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Technology and Society
nyquist_theorem writes: "MSNBC has an interesting article entitled Billy gets a laptop that covers the Harley-riding independent governor of Maine's take on technology and its role in government. While previous coverage on Slashdot covered the governor's plan to give his 7th graders laptops, this article offers a glimpse of that all-too-rare breed, the insightful, technologically aware bureaucrat - in this case discussing the sociological implications of the net in the wake of Sept 11th. The article also mentions some of the other measures the government of Maine is taking to use the net in ways that actually benefit its citizens."
great, they can IM each other instead of passing notes to each other when the teacher isn't looking
if I can give-back my Engineering degree in Comp. Sci., and my high school degree as well, and move to Maine in hopes of finally getting my own laptop?!!!
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
This radio interview with the gov really says more than the articles...(realplater, WinMedia, and quicktime) here: http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45866,00.h tml#
BTW: I think this is really a great idea, and although its bound to be misunderstood and misimplemented by many teachers and administrators, it does have the potential to really benefit TONS of students. I'm encouraged by the governors actual awareness that faculty will need just as much training and help (if not more) than any of the kids. Good stuff.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
I'm writing this from my school laptop now (Melbourne Australia), but I'm only one of probably 20 or so people out of the 400 people in years 11 & 12 that use their laptops frequently. Most of them will only use them when the are forced to
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
In politics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The desired action occurs in the short term. The undesired action takes a while to occur. Since everyone can see the desired action, people sometimes praise government action because it seems to accomplish its goals. In the long term, though, government action hurts people. Why? Because governments find it hard to take action which hurts in the short term (thereby producing the long-term gain).
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I believe that technology should supplement a strong education, rather that be the basis of it. Give the laptops to the teachers; they can take them home and plan the next days lesson rather then passing out laptops in class and telling the students to quietly browse the internet while Mrs. Smith cuts her fingernails.
They don't even teach multiplacation tables to childeren any more. Okemos, MI is an example of a school district that left multiplication tables out of their students' educations. They stated that it was due to the fact that students have easy access to calculators and computers and don't need to remember these things. I say that the Okemos school district was using technology as a crutch to remove a rigorous and somewhat challenging (for the teacher) thing from the curriculum. Young students need to sit down and learn that some things you have to memorize or work for and their are not always easy shortcuts.
</end rant>
Perhaps this was a better rant for my 'angry old man' alter ego.
Keeping
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I graduated from high school not too long ago. I was one of the generation that was supposed to be propelled forward by the "computing revolution".
IMHO, computers have no place in schools, at least not until upper level classes where a computer is necessary (say, a basic computer literacy class, but more importantly, programming courses). My experience with computers in school consisted of the following:
1) "Educational games" that were neither fun nor particularly educational. Among the ones I remember were those I played during the monthly trek to the "math lab" in Junior High; stupid things where you added numbers and a correct answer would advance you closer to a goal. Whoop-de-do... I could have learned those fractions a lot easier in a classroom.
2) A few "multimedia" computers in the library playing movies of cheetahs. This was during the era when "multimedia" was first rearing its head. Each one of these 486s with a CD-ROM and monitor probably cost the district $3,000, and possibly more.
3) Computer "literacy", which taught basic point-and-click on ancient (even at that time) Apple IIe units. A wonderful waste of a semester.
Which left us with the one actually useful application (outside of CS): Writing lab, so that students who didn't have a computer at home could type their papers.
When I look at these massive expenditures, I can't help but think how angry the teachers must be. A fairly reasonable estimate (even for the dinky little CE machines) for purchase and maintenance of those units would be around $8,000 for a classroom of 28 students. Can you imagine the jump in the quality of teaching applicants a district would receive if even $4,000 of that amount were being given to the teacher?
Instead, districts and states are forced to give in to "feel-good" programs like this. Parents think that these computers are giving their children a "head start" on the "high tech" world out there (buzzwords used for emphasis). What the system is really doing is (inadvertantly) discouraging quality teachers who would have made a far bigger influence on their child's life than ANY computer could have ever made.
