal warez via slashdot's hidden warez forum or attempting to install minority OS's like Linux and Redhat.
So to conclude, it is a finely balanced argument, and I for one could not commit to an opinion one way or another, until there is more evidence available. I am very much sitting on the fence with respect to this one, even though it is tempting to have a knee-jerk reaction.
More information on laptops can be found at Dell's website which is at www.dell.com
thank you
Bottom line, there's still no need for computers in every class room. Even the universities don't have this. They computer labs. And so should the lower schools.
I know Palm Pilots make a good substitute for taking notes (I have personal experience), but they are less suitable for exams. In fact, most people have trouble using a computer for exams unless it is a straight essay question.
First, some background: I have a physical disability that makes it difficult for me to write things, but I have no trouble using Graffiti, because of the single stroke writing and the fact that you don't have to keep moving your hand across the "paper". I can write nearly 30 wpm on the PalmPilot. Learning to write using the Palm pilot simply takes determination and accepting that you have to adapt to its writing. Nowadays, there are also hacks that let you define the keyboard - so you could use jot, for instance, which some people prefer. As someone else pointed out, there is also a keyboard available. So the input method is not really different between the Palm Pilot and a Laptop - aside from the Palm Pilot gives more options...
As a university student that is unable to take notes, and unable to write exams on paper, I have definitely been experimenting with electronic ways of "doing school". I am a "cross-disciplinary" student - so I also have a ton of experience taking notes with a Palm top for a variety of disciplines - everything from engineering to classics, business to biology, comp sci. to math.
Palmtop advantages:
-Batteries last ~ 5 days, 8 hours a day, during intensive stuff. For normal note-taking, they can last 2 weeks.
-They are small, cheap, and pretty sturdy.
(Mine has lasted nearly 5 years under daily use 8 hours a day. Note: I have tape on the screen where I write - I've worn right through 3 pieces.)
-There are so many applications etc now, that you can do pretty much anything (basic) on a palm top that you can on a laptop. Heck, there's even Linux for the palm pilot.
-Silent!
Disadvantages:
-Small screen. I don't know about you, but when I'm creating content (eg. an essay, long math problem during an exam) rather than copying it down I want to see as much as possible at once.
-Using a Palm top to do math has a steep learning curve, takes longer and requires a different thinking process than doing it on paper.
-2 AAA batteries every two weeks is alot of batteries.
-Harder to get a print out at the end of the exam.
Laptops Advantages:
-Similarities to a "real" computer are more obvious.
-More powerful
-Bigger screen.
-Battery can be recharged.
Disadvantages:
-Batteries only last ~3 hours before needing to be recharged. Normal school day won't cut it. What are they going to do - have everyone plug into the wall?
-Expensive, depreciate much more quickly.
-Screens are much more fragile.
-Takes up more space. The question was asking about an elementary / high school context -> but I'll expand this to universities - ever tried balancing a laptop on those stupid platters? Now think about the ergonomics of that!
-In a test situation, other students hate the sound of laptops (complaints galore). They are noisy and distracting.
Cheating: I don't think it's easier to cheat using a palm pilot than a laptop. A teacher should be able to see if two students are aiming their palm pilots at each other. Also, laptops are starting to have IR as well...
In fact, might be easier to cheat with a laptop. A teacher could require that the palm top is reset to "factory" settings prior to tests. It's much easier to reinstall all apps and data on a palm top than it is on a laptop! And if you wanted to hide notes on a laptop, it's relatively easy, especially if the teacher doesn't know what to look for.
The best option will depend totally on the reason for implementing the laptops / palmtops in the first place. If it's supposed to give the students "computer skills" - maybe a laptop would be better. You could argue that much of the UI for both is conceptually similar. However, at the very least, a laptop would teach students how to use a mouse, and "Windows". OTH, you could give all the students CE (yuck) palmtops, and then the main advantage would be using the mouse.
Otherwise, I've found a palm pilot is easier to use in a school context, although it depends on the course. I much prefer using a laptop for programming or writing a long essay for instance.
I don't really like using either a palm pilot or a laptop for something like algebra, calculus or chemistry - anything that requires significant layout on the screen is a pain and I'm not alone in thinking this! How many people type their calculus notes, for instance?
For this reason, I doubt that laptops / palmtops will ever be widely used for these kinds of courses - there are just some things that take more effort to do electronically compared to manually than most people are willing to put in.
Secondly, the cost of ownership for computer is extremely high. In an average business, the ratio of systems administrators to users is usually pretty high. I've heard it quoted as 1:25 or 1:50, its relatively unimportant. In schools however where students have a nasty tendency to break or abuse computer systems either intentionally or unintentionally, the ratio would be much higher. Stoll suggested 1:5. That would be 1 skilled, full-time systems admin per 5 students. But most sysadmins, especially in the valley make a great deal of money, certainly more than most teachers make. Where is the budget going to come from when schools can barely meet their current funding needs and are doing moronic things like using the lottery money to pay teacher salaries?
Finally, at what cost are these new computers being aquired. Not the money for each new (soon to be obsolete) laptop or desktop system the schools aquire, but rather the funding that another worthy venue is losing in order for those systems to be purchased. Stoll mentioned that when he visits schools and the principal proudly shows off his shiny new computer lab, his first question is, "what was here before this?" Invariably the answer is "our music room" or "our art studio" quickly followed by "we don't teach those anymore".
I'm sorry, but for my money, I'd rather have my kids learning art, music, foreign language, literature, history and other subjects in school. I can teach them to use computers myself.
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.
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.
Tell, where are web pads (let alone ones under $200)? The only things I have been able to find are things like Palmpads. They're still hand-held, so web browsing would be quite tedious (not to mention the price). There is a forum on Ask Slashdot way back on Monday if anyone has real leads. There's many interesting possible devices, especially from the Transmeta announcement, yet nothing reasonable and available today. These companies often go overboard like the Qbe which is an entire computer in a tablet (starting at $4000).
Just give me something I can plug either a CAT5 cable, or better a PCMCIA card (for possible wireless lanning), and surf the web. I don't need it to bake pizzas and clean my bathroom. Keep it simple dammit. When these people overprice themselves like that Qbe, I'd rather spend the money on two moderate real laptops.
I'd say at most a device like this should be $500. But like some in the AS forum talk about, it must be durable enough to stand abuse.
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".
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
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).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
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?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
This was one of the things we noticed when we were pulling a non profit organization (The Open Source Education Foundation). after some contemplation (and other ugly incidents) we came up with the idea of the K12 Student Pad a device that we are starting to develop. The way we see it, it should be about the size of a clip board and about 2-2.5 inchs thick, full color and run a very customized version of linux. It would interface with a new type of desk for in class use and be able to charge and network thru that desk. The other objectives we have are: Shock resistent to 10+ G's, capable of being run over by a Kenworth tractor trailor rig, water resistance to 3 meters, and be able to play 320x240 mpeg movies.
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.
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.
I think it's telling how The Market isn't even referred to as the free market anymore.
--
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
Define educating. The basic foundation of an industrial society is a docile, obedient population. For a long time, the purpose of public school systems was to create obient, hard-working subjects who were loyal to the state. (Unfortunately, at some point it became sufficient to create mass-consuming imbeciles who are harmless to the state.)
Um, back to my point, public schools were designed as a place of indoctrination, where the common values of society were instilled.
Unfortunately, I've lost the reference, but I found an interesting article by a long-time teacher and recipient of several state awards for teaching in the US on the origins of the US public education system. He mentioned the strong influence of the Prussian system, which, he asserts, was founded to create good workers and soldiers so they wouldn't suffer more crushing defeats like the one to Napoleon.
Regardless, the purpose of public schools is not, and has never really been, to educate children in the most positive sense of the word.
--
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
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.
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.
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.
We had Apple //g's in High School. At the time I was there they were just being replaced by Mac Plus machines.
// room and play games, and most of the time the teacher sitting in the room there had no clue what we were doing.
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
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:
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.
--
So, if I were to examine these proposals, I would want to know the answer to the following questions:
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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!
You're very correct, most teachers think of computers solely as tools. Lots of people also think of computers as a subject in and of themselves.
We're coming to a technological/computing crossroads here. It's similar to what has happened with the automobile. There are tonnes of people who consider cars as tools. They don't care about what makes them tick, don't know how to properly take care of or maintain them. They couldn't change oil if their lives depended on it.
Then you have the general knowledge folks, people who aren't mechanics per se, but understand enough to get the gists of the internal combustion engine, what a starter is, how to jump a battery, change a tire, change oil, and aren't afraid to do it. It's taken awhile, but these people are a dying breed.
Then you have the specialists, the mechanics, who go to school and train specifically to work on cars. Most of them really know their shit (ok, there's some lusers out there, but that's normal for any profession).
We're going from having a lower, middle, and upper class when it comes to dealing with vehicles to having only an upper and a lower class.
Do we want this to happen with computers? I think our schools need to use the computers as tools, but they also need to teach the kids the basics. They don't have to be writing software or designing IC'. But they should know the difference between RAM and ROM, the basics of binary math I taught a group of 4th and 5th graders binary math, it was soo much fun! They picked up on it *really* fast, and ran with it. Most teachers and student teachers I know don't know what binary means, or how many bits in a byte, and so on.
I'd personally be much happier with a middle and upper class, eliminating the lower class in this instance.
A note, King isn't going to spend a penny of the surplus on this project. None. He intends to put $50million into a trust fund and pay for the computers off the interest of that trust fund. Don't want people to be confused by this. Also, as far as addressing repairs to schools, the funding for that has gone up, I think 42% (I think that's the number that was touted) and there are other parts of the surplus directoed towards those ends. Of course, in recent days, the propsal has been carved down to $30million, with which to make a trust fund for 'computer technology' in school. That's very general, and isn't that what E-rate was supposed to do? (yeah I know - e-rate was only for connecting the schools to the internet - and a 'not so great network' they're using for it). It's likely that King's plan will go down in flames but they will direct a substantial part of the surplus towards school technology things via a trust fund. Check the latest stories at http://www.centralmaine.com/statehouse/ to see how King's proposal is faring in the budget process.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
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...
Providing a computer to every student and recreating the school system to
use the technology could be very beneficial and could save a lot of money.
For instance, computer systems and their networks are far cheaper then
books. Electronic versions of text book could be much cheaper and more
likely to be up to date. We are far from seeing something as cool as that
in our schools. All those problems that the other readers brought up need
to be addressed. You cannot just buy a bunch of laptops and throw them
to the school.
Clifford Stoll, the hacker and astronomer that wrote "The Cuckoo's Nest" on his adventures chasing crackers, also wrote "Silicon Snake Oil" (1996) and "High Tech Heretic" (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.)
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Well dtp has not necessarily made things better - just easier.
This has the unfortunate side effect of letting any idiot who buys PageMaker think that he can set up a book without any training.
Better comes from artistic talent and design sense. You don't have to be trained in it, but in order to actually produce good stuff in the printing world there is a lot of additional stuff that you need to know.
Wired was, for a long time a bastion of ugly, impractical design. They've mellowed out in recent years though. Having an unreadable magazine can be an interesting thing in itself. But it obscures the message that the design is supposed to facilitate the conveyance of. So if you want people to read the articles too, you're in trouble. Most publications tend to favor the content above the packaging for some reason. Can't imagine why.
In the hands of someone with some knowledge and skills though, dtp has been nearly a godsend. Of course, typesetting work has largely gotten dumped on authors and/or layout. The stripping and platemaking guys are next to be out of work. Kind of sad, really.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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...
Breakage, theft, vandalism. A lot of students in my experience don't care how much something costs. They have very little respect for property. Unfortunately, I was one of them until I got to my last two years of High School.
Lucky they didn't have computers at school then. Bring back mark sense cards and they have to buy their own cards and pencils out of stationery.
My children have only had one teacher who knew enough about computers that I would trust to give them advice. What they know about computers, they learnt at home (except MS Office).
The next most competent teachers were able to show them how to use Microsoft Office. They had no clue how to do anything that was not in the realm that they were taught because that never grasped a true model of hnow a computer and a network operated.
That's it.
Computers at school are a waste of time in my city which has the highest per capita home-computer and Internet access in the Country.
There are some Colleges where there used to be teachers passionate about teaching how computers really work. Very rare to find that now.
Ignorance can be fixed with an enlightened teacher and an open-minded student. Without teachers having a proper model of how computers and networks work, there is no hope at all of educating anyone about computers.
The benefit to the school of a laptop only occurs if the student/parent owns it. Otherwise common property becomes the responsibility of noone.
Tough if the student/parent can't afford one. A "cheap" light, portable with an efficient input method and a low-cost finance plan subsidised by the school "sponsor" (state or private) would be a better allocation of funds if people really wanted computers for students. Still wasted if there is no teachers who can teach.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
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.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
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.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Sorry Becoming a MS Certified tech gives you employement until W2001 and at the cost of $10,000. Learning Linux is cost free and gives the student computer skills which will make him/her employable for decades. Simply, comercial OS's are designed from the ground up in shackle the user and the technologist. Linux and Free OS's are designed from the ground up to enable the user and the technologist. It's impossible to outgrow Linux. Even Fortran programmers understand basic programming technique which carries over to over languages in Platform. A Fortran programmer with A linux PC can take these skills and learn Perl.... A M$ drone can only go back for another 10 grand of training in 2 years when MS forces a new platform. Ruben http://www.mrbrklyn.com
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
It's a troll because it says that only MS software is educational. It's a straight trolling actually.
Ruben
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
I do have some bias, my wife is a kindergarten teacher.
Ahh, thank you.
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...
Before the days of cavemen/cavewomen, people used to "draw" things on the sand.
In the days of the cavemen/cavewomen, people discovered that charcoal can be used to draw things on the walls, so charcoal was it.
Then people discovered that they can don't have to write on cavewalls no more. They can write on animal skins. So animal skins were it.
A little time afterwards, people discovered that knives, or things sharp enough that they can carve into woods and bamboos. So wood and bamboo were it.
Afterwards, they drew/wrote on cloth, then, one wiseguy invented paper, and paper was hot.
Very hot.
Paper had been used by humans for more than one thousand years, believe it or not.
Now, people "discover" yet another new toys - and it is computer.
Suddenly, they think paper is no longer chic.
Suddenly, everybody and their mothers-in-law wanna write/drew/scawl on 'puters, and if you can utter "'puter" in any gathering, you're the "in" person.
Almost everybody forget that paper is still around, and it is handy, and you do not need to carry batteries to write anything on paper.
But who can stop the vogue-ous 'puters?
Now every single school district in the world are clammering to be "post-modern", and they think that they would do their "job" best by providing students with 'puters.
The one thing everyone has forgotten is, computer is a tool. It is not an be-all-and-end-all. It *IS* just a tool. Just like pencil and paper.
Has anyone heard of the KISS principle - that is Keep It Simple, Stupid !
Why can't anyone keep the entire thing simple, and let the students use their pencil and paper?
What is education? What is learning?
What is education without learning to WRITE?
How can one learn to write CORRECTLY when all they've gotten are laptops and keyboards? What people do on keyboard is TYPING, it is NOT writing.
Is this another case of "When all you got is a hammer, everything looks like nails to you"?
Who needs all those "experts" on the schoolboards when they can't even think straight?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
unless we see amerikan schools take a proactive stand on getting computors into the handz of youngstorz amerikan society will be div (or mod) along the linez of techknowlogical havez and havez-nots. This is because, not every parent is riche enough to affraud a laptop for der kids who are studnets.
// Zarf //
Not only that, but some of uz had to gow to public skool and didn't git a goot edukatshun. Many geeks are lost every year too poor pooblic skoolz what don't teach goot engrish or the maths skillz. I am a programming teachur and I see manie studnets who I thinking would be goot geek programmer types who aren't cuz them has poor maths. If only theyed got it in grade school and didnet have to wat for secondary school to get the maths.
-
[signature]
Computers can be used properly for instruction... and I think what is seriously advocated here is the use of a specially limited form of portable computer in the hands of students. The educational material is still central to the educational process and cannot be displaced by technology. No matter how much we may want it to be true, you can't code an algorithm unless you can think it.
... so an OS distribution can be developed for students that is both standard and useful.
// Zarf //
Slide-rules weren't banned in schools and no one is prominently recorded as saying, "We are not going with a student owned slide-rule plan because students should be learning the material and not playing with a slide-rule!" So I think what you are reporting from NC State University about the avoidence of the use of computers in lecture halls is not as visionary as it is reactionary. Computers do have a place in non-computer related fields of education!
If you have lazy teachers, you get poor education reguardless of the equipment. So, placing a computer in the hand of every kid and a computer in the classroom won't save your child from the irresponsible teacher. It can enable the proactive and engaged professional teacher.
I am an instructor at my university, I just recently graduated and during my whole college career the most technologically innundated course I took from someone else was an english course on world literature. This english instructor used his class website and Classroom PC (with projector) far more than I have ever used it in my "Introduction to Programming" course. Although I can't imagine teaching programming without using a computer, I am told I'm the first Computer Science instructor to regularly get computer time reserved for teaching purposes.
My point is, the english instructor used his computer access very effectively to produce and excellant class... I'd like to think that I produce an excellant class using mainly chalk and a chalk board on the subject of computer programming.
So, free computers for kids are good because it allows poor families to get their children exposure to technology they couldn't otherwise have. The reason for giving every kid a laptop is the assumption that computers just might be important in the future... you know... they just might get used for both work and play when todays kids are adults. It could be possible that everyday office jobs will use computers and that even delivery drivers will have to carry computerized pads around with them. I know it's a crazy idea but I could see how a shipping company might use computers to track parcels, or a fast food resturant might replace cash registers with computer terminals with icons...
So computers shouldn't be used in every class everyday, maybe not... but I raise an objection to the idea that computers are only useful for teaching technological subjects. What about a professor instead of preparing slides or overheads, preparing webnotes and showing them in class? How about the professor with an english web-forum to discuss this weeks readings outside of class? How about the Law course using the web for searching statutes? What about the mundane posting of homework assignments to the web?
Computers are useful for teaching all subjects, and I think it is reasonable to subsidize the purchase of custom, bare-bones, inexpensive, standardized laptops for students.
I, however, concede that the technology to realistically put such a laptop in students hands is at least 3 years away, and at most 5 assuming there isn't a major economic catastrophe. Schools certainly won't beable to afford windows, MS Office, and MathCad licences for all their students... but perhaps a custom distribution can be developed opensource for the schools so they can have an evolving standard set of tools to teach with. After all, pencils are now standard #2 in school... who uses a #2 in bussiness?
Billy could then use his laptop to e-mail his HighSchool senior english paper to his professor... and his english teacher can tell him: "Billy I believe the word you want is Condemn... the spell checker recognizes Condom as a word but saying that 'Ophelia condoms Hamlet' doesn't make sense grade: D-, you have to say what you mean... the computer can't think for you!"
-
[signature]
Everyone has added some really excellent thoughts on this subject, kudos to you all.
:) Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but there's a logical extension of an increasingly common phenomenon in the regular classroom--public education in many places is a waste of time for the best and brightest. My brothers are spinning their wheels in high school--both are going to be Nat'l. Merit Scholars and in the top 3 of their classes. They shouldn't have to put up with English teachers making students WATCH Billy Budd instead of READING it.
I think there is a place for computers in schools and curricula, but the application of technology must be carefully planned and targeted for very specific skills. Clearly, with a large roll-out of computers, the best solution is to have an IT professional helping the process along--don't make teachers figure out how to alter their styles to incorporate computer use on their own.
Another issue is that some students will progress much more rapidly with computers than others. What do you do when you've got 5 whiz kids hacking together kernel patches when the rest of the class is still learning to point and click?
When I have kids someday, and I put them through school, I'd rather they learn important skills that they will need later in measured doses AT HOME, rather than in the schools. If they have to write papers for class, they can learn how to use a word processor at home. Ditto for spreadsheets, etc.
Hmm, more computers in schools. Computers as a part of the curriculum.
Careful what you teach 'em, or in 5-10 years we'll have lowered the median age of DoS attackers from 18 to 10!
I can see the headline now:
VIRGINIA 3RD GRADER COORDINATES INTERNET-WIDE ATTACK FROM SCHOOL-PROVIDED LAPTOP, PLASTERS PR0N ON CHRISTIAN COALITION WEBSITE
I think Apple was close to getting it right with their discontinued eMate. Small, extremely low power consumption, durable, and relatively cheap. It also ran the very cool Newton OS.
At one point I even heard rumours of Texas (I think) assigning one to every kid. I guess that program was cancelled when Apple killed the Newton division.
Dionysius dun said:
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 :)
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
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.
Isn't that new math?
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
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
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
Colin Scott If you build it, they will be dumb...
This is completely bogus. Parents don't know squat about child psychology, and they don't have an objective opinion on their kids ( 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 ?
On training and hiring computer-literate teachers. Kids having laptops doesn't do much, if they aren't taught anything useful on them.
Lest you think I'm overcritical, my son was in the Chicago Public School system until a year ago (at the end of 10th grade - he's now in ab alternative education program), and his high school had *one*, count 'em, "computer course"...WHICH WAS NOT A BLOODY COMPUTER COURSE, IT WAS A TYPING CLASS. They learned their way around a computer and keyboard, and then they were taught touch-typing, and spent the rest of the term doing business letter. How may other kids get that, rather than a real computer course?
Let's see the use that is being planned for the computers, before they spend the money to buy 'em. In the meantime...I read about companies that can't find anywhere to donate "obsolete" computers (which would run Lose95, or Linux, jes' fine).
mark
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.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
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!!!!")
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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.
While you're at it, why not throw out the whole judicial system. Tracking down criminals and proving they're guilty is pretty hard too, not to mention employing representatives of the people to make the laws!
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.
Applying this sort of logic from the start would have broken civilization.
Ben
I don't think that that is obvious at all. Public education has been around for at least 100 years, and granted it could be accused of lagging behind the times, but we've come this far with this system, and I don't think we've done that badly..
Of course, there are areas to improve. There are many initiatives to inprove public education out there, from teacher testing (which I support), to handing kids laptops (which I don't support).
I agree that homeschooling generally does better than public schooling, because parents know their children better than their teachers. However, in our society, it is very often just not practical to expect parents to homeschool, due to economic and social factors.
Throwing out the system is counterproductive in the short run, without guarantees of large gains in the long run.
Ben
Without question, public schools do in some areas push a particular point of view on their students. When you have a matter that is open to interpretation, such as history or literature, these things will happen because you have humans teaching. That's just the way it is.
However, there are some things that are fact no matter how you look at them and are important that kids should learn in public school. Things like reading, writing, and arithmetic, and more importantly, how to learn. That's the key thing. If that is accomplished, then it almost doesn't matter how effective they are at imparting basic knowledge. I'd much rather see my child graduate from high school knowing how to work at learning, than have coasted through doing and saying exactly what the teacher wanted to hear, knowing the material but not how to learn.
The indoctrination you speak of is nearly unavoidable in places, but you're missing the point of public school.
Ben
Aren't cars a more important part of modern life? Shouldn't we, by that measure, by teaching how to repair and build a car? If you doubt cars are important, I'm guessing families who can afford are more likely to get a car before they get a computer.
Je ne parle pas francais.
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?
Je ne parle pas francais.
I'm 15, and I attend a fairly well-off public (in the rest of the world, that's private) school. It has 1400 students from 3 to 19, each paying about £7000 (about $11200). Every year, the headmaster (principal) gets about 15.6 MILLION dollars. He's just spent about $5m on a new art, design and technology centre. That gives you some idea about what I'm talking about here.
The school spent $2.4m paying A. C. Cowboy to put network sockets in every (and I mean EVERY) room in the school, even the non-tech. rooms. This was designed to give us access to the school net.
Now, to use this school net, we all had to sign usage agreements or something. This basically said we couldn't do anything. For instance, one student was caught with some mp3's, to listen to while he was working. He was threatened with suspension.
(Our school also has an idiotic policy where if you're caught selling cakes, you get the same punishment as someone selling stolen mobile phones - and we've had both)
The point I'm trying to make here, is that it's not just the teachers that need to know what the technology can be used for, but the policy makes need to understand that there is no need to be totalitarian in their stance. For instance, when I tried to access a site for my Chemistry SC1 (coursework), it was barred. I asked our mini-Himmler of an "ICT Consultant" why, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know, don't care" was his reply.
Also, some friends and I have tried to connect some machines in one (more understanding, more computer-literate) technology teacher, by means of a Linux server. We have to watch out, for we suspect that if the headmaster found out, we'd be in serious doo-doo. Unrestricted access to the Internet, illegal connection to the school net (not allowed - no bringing in your own laptops!). Oh dear.
It seems to me that some schools spend all that money (total $9.6m) just so it looks good on the prospectus!
Also, is it worth it? The box sitting on the wall opposite where I have Biology was used to experiment on the combustibility of network connector box plastic, by the look of it. The others have been broken, cracked, had chemicals spilt on them, had wires removed from the inside by bored students, etc.. You can tell which room you are in by the graffiti on the boxes on the wall. This has all been done by CLEVER STUDENTS while the teachers LOOK ON! They, by the look of it, don't have a clue wht to do with them.
Just my 1.25p.
~Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question.
Who coined the phrase "the dog ate my homework?"
It's one of a few lousy excuses for being lazy. A portable computer opens the door to many more excuses. The Internet is down. The computer won't boot. The homework got erased. The battery went dead.
The problem is, half the time it might be true.
I think a computer is a wonderful auxiliary to learning. But I don't think it should be required unless the learning is about computers.
My first exposure to computers in education was when I was in the 4th grade, in 1984. Mr. Hill thought it would be neat to let the students, 4th grade and up, try their hand at BASIC on the old Ataris. It was strictly an extra-curricular activity. It fed the minds of those students that were interested and educated many others about simple computer skills.
In the 6th grade we first had computer labs, with Commodore 64 computers. We learned LOGO programming. The class was only once a week.
Because our exposure to computers was limited and novel, they had a greater power to captivate us so that we were motivated to learn about them. It is that way with most elective type classes.
If I had grown up with a computer at my side day and night, I would have been less interested in learning about how it worked. Maybe I would have become computer literate on that machine. But I doubt I would have gained any aptitute for computers, or curiosity about them. They would be just another piece of day-to-day life.
Admittedly, this is increasingly common. Computers have also grown up quite a bit since then. I was lucky enough to grow up with them in a way. It was fairly simple for me to start up GWBASIC and write a little program when I was a child. How easily can a kid use Visual Basic to make a program that would hold his interest? Perhaps a few forms and controls are easy enough to build, but what about sprites and sounds and colors (and actually writing code)?
For me, getting homework from the web would be convenient now. Is it convenient for a kid who knows no other way? Sure, anyone can learn a lot from a computer. But if we want them to learn about computers, I think the computers need to move from the realm of the ordinary, to the realm of the extraordinary. I think kids still learn best the conventional way.
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.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
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"
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
Ideal World:
Under these circumstances, laptops would be out of the question as an educational desiderratum. Laptops are tools, but they are tools that determine the curriculum to a large extent. This is not the case with pencils and paper. Laptops would determine the curriculum because students must learn to use the "school approved" operating system. The students would have to be taught how to use the "official" productivity packages. Also, corporate influence would play a large part in determining what content was available online. The students' attention would be directed toward a narrow set of pre-defined options.
Real World:
Given the real world picture, it is probably unavoidable that commercial interest will direct the educational agenda. How else will schools be funded? And once the decision has been made to allow corporate "sponsorships" the school boards are relieved of their responsibility to find unencumbered financial support for their schools. That will make the corporate penetration of the school system even easier and more complete.
But if that is the situation we've gotten ourselves into, then we may as well make the best of it. If IBM wants to give students a good deal on laptops then I suppose we have no choice but to accept.
I'm sure someone as bright and thoughtful as you could come up with some way of improving the system. There is no "system" anyway, just a bunch of people trying to make the best of their limitations.
How about suggesting an alternative?
Think about how much more cost-effectively public schooling would be if school boards just demolished schools and let kids study at home or at the mall or in unsupervised study cubicles.
It's all about withdrawing resources from the commons so that they can be enjoyed privately by the people who really deserve them -- the rich. Having a government just takes money away from wealth creators.
Facts are good, but they're not everything. You need to be able to hypothesize, recognize patterns, classify observations, understand subtext, etc. Education should ideally give students the ability to create or discover new facts about the world rather than just force-feeding them some pre-cooked factoid meatloaf.
I don't quite know quite which Baltimore County you are referring to, but Baltimore County, MD (and the surrounding areas) have quite a few excellent private schools that are neither military or religious. I went to one of them (I am currently a sophomore in college). Now I agree that things are different between the times that we went to school, but you must realize that the public school systems are far worse. I would not want to go to a public school in Baltimore County, Baltimore City, or even Anne Arundel County, if for no other reason than fear for my life. I just tend to have difficulty believing that metal detectors make for a positive educational experience. Furthermore, if we are going to start dealing with issues in education in the Baltimore Area, why don't we try building more schools and/or hiring more teachers? I really don't think that we should be worrying about giving everyone in the classroom a laptop if half of them aren't even close enough to hear the teacher. Perhaps there are districts somewhere where that would be a reasonable suggestion, but I don't see that here. At least not from a practical (read: economic) viewpoint. Also, I think that private and home schooling are excellent alternatives for those who have the means, I realize that that does not include everyone, but the education recieved is far better. But hey, I might be wrong, I have been before.
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..
"A crust of bread is better than nothing. Nothing is better than love. Therefore, by the transitive property, a crust
- 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.
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.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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
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
I just hope the parents and voters in these jurisdictions are whinging loudly about the proposals.
--jas
> My comment can be quoted whenever, wherever, so long as you bloody well provide attribution! >
Depends where you live - from talking to some friends in American cities, it seems like cars are a much bigger thing than in a lot of other cities. In most urban centers, (where the schools are generally rich enough to afford plans like these) there's little point to having a car - it just becomes a hassle, dealing with expensive parking, devilish traffic, etc etc... when public transit is quicker, easier, and much, much cheaper. I'm very glad I don't have a car here in Montreal, and even in Fredericton, with it's complete lack of public transit, a walk across town only takes an hour or two... Maybe investing in bicycles would be a better idea.
You've already mentioned the great debate happening in this arena. The big thing is, either you have to do (i.e. do it right) it, or you just don't do it at all, and stop wasting time, money, and learning opportunity. So many schools slap a big MS or Apple band-aid on the problem and keep on rolling, to the detriment of the students and the budget.
It's mind-boggling just how many people you would have to pay off just to do things right.
There are a lot of good reasons not to do it at all. Computers in and of themselves don't stimulate thought (at least, not anymore), and much could be learned in the time that passes when the average or sub-average student is still trying to figure out how to center text or find their document after ignoring any and all dialog boxes. There's a writing process that basically goes Ponder, Pre-Write, Produce, Polish, Publish. In education, we try to stick technology in any orifice we can find. Realistically, the whole process can be done on pencil and paper---sometimes with a better result---but it's easy to see where technology can make a difference in the equation, if it's done right.
In the U.S., your school and state is going to be graded on the technological prowess of your students. All of them. Some of your students will try to go through life with their only computer contact coming from your school. You can still ensure that they have the skills to:
- Produce a pretty resume
- Pass high school
- Survive in modern America
by thinking about that five-step process. When I was young, you had to threaten people to get access to a typewriter for that last step, Publish. You knew your grade depended on the end result. Of the 10,000 things we try to instill in elementary school, it would be nice if we focused on that one aspect of integrating technology, and spent the rest of the "tech time" talking about, oh, why the light bulb works, maybe even trying to build one.With older kids, it would be easy to integrate electronic research, multimedia presentations, etc., that reinforce the process, rather than becoming it. And even then, so many students will turn to the Web for research rather than the library (when any almanac will tell you the annual rainfall in Zimbabwe in 10 sec.), or even an interview. If your students can't figure out the Dewey Decimal system, Alta Vista isn't going to help them much.
Having said that, if I could burn the building and start over, I would want wireless Webpads with keyboards, and something like Amaya. You need a platform that lets you research and publish. You could take your favorite *n[ui]x box and let students push all they want. With the right platform (StrongARM, maybe?) you wouldn't have to worry about your sub-average kids playing games, and grep would go a long way to finding objectionable content. The admin tools are mature, the end-user software is getting there. It wouldn't be so bad.
HTML is always nice, especially in that kind of limited environment, because it forces the kids to focus on content rather than the bells-and-whistles extravaganza that Kid Pix and Hyperstudio encourage. You don't even need the GIMP (or PhotoShop, et. al.). It's amazing how many great works of art were done with a hammer, chisel, and rock. Limiting the tools forces the students to think beyond the tools, and how to manipulate the tools to get what they want, which is what we really want, isn't it?
You could always go ruggedized WinCE like the DreamWriter IT and add wireless cards, which wouldn't be a bad alternative, plus it really exists. Cheap and functional is the key. There's even some company that does little PIM-devices aimed at middle schoolers, with RF networking, that with some modification (a larger keyboard, the right apps) could be ideal for schools.
Just don't give them the world. If you give them the world, they will expect it, every time. Give them functional crap, rather than dysfunctional polish. Let them figure out what they can accomplish with it. Don't resign them to the world of would-have-been-a-better-collage and eye-catching-analysis-of-survey-of-three-people. Oh, and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance before you make any decisions.
A laptop is only a tool like a screwdriver. It really does not matter which screwdriver manufacture I pick (other than mileage may vary) to assemble a do-it-yourself kit. What matters is the do-it-yourself kit. The laptop is inconsequential because you are still working with the same kit. Give a bad teacher better tools and you still have a bad teacher.
;)
The education system has many known good points and many failings. To date, I do not know of any software or communication forum on the net which significantly improves on the thing we call public education.
When looking only at the laptop as a tool, I say (personal opinion), the sooner a child is exposed to technology the better. My son started playing on a computer at age 2. He is now 4 and can select his own background, install software (if there are not too many options), and work his way through many types of problem solving tasks. He also has no fear of trying every button on the screen that he can find. Consequently, he has managed to do things on his computer which I did not know was possible as a feature of some software. He has a fresh curiousity which will take him very far, something that people lose as they get older. Right now, aside from problem solving, he is learning to master the computer. The reading, spanish, and math software which he has is coming along barely ok. He does much better when I or his mother work through this software with him because while he is focusing on the environment, he can easily miss the "true" objective. He learning also improves when we review the material outside of his computer time.
Without the direct adult attention, he is focussing on what he finds important.
What my first son does with the computer is great, but there is nothing which indicates to me that my second son will have the same kind of experience. All children are unique. So what will be a boon for one will be a hinderance for another. A tool is only worth having if it is appropriate to the task. The task is education of unique individuals--no one tool will work in all cases (but my favorite is the hammer
In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
When someone asks me what sort of computer they should buy, the first question I ask is "What sort of purposes will you use your computer." So my first question is "How are the schools going to use the laptops."
Laptops are incredibly powerful tools. The keyword here is "tool." Unless curriculum involves, promotes, and enriches the educational experience laptops are worthless. However, if learning and education are being enriched through a dynamic curriculum that involves and uses laptops to their fullest extent then we have a truly useful tool.
So the question becomes "How do these schools plan on using laptops." Is it just for homework, is it for student-initiated learning, or for something else.
My personal belief is that this is a wonderful opportunity to introduce the digital age to many who have not experienced it. But, these are the trailblazers and they must do a good job for the rest of the US. This means integrating and maximizing teaching effectiveness with curriculum in place when the laptops come to promote and create value. This cannot be an instance when "Hey we have these tools, now what do we do with them." This scenario will fuel the fire of anti-technologists in education and keep digital technology from the one group that is the most capable of understanding it quickly.
Hangtime
If you continue to think the way you have always thought, you will continue to get what you have always got. - Anonymous
Don't buly the kids to use computers. Let them have fun first. Let them learn to write first.
True, thay need to learn how to these things early, but there is a difference between a few courses and teachers using computers in every damn class without a good reason just because they can.
Lets not forget the basics of educations. Its usefull. Even if we have a hard time convincing our kids of that.
Plus it's still an expensive toy.
Using desktops is even more complicated.
Desktops should be at home. In any case, by "complicated" I meant that right now nobody has a clue how to effectively teach a networked class. It's not a hardware/logistics problem. It's a teaching methodology problem.
A classroom network will have to be wireless, I don't see a way around this.
Why? Everybody sits at a desk, right? Why can't each desk have Ethernet ports?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Think about how much more cost-effectively public schooling would be if school boards just demolished schools and let kids study at home or at the mall or in unsupervised study cubicles.
Quite obviously you don't have any kids. Why in the world would a kid study if instead he can play games (both computer and not), watch TV, surf the 'net, and hang out on chat channels?
Besides you forgot one major function of schools -- it's free (tax-funded) daycare for kids. In a lot of families both parents work.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
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
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
While I agree that laptops are good, schools are good, and laptops in schools are good. There's no money for it. Why no money you ask? Well the goverment (US goverment) has plenty of money, on the order of 1.something TRILLION. It's not a money problem. It's a WASTE problem. Massive goverment waste and corruption. We had this same problem in the early 20th century. Massive reforms progressed in the form of (surprise!) progressivism. Which had goals of ending goverment corruption. Today we have the same problem, massive corruption of the system. It's not that the system can't work. It's just that it's so polluted that it can't. What we need to do first is fix this exccess waste so thouse TRILLIONS can be used for what they were ment to be used for. Helping the people who pay the taxes. We don't have goverment and taxes for goverment's sake. We have them for the sake of the people who live under them. So before we go about fixing schools with laptops (which is a great idea) we first must fix goverment so we can then fix schools and then have laptops.
These are the most important lessons for kids to learn about computers. Having the latest and greatest software doesn't matter because it won't be the latest and greatest anymore in a year or two.
What needs to be cultivated is a fundamental attitude towards technology. That attitude should be that the machine is a tool for you to use, that you are in control of, that you can understand and work with. From there it's a simple step up to dealing with our entire world of technology.
In stark contrast, the constant crashes of Windows PCs present a very differnet message to first time computer users of all ages. The computer is in control. It is arbitrary and will do bad things for no reason you can understand or influence. This attitude is fundamentally disempowering. It changes the way you look at all technology and it is the worst thing you can do to a child growing up in a world that will be increasingly technology dominated.
We need to teach our kids that they are in charge of technology, that it is a tool of their will, not something they have to adapt to. A simple machine that they can understand is the best learning tool for this. Everything else will fall into place once the sense of empowerment over technology is established.
An education is a combination of skills training and morality. Ultimately it's also about becoming as fully human as possible, reaching your fullest potential.
Learn Sing Fight Dance (Michael Simpson)
Labor Work Action (Hanna Arendt)
Are laptops going to enable these goals better than a teaching environment that doesn't include them?
Answer the question then spend or don't.
Yes, if they had known that cat reads a file, or that the | redirects stdout to the stdin of the next command, then perhaps i would be proud of them for learning something.
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.
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.
I remember Channel 1 ... it was horrible going to school at 7 AM and immediately being bombarded by peppy anchorpeople and loud fruit-roll-up commercials. The worst part is that you had no choice -- you had to watch. I say kids are marketed to enough via other media outlets, let's leave schools out of the marketing loop and preserve what little attention span sleepy teenagers have during the day.
I think that the heart of this forum's discussion should not be whether a cheap stripped down laptop in a bullet-proof case or small webpad-like devices should be used in schools. The right question to ask is what should be the place of a computer in a school, and then see what sort of a device could better fill the need.
Now, to my understanding, computer should not really be treated as something special. On the contrary, it is no different than a notebook (paper) or an ordinary textbook. And children have to know how to use them and use efficiently.
It's a shame when kids can't count in their heads and have difficulty reading/writing. But computers (and related devices, like organizers, calculators) are not at fault here. It is schooling system that is at fault: if kids are not taught how, they won't know how.
This has been noted a few times in this thread: if teachers feel intimidated by the sole look of a PC, so will be their students.
If we put computers into school, and give them the proper treatment (read: use them as easily-updatable textbooks, mediums to present multimedia-rich classes, submit homework electronically, encourage well-organized researches, etc., etc.), then it becomes apparent that what one would really want from them (functionality-wise) is not going to fit under a sub-$200 hull. Moreover, you would also want to change the whole inrastructure in the school to be able to match that of the students PC-companion (or shall we call them 'desks', like they were at Ender's school?).
Maybe I want too much from a tool like that, but I think that to really serve us well for the cause, such devices should have:
It would seem to make sense to start not with desks, though. Back-end is more important: powerful school/library resources, textbooks online, centralized storage systems, etc. In parallel, but not as the driver of this process, the creation of a client device (desk) should go. It may well be both portable (notebook to a medium textbook in size, about as heavy) and static (built into a regular desk).
This (gradual) way computers at school (and, as a result, in the rest of our lives) will be an evolutionary change, like parchment vs. papirus or hand-written books vs. printed. And they will sieze to be thought of as a difficult to understand biege boxes.
--AP
The biggest problem with this plan is that a teacher saying the word "laptop" to a seventh grader is liable to get him fired (or worse).
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
i believe that the majority of posters here have missed the point (and i certainly expect the legislaters to miss the point as well). the key isn't teaching with or on the computer it's allowing kids to be comfortable with them. the reason so many middle aged people cannot or refuse to use computers is because they never became familiar with them as children, and at this point, it seems alien to them.
i don't think there are enough teachers that are familiar enough with computers to use them as teaching tools beyond word processors. computer curriculums are also way behind curriculums in other subjects. even just playing games at lunch, getting homework assignments from the web, and typing up assignments on the computers (no specific lessons) would be a huge step toward enabling the kids of today with the computer skills they need. especially in families that don't have the computer at home.
If every kid has a computer two things will happen:
1. A portion (probably large) of classroom time will be spent with the kids running "educational" software packages while the teacher sits idly by, either fuming because he or she can't properly teach the kids the 3 R's, or grinnig like a fool because he or she gets paid for doing nothing.
2. A portion (probably large) of classroom time will be spent with the kids screwing around with their computers, trying to get them to work, or playing games, or surfing the Web or whatever
The American education establishment is already rushing away from actual education and towards mindless warehousing of children for 12 years. This will only hasten that descent. If children are _educated_, they will succeed in the 21st century even if they don't see a computer until high school or later.
I never owned a computer (nor did my parents) until I bought my Commodore Amiga at age 23 and yet I was already on my way to becoming a highly paid computer programmer. Why? I had parents who went out of their way to make sure I was taught to read early and well, and made sure that my education was good quality. Furthermore, I had a great interest in computers and made do with what I could... computer labs at college, etc.
I am looking at sending my kids to Annunciation Academy in Reston, Virginia. Not only do the children not have computers, but there are no computers in the school. The school emphasizes the classical education (the trivium and quadrivium). Rather than training the students to do tasks, they are teaching the kids to LEARN and REASON.
I talked with the headmaster recently and told him I approved of the "no computers" policy despite the fact that I personally am a computer nerd par excellance as are my 4- and 6-year-old children. He said he's got fifth-graders running Web sites, and with the discipline and hard work that this school provides, I have no doubts that these children are years ahead of their peers in public schools no matter how much money the politicans throw at them.
Why do children need something (laptops) that I as a highly paid software developer am perfectly capable of doing without? It's ludicrous!
Here's my message to the schools:
Get off you lazy asses, throw away all the goofy fads and TEACH THE CHILDREN TO READ. Quit trying to replace yourself by throwing expensive toys at the kids and just do your jobs.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do we have any evidence that pushing kids to learn big concepts (reading, calculus, computer programming) helps them learn?
Computers, plus the support and training they require, are pretty expensive. Are we getting a big benefit from this big investment?