Computers do have a place in schools, but that place should be very, very limited. Say, 10-20 computers in a library for research (ideally running linux on a lower end ~500mhz system to save money), a gang of 30 or so computers available in a writing lab for students before, after, and during school, and a classroom of computers for any programming course. Beyond that, I don't think districts or states should squander precious funds that could be paying teachers or repairing schools.
While I applaud Mr. King's efforts to improve the services that the state of Maine provides by implementing technical solutions, he should remember that technology is not a solution in and of itself.
I fear that merely throwing hardware at the class of 2006 will provide very few with any significant benefit. Now I am sure there will be the occasional adventurous student who will discover their own means of benefiting from this windfall, but for the masses I believe it will cause more confusion than benefit.
I doubt seriously that the majority of junior high school teachers have the knowledge of how to thoroughly implement the new machines into the their daily lesson plans. Do they know how to reinstall the OS, or how to configure the computer to print to a different printer when the class's primary printer goes belly-up?
Hopefully these issues, and others have been taken into account and resolved, but I would not hold my breath. My guess is that the primary benefit will be the extra strength training the kids will receive in having an extra 5 - 10 lbs in their book bags every day.
just imagine YOURSELF with a computer in middle school during a boring class. what would you do? something bad or good?
;)
Good troll, and Im gonna bite. OK, if youre in a boring class, most people will just zone out after a brief point anyways. SO? Nothing is being learned; if a kid is intellectually excited by something online and they pursue it for 45 minutes in class (yes, still ignoring the teacher) instead of fantasizing about the girl two desks over...whats the big deal? People have been bypassing boring teachers and having fun for years (well, even longer than that), as represented by the always present note being passed, pencils getting thrown at the ceiling etc. etc.... But, replace the mindless time, filling with something a bit intellectual, and many kids are bound to grow a little bit. Plus, i might be little bit stimulating to find various ways around filters, firewalls and stuff. The worst part about introducing these laptops is that they DO have the potential to be distractions, and surely will be to a lot of kids. But isnt it a better distraction than fantasizing all class about the hot substitute? (which can be better accomplished at home with the door locked anyways
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
I wish people would quit free-loading off of opensource software and start coding.
We need every piece of code that we can get. Big projects such as Mozilla have recently announced that they are going to freeze many of the features until after Mozilla 1.0 is out. This is probably due to all the free-loaders not writing and contributing new features to the project.
...but I digress. Anyways, the Slashdot servers have been having uptimes of ~24 hours and I have been able to actively post ~60% percent of the time without formkey errors and static pages. This means that that other 60% should be taken up with new Slashcode features to enhance user experience and put the servers through more work. Remember, a wasted clock cycle can NEVER be regained.
So Start coding and do America a favor.
Keeping
*) Angus King (Maine's governor) is on his way out of office - his second term expires shortly. This is his "going out with a tekno-cool bang".
*) Funds have *not* been appropriated for the laptop-for-7th-graders program; people are being asked to donate laptops to it. Needless to say, they aren't anywhere near the number of laptops we need. Does anybody really think that Maine has enough money for laptops for all of its children?
Sure, Maine is the coolest state in the USA - but for a different (better) reason.
We drink Moxie.
In michigan, the governor is spending a zillion dollars to give every kid a laptop. But there is no way to get it fixed, get any software you might need, or learn how to use it. And you wont be getting a new one in a few years when this one gets old.
Well, thats a waste of millions of dollars. Most teachers don't know how to use computers. The ones that do could probably make good use out of a laptop, but is it really worth it to give everyone a computer at a cost of tens of millions of dollars?
At least kids could put better use to them, but personally I think it would be better if needy kids who couldn't afford a desktop at home could apply and get one. And if a kid already has a computer, put that cash to good use on something else. Like an extra teacher, building repairs, a field trip, new books, etc.
Or, to take a more technology related course of action, develop a computer curriculum that doesn't suck. I graduated from a relatively well off community 4 years ago, and our High School had 2300 students. Our computer curriculum was two classes: Typing, and learning MS Office. And it was the windows 3.1 version of office when Office 95 was out...useless skills. And being MS I'm sure you all think useless in general. We need to be offering some higher quality tech classes.
Does a 7th grader need with a laptop????