>It depends on the class, the grade level, etc. I don't think a computer on every desk is conducive to
> learning in the elementary grades. The distractions are too great, both for the students and for
> the teachers. In HS, it may change, although I agree with others who have expressed doubts about
> calculators and such, in dumbing down the actually learning.
I found myself in the fortunate situation of being in a school that did have computers for the elementary grades(and the curse of having to move right after:}). While there was definitely the distraction of all the nifty toys, we never had very many problems for two big reasons:
1. If one goofs off, one gets behind. One quickly learns to get a good distance ahead of the teacher. Quite frequently the teacher would merely ask where we were as a class and skip ahead .
2. One could only use the computers to help if you could program the neccessary software yourself. No trading.
Of course when I later switched to a less enlightened school, I did suffer a little because my handwriting sucked.
> It does no one any good to train another
> generation of cut and paste script kiddies, regardless of the subject matter.
Agreed, in middle and highschool the classes were ridiculous. When the "head of technology" gets the job for owning a computer and one's programming teacher is a remedial math teacher who knows ADA... *shudder* Of course, that's also why I'm get my master's in teaching:}
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 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 (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 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.
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 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.
The ME plan *does* include a significant sum for teacher education on computers and how to integrate them for classroom use. The laptop program won't be starting up until 2002, so they'll have 2 years to hopefully get the teachers trained up to an appropriate level.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. -- G.K. Chesterton
The other problem of course is droping it/nocking it over. A rarer problem, but a problem none the less.
As a recovering college student, we all know that we were mostly poor..
---
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
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.
First off, regarding computer literacy, I dont think it is right for people to have to become computer literate. WE, the programmers, have a responsibility to make computers people literate.
A writer using a word processor, for example, shouldn't care one bit if he can get the source code, or have to figure out how to make the pronter work. He should be able to open it, type it up, print it, Email it, whatever without needing to ask any questions.
As far as computers in school goes requiring them is a bad idea, especialy if the students' parents will bear the financial burden. Simply encouraging them is worse, giving the advantage only to those who can afford them.
The reasons not to computerize schools go beyond simple financial reasons. For example my late high school years and early college years were a struggle in learning to write legibly after years of typing everything. Anyone who relies on tech. knows what a pain it is to show up at a math exam without your TI-89 to integrate for you. Technology needs to be a force enriching our life, not a crutch we cant gey by without.
Finaly, coming from the perspective of a teacher, people learn differently. I was working through a problem for a program (on paper) and my best friend came by with her watercolor set. After explaining the problem to her (she is NOT what you'd call a coputer person, hates them) she proceded to reinvent Dijkstra's algorithm on my paper, rendered in watercolor. People work differently, and in my experience as a CS person the more interesting ones don't have much use fo computers.
Would anyone who can't think in a way compatable with computers be classified as Learning Disabled?
I think that teachers salaries are ridiculous. They get paid far too much as it is and don't end up teaching the kids anything. All they are is a glorified babysitter, so I think that they should get babysitter wages (and not good babysitter wages, either) $2.00 per hour/ per kid. Thats all they deserve. Also, they should only get paid for actual teaching time. Not for lunch breaks or planning days or any after school activities.
So let's see...
- $2.00 hour/kid
- 5 hours/day
- 180 days / year
- 30 kids
- 2.00*5*180*30 = $54,000
Hmm... maybe I did my math wrong....The most important skill anyone can have is the ability to read. From that, everything else can be accomplished. Even so, it's nice to have a good grounding in how to think critically - that gives a leg up in sorting the trash from the treasures when reading. To those two, add a good grasp of basic writing and arithmetic, and you have a solid, fundamental eduation. Anyone who doesn't have this fundamental education is unprepared for life.
The most important teaching tool is the instructor, who must be knowledgeable about the subject matter and skilled in the methods of instruction. To get the highest incidence of such people, the position must be well-paid and respected. The next most important teaching tool is the book. The books provided to students must be factually correct, up to date, and well-written. The final teaching ingredient of prime importance is the environment: it must be one which is comfortable, clean, and safe for all involved.
Are our schools this way now? No.
Will spending money on computers help them meet the above needs better than spending the money to directly meet these needs? No.
Clearly, the money should be spent on making sure that the teachers, books, and facilities are the most conducive to instructing students in the skills of reading, critical thinking, writing, and arithmetic. From there, additional subjects should be added, such as the sciences and humanities. If money is left over, then some shop classes, craft courses, computers, and sports can be added.
But first, get the foundation right. Without that, there's nowhere to go but down.
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."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
My college, RPI, has a laptop program, and it has proven to me that even college-level educators have no idea what to do with computers in the classroom. Primarilly we use our Thinkpad 600E's for ICQ & AIM (in class), and to save RPI the money usually spent on upgrading desktop computer labs. Tuition does not cover these machines, and tuition just went up another 5% this year, putting it around $30,000 per year.
High schools and middle schools would be better off handing out something a little smaller, cheaper, and easier to understand. How about a palm-pilot, or a visor? For a few hundred dollars, a student would get a machine that would store assignments, write/read e-mail, and could beep students to remind them to go to their next class. :) I have a Visor now, and I keep thinking "I wish I had this in high school..."
My two cents: Endorse a hand-held now. Wait on the laptops, etc., until they are cheap, and teachers know how to use them.
+++
...These aren't the droids you're looking for....Move along....
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
This is primarily due to the non-market provision of schooling. If you want socialism, you're going to get inefficiency and waste.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
You're never going to get equal education, because you're never going to have equal children. Isn't that obvious enough?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Granted that home schooling may work for a very small percentage of the people that go through it, I would never consider it over public school. If you have a very gifted child then send him to private school, but never home school him. High schools do a very good job of teaching children. The best thing that our schools have going for them is their social environment.
The majority of people in this country do not need anything more than a high school education. I mean, how smart do you need to be to be a plumber, carpenter, etc. High school is meant to pump out workers, not scientists. That is what college is for.
What high school excells at is helping kids grow socially. Believe it or not, this world isnt usually about how smart you are. It is about who you know and how personable you are. People who do not purposely alienate themselves in high school have very good opportunities to build people skills that they will use later in life. You rarely get that if you are home schooled.
And yes, I know that there are exceptions to everything I said. But this is the norm, and when thinking on a national scale that is what you need to look at.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
I am posting this on the behalf of vladamir zetzer -- university Professor
for the Dept. of Computer Science, and Institute of Mathematics and
Statistics, USP (Nas Paulo), and lecturer on Software Engineering,
Computers in Education, and Social and Individual Impacts of Computers.
he has presented a research paper entitled, "A REVIEW OF ARGUMENTS FOR THE
USE OF COMPUTERS IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION"
the full paper is available at:
http://www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer/review.html
--| an exerpt |-----
We have no doubt that computers accelerate children's development. This is
quite clear to us: forcing a virtual setting, a formal language (when
issuing or choosing commands to any software) and a logic-symbolic
thinking, computers force children and teenagers to physically and
mentally behave like adults. It is absolutely non-natural for a child to
sit on a chair for long periods of time, if the child has no possibility
of imagining, innerly fantasizing (this would happen while hearing a fairy
tale, for instance). As with TV, educational software full of images leave
no space for inner imagination. In fact, we conjecture that the capacity
for forming inner mental images is damaged by the use of such software.
Note that if this software is not rich in images, and consists essentially
of texts, it will be so boring to a child or adolescent that it will not
be used at all.
The acceleration of a gradual mental and psychological development, making
the child innerly and outwardly behave like an adult, is in our opinion
the worst influence exercised by computers. Obviously, we are of the
opinion that there is a proper timing for every development in children
and young people. Any undue acceleration produces some damage; in
particular, we think that early intellectual activities tend to steal from
the child her childhood, necessary for a balanced development, which
should encompass physical, psychological, artistic, social and
intellectual aspects. In this sense, we extend to any kind of computer
usage Neil Postman's fears for the disappearance of childhood [4], which
he concluded mainly from examining the impact of communication media. So
pattern (e), which is praised by many authors, Papert in particular, is
for us a counter-argument for the use of computers in education. Papert's
position is absolutely clear, as in his following statement:
"The image of children using the computer as a writing instrument is a
particularly good example of my general theses that what is good for
professionals is good for children." [2, p. 30]
That is, in our opinion he does not recognize some essential differences
existing between children and adults. He also does not see the damage one
can do to children when they are handled as adults. His argument (6) seems
astonishing: behaving like psychologists and mainly epistemologists puts a
child into a clear adult state of consciousness.
Make it tough but not too tough. The students would have to write their own startup script to go beyond the command prompt to start the Windowing agent. This script would have to be configured to optimise it. When you get to the point where they want to browse the web then they again have to write the script to get the browser running and the appropriate clients running and communicating with the host. They wouldn't be learning full-fledged programming but at least garnering some understanding for how the computer functions.
Calculators as far as I can see were a complete failure when integrated into the gradeschool. There is an entire generation of graduates who can't do simple math without going to a calculator. Calculators have taken much of the "feeling" or "tangible perception" out of mathematics. Handing over mega-user friendly computers to every student could be even more harmful. Where the only thing involved in using a computer is hitting the power button and clicking the mouse a couple of times there is little knowledge gained and a complete lack of understanding about how computers work and how the internet/networking works (not to mention where all the information on the internet comes from). Without a tangible understding of computers people often thing of computers as magical black boxes that seem extremely fragile and cryptic.
That said, if I were to choose a computer setup to hand over to these students to enhance their learning experience it would be something like this: A laptop case with a 10 inch LCD preinstalled. Motherboard with integrated sound and video custom that is screened with colorcoded descriptions for each component (see that area in red, that is where the video chipset is), CDRom, hard drive and the rest of the basics. Make the operating system a variant of Linux or Mac OS X to keep the costs down. Heck, maybe even offer incentives to top students for upgrades that they can add/install to the laptops.
I go to a highschool that requires laptops and I must say it has many benefits, but many problems too. I first should say that it is a private boarding school, so the bill for them is footed by the parents. It is very nice to be in a place where a teacher can easily do a more modern project with computers for a class because everyone has one. Unfortunately, my school chose Macintoch as thier platform, and since they are so unreliable there is enevatably someone in a class who does not have their computer working at the moment. This turns what should be a wonderful learning tool into more of a hinderance than a help. Adding to the fact that many of the teachers know less than the students about computers, few of my classes actually use them. I was one of the students in charge of fixing people's computers when they break, so I knew how often they actually did break. I think that laptops in schools are a great idea, but I don't think they are yet feasible in reality.
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 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.
To make matters more interesting, once they did start to put together a "technology curriculum" the actual things that the kids did was still heavily focused on learning an office suite, keyboarding, and safe surfing. There was largely a focus on skills as opposed to looking at how to change teaching methods or classroom environments. All of the money and all of the PR makes the parents feel good, which makes the board feel good, which makes the administration feel good, which is about all that really matters at the end of the day.
Some suggestions:
- People in the community should stand up and ask their schools and school boards on what basis they are purchasing technology. This is something that the open source community could actually do well. This is also something that someone like CPSR could/should do.
- People should take in interest in how their districts are supporting the use of technology. The mentality in many administrations is that parents want to buy boxes but they do not want to spend money on tech support. Do you see curriculum developers in the picture? Often tech support staff is quite thin, and developers are not even part of the picture. By making it known that the community thinks that this is an important part of their original hardware investment administrations will not feel so shy budgeting for such things.
- This is almost a whole seperate issue, but people need to start letting schools know that a lot of these "free" services make their buck on the backs of the students. Not only the advertising, but in the data that they collect on student habits (I am thinking ZapMe here). Parents do not understand how valuable this information actually is and how easily many schools are giving it away.
- Which brings me to a final point that someone made somewhere else recently and I would give attribution if I could remember. As long as schools expect everything for free or at a deep discount, it will discourage the entry of small or innovative developers into the market. Just something that I felt I had to add because this is a followup to "jas" the developer.
That's enough steam for today. Back to trying to make a difference.--chris
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:
Instead, I want to hear this on the first day:
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.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
A red and blue NYC embossed laptop would be perfect theft protection, becuase it would plainly be stolen, and no one would buy it?
Where does that guy come from?
He needs to get on the radio and tell all the NCY people
"Hey, crack, pot and herion are illegal, don't buy them"
How naive.
George
Just think about it -- a new generation of slashdotters, all of whom had received all of their education and information, from slashdot! I reckon it would only take two or three generations before dissenting opinions had been completely removed from society, which would be double plus good.
Come on, admit it. Wouldn't you love to have a job where you digitally removed enemy-of-the-state Gates from all past histories?
George
Why do people think that throwing PC's at the school system will produce better students?
;-), the simple way to fund this is to eliminate all high school sports with the exception of intramurals. With the money saved by not buying uniforms and the income from the sale of stadium facilities, we could realize a substantial amount of useful revenue.
Bonus Question: If children can't read, when all else fails, how will they read the instructions?
Seriously
Corporate sponsership of a web portal? That's a wonderful idea that the Pinkerton bunch should be working on right now. Imagine all the time and energy that could be saved if the WAVE program could be accessed directly from the classroom or, even better, if we track the little tykes cookies to see where they're really going on the ether and follow up those demonstrating dangerous tendencies right then and there (Billy - the principal would like to see you - right now!!).
We have met the enemy and he is us - Pogo (Walt Kelly)
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.
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.
- 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.Now you can have them do some really neat stuff with technology. One project we've been having our intro students do (I think) is quite interesting. We have students aggregate scientific data across multiple sections. This allows us to have: (1) a good rationale for using technology to analyze data (you have 600 records, after all); (2) each group of students do something novel that is worth presenting about; and (3) students address fairly complex problems with subtle effects (that you need a large n to observe). I will argue to anyone that this is an excellent use of technology in education: this mirrors what these students will really do in the 'real world' if they go on to become scientists.
We also have students work with 'practice test' software. I was reluctant to write such software, but at least I did it on my own terms. We have worked very hard to avoid 'drill and kill' software, which so many course management systems are eager to promulgate.
I think the larger and scarier issue is that the course management software producers are entering into agreements with publishers that will result in huge pressure on faculty to pick-up and use these systems which greatly limit and 'dumb down' the web publishing opportunities. They are mostly proprietary too (although the IMSproject gives some hope for open standards and there are some interesting open source alternatives like learnloop) and may convince administrators that all that is needed for an introductory course is a 'techie' and a course management system. (I personally believe the introductory level is where you need the most help and support -- not the least).
The biggest danger is this: faculty are being convinced by these companies that they need to produce web materials that 'look' as good as published materials. For the information revolution to be democratic, educators need to be encouraged to continue to learn to author simple materials by themselves. We didn't feel self-concious to produce a course pack of photocopies and dittos. Do it yourself! Don't let them lock it up in a proprietary, password-protected course management system! Keep it open!
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.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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!?
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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.
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.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I am a freshman at the University of Denver, which I realize is a college and not a primary school, but. Starting this year, all freshman were required to bring a laptop. All the professors went through a two quarter training program on how to integrate the laptops. So how did it turn out? Pitifully. A lot of people I know have never taken their laptops out of their dorm rooms, I've never been in a class where your laptop has been required, and the closest thing I've done to a fancy multimedia program was a stupid alcohol awareness CD-rom at the beginning of the year that has since been thrown out. Even in the computer science department, the laptops are never used. Most of the classrooms in the CS building aren't even networked. And next year, the requirenments for a laptop are outrageous compared to what will actually be used. True DU does have a few articles on their laptops and learning page as to how laptops are beeing used in the classroom, but these are few and far between. So, it basicly boils down to the fact that a lot of students waisted a lot of money on technology they'll never use at least to its full potential. And I do consider the majority of the facalty here more computer literate then the facalty at my high school. My point, if this is how this stuff is beeing used in college, imagine what will happen at the high school and especially elementary level. On another note, are we sure that a seven or eight year old can understand what the word fradual means as far as computers go? I know when I was little I tended to break things.
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).
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.
"So many ways to skin a cat, and still everyone uses a great big knife."
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.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
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.
It looks like the Maine govenor is really blowing it big, if he goes to blow the surplus on computers first, before fixing their own education system itself....
:)
:)
But, if implemented correctly, this could work.
But, the state/city/WTF-ever, can't pay for all of it.
How do we know that us students are gonna take care of these things...
I'd say, for a fee of $100, to get a nice, really rugged, laptop for students to do their work, provided by the education board, WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS!!!
Because, the only thing I hate, is not having the sysop/root password to my machine I blew $100 for, and not being able to put more productive apps on the machine.
I'm the student sysop for my school, Cleveland High School, and we have a program that loans out restored computers to other students, with everything it needs. (486's and up, of course. Nothing goes out that I can't install Linux on, dammit!
But, again, if implemented right, it could have some great benefits. It just wouldn't work for Math class tho
The only societable problem I see is the 'have/have-nots' to this. (Altho, if people around my part of the city can go and blow $500-fucking-bux on shoes, they sure as hell can get a $100 laptop, no?)
The systems in my mind, are not the highest end, a P-233 with 2GB HDD and 32MB RAM, 14.1 TFT, FDD and CD, and its all good to go. (I've seen this kind of dream system sold for $600-$900 around here)
Whee. Maybe its time for me to shut up,
Blessed Be! --"LEVIATHAN"
They didn't help. Mostly, they were ignored.
If we're going to use computers pervasively in the classroom we need to use them as information resources -- modern textbooks -- not full-blown computational systems. It's just not cost-effective to give general-purpose systems to everyone.
When I was in high school in the early 80s the history books were printed during the Korean War. I didn't learn about Watergate until I was a senior (1984) and it's not like I was taking the basketweaving classes. Twenty year old textbooks were the norm! They couldn't afford to replace the textbooks more often than that.
Given that this is the case, any electronics in the classroom have to have economic benefit or it will simply not happen on a broad scale.
It's not real hard for me to see some possible economic incentive for giving everyone a $50 electronic book and having them download their textbooks. With publisher subsidies (and there are some good economic reasons why they might be willing to subsidize) these devices could break the $20 mark at the consumer level within five years. There are already workable readers selling for under $100 today so I think this is very achievable.
Since most of the cost of a textbook is in printing and shipping the end cost of outfitting a student with all the necessary texts would drop by an order of magnitude, enough that they could have up-to-date textbooks and still save the school money. And the publishers would have better margins, too.
Now, I can believe that there would be some value to the flexibility of a laptop or other general-purpose unit, but let's be realistic here. Public schools are driven primarily by cost and secondarily by benefit. If information technologies can reduce costs as well as provide benefit they'll go with them; if not, they'll keep using ancient texts.
jim frost
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Put together a non-profit organization funded by various grants that collects PCs headed for the scrapheap from local companies. Rebuild them and throw free software on them (perhaps advertising funds can be collected from free software vendors like RedHat or *your fav for-profit distro here* can be added). Those PCs can be distributed to students whose families can't afford them. Crash course training on the basics (word processing, web browsing) can be provided by local LUG volunteers or some such nonsense.
Okay, in come some "Save the Kids" ninny pansy motherfuckers. FILTER FILTER FILTER, SUE SUE SUE. Anyway, giving directly to the kids isn't gonna work. So, provide applications throughout the community for ADULTS to sign up for the things. Criteria can include income AND children/age of children plus other junk. Training still provided. Kids get computers at home. Schools are off the hook and can spend their money in better places (leaky roofs, yada yada).
Then the computers break. Support must be given. During this whole process you can bring in people (the same people that go to night school and pay for this kind of education) offer to teach them the stuff they want to know to get Tech Supportish jobs in exchange for them supporting the free PCs.
This is a very condensed version of a proposal I'm trying to put together for my community to get some grants and get off the ground.
Hey, it could work!
Lib.BENCH the only site you'll ever need!
Are we going to teach these students how to use the computers or just the programs? 'Cause at the college I go to we are offering classes on-line, but don't teach the student a darn thing but how to follow simply step. Heck they don't even teach you how to do the class work off the computer any more, just how to follow supposedly simple steps (not). To make it even worse they fired all the teachers who knew anything about these course. So I ask again are these schools going to teach how to use the computers or just the programs like my stupid college did. Or even worse following in my colleges' example and fire all teach that knows anything about whatever class they are putting on-line.
Oh in case u'r wondering I'm looking for a new college to go to.
When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to reform. --Mark Twain
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.
When I went to school the question was about calculators.
A lot of the most inovative software has been writtin by very young people. Their minds are more open.
Every kid needs a computer while in school. Some kids need it to learn how to function in bussiness and some kids need it to write the next generation of software that makes bussiness function.
AdFuel
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...
-toup
The danger with programs of this type is that there is a perception that computers are going to be some magic panacea for all the ills of the educational system. Clearly this is not the case. Computers can be a supplement to education, but they can never be a replacement for actual hands-on experience, or the kind of direction that you can only get from face-to-face interaction with the teacher.
-y
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
Give each kid a floppy (50 cents a piece in bulk?) with one of the micro-linux distributions. They can boot up whatever machine they can find lying around and have a better crack at the future than we did.
:)
The advantages of being a parasite are that the upgrades are free.
Actually, those are both very valuble things they could learn...
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.
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 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.
Fixing copyright
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? Good luck, Mainers.
-wde
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
I used to work for a certain company that makes educational software and management systems for K-12 schools.
I really thought we were helping kids and improving the state of the world.
Then I visited a few classrooms.
And in every case, it was used for glorified babysitting. And not very good babysitting, at that; the teachers are untrained, the hardware is uniformly awful, the networks are worse. I recall a lab in an elementary school where during a single class (40 odd minutes, of which at least 10 are pissed away marching kids in/getting them to sit/logging into the network/etc) over half of the PCs locked up. I (as a representative of the company that was providing the software, and as a human being) was utterly appalled. The teacher's response? "Oh, yeah, that happens. We just have the kids hit the power button". What the hell were those kids learning? How to hit Control-Alt-Delete (actually not a bad trick for a grade schooler)? But nobody cared, because they were quiet.
Did I mention that this software cost at least six figures? Never mind the hardware? And it wasn't just the particular company I worked for, either; we were honestly better than the competition (which, by the way, finally bought the first company in order to bury the superior (though still crappy) product).
Let's just say that my kid will be going to private Catholic school, even though I have no love for the Catholic (or any) religion. And if I ever find out that they are budgeting for PCs when there's one decent teacher out there looking for a job, I'll be at the school board meetings screaming.
I think laptops in school are great.
;)
I bought mine when I was just turning 16, a sophmore in high school in highschool. It was a ThinkPad 385XD, and I couldn't afford a car because of it. The teachers all loved it. Finally, someone could use class time productivly if the computer labs were not available (in Philadelphia, this happens fairly often). I was happy with it because I didn't have to lug home textbooks and use home time for home work. I could do more important things.....like slashdot.
I ended up using it almost all my junior year, and installed Linux on it. Works great, sans for hibernation mode. The battery will last 6 hours on a good charge (barring excessive daemon loading, or CDROM use, I think it has to do with more effecient disk access by Linux).
Senior year it was a lifesaver. As the other kids struggled with powerpoint for Senior Project (the big 10+ page paper due at the end of the quarter or you don't graduate), I used StarOffice to prepare my presentation and then borrowed a LCD projector from down the hall to present it with confidence that PowerPoint wouldn't crash. Senior Project, was of course, on Linux, and the speech actually had some hands on when one of the people asked about "open source". They thought it was rather amusing to change words and such in a few text only games I had sitting around.
The schools really SHOULD get laptops. They give the kids a chance to have a computer of their own. (What use is a computer only at school if the kid lives in a rowhome and doesn't have a computer himself? How is s/he supposed to learn how to use Windows on the macs at school? How is he supposed to learn the nuances if s/he cannot spend significant time on it messing around?)
The issue of stealage is a problem, but as proposed, if you make the laptop the obvious property of the school, it's hard to move. The issue of breakage can be addressed, too. For a price, laptops nowadays get a spiffy black case and some padding inside. The ThinkPad 385XD I have uses a solid black (plastic) case with re-inforcements inside to retain it's shape. It still works after all that time. It even survived a few upgrades and drops along the way.
It's not impossible, and to pinch pennies is senseless. Who cares about banner ads on the portals of education if we have Coke machines lining the halls?
--Joshua
"If it is broken, fix it. If it is fixed, improve upon it. This becomes one helluva cycle."
- Much much less expensive - you'd only need a very low-powered laptop for it to be useable, and software is practically free.
- Likely to be much more useful to them in the future - knowing Linux makes you far more employable now, so what's it going to be like in 10 years?
- If you don't give them root access, they can't fsck them up.
- Far less games - I know, I know - I'm not against kids playing games, just trying to see it from their teachers' perspective.
- Less potential for 'computer crashed & ate my homework' excuses
;-)
Of course, you'd have big problems teaching kids how to use it; but, hell, if you'd given me a computer that just ran vi when I was a kid, you can bet your sweet ass I'd have used itKids do need to be proficient end-users with computers. To this end, they do need to have computers made easily available to them. Does this justify the expense of providing them with laptops or putting desktop pcs in their homes?
We could stand to spend a lot more money on our educational system. Not least of all, teacher salaries have to be substantially increased before the incentive (monetary and status) to become a teacher begins to attract our best and brightest.
I don't have specific figures, but I now that education majors in colleges right now tend to have the lowest academic qualifications (standardized test scores, et cetera). That indicates that we are attracting the opposite of what we desire in our teachers.
Computers are tools which can facilitate learning. The most essential and basic computing skills are not difficult to learn, especially for young people, and especially at the level of proficiency they need.
Let's be careful to put our resources where they are needed.
I'm in tenth grade, and I just got a laptop for school about a month ago... I now look back on the time before like the dark ages. I take notes on it, type my assignments (having almost illegible handwriting), and just about everything else too. It's bascially become a necessity for me. It also gives me plenty of stuff to do when I'm bored...
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
I think that computers and education are a good mix, but I don't think that just because people have heard they go together well, that purchasing computers should be mandated upon students. For example, the university that I attend, the University of Oklahoma, recently started a laptop program for all Engineering students. During my freshman orientation, the faculty spoke of how purchasing laptops would be soooooo beneficial to all engineering students, espically since so many courses were going to become laptop only courses. So, like a good little student I went out and bought my laptop from where they told me, the university computer store. Now I didn't particularly want to get a laptop since I already had a desktop, but I couldn't say no. Well once I had spent $2000+ on a decent laptop, the engineering college then informs all of us that we have to also get wireless network cards for our computers. Well, this wasn't much of a problem since they would loan them out. So I get a loner... Well the next semester, they decide that they can't afford to loan out cards, so now it has been mandated that all engineering students have to BUY them. They are $350 bucks. Great, more money sucked away. Well, now that I've gone through my freshman year, you know how much I use that laptop that I was *required* to purchase? Never. The last classes I used it in was a laptop section of English 2 and the 2nd semester programming course (java). It's been about a year now, and none of the other computer science courses that I've taken have even been in rooms with the wireless network!
I hate having to waste ~$2350 that I could of spent on other educational expenses.
nemoest
-----------------------
No matter how fast light travels it finds
the darkness has always got there first,
and is waiting for it.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)
I think before we get ahead of ourselves and offer the children all these technologies, we need to work on the basics and build a firm fondation. The reason kids in US are so inferior in math skills these days is that they are weak in their arithmetics and rely heavily on calculators. Eons ago when I moved to the US when I was around 10. I was a C-B student. I started junior high here in US and instantly I'm way beyond anybody in my grade and I'm the top of the class and a straight A student in math. I can do algebra while they are still trying to figure out fractions. That is just rediculous. The sad thing is that I used calculators so much in highschool and college that I can barely add up my tips at a resturant. :P See the correlations here? Personally I don't really see any use for laptops in grade school at all. Yes the world is becoming much more technology oriented and kids need to adapt, but without strong basic skills, you really can't get anywhere these days unless you want to work at McDonalds all your life.
Public schools have been politicized, unionized, legalized, bureaucratized, professionalized, socialized, massified,
All attempts at reform so far have merely enhanced these undesirable traits, and have NOT increased children's knowledge and intellectual capabilities. I don't know of examples of institutions which have been reformed (reduced any of these dimensions) after having been so degraded.
In any case, the public school system is merely another attempt to design an economy/social system, none of which have worked, none of which can possibly work.
Use/disuse of personal computers has nothing to do with these fundamentals.
Therefore, this discussion is yet another distraction from the required reform: tear it down and let the market fix the problem.
Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
I am finishing up my undergrad at an engineering school that instituted a "Laptop Requirement" for all incoming freshmen this year. The result was the lowest fall and winter GPA's the school has seen in a a freshmen class in over 10 years!! A large percentage of the freshmen class use the laptops for IRC/AIM chat or web browsing during lecture when they should be paying attention. I'm not in any way against manditory laptop requirements....just limit the network connectivity in lecture halls.
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.
:) 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.
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.
Before we give students laptops we should give them to teachers and get them up to speed by running the school on the network for a couple of years. The computer is supposed to be a management tool so let's have class managment software that keeps the daily statistics and sends them to school managment software on the school's server that then compiles the school's statistics and sends them to the district office. Have teachers compile a huge database of lesson plans and resource files that cover every subject and use the system to track which ones yeild the best results. Then have the lesson plans' authors develop the text "book" for that subject. At this point, 3 or 4 years in you are ready to effectively give kids a computer of their own and end the use of textbooks. This would go a long way toward paying for the computers.
To deter theft put a little utility in the rom that reports the ip address to the cybercops every time it logs on.
About a year ago at the end of my junior year of highschool I was tested and diagnosed with ADHD at my own request. One of the suggestions made was that I have a laptop in class to make my notes considering I type much MUCH faster than I write by hand. I will be getting my own laptop soon as a graduaction gift, but have used one in class at various times and besides that added advantage of being able to listen to the teacher and blindly type at the same time, I also have access to various cd-rom encyclopedias and whatnot. My school also has a DHCP server, allowing me to plug-in and access the network and all my c++ files in apcs class. There is also the added bonus of taking mp3s with me and playing Half-life between class, but hey, I'm just in it for the education ;)
-- From my Best Friend (Written to me over ICQ): "i was gonna go to a party...but i had to reinstall windows"
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.
Unix: Where
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.
When I was a junior in high school, and was first exposed to academic computing, the first thing any student had to do was learn machine language. By doing this, you were finding out how the machine actually worked, at the lowest and most basic level (ie binary, hexadecimal, registers, interrupts, memory constructs, et al.)
Now, rather than being taught the basics, students are being first exposed to how to use proprietary applications, and slowly learning how they really work is becoming criminalized via the DMCA et al. Thus, they are locked into those proprietary standards and applications (for the rest of their lives if the comapanies who make the applications have their way.) Unfortunately, computers are a very useful portal for companies, previously limited by the regulation on advertising or brand-name bias in education, to get their "message" through. Targeting through product name recognition is not accidental as we have seen through Microsoft's efforts to entice U.S. universities to replace UNIX-based servers with NT ones by offering contributions which are no better than bribes.
As well, I don't really buy the argument that a five-year-old needs a 700 MHz system and that a 300 won't do, or that every high-school student needs a laptop. Again, this idea is pushed on us by marketing departments. Computer literacy, like new math, is a vastly overrated and money-wasteful idea if the literacy is not built on a base of critical and rational thinking, and a solid foundation of computational first-principles. I have spoken to enough people who have used computers for many years and still call their computer "the hard drive" to know this, and spending billions so that young people can learn how to push a mouse around, which teaches them absolutely nothing, billions that could be spent on maths, sciences and languages, is folly. But it makes someone a lot of money.
Even at $500 apiece, one laptop will be worth 10 textbooks.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
What's needed is a mandatory typing class for all, middle school at the latest. I've never understood why, with today's emphasis on computers, keyboarding skills get short shrift in our educational system.
Look. I'm not usually one to get pissy about moderator idiocy, but I think it wise to familiarize oneself with the brilliant works of DumbMarketingGuy (alias "dmg") and streetlawyer (alias "streetlawyer") before slinging one's points around wildly. They have highly educational user info pages. If you can't find them, uncheck that "willing to moderate" thingee on yours. If you can't find that...well...shit.
Thank you.
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
I'm a high school mathematics teacher, typing this on one of the Toshiba laptops that my school leases for each full-time staff member. I think this is the right way to go: providing laptops for students would be extremely expensive and (more importantly) of dubious educational benefit. But providing laptops to teachers offers potential benefits in terms of school administration that allow me to be a better teacher.
The programme was only begun this year, and efforts are currently focussed on getting classrooms wired to the school network and in providing training to the teachers (a very wise decision was made to employ a full-time trainer). Currently, I'm using the laptop mostly to record student achievement, to e-mail other teachers, and to access the school's database of student information (timetables, class rolls, contact details for parents, and so forth). By the end of the year, I will be able to provide up-to-date information to the school office on student attendance, and automate production of reports.
All of these things are timesavers, allowing me to spend less time on administration and more time interacting with students. In a classroom of twenty to thirty students, the amount of time I can spend paying attention to each individual student is limited, and anything that increases it has a direct educational benefit to the students.
- Pogo
Why do students need a laptop? To play Quake in the Bus? If there a workstations at school and a PC at home, they can access their files over the internet.
Carrying a laptop as a addition to the books is not very good for a student and the laptop. Replacing schoolbooks with eBooks is another thing, which would solve a lot of problems
who has stolen my .signature file?
"Hey kid, here's an $800 laptop...don't drop it and don't lose it!" Yeah, sure... ;-)
I'm also a parent.
Now that that's out of the way, here's why this whole laptop idea is Bad: it's not a solution to the problem of the quality of education in America. It is at best a Band-Aid, something for politicians and teacher unions to point to to say "we're educating your children". It is a panacea. To quote Gertrude Stein, "There's no there there."
As far as education goes, computers are just the latest in a line of tools that educators can use to avoid educating children. When I was growing up, it was TV. Now it's computers. The fact of the matter is, or at least it seems to me, that computers cannot replace humans as teachers. They can replace the teacher as dispenser of information, but they cannot replace the teacher as teacher. The classroom teacher is not there to "facilitate learning", or whatever your favorite buzzword happens to be--the teacher should lead by example, and not only dispense facts (which the machine can do), but to relate those facts to life and to their own life experience, which a machine can never do.
Laptops, or any kind of computer really, are an expensive sop to parents who think that computers are all-important. A very expensive sop; even $500 per unit in a a district of, say, 20,000 children is a $10 million investment, and that $10 million could be much better spent where it really needs to go: teacher education and retention.
First, education: it's a sad truth that people who do have a hope of getting a better job than teaching usually don't go into teaching. Note that I said usually--there are some extremely intelligent people who go into teaching. Unfortunately, they're few and far between in public education. If you're one of them, congratulations; I myself met one once. Teachers need to take real subjects in college, not education classes. Teachers need to be educated, not...I don't know, not taught to regurgitate what the professor says.
Next, retention. Starting salaries need to be raised. Long-term teachers get paid fairly well, at least around here, but starting salaries are abysmal. If you pay more money, you can attract more intelligent people. It's that simple. Why, for example, should I teach computer science for $25K when I can work in the field for three times that much?
The answer isn't laptops. The answer is to do something about teachers who tell their students "Shut up!" (I saw this more than once), or to do something about the English teacher who says "Me and her are going to eat". We need to ground kids in the basics. It's not happening anymore.
And it needs to.
I reckon it's fairly undisputed that kids need to learn at least a bare minimum of computer literacy at school, that being how to use a basic GUI, word processor, spreadsheet, etc., as they'll be unable to do a job without it.
The biggest problem in my mind is that kids are being taught to be computer *users* (set aside the obvious 'it will be M$ 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.
In the late '90s, I got to see just how much pocket calculators had become part of the culture. I was in an EE masters program, and it was understood that if you needed a calculator for a class, you had one. (Much different than when calcs were new in the early '70s, and the debate was over how to integrate them into classes and exams. Short answer: redo the exam questions in favor of getting the concepts right.)
In my work, we have a handful of managers who use laptop computers. The engineers and programmers almost always use desktop PCs or workstations (or both), and occasionally, a PDA like a Palm. Yes, some of the sales types and road-warrior programmers use laptops, but in my workplace, these are exceptions.
Bottom line for me, if laptops really fill a need for most of society, they'll get to be dirt cheap like calculators. OTOH, if they are a niche product, why spend the bucks on something of dubious value and risk an entire generation of kids to Carpal Tunnel?
But where does the money come from? I seriously doubt they're going to suddenly find that the amount of financial aid available is going to just suddenly increase. So, either less financial aid is going to be given per individual, or less individuals are going to recieve financial aid.
Either way, its going to lead to further stratification between those who can afford it and those who can't.
give a young person a 1500$ computing device in new york city, you wanna get the poor fucking kid killed? my car has been broken into four times since i brought it here, that's four times in three boroughs in less than two years.
new york has enough trouble protecting school children from "sodomy" and sexual assault on school grounds (not making this up guys).
I'd like to see one of these drawing its power from a battery pack instead of the PS/2 port and featuring a tiny LCD display, for times when it'd be nicer to type an e-mail out on the porch than inside, or as a more efficient idea-gobbler than a pen-driven PDA.
-- Timothy Lord
http://www.alphasmart.com/
enough said...
or that should be enough, what the hell good is a real/stripped notebook computer to a kid in the urban jungle? any of you ever listen to lou reed? some homes are not ready, keep those boxen in a more secure environment.
what is really important, stupid educational programs, or being able to type and write simple letters/stories/essays? that's why alphasmart is so smart, universal skills, cheap.
Personally, I think the most frightening thing about this article is the mention of colleges that require students to have computers.
Check me if I'm wrong, but isn't college a place where you are supposed to learn to think for yourself, and rationally think out and discuss ideas? (yes, liberal arts education ... I guess I am showing my background -grin-). While computers are great tools for facilitating this, they are by no means necessary, and could well be distracting from the goal.
Learning to think for yourself is a skill perhaps best learned without a computer.
Input welcome.
I'm most likely going to get a barrage of negative responses on this, but here goes anyway. Having two parents who are former high school teachers (retired a few years now), and one of the two a math teacher, you should have heard some of the stories. They taught in what is a mostly middle / upper class town but the percentage of students that they had who would have failed a basic skills math / reading test was alarming. And every year there would be at least one or two children found that couldn't read period. You see reports on the news that in math skills children in the US are falling way behind the children in similar industrialized countries. This is a major problem and due in part to a heavy reliance on calculators. Calculators should not be allowed until after a certain grade where the students have mastered math skills manually. Of course there are some advanced high school math courses where a graphing calculator is necessary and should be allowed.
My own take on it can be extended to the idea of laptops in the schools; it abrogates personal choice. In the college setting, it not only ignores the student's established OS preferences, but their specific computer needs and usage patterns; some people need a powerful desktop system for 3D rendering, some people want a great video card for our -- oops, I mean their -- Quake 3 fix, and some of us just plain can't cope with more distraction in class than that afforded by our Palm IIIs.
For younger kids, the OS question is even more pressing; the computer companies that support these 'educational' efforts want the children of America to grow up equating "computer" with their operating system. In much the same way that Pepsi has bought my campus, hoping to train us all to be Pepsi drinkers, computer companies want to "get 'em young". Even inadvertently, the educational systems will be choosing an operating system to teach to the exclusion of others.
Also, the sheer distraction of a computer is problematic. When only one or two kids in a whole class has a laptop, the teacher can still maintain discipline. When every kid has one, and is encouraged to have it on during class, very few kids are going to pay any attention to the teacher.
This can be avoided by using the kind of computer education model that my (private) high school used; they had a computer lab, and various installations of Mac and PC computers scattered throughout the school. They didn't have any Unix machines (*sigh*) but we were taught to use applications under both MacOS and Win95, as well as some weird Novell interface. We had a "Computers" class, where we learned to touch type, to program shapes in Logowriter, and occasionally some other classes, usually Math, would arrange for us to get new software loaded that was germane to the class, and then teach us to use it.
Giving laptops to immature students and expecting them to not get trashed is incredibly naive. Expecting them to be used only for educational purposes is even more so. Giving laptops to kids will give them an early learning bias for the chosen operating system (and who *doesn't* think it will be Winblows?), will distract them from their classes, and will encourage learning of application skills, not content. Besides, public schools (I attended Oregon public schools for years and years) would do better to raise teacher's salaries, decrease class sizes, increase tracking, and pay for music programs, than to waste money on laptops for every child. Teach the kids to type early; introduce applications slowly as the years go by, using well-networked, well-maintained desktop systems at school, and hire knowledgable teachers to teach computer classes. More exposure to computers can be at the parents' discretion (it all comes back to active parenting, doesn't it?) and/or on the students' own time.
Felicity Shoulders
-------------
"Either I'm gonna kill her, or I'm beginning to like her." - Han Solo
My college was thinking about making everyone get a lab top.
They had a bunch of classes where people were giving lab tops this year to test out the possabilities for lab tops in education. Only non technical majors were involved with the tests.
Most people were not in favour because of the price. (the school was sugesting that people buy there own or lease for $500 a semester.)
Also I think it's annoying to sit next to someone with a noisy keyboard. And I already have a computer.
But overall I'm in favour. Because if everyone owns a lab top then every day is lan party day. And that would be pretty dang cool if you ask me.
:)
Whoa,
This sounds like my school district. They spent millions for dell Optiplex's in each class room 3 years ago, and only NOW are the machines being placed in the rooms. Note some of the machines arent ready yet. Also, we have the same type of restrictions that MrHat was talking about. Also another thing I dont like is this: We have 9 Schools in our district, 5 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 2 high schools. I have a split schedule between the two hs's. However, I can only access my files on the file server from one school. The other school, I can't even browse the web with my login. Also, none of my teachers use these machines except to browser the web. Why? because we cant install anything on here without having the people come down. Hows that gonna help us?
My school implemented laptops for students 6-12th grade, T1 connection, and school-wide lan last year. Overall, it has been quite negative, for the following reasons: 1) Most(read "nearly all") teachers and students simply cannot implement their notebooks in a productive manner and just leave them at home. 2) They run windows(tm), and thus are always broken(except for mine, thanks Debian) amon others. In my opinion, to use computers for anything other than an internet terminal in schools, you would have to create a whole new school built around it. It would need properly trained staff, students who actually WORK BETTER with computers (most are just frustrated or distracted by them), and enough funding. Anyway, for more info, go here
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
All I do with my laptop is play nintendo games and watch movies during classes. Hell, when I was in High School all I did with my graphic calculator was write/play games during class. Buy computers for homes or not -- these will get inexpensive enough that it won't matter, eventually. Keep laptops out of school, they don't help learning.
And I must agree with the ACLU/adbusters party line that forcing commercial content on kids is a terrible, terrible thing. Some of this already goes on today (with "free" TV systems or content showing ads), etc, in a way that public school kids can't escape. For a private school I could care less, but if we legally require schooling then it should be available commercial-free.
I feel your pain. I don't know of any computer-clued person that got through my high school without being persecuted by the disciplinary people. I remember one incident where I was punished fairly severely for emailing myself a copy of my homework because they had apparrently banned email. Another time I was banned from the lab for two weeks because I "hacked into the network" and printed to a printer in the library that was not out of ink, instead of the default one. I eventually refused to ever use a computer at school, because every time I touched one they found something new to accuse me of doing. Lots of fun.
/root, and I wouldn't give him my root password. My punishment? Bizarrely enough, they told me I was not allowed to park in the school's parking lot anymore.
It never helped me any that there was a continuous rumour that I had a collection of porn on my laptop, either. (I did NOT) The principal eventually demanded to see my laptop, so I let him play with it. Of course, it was running Linux, which he had no fsking idea how to use, he had a heart attack when gmc wouldn't let him see the contents of
Yes, high school can be lots of fun when there are computers involved, and the teachers fear them, and they fear the students who know how to use them even more. Lots of fun indeed.