Hell, even as an ENGINEERING student in COLLEGE, I didn't have my own computer. You see, I was there to, um, learn how to actually *DO* things. Computers are a good tool to do those things, but you really need to learn what it is the computer is doing to make it worthwhile! We didn't learn how to use commercial FEM in school. We learned the equations and methods, then wrote our own.
What, exactly, will a laptop be used for in the teaching of algebra, history, writing? Does nobody use books and teachers anymore? WTF???
This stuff scares the hell out of me. We are not teaching our kids to think or research. We are teaching them how to let a computer figure it out instead.
How can this country ever hope to innovate new ideas, etc, if the children never have to figure out *HOW* computers work, and *HOW* to derive equations, systems, text, etc. to accomplish a given task?
The univeristy I got my first degree from, Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, gives all its students AND all its faculty IBM Thinkpads. It's a very small (less than 4000 students) but well-respected university a few hours north of Maine. Every residence room is wired with 100mbit ethernet to a decent internet pipe, as is every classroom, parts ot the campus pub, most on-campus hangouts, and the first two floors of the library. Even the town, with a population of less than 4,000 (not including the students) has both cable and DSL available for $39CAD (~$25USD)/mo. It's a wired place.
The students really do all use the laptops, and for more than ICQing from one side of class to another (although that's fun too). My fourth year, I was a teaching assistant, and one of my assignments was to moderate online discussion groups for classes on ACME (Acadia's online discussion and coursework system) - one of the things my professors and I found was that the students making the most intelligent posts online were often NOT the students making intelligent points in class - opening up online discussion allowed a lot of shy, nervous, or whatever people to come out and say their piece to the class in a forum that they were comfortable in. Professors really do reply to their emails, and students and professors alike use powerpoints and websites on a regular basis.
Also, because students were posting on a forum (like Slashdot), URLs and other methods of backing points in their arguments up was quite common, and helped to add a level of intelligence and legitimacy to discussions.
Overall, the Acadia Advantage, as it is called, works quite well - while there are some who criticize it, enrollment at the school is up substantially, and students are well-trained in internet research methodology, online collaboration, web publishing, and lots more regardless of their major. It works, and it gets a lot of attention in Canada (its why I chose the school in the first place). Hopefully the same benefits will be seen in giving the computers to younger kids, as the man from Maine proposes.
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
And all of this has what to do with what a 7th grader should be learning?
I know I was into computers at that age, but it was a hobby outside of school. School needs to focus on the basic skills (building blocks) that will let that kid make his hobby (the computer) even more rewarding, since he'll actually learn and understand far more than he could ever have on his own.
Modern media is extremely diverse in it's offerings. People can now get news of any type and/or political bent they wish. Religous fenatics can get religous news; geeks can get geek news. Groups on the fringe can reinforce their beliefs by reading, viewing and absorbing only information that conforms with their world view. It's important that e recognize though, that these risks are the cost of doing business; table stakes for enhancing societal efficiency and value threough ease of access to information.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
teachers have a hard time getting kids attention in class. why are you giving them another distraction?
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
The old reading books from the 1960's that were put in storage when it was decided that they were too violent are back out again, because there isn't enough money for new reading books (and the kids love them, plus the violence was pretty tame for any time other than the 90's).
If every kid has a laptop, something else has got to go. If there is a desktop for every kid, a bit less has to go. The only advantage of the laptop is that the kids can use them on the bus. If the kid can book out a desktop system that they can use at home, then they have a computer at home. You can buy a lot more than two PC's for the price of a laptop, and you still wouldn't need a full PCs per student. Laptops typically have a short and nasty life in comparison to a desktop system. Also, most schools already have a lot of desktop systems. Just because it's an old box doesn't mean that it can't run matlab and teach the best and brightest students - it just won't run quake II or above.
What use is a few computers in library or the back of the classroom? Suppose you had to learn to read that way. You're only allowed near books a few hours a week, under supervision. Please!
I'm not acquainted with the details of the Vermont program, but there are schools that have gotten good results with classroom computers. They do it by giving the students continuous access to computers. One student, one computer. With wireless LANs so they can use them in the classroom. This has a positive effect on all aspects of learning, not just computer skills.