What I find truly amusing, though, are the things that they never had any clue I knew. I knew the network administrator's passwords. I knew how to change my grades. I knew how to view my final exams before I took them. BUT, I never did any of this once I figured it out, because it would have resulted in me getting in lots of trouble probably.
What's even MORE amusing is that now that I have graduated, I regularly get emails from the computer teachers asking me technical questions. "ooh what kind of computer should I buy to go along with the nifty new projector that we got?" "hmm, I forgot my password on the web server, how do I fix it?" And the clincher: "We would like to hire you to teach some of our students how to do all that nifty stuff you did at the end-of-year assembly party last year!" Amazing. They gave me all sorts of trouble when I brought in my own computer because nothing they had could handle an hour of video. They barely let me plug it into the network because "Unix is a security hazard!". And now they want to PAY me to teach them how to do the same crap.
Welcome to the world of technology in public schools.BLEAH.
How about using a PalmPilot... or better yet, a Psion?
There aren't many to choose from, and these are basically the best choices. Perhaps get them to pre-load some stuff onto it?
These aren't just organisers, after all.
One good thing advertising in the classroom will give: better spam-protection software in the future.
When these kids grow up, you can bet that some of them will develop excellent ways of avoiding The Media.
Can't wait.
-Domini rubs his hands...-
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.
Anyone with reproductive organs and the urge to use them can end up a parent. I'm not saying that parents shouldn't be involved in their childrens' educations, but there are a good number of people who frankly don't give a ratt's-ass whether their kid is really learning anything.
Some kids need to be protected from their parents, or from their parents' situations (extreme example, the crack addict in the inner city) That, in my mind, is the job of the community, and the schools are the best thing we've come up with so far.
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
I cannot agree with this post wholeheartedly enough. I do not believe that computer literacy NEEDS to be emphasized with elementary school children any more than any other subject is. Expose the kids to it and they will absorb it. More important than teaching computer literacy is teaching things like analytical thinking, the scientific method and a proper understanding of cause and effect. Once children learn these things, computer literacy, mathematical fluency and all the other important mental skills come naturally.
utter rubbish
I work at an Internet-based insurance company, and you would be surprised how many of the agents, all of whom use the computer every single day, don't know how to deal with basic little things. "My computer's stuck." "Have you tried to reboot it?" "How?" (Ack...CTRL-ALT-DEL, people!)
Saying that computer literacy is a non-issue nowadays is a fallacy. Making sure that it's taught at all levels of education is, if anything, more necessary now than it was when I was in school, and computers were just starting to really boom as something other than tools only programmers and nerds used.
However, I also believe that students need to be taught the same skills I learned growing up, especially with regards to mathematics and writing. They're not always going to have a computer in front of them (Palm Pilot notwithstanding). Sometimes, they're going to have to do something mentally, or physically, without the help of technology.
Even barring that, learning how to do the work the "long" way teaches HOW to think about numbers, and HOW to manipulate data. Very valuable skills to have.
Someday, we'll look back at this, laugh nervously, and move on to another topic.
1. Product development requires a specification based on what it is intended to do. This will define the hardware and software required.
2. The first REAL version will appear several years down the road since cobbling something together from current hardware appears from the comments to be unreasonable. This will help on cost since that always goes down with time.
3. Functions: Word processor, spreadsheet and database -- not today's state of the art, but something like MS Works. Reader equivalent to Rocket e-Reader to save on printing, replacing and carrying around all those textbooks. Web browser equivalent of Netscape, IE, who cares as long as it works.
4. Hardware: You don't need a supercomputer to support those functions. The trade off is going to be between horsepower and battery life while keeping cost down. Making it rugged will be the real engineering challenge.
All that with a manufacturing cost of $300, five years from now in huge quantities seems very reasonable. Cost per school to upgrade teachers and install networks etc will probably be greater. Lets hope we all get to see it.
If they're going to do this, they should use a handheld device. I think they should go with Visors. You go to biology class, you pop in the biology expansion card. Math class, math card, etc. Turning in homework is as easy as beaming to your teacher. And you can keep a backup on your computer at home, or even somewhere on the web. No more forgetting your report at home, you just connect your wireless modem and download it! Of course, I think all assignments should be done by email anyways, but that's a whole 'nother issue. :)
Of course, all the complaints that apply to laptops still apply to handhelds. But I think I'll let others argue over that part.
I went to a nice, recently built high school (Hey, I only graduated 2 years ago). We had big computer labs, TVs in every classroom, etc. But the school wasn't designed for the students. All of the classrooms were in one end of the building (which, incidentally, had a pull-down metal gate for hiding it). There was a HUGE expansive lobby, a gigantic theater, etc. But the school is MASSIVELY overcrowded. It was designed for 2000. Then the administrators, noticing that the first year it was open there were 2300, decided to reclassify it, and claim it's designed for 2600.
Last year, there were over 2800. But the state legislature stepped in (with a program ironically titled 'Students First'), and decided that the rating for the school should be based upon TOTAL square footage, instead of actual classroom space. So now, this designed-for-2000-student school is rated for around 3600.
This is in the state of Arizona, which politcally is downright dominated by Maricopa County (where Phoenix is). They go out of their way to steal money from the schools outside of Maricopa. So what they're really doing is trying to tell us that we're not getting a new a school anytime soon.
And in the meantime, in this high-tech building with lovely architecture, we're using books that are falling apart, there's not enough lockers for the students (there's a long waiting list to get a locker if you're a freshman), the library doesn't have any books on anything technical after about 1980, the science teachers have no money to do labs, the traffic situation is horrible (the students have to come in the back. The administrators and teachers have their own parking lot, and get to park up front. The student parking lot is bounded by dirt. The one up front has beautiful green grass, some nice landscaping, and a view of the mountains).
Essentially what happened there was this: The state took as much money as it could get away with. The administrators made sure the plans had nice architecture, and would keep them well away from the students (their offices are out by the lobby, with expansive glass windows, which the classrooms lack), and would look nice when they want to show guests around. The senior citizens of this community wanted a theater (which the city wouldn't pay for), so they managed to get a large, extremely high-tech, extremely wasteful theater built into the plans. The students....got the shaft. The teachers....got the shaft. In short, anything fundamental to the learning process was tacked on as an oversight. Anything I learned at that school, I learned on my own. And on top of all this, the ventilation system was also built for 2000. There wasn't enough circulation for the number of students that actually were attending class, so the oxygen content was low, diseases were running rampant, and the students were getting sick. The state someone down to measure the oxygen, and said it was fine. He checked after all the students had left.
We don't need laptops! We need decent books, and lab materials, and decent teachers, and reasonable facilities, and above all, administrators who care about the students.
I'm willing to take the karma loss on this offtopic one. It needed to be said.
The above comment is CopyWrong (K) Erisian Entertainment. All Rights Reversed. Ewige Blumenkraft!
The introduction of computers into education is definitely a hot topic these days. People believe that if we throw more technology into the mix, kids will become more educated. However, there are currently several problems that will destroy any chance of children benefiting from computers in their classroom:
1) Tech support. Despite our attempts, computers break. Teachers are already over burdened with troubled students, shrinking budgets and strict performance requirements. We cannot expect them to play network administrator as well.
2) Lack of quality software. The majority of current "educational" software only provides a rehash of worksheet style teaching. A few applications exist that could prove to be beneficial to students, but not enough are available to make the investment of a computer for every child worthwhile.
3) Cost. Even a $500 computer for every child is much too expensive. If the average class has around 27 students, each class would require $13,500. Today, most schools are struggling to purchase text books and pencils, and could not shoulder the added expense. Computers are an additional tool in the classroom, not a replacement for more traditional teaching tools.
4) Teacher willingness. Many teachers today have no idea of how to use a computer. Even teachers who are just now coming into the workforce have relatively little computer experience. If computers are to be used in the classroom, educators need to be familiar with them and understand how computers can help them teach.
I am, however a huge proponent of computers in education. Very soon, students should have constant interaction with computers in school. Computers have many benefits in education and can greatly improve our current educational system. First, the computer and educational communities need to work together to design and implement a truely integrated curriculum. Several guidelines should be used:
Educators, not computer scientists, should develop the requirements for software used in the classroom
Computers need to be maintance free, or as close to it as possible.
Teachers need to be educated on how computers can help them teach.
Everyone needs to realize that computers are a tool, just like a book and pencil. They are a suppliment to current teaching methods, and not a replacement for prior pedagogy.
This is a topic of great interest to me, and I am currently working on a system that begins to address these issues. Check out the Interactive Learning Environment for more information.
I was re-reading the article, and I thought, why can't we have open-sourced software that will allow the students to do their homeworks, say, type their papers on it, without having to shell out money for it (yes, I know they are out there already, but I mean something simple to use, geared to students and the educational system). The schools can say, we will accept your homework in the following formats, or something along that line. Tools for students to use for taking notes, for doing homeworks, for reviewing, etc.
The teachers will have their software that can be used to check the homeworks submitted by the students, can grade them, correct them, return them, etc. The teachers can even keep a copy of the student submitted works and later on use it to determine the grading for the students.
The main point again is:
1. Cheap
2. Easy to use
3. Accessible
I think that it would be really great if school systems can build on top of an open-source education-oriented platform, (say, a linux distribution) with a standard suite of software that the schools can use right away. Heck, if the open source movement is already volunteering time to write software, why not this?
I know there are some huge gaping holes in my idea, but isn't it worth considering?
If we collectively wish hard enough, it will come true.
Oh, ideally, it should be made from lightweight flexible plastic/fiber/composite material that can be tossed around (yeah, really take the abuse). Something about the size and consistency of a large mouse pad. Or so I wish.
1. To learn about computers themselves, about using computers, about programming, etc.
2. To use it as a tool for doing things that are common place in education now. Such as writing papers, doing research, distributing notes (by teacher) and keeping notes (by students).
I think people are lumping the two together, and granted, there's a very thin line (if at all, if you agree with my line of reasoning) between them.
But there would be a big difference, I think, in implementation depending on which one you are aiming for.
If you were aiming for number one, then you are most likely talking about more expensive hardware and possibly software. This is the traditional computer hardware/software give away that corporations have been doing.
If you were aiming for number two, then you are talking about cheap(er) hardware/software, I think. Because #2 is more of an appliance/device that lends itself to be implemented on a web pad kind of device.
Remember, computers nowadays are very general purpose and so extremely flexible that it really can be seen as in an ongoing experimental, use-as-you-go kind of thing. And this is the reason why there are problem such as bugs why people find them difficult to use. With appliances, people will find them easy to use and to accomplish work, instead of spending time trying to figure out why their computers crashed (more reason for linux based web pads).
So I think if we are to give kids computer tools, I would give appliance/devices(#2) rather than a laptop(#1) because it will be more useful to them in the process of learning what they are supposed to learn.
Requiring students to have computers nowadays, thankfully, isn't too bad, because computers have become so cheap. But I agree that requiring students to have a computer seems somewhat wrong. In fact, some may say that the requirement is a bias. It's just another thing that the poor students need to spend money on. The wealthy students, of course, could care less. And isn't that what school computers are for?
I think that people just keep forgetting that computers, for most people, is or should be just a tool to do what they really want to accomplish. For techies, it is a little tougher to see, because techies like to use computers to do - computer stuff! They also happen to use it for other things. Programmers/hackers, etc. definitely fall into this category.
I think that people look at the booming technology/information economy and think, well, look at all those computer people becoming millionaires! It must be really good and important to know and learn about computers! They don't think, wow, these computer things are great. With them, the students and teacher will be able to more effectively communicate. They are thinking that more students should be computer science majors, instead of computer savvy non-computer science majors. I know that this last point is very arguable in that maybe all that educators are tryng to accomplish is to create more computer savvy students, rather than focus on creating more computer specializing students.
But then, my point is, if all we want is computer savvy and not computer specialization, then we could just create computing appliances that doesn't require computer specialization or doesn't require much computer savvy to use.
Quite frankly, I don't think anyone who does not specialize in computers should ever need to know how to use a command line. They should never need to know about hardware or how to troubleshoot anything hardware or software related. They should just know how to do what they need to accomplish, without computer knowledge. Windows is far from this, of course, as it is problematic and is often an enigma to beginners. But it made it much easier to accomplish things than DOS or UNIX or LINUX. Windows made computing accessible, and that, in my book, is far more important than technical superiority of the software behind the OS. It doesn't matter that Linux is better technically. To users, accessibility is important.
If you build your platform to appeal to the broadest possible audience, even if you have to "dumb" it down somewhat, you have done a great thing. Unix and Linux have always been out of reach for the lay person. And the unix/linux gurus have always prided themselves in their technical knowledge that is largely inaccessible to most people. They LIKED stuff that most people don't care to know about, then deride Microsoft for creating Windows, a technically inferior (in their eyes) but a socially (ok, more like market-wise) superior piece of software.
I think that the argument mostly come down to, do you want students to learn computer specialization? Or do you want them to focus on learning, and merely have the tools to facilitate that? If the latter, then you have to make it so that the less they have to learn about computers, the better.
The best tool in the world is one that you never really have to learn how to use, or one that just become such a commonplace thing that it "disappear" or become invisible so that you are no longer aware of it. If students are to really be able to take advantage of computers in education, they should not feel it as any different than textbooks or notebooks.
Gee, how many times and in how many different ways can I say the same thing?!
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).
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"
In HS, it may change, although I agree with others who have expressed doubts about calculators and such, in dumbing down the actually learning. It does no one any good to train another generation of cut and paste script kiddies, regardless of the subject matter.
We also need to realize that even very smart, capable kids do not need extensive computer exposure in school. The computer-based curicula(sp?) that have come out over the last 10 years or so have been miserable. Distance learning, video conferencing have also seen less than stellar performance.
I agree, but not in school, or at least not in the classroom. Perhaps a lab just like chemistry and bio.
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?
The solution to pork is not to contract the manufacturing of computers through any one company, but rather have the students buy directly from the market. Perhaps have a variety of companies in the portal vying for the students' $$$.
There's already a great precedence for using advertising revenue to pay for goods in school: Channel 1 TV. There is a corporation that gives schools a TV and VCR for each classroom, installs them, and lets the school use them for any purpose, so long as the students watch a 15 minute news program which is broadcast once a day. The "Channel 1 News" is filled with advertisements, and presumably it is this revenue that pays for the project. The system must be working, as it exists in hundreds of schools across the country.
However, as TVs do not become obsolete as fast as PCs (at least not until HDTV...), Channel 1 had a good deal of time to recoup the intial expense of buying thousands of TV/VCRs, and continue making a profit. How much would such a program have to charge for advertising to pay for a $2000 laptop in 2-3 years?
All this coming from a recent high school graduate.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
I do not believe that, given the volatility of the market, it is a good idea to give computers to kids. It would be much better to sell a subsidized & afordable stationary PC to those who can not afford a computer otherwise. And then let them do what they think is best with them. Complement this with _decent_ labs in school where they learn some programming and then you have a great thing. But it should not be on their desks when seeing biology class.
What I would fear with an approach as described is that a LOT of time and money would be wasted in systems that will basically suck and be worthless after some time. And kids would have yet another source of distraction.
Mathematicians still use paper, and I do not see how you could really improve an algebra class through the use of computers. Paper is incredibly convenient when writing symbols, and beside some slides and animations, the teacher is better of writing on the blackbord.
Publish information on the web. Ask them to write assinments on a word-prossesor and then print it. let them write email to the teachers and among them. A computer is a tool.
Obviously, without reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, you won't get far.
rmstar.
...I learned by the end of sixth grade. After that, it was simply repetition of what I already knew. Reading, writing, mathmatics, science, all the basics, I can honestly say that I forgot more useful things while in High School than I learned.
SO. I feel that giving a kid a laptop to play with is a GOOD THING(tm). Teaching them to use it is even better. But the real point is to teach kids how to LEARN. Everything else is moot. In most cases what I was taught in school was incorrect information anyway(e.g., Edison invented the **insert invention**. Everyone here should know that old Tommy was a businessman not an inventor or scientist. He was the Bill Gates of the first half century).
For instance, I have used what I learned in History for one thing only: I can answer Jeopardy questions like a mad rat. Off hand I would say I did not need it. At all.
Second instance: Mathematics. Once I learned how to do the basics,( +,-,/, and *) nothing else was useful to me in school or out up until I started dealing with computers and learning to program. One could argue that calculators cripple the mind, yes I have heard it before. But the simple fact is that when I needed to learn trig I went to the public library and checked out a friggin BOOK (you know, those paper thingies) and learned on my own in about 15 days. Am I an expert? No. But I can tell you that I learned it when it was useful to me so I retained it much better.
I learned to LEARN. I learned to TEACH MYSELF. Most of you can relate, you taught yourself how to program, how to use Linux, etc. THAT is how you fix what is wrong with public schools. Stop wasting the best learning years of our lives by filling our heads with crap we don't want or need and start TEACHING HOW TO GET WHAT WE NEED ON OUR OWN. Then work on evolving society to think that lots of knowledge is Uber-kewl. As we, the geeks can testify, that kind of environment is the breeding ground for creative minds and unique (sometimes useful) talents. Most of us work in jobs where we took aptitude tests of some sort to get the job. Did we really need to know how to disect a frog to do what we do? Not unless you're a doctor. Or Vet. Those sorts things are better taught in college, to people who stand a chance of, hey, EVER NEEDING that information.
I can tell you that in this day and age,though, if you were to give ME a laptop at, say, 11 years old, by the time I finished high school I would probably be telling you you Linux is for wussies and real men program thier OWN OS in machine language;)
To end this slightly O/T post I have only one quote of importance:
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
two things:
0. A laptop to learn things on, keep notes, etc.
1. A reading pad with high resolution that just displays information. Make it so instead of buying textbooks every year, the kids just download thier books into thier reading pads. MacMillin will adjust, trust me. Easier to carry around, less costly in the long run, the kids can keep thier 'textbooks' for the rest of thier lives. The technology exists now to make it a reality.
Ideally,however, watch ST:DS9 episodes and emulate, emulate, emulate. Those little pads they carry around are just what the doctor ordered.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
Laptops seem to be everyones solution for computers these days. 1. For a decent laptop, (not some little WinCE machine) you can expect to shell out 2000. We just bought a school full of Dells for 1000 a piece. Advantage desktop 2. Not many schools are equiped to service laptops. So if a kids decides to leave it outside in the rain. Bam 2 weeks in the shop. And warranties for laptops are often a year vs. a standard 3 for desktops. 3. Say you put modems in these machines. Who's to say that these kids in middle school and high school aren't sitting at home looking at pr0n all night. Since that is a school computer, the school can still be held responsible for what the machine is used for. In the district where i am a tech, this has come up many times. It seems that it is just the next bandwagon for people to jump on. "Let's look better than the district down the road. See our schools are better, we spend a million a year to give kids machines that they use as toys."
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.
I don't know how to respond to all of this. I've written three drafts, and I've decided none of them conveyed the ideas that I wished them to.
The driving point behind all of my previous drafts was that private schooling segregates (racial subtext intended) the rich and informed from the poor and uninformed, and perpetuates that division. You can't have equal education under such a system. It's not about self-determination, it's not about capitalism, it's about doing what's right for the people who don't know what's right themselves.
Beyond the morality of it all there is the legality: the Supreme Court's integration decision applies very closely here, all it takes is someone to challenge it and an inventive lawyer to defend it.
"The driving point behind all of my previous drafts was that private schooling..."
By private schooling, I am referring to the abolition of public schools or the subsidization of private schools.
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
...will work for Chick tracts...
I work for a company that provides tech solutions for a small country (Ecuador) in Latin America (ie, we're kinda poor). We're currently working on 2 projects, one for a local college and one for a high school, both of which are about installing a wireless network via Wavelan Access Points, and giving students the freedom to bring their laptops to school and use the local network for e-mails, papers, internet access and all. The hardest part of the project so far has been finding a cheap, durable laptop for the students to buy through some kind of financial aid program. So far, I think some of the new sony VAIOs look nifty, but $1300 for a celeron 333 laptop is still a bit expensive. Still, it's one of the best bang/buck offers I've found. The heads of both institutes are interested on full fledged computers, as opposed to palmpilots and such, since they consider them far more useful. It's too bad that the computer makers haven't identified this as a possible market niche, and haven't designed products that could fill it. (Those "school computers" mentioned in the article look outrageously expensive, btw...)
Let's face it -- if you've ever had kids and had to buy stuff for them, you know that in just a few days it will be either a) broken b) lost c) stolen d) dropped on concrete floor and walked upon. Therefore, if we're ever to introduce _successful_ PDA's to kids age 5 and up, it will have to be completely and entirely shatter-proof, coolaid-resistent, theft-protected, very hard to hack into, able to sustain melted cheese poored all over, and capable of withstanding up to an hour in a hot-tub bath.
;)
Children also are NOT consenting adults, so this device and service will have to have tight security, filtering, and monitoring software (I'm as opposed to filtering and control as the next guy, but the next guy is hopefully able to discern right from wrong and real from fake). The system itself will have to have a very tight security so that every 11-y.o. Kewl HaCkEr won't change his grades to a Harvard level.
Needless to say, this device will have to be dirt-cheap, otherwise it will never take off in regions where funding is scarce. It should also be extremely easy to use: if teachers and parents can't learn how to use it, they won't adopt it. 95% of elementary school teachers I know aren't capable of anything more than Word and Solitaire (and I am soooo tired of being asked whether I'm a Pittsburgh Penguins fan).
LCD screens? Ha! Keyboards? Right. No, this device will have to have something that is DURABLE, and I mean NASA tech durable (apart from recent Mars bloopers, that is). Surely, one can create a device that will be suitable for usage in school, but at this point in our technology development, that device will hardly survive the real world conditions.
I am looking anxiously at E-ink and similar technologies progress, but true flexible screens capable of high refresh rates aren't here yet. We now finally have a Crusoe, which should be a smashing platform for such a device, but it's still not here. I'm fascinated with Jini, but I am yet to see a widely-spread device that supports it.