When I was in school, they had a "students with laptops" program - essentially, if you had a laptop, you could bring it to school and use it instead of books.
It ended up being the worst 3 weeks at school. It was quite a while ago, so my Laptop only had 1 hour of battery power - every other class I was moving my desk or trying to find somewhere with a power point. On top of that, since it was a 486, I spent 2-3 minutes just waiting for Word to open. Maths was impossible, and Computing Studies was ironically also a waste of time, since I was forced to use their dodgy programs rather than my own, not to mention that most of the CS Teachers were just other teachers who filled spots ("CorelDRAW? No, I'm sorry, you have to use Canvas, since it lets you draw lines").
It ended abruptly when my laptop was stolen. Fortunately it was recovered, but literally just before the kid who stole it was about to hand it over to someone outside the school for $$$.
While it might be different now (longer battery life, books online/net access), I still think in general it's a bad idea.
First of all, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about schools' purchases of computers, and their ultimate disuse of them. I graduated from high school two years ago last May, and I saw how our systems were, or were not, used. Probably a million dollars' worth of equipment throughout the district (and I'm not exaggerating--between the labs with IBM Eduquest-series PC's, Novell network software, and token ring networking, to the teachers' systems, Digital machines on ethernet, which were replaced after four (IIRC) years, across a high school, three middle schools, and I don't remember how many elementaries, plus admin buildings), and most of them were only minimally used. Teachers often had only passing familiarity with the systems; one used the system primarily to collect South Park clips (in RealMedia format, no less!), with many others in the same category. Windows licensing no doubt cost a small fortune, to achieve a network with almost as much reliability as a 15-year-old Chevy. All of the copies of Office were at least one version out of date, making it a royal PITA for most students to transfer work from home to school (and no e-mail for students, either--sneakernet only). Bess, that wonderful internet proxy, stopped more useful research than it did pr0n. Students were limited to eight (IIRC) pages of hard copy from the printers at any given time--meanwhile, those of us in Honors English were writing papers that often ran to eighteen. Yes, the systems were a waste. The administration was not exactly the most clueful, either, but what do you expect on a public school salary?
The big thing about the funding, though, is that most of it couldn't have been used any better. Most of the funding for our computers came from grants, with stipulations that the money be used to bring technology into the classroom. I never did find out who donated the money (MS, trying to get another group of kids, and another school, hooked on Wind'ohs?), but the stipulations were clear--no tech, no dough. It would have been nice to have money that could be used to hire some decent teachers (we had a few very good ones, but we had a number of not-so-good ones too...names withheld to protect the guilty...). From what I'm told, this is actually a fairly common situation. If the money were to be given to the general fund, it would be a lot more useful. I understand why it is not, having seen how our administration handled itself (yes, i actually attended school board meetings; dad and I made a sport of embarrassing board members)--I know what would likely have happened. So, while I agree that the money could be better used, before complaining, it might be wise to check out the source of the money, and see if there were other options. The administrators might have their hands tied. 'Course, they might also just be dolts. (OR, not XOR.)
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
i was a 4.0 student through most of high school. then i got a computer. i stopped doing my homework, and instead surfed the 'net. i'd play with verious things online, or with the computer, every chance i'd get instead of doing my homework.
now, in college, i can still quite well pay attention in class. but give me an internet connection, and i'll zone out and occupy my time quite wastefully
and i know that i, just like you, am not authoritative for the rest of the population. however, i am an example that these could be quite bad. just as you are an example on how they could be quite good.
shalom
Brian Voils
"A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students."
Perhaps if you were willing to teach every programming language to every Linux user on the planet earth, Then they all could contribute to projects.
Problem is, not every linux user is a programmer, the ones which are may not be programmers in C++ or C, and THEN the ones who program in C like myself, may not be good enough at it to contribute anything useful.
Please think before you talk, because such an opinion is exactly why only 0.1 percent of the population is using linux and why Linux is known as the geek OS.
Accept people with open arms, teach them, and motivate them to code, make them like coding, dont yell at them, call them leeches and freeloaders, and push them away.