The technology is coming, but in my estimation it will be up to 10-15 years until we see a successful system (as in the set of protocols) and a successful device introduced into a classroom to be used on a more than a "well-ain't-that-cool" basis.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
"I currently attend a university here in Canada . . ."
So your post is off topic. We probably all think that having computers in higher education is good. It is their use in middle and high schools that seems ridiculous.
~not(!)
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
So what are the computers being used for? Any guesses? What is there that you can use a computer for during lessons? Granted, if it's a computer-literacy lesson (and all kids should do that kind of thing at some point, to learn that PCs aren't some wierd juju magic that can only be touched by the select shamans :-) then they're essential. But how is a PC going to help during a maths lesson, to teach kids algebra or calculus?
/.ers dislike fear of technology, I'd submit that there's something worse - the gratuitous dive towards technology in the belief that it'll solve all your problems. It's not worked for businesses so far (anyone been keeping track of the 'magic bullet' schemes for solving business problems? I've certainly lost count), it's not worked for governments (viz all the very recent computer cockups in Britain - incidentally, has anyone noticed how often Andersen Consulting is the culprit?), and it's not worked for the military (US Navy dead in the water from Melissa, anyone?), so I can't see how it's going to help. It's a soundbite, no more - it sounds good in a campaign, but its real effect is to show that the person's as thick as a brick and hasn't understood the issues properly. Or worse, that the person knows the money could be better spent, but is coldly going for it anyway on the grounds that it'll get them good publicity.
:-)
They're missing sight of the fact that a PC is a TOOL, not an end in itself. And what it's useful for in the main is as a text/data presentation platform - it's not a sonic screwdriver that can fix everything, and it can't in itself teach anything. Trouble is, we've already got blackboards/whiteboards for teacher-to-student stuff, which have better resolution, are easier to, and are cheaper to run. Anyone out there experienced 'death by Powerpoint'? Can you imagine subjecting kids to that? And think of the hours the teacher would have to put in for it! For student-to-teacher stuff (returning essays), there is something to be said for a word processor, but it's not like life or death. The biggest essay they're likely to write at school is about half-a-dozen sides of A4, and that's easily within range of a pen and paper.
As much as
Incidentally, kudos to Michael for the Neal Stephenson link!
Grab.
"We have met the enemy, and he is ours."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, US Navy
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
-- Walt Kelly, satirist
I think the focus should not be soley on the computer. It is true, there is a large demand for 'IT' skills. But there is still a need to communicate and function outside of a cpu community.
It is an interesting debate. An education essentially shapes a childs mind. It teaches a child how to think on different levels. If you forget all those stupid terms they shove down your throat it doesn't really matter because the processes learned by learning those terms can help you learn them again if you need them. It is not what you learn, its how you learn.
Introducing a child to a computer is an amazing thing. They learn so quickly. My little sister picked up more skills in one day then most people have in their life time. I still get a chuckle out those folks in upper management that still can't set up an email client or even set a homepage in their browser.
I guess what I'm saying is that a computer in school is important. It may even be an essential tool, but that's all it is, a tool. That should not be forgotten in all this.
just my thoughts....
tacitus
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. "
- General George S. Patton
illenium.net - ultimate sk8 shop online
Chaparral High School in Las Vegas is taking a stand against corruption. The students are now starting to organize a 'resistance' (as seen by school staff).
The website is quite interesting!
Ever need an online dictionary?
Well, I'm typing this from class, so you tell me if that's a good thing. :) Okay, anyway, here's my comment. We use laptops to do testing. The only problem is that we have to use testing software that is only available in a windows version. And that is only available through the web if you're using Windows Explorer. It drives me nuts. I'd love to get rid of windows, but I can't because I can't afford to use a pencil against students who are using laptops...
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
About 1960, Isaac Asimov wrote a short story called "Professions." In the story, mankind has lost all knowledge of arithmetic. Handheld computing devices are used everywhere. A man rediscovers arithmetic, and amazes everyone with his ability to predict in advance the answer that will be shown by the computer for any addition or subtraction problem. No one believes that his predictions are possible. I won't disclose the ending - find and read the story if you are interested - but it is powerful and disturbing. I have passed the book on to several educators in the course of discussions like this one.
if you used a more powerful signal to change those ads into porn =) NOW THAT would get me and my friends through chemistry.
I think this is an important lesson. Whereas computers begin to bomb whenever your wife is near, I am unable to do geography/history for the life of me. It's not that I lack the skills, inclination, or what-have-you, I am simply unable to do geography. This is something that many educational systems have failed to recognize. A few years ago, people began to yell about something called 'multiple intelligence' which, BTW, I highly agree with. The problem is that none of the teachers had any time/money to go back and learn about the theory and ended up with a lame 'ok, now we'll draw a picture for all those visual learners'. We (as a nation) should work on getting the basics before we try to give everyone a computer
-Elendale (waiting for the offtopics to fly)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
When I went to college (way way back), the school I first went to (some hi-tech "eliteist" engineering school) decided that computers were a wonderful thing, and some professor got a grant to put minicomputers (Vax 1000 stations if I remember correctly) *in* the classroom, for use in the teaching of calculus, so that we could graph complicated differential equasions and stuff. As neat as that may sound, when actually trying to *learn* the concepts, it sucked sucked sucked.
What happened was, that instead of us working out the simpler equasions on paper, we were stuck trying to enter in these massive 3 page equasions into the computer's math program (Maple, or Mattlab or something). Nothing sucks more then having to lug yourself to the *classroom* every night just to do your math homework, and then having it take 10-20 minutes for *each* of your 20 homework problems to process on the machine. This made for some *very* long homework assignments. The biggest problem of all, was that you never learned the concepts involved. The examples were things that you couldn't possibly visualize in your head... most of us were left totally baffeled by the math involved. All we learned was how to enter equasions into the math application. That was no way to teach the basic concepts.
In one sense, you can understand why math was taught at such an extremely complicated level... I mean, the prof had to justify the need for having all these mini-computers... but that *did* mean that the poor students coulnd't learn... the math was *too complicted*, you needed a damm minicomputer to do anything... you didn't learn how to solve the problem... you learned how to type it into the computer. You *certainly* couldn't grasp what the concepts behind the math were.
I think that as soon as you require all the students to have computers in the classroom, the teachers are going to feel obligated to skip over the basic concepts (things like memorizing those basic multiplication tables, or learning how to divide 2045/13 by hand) and move on to more complicated stuff, without giving the students a chance to really *understand* what they're being taught. That's gonna cause a whole lot of students to be totally lost. Sure, they will learn how to use the computer, but thats all they'll learn. They won't understand the basic concepts behind everything.
why not just provide the students with a desktop unti both at the school and at the home with a larger than floppy witable medi in both of them and then hav the students bring their data woth them. I for one think that it would be more cost effective in the long run to provide for 2 desktop machines of reasonable power and zipdisks than to provide 1 laptop and replace it every 3 months due to excessive wear and theft. because in the neighborhood where I grew up , it wouldn't matter if your laptop had big bird on the case, it would get yanked out of your hands in the space between heartbeats and then see a good old can of arylic spray paint to cover up good old sesame street before it hit the market. desktop machines would not be as accessable to sticky fingers and repair/upgrade is just a touch easier on destop systems than a laptop.
WTF? if hot grots can get a score of 0 for trolling, this won't get a mod down for flamebait? DAMMIT! kill this post.
I've grown up with computers in school, including elementary school (playing games that drilled addition and division skills), typing courses in jr. high, and other stuff in high school. In college, I use the Internet for lots of communication and research, and I have to type every paper I write.
The point is, I don't need a computer to learn. It's an incredible tool, and in today's world, I can't get along without one. However, I don't have to *own* one. It's definitely helpful to have one at your convience, but there's public computer labs all over campus. Actually, I don't want a computer in the classroom. I find them distracting, as well as people who insist on noisily typing their notes on clackity keyboards. After all, there's a teacher in the front of the room for a reason.
Besides, we've all had that one high school teacher who will not change anything he/she does for anyone, like having to enter grades via a school-wide network, for example. This type of teacher, who may be an incredible teacher in person, will not function well in a digital classroom. There will also be the teacher who simply posts their day's material on some webpage and expects the students to learn it. This may work for some college courses, but let's get realistic here... in high school (or younger), is that really going to happen? Is that the way kids should learn? Is that a way kids can learn?
Let's face it... education-related stuff is not always a good use of time, and often the younger folk know more about tech-related stuff than the teacher. Class time can be better spent on learning how equations work and why they appear in the forms they do rather than how to plug a string of numbers into a spreadsheet.
One last little thing... the kids would get to keep the laptops when they graduate?! Who wants a 6-year old laptop!?
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
Ok, right off the bat, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm 15, and right now I'm in bed and logged on through my laptop. No, this is not a grits-esque post. My father (the bastard) got me this rather bulky piece of tech. The main reason he got this was as a replacement for my old Cassiopia A-11 palmtop (bless it's silicon soul) that died when I dropped it and (suprise, suprise) the screen cracked. Needless to say, a touchscreen interface isn't the best for something used by a student.
Anyhow, now I've got a shiny new laptop and what do I do right off the bat? I log on and download IRC, ICQ, and a hoard of mp3s. Boom, there goes a quarter of my HD, giving me about 2 gigs free (just guess what has the other half of the used space). Right now, instead of doing work (like typing drills), I'm posting here.
Why do I get the feeling that, when these laptops are sold/handed out, the students are either going to give their new toy sidelong looks from ten paces, boot it up and start chatting online, or start using their mAd sKillZ (sorry, I don't use wannabe that often) on it?
Ever since I got an IRC client on here, all I've done is chat and post messages. If I could get more space on my HD (other than deleting the M$ bloatware), then I'd get a decent install of Linux going. -sigh- I know that this is a rambling post, so I'll get on with my comment.
You can flood schools with all the tech you want, but that will only get you lower GPAs. Do you want low GPAs? Do you want people who can't take notes without a computer nearby? Do you _really_ think that these units won't get stolen and sold on the black market?
Sure, moderate me either Offtopic or Flamebait, but all I'm trying to do is make you think. I hope you don't mind.
--
Star Trek vs Star Wars. Take a look. You may like it.
Before we speak of putting Millions of dollars worth of quickly outdated laptops in the hands of students, lets talk about training. I don't mean just computer training, but lets get these kids reading. The literacy rates (BTW, gotta be able to read to use a computer) in this country are still abyssmal. Once we got that one licked (now we're crawling), lets move on to the next problem.
Most HS teachers know less than my 8 yr old little brother about computers; and all he knows how to do is play autostart CD based games. Don't get me started on Elementary School teachers and Middle School/Jr. High teachers...
We should begin requi--
oof...hey...ouch... -- sorry, had to beat the NEA goon down... to finish:
We should begin requiring teachers to have some measurable minimum level of computer knowledge before we start talking about using computers as tools. The NEA will have a fit, and parents (as I have) will become more convinced that Public Education is the biggest oxymoron to hit the 20th century as they realize who really controls the state of Public Ed today. So, if the above ever occurs (when hell freezes over maybe?), we'll be walking...hobbling is more like it.
So now we're going to have to decide on a standard for training...do they use Windows 98? 2000? MacOS? Linux? These decisions will likely be made at the District or State levels and may the lowest bidder win.
If we spend millions of well intentioned tax dollars on notebook/portable computers, we will simply be wasting our money. Lets instead talk of making technology coursework mandatory. Lets make computer literacy a real goal of our educational system (not at the expense of the current primary subjects).
500 years ago we didn't say "Hey, let's see...this printing press is new, so now everyone can have books...lets give pages to kids to help them learn...oh...they can't read? oh well...it'll still work" We had to teach people to read.
-fp
Isn't this the sort of application that the Crusoe is perfect for? A webpad seems too minimal for the task at hand, but a laptop could act far too much as a distraction.
There has to be a middle-ground, a webpad with the added abilities of word processing and Palm Pilot-esque features (ie, a planner, calendar, datebook.) The Crusoe is perfect for this. Coupled with a school wide wireless LAN, the learning curve for using the device would be very small while the portability would be very high.
And of course, it could all run on linux. For very cheap.
It's no big deal for my kids to have a computer, because I had an old P100 system in the basement gathering dust (it runs Reader Rabbit just fine). Not evey family in my community is so well off, however. How do we make sure that all of the kids in my town have easy access to computers? And how do we make sure that they are encouraged to take advantage of those opportunities?
Installing a few computers in the high school, or the public library, is not the answer. Neither is giving every child a laptop and saying "use it." The answer is a well thought out plan. Are Maine and New York doing this?
If we can come up with a way to provide kids with a good background in how to use computers (which does not necessarily mean programming) then that would be a good thing. Simply providing them with computers is not, in itself, a solution to anything. And nobody would be proposing to spend all of this money unless it was suppose to accomplish something, right?
I think that kids should learn to rely more on the computers planted squarely between their shoulders first.
In order to build a self supporting structure you need a solid foundation. Rote learning, as much as we all hated it was a necessary first step in our education. It laid the foundation. We learned to read, write, and do basic math skills upon which we built our technical skill.
Granted, 'learning' the basics was harder for some than for others. Drilling the math tables and doing reading exercises was tedious but because of that the skills were reinforced to the point where we don't need a calculator to tell us what 9x9 is. It's sad to see how many folks can't easily perform that simple calculation. It's easy for them to justify not learning it because they have the technological crutches but it sure would be nice if they didn't have to go chase down a calculator to do the most basic math.
As far as the research angle goes, computers in libraries and resource rooms as well as homes should cover this purpose.
I'm pretty sure that the laptop thing is just another quick fix to 'Problem with education in America Today'. It isn't and it won't. It will be another costly experiment (anyone remember the "new" math). Costly in dollars and in time wasted.
Deploying computers in classrooms with teachers who aren't trained on how do use computers accomplishes nothing.
Deploying computers in classrooms with teachers who do know how to use them helps only marginally.
Only a subset of kids are typcially affected: kids who are just a little behind.
The current guess as to why this is so is that these children can build up their skills/confidence on "drill and kill" excercises, thereby allowing them to keep up with the main class instead of being left behind. In short, nothing has really changed since at least the time of Socrates: education is about people, the technology is just a detail.
Sadly, my source for references just hopped on a plane to South Africa. 8-( Those interested should please email me and I'll give out references when I can.
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
As many of y'all have been saying, people are more and more willing to throw a computer of some sort at an existing institution to try and "revolutionize" or "revitalize" it. Quite frankly, this type of piecemail solution isn't going to cut it.
During my last year of high school, I helped implement a school-wide laptop program at Episcopal HS in Texas with a wireless network that gave all classes fast (2Mb/s) connections to the net. The school touted the program as being on the leading edge of technology and pushing the limits of traditional teaching. All of these promises had potential, but definitely failed in the end.
Ultimately, after a year in service, the laptop program has done little more than give some of the geekier students (such as myself) a chance to play Quake 3 in Calculus class and those less inclined to games a chance to Instant Message each other all day. What we found at the end of the year was a dramatic drop in grades and a general disinterest in utilizing the laptops by the teachers. Coming up with a new "tech-enhanced" curriculum is a lot of work that many teachers are just not motivated to pursure. How much better can you teach French or Painting with a laptop than without one?
What needs to happen is not a slap-on bandaid as we've already said, but a complete restructuring of the educational system to use technology and to bring a new perspective on how children learn.
-E(r)van
I think you're being a bit unfair to the MSCE's. Most of them I know wear Depends(tm), so pissing themselves constantly is only an odor problem...
I still won't hire them, though, fwiw.
"The Internet is made of cats."
To those of you whining for a solution: Here's a solution. Put your funding where your mouth is.
Virtual schools. Online educational environments where students can learn at their own pace, from whatever network terminal they happen to have available.
While the concept is quite simple, it is not a quick fix. The technology to implement this sort of thing exists, but there has been no real effort to integrate it and make it work in any realistic terms.
Nevertheless, we are a lot closer (in terms of effort) to being able to make a working virtual school than we are to being able to improve the quality of education by giving out computers like textbooks.
In my opinion, the public school model is badly broken, and will only get worse before it gets better. Throwing more of the primitive technology that passes for 'computers' these days into the mix will only make it worse.
Virtual schools can begin to address the issues confronting traditional schools cost-effectively, and in a manner that will benefit both students and educators, without throwing existing schools into greater chaos.
"The Internet is made of cats."
Good question. I wish the answer weren't so obscene...
Because unless the schools wise up their buying practices, the electronic versions of the same books will cost even more than the paper version because they will be proprietary. This is already happening, and moving it into the schools will speed it up, to everyone's detriment.
Open systems, open standards, open source. You'll have to have it to make computing in the classroom affordable; but when you have it, it will be cheaper than books. It's just a long way off, still.
"The Internet is made of cats."
Sounds to me like you have some good points (like you are thinking along the same lines I do, which is good:). I really appreciate the links.
I do, however, think your reasoning has a serious flaw. You are seeing the idealized situation, and believing that it will happen.
For instance, do really believe that an entrenched state bureaucracy is going to spring for the Transmeta devices running Linux?
Two clicks into the appropriate software link you provided I find Win/Mac only software packages for Algebra (damnit, I've been looking for an X version of one of those). Do you really think if the state dumps a chunk of cash on these vendors they will suddenly start writing Linux apps?
For pity's sake, man, Micor$oft probably already has a team working on getting that contract. Haven't you noticed their shills participating in this discussion already? They know damned well that if they can get the ME contract, they can use that to sell more of the same. flushing noise There goes educational software, down the same toilet that commercial and consumer software has gone down. The whole field will be stillborn.
You point about textbooks is especially idealized. Of course e-books should be cheaper than paper books, but they won't be. They'll be more expensive. Same as above, too. M$ somehow seems to believe they are qualified to produce content, as well as third rate code.
I'm sorry, I see your dream, and I share it, but it will not happen in the public schools as they are now structured, and it will not happen until Microsoft Corp is dead. There's too much at stake for them to let you get away with it.
That's the reason so much of the commentary is negative, imo. It will take private, virtual schools implementing the kind of infrastructure you're talking about to make it work. 30 years from now public education will begin to catch up, assuming that the whole concept hasn't been laid to rest under a pile of FUD.
If you want to see your dream made reallity, you should get into the private educational sector.
All, of course, is just my opinion.
*I am not the unabomber.*
"The Internet is made of cats."
Technology is changing education in two ways - by changing the ways we teach old things, and then by changing the very things we teach. So far, most of the uses of high tech in the classroom have been attempts to answer that first question: "How can we teach the same things differently?" Very few people are taking a stab at the hard questions, like, "Why should we teach long division, if students will always have calculators?" or "Why learn geography, if students will have world maps at the fingertips forever?"
I'm not staking out a position on those questions, I'm just trying to point out that a discussion about the best way to use laptops in education today is not grounded in a fundamental understanding of the deep, deep changes technology is wreaking in education. When we ask about laptops in education, let's not just marvel about what would be coolest (which is often how Boards of Education develop their budgets for computers), but let's try to ruminate over what standards we should set for learning.
We've got an archive of related articles and links on our Education page.
A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
Washington, D.C.
These programs seem like more of an PR ploy to boost the esteem of the schools systems.
While I believe that some students could benefit from computers with internet access, most would not. Teachers would need to adjust lesson plans and their ciriculum to be more net focused. Teachers would need to keep current on the information on the net, 401 not found, would be a pretty lame lesson.
Administrators would be exposed to even more censorship hassles. Not to mention the extreme effort to support the hardware. Large corporations have a HUGE budget of IT infrastructure, that schools do not have. Not to mention corporations have $$ to pay talented people to build information resources to help them leverage their investment and make retreiving information more effecient. Schools would need to have the same resources built to facilate things like common lesson plans, perhaps standard test databases, quizes, educationtional software, etc.
What it sounds like to me is putting the cart before the horse. I doubt there is much anybody can do avbout this near sighted reactionary ploy by politicians and schoool boards. For example my school district about 10 years ago (before big Internet hype) was hyped on getting new hardware. They cleverly used funds from a bond to buy new computers for labs throughout the district. Unfortunately for them, they were not allowed to use the same $$ to buy software. There was something about the bond that limited its spending to equipment. So The computers sat unused for some time before they could pass a milage to allow them to buy the software for these machines.
It was ridiculous then, and I think the same type of mistake is happening now. A suprisingly high percentage of schools are connected to the Internet (I forget how high but it was a majority of them). But nobody asks how many are using it?
I have several teachers (ranging from elementary ed, to college profs) in my family from around the country, and when we get together they usually talk education. I heard the same recurring theme. They want to use computers and make use of them, and are all trying to do that, but they don't know how.
What we need is not to give a computer to each kid, but to give a computer to each teacher AND TRAIN THEM. Not a wimpy week long class, but make them go to a specially designed class at the college level. AND make it some type of certification, otherwise they will not keep up with technology.
By training the teacher they will have the skills to make use of the technology in their class room and pass those skills along to the students. Once we get a technology savvy set of teachers then we can put technology in the hands of the students.
Computers are tools in education. And like any tool, they're only as good as the craftsman behind them. Picture an ice sculptor with a chainsaw and ice pick. Picture a lumberjack with a chainsaw and an icepick...
The first step in making computers effective in the classroom (besides just getting them there) is to educate the teachers we have now and the ones we WILL have, in how to use the computer(laptop, desktop, palmtop) more effectively in their curriculum.
Simply placing computers in the classroom and expecting a higher degree of education or understanding of academic materials is ridiculous. Put kids in a classroom with Encyclopedias, white boards, dictonary, Learning Posters, calculators and expect them to be better educated simply because of the presance of these things is equally ridiculous.