If you want more coders, or more linux users, advocate coding, if a person cannot code advocate donations to make up for it, or ask them to write documentation, theres many ways to contribute without coding.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
King's little ploy is a bad idea, and he's a bad bad person and politican. His support in Maine has always been tenuous, and he is on his way out now due to term limits.
A bad person? Because he doesn't agree with you? What a contemptible thing to say. As for that "tenuous" comment, that's just wishful thinking; he's had a huge approval rating during his term in office.
What's this "notes" thing that people talk about? :)
... if they gave the money to, oh say, better teachers, better textbooks, more schools, smaller classes, etc. I don't mean to troll or anything, I'm actually glad to see that at least someone in america is still focused on education, but I honestly think that the money could be better spent.
In elementary and middle schools, students were taught to learn Apple // Logo. This was great because it helped you to learn geometry and basic math. I recalled one of my favorite teachers had one of those cool Apple // Logo turtles (robotic; screen shots).
I remembered when each student/group had a specific project on how to draw simple objects. We had to figure out the commands to draw it (e.g. fd 90, rt 90, etc.). Now, this was a good example of an educational. This was useful to me in math classes and drafting/architectures.
Another good one was the typing project for us to type very well and fast. This was important for high school, college, workplaces, etc. I thought some parts of the computer classes were beneficial to me.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
well I don't know about the states but here in canada we have much, MUCH higher taxes abot 50% higher then you guys, plus are government is pretty damn incompetent when it comes to essential services, Like schooling and healthcare.
I'll Sig you!
Consider - a couple hundred years ago, basic literacy was really an optional luxury for most people, not a requirement...
>|<*:=
The problem is that all school does is repeat over and over again the same information, and in most cases it never sticks permanently. Personally I think the idea of "building blocks", while intuitively it seems to make sense, is not the best way to learn. I always found the best way to learn is to get thrown into something, and let the brain learn the basics by analyzing and breaking down the complicated. Give the kids a laptop, and maybe a few of them will have the tenacity to mess around with it until it makes sense to them...
Laptops for 7th graders? And why don't we get them all PS2's while we're at it ... The last thing we need to do is give every kid in 7th grade the M$ drone training program. Instead we need to teach Math and programming classes differently.
Arithmatic should be taught in grades 1-3 instead of 1-5. We all have calculators now and its ok if it takes you a few extra seconds to divide 37 into 34564 by hand. We need to teach algebra earlier, say from grades 4-6. Then grades 7-12 can focus on geometry, trig,calc, probability/stat, and most importantly discrete mathematics.
*RANT*
The number of high schools that have manditory discrete math courses is very few (in the US). The one area of math that is most usefull in an information economy isn't being taught. Permuations, combinations, graphs, codes, and algorithms are WAY more useful than anything you will get out of an intro calculus course.
Many calculus techniques are becoming outdated. (Don't get me wrong here, Calculus is a MUST for those that are Science/Math inclined, but its importance is much less for those in the middle of the bell curve.) Instead of making continious approximations of our data we now have the computing power to crunch the whole data set. Algorithm efficency is becoming more important than how to do nasty Trig substitutions or integration by parts. The biggest problem is that there is no AP test for Discrete Math. Why take the course if you aren't required to, and you don't get college credit for it?
*END_RANT*
As far as programming courses go, they should be manditory and probably be integrated with math courses. No more BASIC. Start kids out with C++/JAVA/Scheme/Python in 7th grade. By the time they graduate highschool every student should be able to abstract, design, code, and debug simple programming problems involving IO, conditionals, boolean algebra, loops, and a slight amount of recursion.
I would much rather see collage freshmen who knew [INSERT PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE] with a discrete math background than a student who could use Powerpoint/Word/Excel.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
When you show me a program that will let me draw lines and diagrams with the same ease I can do it on paper, then I'll think about switching. But in the meantime it's a hell of a lot faster to draw with pen on paper than with mouse on screen.
As for reusing your notes as an essay, if you're taking notes verbose enough to be able to do that, then your notes are too verbose. You can't concentrate on rearranging your teacher's statements into essay-suitable format without missing some of the content itself (unless you're a brilliant writer, in which case you wouldn't need to resort to tricks like that in the first place).
Sure you were unimpressed with the equipment and training you received . . . but YOU are not one that will benefit the most from computer use at an early age. A comp literacy class to a slashdotter = a Mr. Wizard episode to Steven Hawking.
:) . The other will flip burgers or drive the bus as a victim of the digital divide.
/.'ers and the underpriveleged. Some will have fun with it and be bored while learning things they already know, while the others will gain critical experience that will put them ahead of children from other school districts.
But many of us aren't tech-priveleged. Imagine two teens from low income households without computers. One has had some basic office app experience from school, the other hasn't. The one with the small amount of experience isn't about to become a unix admin, but can at least comfortably type reports, do office work or become an MCSE
The governor of Maine made a point of making laptops available to ALL 7th graders, that means both the future
I dont mean to be critical, but your dismay over the "inferiority" of your grade school comp classes is selfish. Try and look at it from the vantage point of an under-privelegd child.
Laptops for every kid seems like a great idea until you consider how little control kids are likely to have over the laptops given to them. Restrictions such as filtering software installed on every computer is almost a sure bet. Kids who use their free computers for all their schoolwork will get a filtered view of the Internet. A dream come true for many, a sad state of affairs for independence of thought.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
I live in Owl's Head, Maine, which is where Midcoast Internet Solutions was founded - Midcoast was featured on Slashdot recently for its forward-thinking work on installing wireless in Midcoast Maine.
I was talking about this with my neighbor, a midcoast dialup subscriber, and he told me that the founder of Midcoast did it while he was still in high school.
(I'm looking into getting wireless finally; however there is a hill between me and the transitter so I'm not sure yet I can get the signal).
When you cross the border into Maine you will see a big blue sign that says "Welcome to Maine, the way life should be." And I think it's true.
It's very peaceful here, the people are nice, there seems to be a lot of interest in the arts and music.
I was able to buy my first house here after renting for 15 years in Santa Cruz, California. I'm paying substantially less in mortgage payments to own a 4 bedroom house with a 2 car garage on a bunch of land than I did to rent a cramped 2-bedroom half of a duplex in Santa Cruz.
Of course there is the winter to contend with. And I never imagined the summer would be as hot as it was. The climate is much more even in Santa Cruz. But I found last winter to be tolerable and incredibly beautiful.
I recall reading on my power bill recently that electricity rates had dropped slightly. Take that, California!
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
I Agree.
Laptops aren't going to solve anything. It's the people involved that need to be focused on:
Teachers
These people are responsible for making children learn something and if it weren't for good teachers I don't know where we would be right now. Teachers deserve WAY more respect (and money) than most of them get these days. With "teacher" I mean real, trained professional teachers, not untrained substitutes. To anyone unaware: teaching is not at all an easy task, it takes skills to make a large group of children grasp any concept, to make them behave in class etc. (I've worked as a substitute for a year, no formal training).
Teaching should be considered a noble profession, because you get to pass on desperately needed knowledge to the next generation.
Parents
I hate to say it, but in my experience, a surprisingly large number of parents don't really seem to care very much about how their kids are doing in school (parents have problems too). It's almost as if school was just some place you drop off your kids in the morning and pick them up after work. The parents are responsible for making the children realize how important school is, not just tell them the obligatory "you won't get a job unless you go to school", but to really make them understand the value of knowledge.
Most will probably agree that being a parent is certainly not a walk in the park.
I'm not from the US but I think these thing apply globally.
Just in case you somehow missed the beginning of the 21st century, learning how to use a computer *is* a basic skill these days. Relegating the use of the computer to a 'hobby' is a luxury only those already-established in the job market can afford; an example being the large group of boomers who rail, whine, and moan about the advance of computer technology and how it has no place in their childrens lives simply because it had no place in their own.
It's been my experience that the folks who piss away at computers are either the ones who already 'got theirs' and wish time would just up and stop (i.e., the aforementioned boomers) or the technologically illiterate who can't keep up with their peers and are bitter about it.
I currently work in a school district, and have for the last three years. Sure, there are problems with the school system, serious problems; but blaming these problems on computers ("our kids should be learning the 3 R's", bitch and moan) is the refuge of the simple-minded who pine for simple solutions.