If Teachers were given the proper training and education, then they themselves could go out there and find solutions to their lack or teaching tools. Who here reading this knows how powerful a 486DX66 running Linux on a T1 w/ Internet access can be for researching needs? I doubt that many teachers think anything less than a PII500 in Win98 w/ Interent Access can be as effective. If Teachers simply had the know-how and skills to put computers, even old donated ones, into good use-- then perhaps we would see the effectiveness of computers in the classroom. Then perhaps we would see our $200 "Web Pad" that takes over the task of the old Packard Bell 486 sitting in the back of the classroom.
****sf45*****
*45*
I disagree that computers tend to distract students from deep principles. When I tutor 9th grade algebra I am amazed at how much of the students' cognitive capacity is wrapped up in the mechanics of the paper-and-pencil algebra (anyone else remember binomial Benny?) and how little is left over for thinking about the problem. Ideally, what computers can do is routinize the stuff that is trivial and allow students to focus on what's central and important. If entire classes of students are focused on the mechanics of using a particular software package and not on the underlying principles, that has a simple explanation: bad teaching. And that happens both with and without computers.
Democracy is the worst form of government ever devised, except for all the others. -Winston Churchill
I worked in a school where the science dept had laptops at aprox a ratio of 1 laptop per 2 kids. But after a couple of years they had enough trouble with theft, breakage, etc. that they cabled each laptop to the desks. They still uncabled them for a few important purposes. 1) students could check them out to do homework on, and 2) they would do in-the-field data collection at local streams, etc. But for the most part, they'd have been better off with a bunch of (cheaper, faster, more ergonomic) desktop machines and had a bank of laptops avaailable for checkout.
Democracy is the worst form of government ever devised, except for all the others. -Winston Churchill
The hard thing in these programs will be balancing the usefulness of the device to the students against the cost of support and replacement.
I think it is unreasonable to think that primary and middle school students (grades K-7) can be expected to lug about a relatively fragile piece of hardware without it getting lost or damaged at a fairly high rate. Given this , you have to assume that a number of the students will need replacement machines each year. The schools should own and maintain the machines and provide replacements as needed (or out-source the service). Even if the school does not take this approach it will be forced on them as many parents will assume the school will have support, maintenance, and replacement programs in place. You take things to the point of purchase for support, and, given the excess of non-libertarians in this country [U.S.A], I would not be surprised to find that a large number of the parents assume a mandatory purchase includes infinite free replacements (few will read the purcahse agreement).
Up through at least 7th grade, what the student needs mostly is a research library (WWW, etc.) and tools to generate homework results (reports, graphics, music, etc.). For that age range having machines availaible in the class room and library is adequate (it should be as many as the school can afford, more is better).
At all ages, machines provided by the school system for the express purposes of aiding homework and research should be owned by the school system, maintained by the school system (they will end up supporting them in any case), and limited to the purposes for which the school system intends. I do not see it necessary (or desirable) for a school to be required to provide machines adequate for all needs; providing machines adequate to the purpose at hand is more that enough of a challenge.
At grades above 7th, I would support purchase plans sponsored by the schools for general purpose machines that also happen to be capable of being connected to the school's systems. The power of group purchasing to reduce the individual cost is the point here, not providing a fixed-purpose machine. Once the machine is purchased, the school system should have no responsibility for it. This would help people get a break on the cost, but still allow them to select a computer that suits what they see as the needs of their child.
I do not think it is reasonable at grades below college to require a student to have a laptop computer. I think it is enough to provide several (many) in the school and libraries, to encourage parents to purchase machines for the students, and to aide the purchases through group purchase plans and other means.
On a related note:
I recall a laptop system that was being marketed to some of the school systems locally (near Atlanta, GA) that had a security system that required it to connect to the school network every so often (i think it was a several-day limit). If it did not connect, it shut itself down and required an admin to re-enable it. This was its main theft prevention measure. I do not think colors and logos will stop any theft, disabled rugged tamper-resistant construction, and limited usability after theft will.
I've never been in a situation in school where computers were the only way to do something. The kids in my school can't look stuff up in an encyclopedia anymore, much less write a bibliography. Instead they're online, looking at hamsterdance.com, some random porn site, or checking their e-mail. There's absolutely nothing productive to be done with computers at school. Sure, there are computer graphics courses (and programming, but they don't have that here), and teachers like things to be typed, but that's a luxury. The entry-level computer classes are simple. Keyboarding is useless (someone else wrote about this): everyone here can type at least 35 wpm, which is more than enough for the illiterate bastards. They can hardly write a proper sentence anyway. I digress.
In conclusion (I love saying that), there shouldn't be computers in school...yeah. Instead of spending all this money on bullshit computer systems that aren't even secure or put together (WINNT 3.0 on a 10mbps network here...yay!) well. I'd rather have smaller class sizes, better teachers, and more books in the library. Argh. [insert witty comment here]
Mikey G.
===================
http://www.yourmothernaked.com
I think maybe that portable computers raise the possibility of real changes to the education system. It makes it possible for teachers to taylor curricula to each student in the same way that the net is mass-customized. Maybe all students can get A's if allowed to go at their own pace. Portable computers allow students to take lessons anywhere. They aren't limited to the 45 minutes that they get in class.
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
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), and I know 5 different languages, including html and java. 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. 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.
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
First of all let me say that i teach chemistry at a small junior college in western texas. We have plenty of students who enter our institution with hopes of later attending a professional school (medical, pharmacy, physical therapy etc.) and so i have see what some of these professional schools do in terms of education. One of the most important it the Texas Tech University Pharmacy School at Amarillo http://ismo.ama.ttuhsc.edu/ExternalHome/ This is a relatively new pharmacy school and is quite different in its approach to teaching. Entering students are required to purchase a laptop (the school gives a list of recommended laptop brands and features). When these students get to class they no longer have to sit and take notes in the traditioal lecture sense, they simply plug their machine into the network and the instructor turns on his/her machine and the student dloads the class material of the day as the lecturer provides the discussion. I think it has the ability to revolutionize teaching at this level because i have always felt that a student cannot learn something if he/she is sitting there trying to write down everything the instructor says and then doesnt really have the opportunity to 'listen'. If the student has a copy of the notes already and can simple make notations in their material as the instructor talks the the student has a much better chance at retaining whatever material was being taught for the say. I can see far reaching implications for teaching methods like this in the professional schools where the students are somewhat more motivated in the educational goals, but for me it seems somewhat insane to attempt to do this at the grade/middle school level. ~Cthulhu
I currently attend a university here in Canada where we're guinea pigs for just this sort of computer-intensive education. We're all given laptops as part of our enrollment package (although they DO charge us an extra $1000 a year to cover the lease costs).
Our single biggest issue here has probably been the fact that our administration didn't negotiate with the teacher's union about all this before they brought it in. As such, there are many classes where we never even USE the laptops and those teachers that DO use them only use them for powerpoint presentations and other minor things. What's the point of that?
Any school that wants to do this sort of thing had better be willing to pour some serious money into developing teaching pedagogies (sp?) that utilize these new technologies. They're certainly not trained for "wired" classrooms...
Even without profs who know what they're doing (or at least using the technology creatively) there are still benefits. With EVERY other student online, we use ICQ instead of the phone, we ALL run Napster and we can all code basic html... We're technologically aware and VERY valuable to employers because we already "know our way around".
(Regarding logistics, we have power plugs and 10mbit Ethernet connections EVERYWHERE on campus.. in dorm rooms, at the desks in classrooms, in the study cubicles in the library and even on the benches in the hallways...)
I remember when we had computers first introduced into our schools, I guess when I was about eight. They told us that there was a keyboard, a monitor and a "computer", and that was about the extant of our computer education. Then they left us to play on them.
Most educational software that I ever remember using was cheap and gimicky and didn't really convey anything. Most of the software that people actually "need" to use has to do with modelling of technical scientific systems...not really educational at all, but more of a technical aid for people who already understand the concepts involved.
I guess that in introducing students to the bare bones of computers, the previous decades or so of educational computing has been succesful. But it is akin to thinking that because they teach a preeschooler that a goose goes quack, that he will be a farmer.
Do they want to give these students computers so that they can use them as a utility in their normal studies? As a place to store notes and read data? Kind of like a notebook and textbook, only more expensive? Or, are they teaching them how to actually use their computer? If so, they are probably only teaching the functions of the current wave of consumer software and common applications, that will be out-of-style\obsolete by the time the student is in college?
Or, are they actually teaching students the "secrets" of computers...not only that there is a thing called a "hard drive" and "modem" and "processer" and things called "programs", but how these things actually function? I doubt they would ever take the time\money to explain this to high school students, and I even more seriously doubt that they would give them this power.
Computers in education are still a gimmick.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
- Distracts students
- Students with an affinity for electronic toys can spend thier time programming/tinkering w/o paying attention to the class being taught
- games
- can makes sounds etc..
- Makes it easy to "cheat"
- can copy your "friend's" work
- "electronic crib sheets" for tests
- computer does the work, the student does not understand the concepts behind the subject
- Computers would need to have programs which suppliment the class.
Since I was a guinea pig in my public schools trial use of Programming calculators (some 10 years back), I experienced first hand most of the mentioned problems. A laptop computer has much more room for these kind of problems. Really, this makes it harder for a teacher to stop a student from inapropriate behavior. If a teacher sees a student doing something inapropriate, the teacher can remove that element for an indefinate period of time. With a computer, the teacher would not know if something wrong was happening. They also would not know how to stop it. One needs true studies and tests. We need proof that an electronic system is viable before one throws it at students and makes thier education suffer.Academic institutions in general, to a greater or lesser extent, have to devise more flexible and efficient learning and teaching strategies.
Financial constraints, flexible modes of study, increasing student numbers and reduced contact time between students and lecturers has led to the recognition of the need to adopt new technologies to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of available resources
Students are increasingly being made to use web based learning instead of the traditional lecture/seminar routine. The push over here is from the government that Academic institutions make 'affordable access' to portable computers so that students off-campus have equal access to resources.
The Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (Dearing Report) in the UK studied in depth the use of Computers and Information Technology in Higher Education.
Recommendation 46 was that we "expect that by 2005/06 all students (in the UK) will be required to have access to their own portable computer".
For info on the dearing report click here
For the recommendations of the dearing report click here
To learn more about learning and teaching click here
and a good article on the future of learning click here
I attend a school in Northern Ontario and we have a laptop learning program, which just started this year for french immersion students in grade nine. Although there are infrequent problems with server crashes and viruses, the program runs pretty smoothly. I only wish I was a year younger and in french immersion... The laptops are provided to the student for one semester for $500 (i think) and are pretty good, Celeron 300 chip, 64 mbs RAM, fast enough cd-rom that reads cdrw disks, etc. Better than most of the computers we use around the school =( remember: always be nice to the admins, or else you get blamed when the server crashes...
I couldn't agree more. Computers would be (are?) a distraction in the classroom invironment. I'm struggling through a computer hardware class with some high school kids. [We're going to use a 68306 to make a multichannel timer for their school's swim team.] These guys are bright, but they have zero attention span. I can't imagine what kids that grew up with connectivity in the classroom would be like...
They'd have nothing of anything that wasn't Doom, Tomb Raider, or whatever the game-o-the- day might be.
Classrooms should be engaging, not entertaining. There's a difference. Classrooms should draw out the talents that the children have, not cover them up with an artificial dependence on technology.
I'm afraid that we're going to grow a generation of kids that don't know how to build computers-- or anything for that matter. They won't understand FETs, because the don't have the math background. They won't understand their adolescent feelings because they've not read the great literature-- the foolish young love of Romeo and Juliet (actually, I'm a big Shakespeare fan; my wife just doesn't understand why I giggle so much when I read the Tempest or Midsummer Nights' Dream). The wickedness and cruelty of mankind through Dickens. The dark humor and prophetic irony of Huxley. They won't understand the evil of communism because they've never studied history. They won't understand why eastern Europe and the middle east are such powder kegs-- didn't Rodney King ask us why we can't just get along? (Wait, Rodney King is Ancient History by now...)
Technology is for the betterment of mankind, but more often that not it ends up just making people less inventive and just plain dumber.
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.
What use does a grammar school student have for a spreadsheet? For a word processor? Zip. Grammar school kids are learning how to WRITE using pens and pencils. They're learning to READ (hopefully). Their math skills don't go past fraction reduction. Yes, some might be more precocious and do more, but those have parents to provide the extras to keep their children engaged and learning. It's the parent's job, ultimately, to educate-- not the state's.
If I as a parent want my second grader to be able to assemble an x86 box from a pile of parts, fine. My kid's going to be smart enough to do it. Others are going to need more work on their more important skills- literacy. Arithmetic. Things that computers only distract from.
Kids don't learn math from typing answers on a computer. They learn math by study and practice.
I couldn't have said this better myself!
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.
I disagree. Typing perhaps, since typewriters are hard to come by anymore. In any case, I don't know of any office application that can't be picked up to a usable level of proficency in more than fifteen minutes.
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.
Wage gap? The point of education is not to get a beter job. Education makes you a better person. Anyone can work. Only the educated are enlightened (outside of supernatural revelation). History is just as important, as an example, as computer skills in becoming a good citizen.
Kidproof, that's not to tough, we've been making radio's that can withstand hurricanes for years. And don't whine about data loss from dropping your HD, they're durable, we spiked one off a concrete parking lot, then tossed it bout 20 feet up in the air an it still ran fine, though ours was probably some fluke super drive or something.
As for the actual concept, you can't go wrong with computers. The mere plethora of tools available for educational institutions are enormous and usually very cheap or free. It would encourage kids to program at an earlier age, and become familiar with basic concepts of operating a computer as well. The only downside I can see is the mentioned "Pre-Censoring" of the internet. No really acceptable means to do this has been discovered so far that doesn't completely neuter the net as a whole.
With the amount of information circulating around schools they are probably a good idea. Think of it this way...the paperless classroon...no more penmanship classes...that's where my f's were.
On another note many graduate/professional schools are requiring laptops as part of there curriculum, college enrollment, on average, is going up, and freshmen in college still can't figure out how to use a word processors without help.
Good idea...YES, how the hell will it be implemented...NO CLUE.
$0.02
I used to teach at a large Catholic college here in South Australia ( website @ http://www.ignatius.sa.edu.au ) and we looked into buying laptops for our students, but ended up investing in hiring desktops to fill 4 classrooms at the senior school and enough for a classroom at the junior school plus one for each junior classroom. Why? Firstly, there was the cost of providing a laptop for each student. AT 800 students the costs were prohibitive for the school and discriminatory for poorer families. Also there was dealing with the infrastructure. The school is networked, but designing and constructing a network for 800 PCs straight out was also looking a bit pricey. Also there was the upgrading. Laptops aren't the easiest things in the world to update component-wise. By leasing desktops we upgrade every three years, and we can spend the rest of the budget on software licenses for new and relevant software. By having 4 classrooms full of computers, all students can enjoy learning about computers as well as get the chance to integrate their use into other subjects. The school has an active policy of achieving computer literacy across the breadth of subjects offered. By doing this students achieve the concept of computers as part of everyday life - like they should be! Also, as far as maintenence is concerned, it is easier to look after the 300 or so computers that the school has - and they don't get dropped (often!). Some schools in Australia went for laptops for all students, and it is interesting to note that most are now dropping that option in favour of desktops. Also other schools have dropped by this one to see how we do it - achieving good curriculum standards and a safe and secure network that is used responsibly by the students. Hope this is helpful!
In order to effectively use computers in the classrooms, several things need to happen:
1.Teachers need to start trusting students.
2.Computers have to become a matter of fact.
3.Curriculums must be developed with specific uses for computers in mind not just vague ideas.
However, this doesn't mean that computers should be used by every teacher in every classroom. Here, I apply the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I have an excellent engineering teacher and he abhors computers. He loves hand on labs and teaching conceptual physics first, then the mathematical portion of it. I feel the learning would in fact be hurt by computers in this class and I'm sure that there are cases aplenty like this one.
However, there is one place where I would absolutely love computers. In the lunchroom. Well not really in the lunchroom, but in a internet cafe style lounge where I could hang out with friends, type up documents, go around on the internet, perform mathematical computation, et cetera. That would be ideal in my opinion.
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 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.
Ace
Here, at the Bergen Academies, ready access to computers institutes one major problem: not using them correctly. They plan to give these kids laptops (which , by the way, are very valuable and are a penchant for stealing) to use for educational purposes, when, most likely, they will be used to download pornography or games or warez or sign on to AOL(*shudder*, especially on an ATM connection), or just do general internet surfing not pertaining to your class (like I am right now :) .)
It would most likely detract from their learning experience, especially if wireless networking and internet access is deployed, due to these facts. A better alternative would to give the students a little email server with dumb terminals hooked into printers, so they can email themselves their homework to a home address, and research with NS or IE, and print to a local printer. Or you can post all major assignments to a BBS or calendar hosted by your school (Like This), or by a gratutitous company.
Since anyone who knows the slightest about computers will probably concur that the schools just ain't gonna get a drop-proof, custom-cased hack-proof laptop that's good for much of anything besides Pong for the ~$500 they're willing to spend...who's going to end up footing the bill for this, should the schools decide to go this route?
-Parents? Doubt it. Some probably would; in fact, some would probably be thrilled to. Others would raise holy hell. "You mean I have to pay $500 for a computer!?" And some can't afford new clothes for their kids, let alone a computer. What kind of help are they going to get?
-The school districts themselves? Doubtful. Now the Maine program is using "federal and private" finds for this. Bully for them. But the rest of the country? Considering how much the average teacher gets paid (or doesn't get paid), I'd be inclined to think the districts wouldn't be willing to pop for this expense. Unless it involves football, a lot of schools in this neck of the woods are very very leery of dropping a large amount of bucks for anything. Unless that can be passed to:
-Taxpayers? You bet. Hike the local sales tax up a few more percentage points, stick a few more cryptic little charges on the water bill, kick the property tax up a few more notches, and voila. Of course this means that people who don't even have school-age kids (and some who have no kids at all) will end up paying for some other rugrat's toy laptop.
-Advertisers? Possibly. Get the kids good and desensitized to those nasty ads at an early age. Parents would probably beg to differ on that, but since I'm not one, I will reserve judgement.
The point is, no matter whose pocket this deal comes out of, someone is going to bitch about it. So here's a novel idea: Forget the laptops. Stop putting so much importance on sports. Start paying the teachers what they're really worth. When teachers are getting paid what they should, they'll be more likely to do a good job. Plus the added perk of a decent salary attracting teachers who actually have a clue. Save the computers for the computer classes, but at least make sure those are good up to date machines.
This is a Chao. A Chao says "Mu."
Kids should have access to computers while in school, computers are an important part of modern life and an important skill to master. But young children are not responsible enough (in general, not true for everybody) to carry around expensive computing equipment. What will happen when kids are all given laptops? They will be lost, stolen, broken, cause a tech support nightmare, and end up costing way more than originally planned. Computer labs open to students are a good idea, but passing out free (or cheap) portables is asking for trouble.
What is the current state of open source educational software? Some things that i'd like to see are: 1. A math program at least equivilant to a TI-92 2. A physics program (modeling, demonstration, etc.) 3. A chemistry program with element info, molecule info, equation solver, etc. 3. Interfaces that allow easy and efficient projector demonstrations. It would be great to use the computer and a projector as the chalk-board.
It seems to me, being a high school student, that our public schools are horribly %$@#'d up. For example: Our math is taught by memorizing algorithms and abandoning any real understanding of mathematics and the mallibility and relationships of numbers, our english abandons grammer and style, the computer classes are taught, as mine was, by people who think that old files "evaporate into a pool of liquid under the computer," the cliche saying about history repeating itself is ignored as our history classes teach trivial facts filtered through censores of political correctness--any lessons of conflict, war, human rights, or philosophies are shunned. Ask any high school student how totalitarian governments gain power. They will ignorantly say "force" and doom themselves. Our citizens are supposed to be educated enough to be at least intelligent voters, but they are now unable to detect even the most obvious sophestry. Basic logic and analitical thinking are ignored as the need for these skills increases. But it can be saved. My advanced chemistry class is being taught by a good teacher. He has a masters degree in nuclear physics and has made more in a day prior to teaching than since. He's almost sixty years old now and is working for a few months as a substitute teacher for about five dollars a day. He is different--he can actually *teach* us and get us to think. He uses his own strict rules for dicipline. The work is hard, but he'll explain it all. There are NO labs, no extra credit, no makeup assignments, no calculators, and we learn what we're doing. Not only is he the best teacher we've had, he's the only one we can apply the title of "teacher" to. Most importantly, he's abandoned the rule of teaching to the middle. This rule is responsible for most of our educational problems. When you ignore the lower end, they become dissatisfied and lose interest and confidence. When you ignore the high end, they either become restless and cause trouble or they simply lower their standards--going for the best grade with least effort. What you end up with is an incredibly average group of students with minds large and small being stuffed into the same mold. We need more good teachers. We can't rely on a few educated people who've sacrificed decent pay to teach. Our books need to be re-designed--less fluff, less political correctness, less pictures, less irrelevent and mis-guided history, less busy work and more time to think. Our students need some minimal rights. At the moment they have rights comparible to prisoners of war. (How will they respect and uphold rights they've been told they can't be trusted with?) They need a educational system that continually focusses them on more and more specific areas of study as they advance through the schools. Computers are another interesting thing. A lot of money is in computers and a lot of jobs like experience. A lot of poor and minorities want equal computer opportunities. But have you heard about how large scientific projects are sometimes finished earlier by starting later, since technology advances as such a fast rate. If the poor want computers, tell them not to buy them now. They'll be better off if they wait. But they say "I'll be left behind in understanding. It's all happening so fast!" Well, that's the great thing. The longer you wait, the easier it is to start--it just keeps getting easier. But most importantly, we can't just teach past events and say the lessons of history have been transferred to our students, we can't repeat some algorithms and say our students know math, we can't say our kids are good students because they have an "A"--which was reached with extra credit. And we can't say computers will make it all better.
OOPS! That last one didn't turn out quite right... Hope this is better.
It seems to me, being a high school student, that our public schools are horribly %$@#'d up.
For example: Our math is taught by memorizing algorithms and abandoning any real understanding of mathematics and the mallibility and relationships of numbers, our english abandons grammer and style, the computer classes are taught, as mine was, by people who think that old files "evaporate into a pool of liquid under the computer," the cliche saying about history repeating itself is ignored as our history classes teach trivial facts filtered through censores of political correctness--any lessons of conflict, war, human rights, or philosophies are shunned. Ask any high school student how totalitarian governments gain power. They will ignorantly say "force" and doom themselves.
Our citizens are supposed to be educated enough to be at least intelligent voters, but they are now unable to detect even the most obvious sophestry. Basic logic and analitical thinking are ignored as the need for these skills increases.
But it can be saved.
My advanced chemistry class is being taught by a good teacher. He has a masters degree in nuclear physics and has made more in a day prior to teaching than since. He's almost sixty years old now and is working for a few months as a substitute teacher for about five dollars a day. He is different--he can actually *teach* us and get us to think.
He uses his own strict rules for dicipline. The work is hard, but he'll explain it all. There are NO labs, no extra credit, no makeup assignments, no calculators, and we learn what we're doing. Not only is he the best teacher we've had, he's the only one we can apply the title of "teacher" to.
Most importantly, he's abandoned the rule of teaching to the middle. This rule is responsible for most of our educational problems. When you ignore the lower end, they become dissatisfied and lose interest and confidence. When you ignore the high end, they either become restless and cause trouble or they simply lower their standards--going for the best grade with least effort. What you end up with is an incredibly average group of students with minds large and small being stuffed into the same mold.
We need more good teachers. We can't rely on a few educated people who've sacrificed decent pay to teach. Our books need to be re-designed--less fluff, less political correctness, less pictures, less irrelevent and mis-guided history, less busy work and more time to think. Our students need some minimal rights. At the moment they have rights comparible to prisoners of war. (How will they respect and uphold rights they've been told they can't be trusted with?) They need a educational system that continually focusses them on more and more specific areas of study as they advance through the schools.
Computers are another interesting thing. A lot of money is in computers and a lot of jobs like experience. A lot of poor and minorities want equal computer opportunities. But have you heard about how large scientific projects are sometimes finished earlier by starting later, since technology advances as such a fast rate. If the poor want computers, tell them not to buy them now. They'll be better off if they wait. But they say "I'll be left behind in understanding. It's all happening so fast!" Well, that's the great thing. The longer you wait, the easier it is to start--it just keeps getting easier.
But most importantly, we can't just teach past events and say the lessons of history have been transferred to our students, we can't repeat some algorithms and say our students know math, we can't say our kids are good students because they have an "A"--which was reached with extra credit. And we can't expect computers will make it all better.
I'm all for it. I gave my daughter a miniature desk and a computer for her 2nd birthday. She will be three next month. Her vocab has exploded, she plays math games that are suppost to be for grades 1-3. In the past 11 months she had suprised me numerous times with how she has picked up on how to operate the computer. ie one day she finished playing her game and shut down and turned off the computer correctly with out me ever showing her... I cannot imagine her being stuck in a classroon all day without computer access. a laptop is the logical chioce. the only real concern would be it getting stolen at school.
I am surprised because I have not yet read any comments from students who have a laptop. I am lucky enough to work for a corporation who made the mistake of ordering one too many Sharp Actius 280s. Being a high school senior and a techno-weenie, I grabbed the extra laptop and headed to school. After I got permission from all my teachers to use it (none of them minded a bit) I brought it to school. I am the only one in school with a laptop, but most students have a home computer, or have access to one. I use my laptop 4 periods a day, and during my two technology classes, I plug it in to charge up again. Some people here on Slashdot have asked why a student would need a laptop. I use mine for a variety of things: I download all my English novels off the web, so I do not have to carry them around. I can make notes as I am reading, and if I find a certain line I like, I can copy and paste it directly into Word (or editor of choice) I take copius notes. In fact, many people ask me for disk copies of my notes, either to help them study, or when they are absent. My teachers love the laptop because it is often the only computer in the classroom. If the class wants to find something on the Internet, I can plug directly into the network and go find it. The Sharp Actuis makes the perfect computer for the classroom. It is small, and weighs only about 3 pounds. It is durable, especially if carried in a bag. It comes with a built in 56K modem, and a 10/100 NIC. It is quiet, because it does not have an internal fan (Can you imagine 35 laptops in a quiet classroom? That would be loud! Sidenote: I have never had a heating problem. In fact, this thing almost never even gets warm) It has a long battery life. I can easily go through several periods of constant use. I usually have the system go into standby mode, simply because I sometimes forget to recharge it. There is a connector for an external battery. A school could have an extra three or four batteries in each classroom for students who forget to recharge their machines. The monitor is small, but provides a great view. Most importantly, everything on the Sharp Actuis is external. There is no Cd-ROM drive, and no floppy drive built into the machine. In a classroom environment, this could prevent a large amount of cheating. Just disable to infrared port, which is easy enough. (The system does come with a floppy drive, and a CD-ROM is purchasable. It connects though the single PCMCIA slot) There is also a sound card, and two USB ports, but I cannot think of what they would be used for. Most schools have a technology program in place, with students who are above the rest of the class. Get a ton of laptops, load NT ( in order to provide a common interface to everyone, and lock students out of some of the functions they do not need) and when there is a problem, send the machine down to the lab, and issue another temporary machine. It would work great! It certainly has for me. My GPA has already gone up nearly .5. I now have a 3.86, and I definately think this laptop has helped.
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
Considering that the average k12 textbook now costs $76, laptops/webpads/palms/ebooks/whatever make economic sense. Assuming every kid needs 6 textbooks a year, by the time they graduate the school district will have spent nearly $6000 on out-of-date, paper content. Why not buy electronic devices for $500 to $1000 and give all the students their textbooks electronically?
And in all fairness, what can you do with them? Not much. You can hook it up to some equipment in your physics lab, and do a little modeling on it for your math class, and that's about it. In Clovis's case, they never asked themselves the question, "What will be the point of having every kid have a laptop? What will they gain from this?"
Everyone is so eager to jump on the technology bandwagon, yet often we haven't stopped to think about what we will be able to do with a laptop. Every industry uses its own proprietary software (often a UNIX-based database). High Schools cannot possibly aspire to teach kids how to use every software package they will ever need to know. At best, they will be able to teach the kids the ins and outs of Microsoft Office (I know, I know, but still, it's the industry standard). And does this require a laptop? Or could the same exact thing be accomplished in a class called Introduction to Computer Applications?
In Clovis, these questions were not even considered. Instead, a massive contract was signed with IBM, which also, by the way, forced all the graphics people (newspapers, yearbooks, etc.) to throw away their Macs and start using PCs. Some people right now are not too happy.
I urge everyone to consider the issues carefully, and if you believe big spending on technology to be wasteful, speak out! The "Information Superhighway," as the politicians like to call it, is what's hip right now, and mark my words, if your area hasn't already jumped on the bandwagon, they soon will.
Don't let the cart go before the horse.
Ryan Kirk
Soy el plátano! No tengo gusto de monos!
Sure, let's give them laptops so they can play solitaire during class. Maybe we could port a dumbed down version of Quake or Doom or Half-Life to these laptops for wireless LAN play during class. I can just hear the fragging waiting to happen. Face it, where there is a computer, there is a geek who will bypass the security, overclock the damn thing, and run a wireless Pr0n server from his jr. high school desk. Granted he'll run our lives after graduation, but I'd prefer he learned some history first. Oh, and by the way, thanks to the guy who wrote Solitaire for my eMate so I could goof off in my international studies class last year...
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
... books from the Diamond Age, with the Librarian program from Snow Crash running in the background as the cast, we're going to have to settle for something less. As far as the power demands go, it seems this would be a prime platform for the Transmeta processor. Actually, the web tablet they were developing would be just about perfect, as kids could master their handwriting on it, do research, follow a TV like story that still forced them to read, and allow for them to learn at their own rate as a form of progressive schooling... Now I'm just dreaming. sigh
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103443/
I dunno, perhaps you'd better ask some of those FORTRAN programmers.
And in any case, know Linux makes you far more employable than whom? Than an illiterate tramp who can't stop pissing himself? yes, almost certainly so. Than an MSCE? Do me a favour. Linux advocacy is most effective when it doesn't slip into boosterism
-- the most controversial site on the Web
-- the most controversial site on the Web
the title says it all.
example from book:
remember movie projectors? They were supposed to revolutionize learning, instead movie time has become a thing where the teachers and students get to go to the la la land -- thats not to say that movies in classroms can't be helpful, but without some effort to learn it just becomes some eyecandy on the wall.
Using computers to replace the hard-core learning aspect will only lead to a generation of kids who can't add unless the computer is there to help, who can't visualize unless the computer sees it FIRST for them and who in general are just too reliant on external devices to make their thoughts work -- this is as good as not knowing
do we want to create a generation of "Educational Hackers", kids who really can't understand calculus or physics, unless its through the interface of mathematica. kids who aren't really sure how to solve the problem, but know that if they plug enuff shit into the computer it will get the solution for them.
that doesn't means that the machines are bad, but before you use them in education the student should have spent hardcore time thinking about the problem on their own, not waiting for the latest solution finding pluggin.
human thought is a complex thing, and for it to grow to the level where it can come up with the physics and math of the future kids will need to internalize these ideas, not just sit there waiting for "god 'puter" to show them the way -- because if you really want create you will at some point find the way yourself.
|| sapporo ichiban rock my world
I am, and every day I see my university's mania for "computer-assisted learning" further marginalizing and alienating the weaker students.
Oh, sure, some students thrive in a computer-intensive environment, but they're the students who would succeed in a traditional classroom as well. I read their essays, respond to their homework, and see no differences between the work they do with computers and the work they do with pencil and paper.
The weaker students, however, find computers to be just one more hurdle to jump in an educational system that already puts too many barriers in their path.
We hear the education gurus talking oh-so-seriously about "breaking the credit for contact model of education," yet anyone who's ever taught real students knows that the bottom third of any class needs contact with a living, breathing human being who can explain material to them, sometimes repeatedly. The educationists claim that students are becoming "more connected" with their teachers through the use of e-mail, web boards, chat, and other online tools, yet students complain perennially about their frustrated desires for more face-to-face contact with their instructors. Sure, the best students often want to be left alone while they work, contacting teachers and advisors only occasionally, but guess what? The best students aren't the only ones.
I've seen this in action numerous times. I've been participating in a pilot project at my university to introduce the use of computers into first-year writing courses. The best students take off and fly in the new environment, and of course these are the students chosen to pose for publicitiy photos with beaming administrators and "instructional designers." Careful comparisons of their work to that of comparable students from previous semesters, however, reveals no qualitative difference--they're doing the same work they'd be doing without the expensive hardware and networked classrooms.
The weaker students are a different story. In their exit surveys they pine woefully for simpler tools, less time spent on technology instruction, more emphasis on traditional methods and less on what's trendy. Ironically, these are the students who, according to the gurus, are supposed to benefit from the new environment. The oppressive "sage on the stage" model of education, we're told, is the primary cause of poor student performance, and new "modes" are required to reach "at risk" students. Oddly, every time we try something new in the classroom, overall student performance declines until we return to traditional models.
The elitism of the computerized classroom aside, logistical problems create nightmares for teachers and students alike. Any class predicated on interaction between students can be disrupted by a single student who didn't prepare, didn't read the assignment, didn't bring materials to class. How much worse does this get when students not only have to manage themselves, but complicated computer equipment as well?
Who here has worked tech support? You were dealing primarily with adults, right? How do you think you'd respond if asked to administer a couple of hundred laptops with customized software, each in the hands of a teenager or pre-teen who may or may not know anything at all about computers? Now, throw in a few dozen faculty, all of whom also may know nothing about computers but who can't afford to lose face in front of the students. Add a handful of young hackers who are going to try to compromise computer and network security just for the sheer thrill of it. Post your reaction as replies to this message, if you will; I'd really like to show a few of them to my bosses.
Please, those of you who are still enthusiastic about proposals to equip students with laptops, go visit a middle school and sit through a couple of classes. Teachers are frustrated enough when class is disrupted for ill-prepared pupils, endless assemblies and announcements, pointless "activities," and the like. Now, they have to put up with "Teacher, my laptop crashed!" as well?
For an interesting if somewhat reactionary take on the subject, read David F. Noble's Digital Diploma Mills. Noble's main target is trendy educational theory at universities, but his basic message applies equally well to primary education.
-- He's fantastic, made of plastic....
The attraction of off-the-shelf closed solutions is enforced standarization. As a teacher who's had the (relatively) minor frustration of running a literature class in which not all students had the same edition of the textbook, I shudder at the thought of facing thirty bright-eyed adolescents with fully-functional laptops.
"Teacher, I dumped MS Word and installed Word Perfect, so I can't follow your example."
"Teacher, I installed Linux on mine last night. Is there an open-source clone of the program we're supposed to be using?"
"Teacher, I wiped out my hard drive...."
shudder
-- He's fantastic, made of plastic....
PSU is currently thinking about requiring all students to have computers. This wouldn't be to much of a change since somehting like 95 percent allready do. Have all students have their own would mean much less money would need to be spent on large computer labs for those who do not have them. Nothing says you need to buy the most top of the line machine, you can by yourself a basic Emachine for a few hundered bucks and be fine. So any complants of students not being able to afford one is not very strong. A few hunderd bucks once compared to the total cost of 5 years of school is not a very much. In todays world you have to get familier with computers, having one stairing at you in your room 24-7 is a good start. As for downloading porn , mp3's and playing quake, well hey its practicing skills(take this sentance lightly) For those that hate computers maybe it can change their minds. Others can learn more from freinds and such. And for the porn. Well theres nothing wrong with that. Also we now have class that only exsist online. kind of hard to take that kind of class without a computer. Some may complain bout slowing do to napster but if there was no napster people would just find other things to bog the net down with. Such as more quake with less lag. Far as the calculator thing, we can't use them in math on test and such. Even thought their required for math. (figure that out) well the reason for that is a calculator can be good to help whne your stuck or unsure. We can use them in all other classes though, chem you can't have a grapher so no smugeling of knowledge. this is so we at some point in our life know how to do it without them. But since in the real world very few if had the option would chose the paper method over a calculator. I do think they should maybe use less of them in highschools. Nobody in my school had graphing calculators, my ti36x was the top dog. I learned how to do it the old school way. I come here and kids are going insane without calculators. but once you get the princibles learned there is no reason not to use them. Just with this highschool dependance they don't know the princibles.
Two interesting passages from the article are included below:
"Stoll rejects the idea that students need to use computers intensively and at an early age to become computer literate. In fact, he says, the computer skills needed by adults in the modern world are relatively few and easily learned. A high school graduate should be able to use a word-processing program, be familiar with spreadsheets and data bases, and be comfortable sending e-mail and browsing the Web. Stoll says these are skills that are easily mastered in a few weeks and hardly require a battery of computers in every classroom from kindergarten through 12th grade."
"Stoll argues that students raised on video games and television need less exposure to image-filled screens, not more, if they are to be engaged in the tough task of meaningful learning. 'The computer promotes the expectation that anything can be made more fun,' he said. 'But many things important in life are, unfortunately, difficult to learn and require a great deal of mental effort. Innovative technology will make it appear to be fun. But try to make school into a fun, entertaining experience and you will gut the very essence of learning.'"
I tend to agree with Stoll on these two points, although I am a computer junkie myself (of course). I have yet to see any computer program that does as well in teaching as a good teacher does. A teacher can interact with the child and address misunderstandings in a way that no compter program currently can.
There are certain aspects of learning that computers may be useful for, such as showing complicated graphs that can't be easily drawn on the board or quizzing students to help them memorize addition tables or French vocabulary. But these tasks require a computer lab and computers available for teachers to "rent" for a given class, not computers for every child.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
I wasn't basing the web or powerpoint presentations, I am saying that no class should spend all of it's time with students in front of terminals, else they learn to use the computer instead of think. Let them use Maple,Mathematica,or Matlab if they like, but only after they can do the Integrations themselves. Some day, when they are walking down a dark alley and someone puts a gun to their head, demanding they integrate e to the x dx, I would surely hope it would not be a problem for them. In fact, the ability to use calculators on so many tests in high school probably hurt my mathematics skills. Replace 'calculator' with 'symbolic math software' and imagine what the students will fail to learn then!
-------------------------------------------------
Care to post a summary of this? I'm a huge Asimov fan and have read a lot of his novels, short stories, and articles. Don't think I've come across this one though.
-------------------------------------------------
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.
-------------------------------------------------
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 :)
-------------------------------------------------
Here's the crux of the problem. The easiest computers to use and support in an education environment are Macintosh computers. But no one is talking about purchasing iBooks because "in the real world everyone uses Windows." And no one is talking about increasing operational budgets to train and support teachers in an all Windows environment. Based on my experiences with the Portage Public Schools, I think these schemes are just ploys generate kick backs to school administrators and school board members.
Norman Hawker Western Michigan University
Last year, my university proposed to instate a policy under which all students would be required to rent a laptop from the school. Now, I realize that K-12 is a completely different situation than university computing, but I think some of the same problems would apply to using laptops in a K-12 setting. First, laptops are considerably more expensive than desktops. By forcing students to own laptops or spending school district money on laptops for each student, a large amount of money would be spent on laptops which would, in my opinion, be better spent on keeping the district's software up to date. It seems to me that students would be better prepared for what they choose to do after high school if they were familiar with current software. Second, standardized laptops which would be used thoroughout an entire school or district would compromise many of the machines' possible uses. Laptops have two key hardware problems when it comes to versatility between classes within a school: hardware capabilities and longevity. A computer which is to be used for subjects which require basic word processing and internet research need not be as powerful as one used for subjects like art which require programs such as the Gimp or Photoshop. If laptops are going to be used for all subjects, all students would need to be outfitted with a laptop which could be used for memory and space intensive projects like computer design which would raise costs considerably. Even if top-of-the-line laptops were purchased, think about how often the systems would have to be updated in order to remain up to date. Laptops are not nearly as easy to upgrade as desktop systems and thus would be far more difficult to keep up to date. Finally, what happens when a student brings a laptop home and has problems with the system? If money was spent on computer labs in the schools, a system administrator could, possibly with the help of students to help further computer education, maintain the systems to ensure that problems were quickly fixed or avoided. A child who runs into problems while at home would have to wait until the next day or pay for expensive repairs to get the laptop fixed. Laptops are a great idea, but should not be required by a school or district. Individuals should be tailored to individual needs, not standardized by political bodies like a school board.
A friend of mine is a teacher in a Daly City school (a city near San Francisco). The only reason she has computers in her classroom is because she went out and got them from a company that was donating old machines. (She got into trouble with her principle for doing this - he paniced about the political implications of having a teacher obtaining computers without his intervention.)
Because of her efforts her students now have access to eight 486's and two pentium 133s. Without her efforts they would have nothing. The local school system has no funds for computers - they barely have funds for books.
I get the impression that this is fairly representative of the situation in many schools. A lot of retoric and showcase IT programs has obscured the fact that many schools, especially in poorer districts, have little or nothing of substance in the way of computers they can use.
[ Blairism is the continuation of Thatcherism by other means. ]
Hmm... I think now instead of kids saying "the dog ate my homework" they can claim "the virus ate my hard-drive".
But all issues of affordability and responsibility aside, I really don't see laptops being very useful in the elementary school environment. Around here at least, the schools are lucky to have Internet connectivity, and when they do they usually don't have the support staff to keep equipment working properly. And the biggest problem I see is that teachers, at least the ones I've dealt with, tend to be some of the most non-computer literate folks around. Can we honestly expect already overworked and often undertrained teachers to learn how to generate materials that will be of any more practical use than good old Xeroxed handouts?
The only reason to provide computing devices to students is to enhance their educational experience - something no hardware can do on its own.
Well I'm still in high school, and where I live (New Orleans, LA US), no school in the city allows students to use any sort of computer. Except for a graphic calculator at most in the math classes. Yeah, they haven't worked out this whole giving away a computer thing, but we should at least be able to use them if we have them! It would be really nice, and it would save a lot of paper too! Hello GreenPeace!
Everyone that I have read has made very valid points. I especially enjoyed the comment from the high school student, because that's the viewpoint we need. We need to hear from kids. And yes, some are too small to vocalize their opinions or understand the implications, but those who do know what's going on, should be asked. Odds are, they know more about any type of computer than the majority of adults do. What I don't understand is why parents think that implementing laptops in public education would be used to *replace* basic forms of education; that is not the case. Computers, laptops, and techonology in general should be used to *enhance* education, not replace it. But we all also need to be adapt to the changing times. Technology is not a dream in a Kurt Vounagut novel, but a reality of the present. There are obviously pros and cons that can be counted for everything, but modern technology has seeped into almost everypart of our society, and yes, people have found ways to use it for not so noble purposes, but we need to teach our kids about this now. We have to teach kids not about sex, about STD's; not about pot, about crack-cocaine; not about cap guns, about semi-automatic weapons and sniper rifles; not about fire crackers, about atomic bombs. What did parents say when there children walked in while they were watching CNN and asked why crying kids in a panic where rushed from school surrounded by SWAT teams? We need to teach our children today about so much more than we ever imagined, and this too should be inlcuded. I think parents need to realize that, while it's their job to gaurd their children from everything that could be potentially harmful, they need to make sure their not denying thier children something beneficial.
I am currently part of a laptop program at Villanova University. It is good for the fact that you shouldn't ever have to find a lab. Unfortunately implementation is extremely costly and complicated. 90% of the students who have them use them as glorified typewriters and internet terminals. For the other 10% who use them to their fullest potential, they are inadequate to run anything beyond an office suite and a few other programs. Unless the school is well endowed financially and they are prepared to offer advanced computing topics to a dedicated student body(it all sounds so idealistic, doesn't it?) you can forget about it. MBA program = great idea college = ok/maybe not high school = joke.