Computer technology and the internet will be an integral part of these kids lives, far more so than any generation previous. Teaching them early, especially the poor who don't have computers or the internet at home, is far better than saying 'screw you, learn it on your own'. Regardless of how it panned out for you, it won't fly for future generations.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
>
What i'm intersted in is how well those kids in Okemos can multiply when they get to high school. I spent forever studying flash cards of multiplication takes in elementary school, but I don't remember many of them. If you ask me to multiply 7 * 6 I would think 7,14, 21, times 2 is 42. It takes about a third of a second, but it isn't necessarily memorized.
Boy, most of the posts I've seen moderated up have been from people out of school for a decade bitching about 486 machines.
n ew/
Get a clue people, and do some Google searches for e-learning, online education, and the like.
Cisco's CCNA courses are probably the best example I have personal experience with; you should check out their education web page. http://cisco.com/warp/public/10/wwtraining/whats_
E-learning is a huge market and a great resource. Online programs utilizing Internet technologies (classes are accessed via a browser) are teaching everything from basic maths and sciences to advanced router configuration and particle physics.
E-learing is in many ways a better solution than teacher led classes:
* Truely individualized teaching is possible.
* Classes are more accessible. If you can't read, the text can be read to you. If you can't hear, it's all available as text.
* There are many innovative uses of multimedia in these online classes. Flash is the most widely used technology for multimedia in online education. Most uses of it for this application have been very, very well done.
Online education is absolutely the future of education IMHO. Do some searching for info on it and I think you will be amazed at what is being done with this incredible application of technology.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
First, they forgot that your average high school student, when given a network-equipped laptop to use in class, is probably going to use it for things like games, surfing the internet, and IM. The teachers are having tremendous difficulty maintaining classroom discipline, and are having to tell students that they're not allowed to use the iBooks. The irony is that just about every class has been redesigned to allow for CONSTANT use of the iBooks - accessing notes, lecture outlines, even textbooks online.
The teachers have been told by the school district that they aren't allowed to say anything "negative" about the program, so they're being forced to give anonymous quotes to the local papers. Some of the ones that have offered anonymous negative quotes have said that they would LOVE to say who they are, but have been told that doing so will all but guarantee their termination of employment.
The other problem is that, because they rushed into this just so they could be first, they didn't think to UPGRADE THE NETWORK. I don't know what kind of connection they have, but putting a few thousand extra people on it has led to a lot of crashing.
I definitely think that there's a time and a place for technology in schools. By all means, teach them how to do things like use a word processor and a spreadsheet, things that will help them later on. I think there is also such a thing as overdoing it, and this is what people need to be careful of.
Then automating it will just make your students as dumb, faster. Use the computer as a tool and then offer courses in computers for people who want to go that way. For example there are lots more people who can get something out of using Photoshop or Microsoft Project then there are people who can make something out of Java or Python. And since we all pretty much wear aprons and smocks we'd be better off, eating and bill paying-wise, knowing something about Photoshop and MS Project then we would as poor crappy programmers.
Make the computer a tool not an altar.
Technology == tools, i.e. pen and paper are technology just as much as laptops, what has been around a long time and become commodotised and has fairly universal usuage we now call "low tech" and that that is not we call "high tech". Technology, tools, are just things that help us do things, teachers are to my mind "Learning CEOs" they set the direction, pace and scope. A good teacher to me is one that inspires the student with a passion to go out and learn for themselves, because in the real world that is what many of us have to do each day, learn something new and apply it in a way that is valuable. Once you've got the basics, like language and some basic math skills you can become your own teacher, thats what really good teachers I have expereinced do. As I remember someone saying, schools teach you to get A on the test, not how to apply that in different strategies to get good outcomes in real life. I am fortunate to know some very dedicated and good teachers who are able to inspire their students who may or may not do well on the tests, but will be able togo out and learn what they need toeven if it wasnt on the curriculum. Computers will hopefully just make it easier for the students to find information faster and therefore lower the barriers to learning something new. So in conclusion, we need both, technology to make learning any new topic easier by providing a means to access information and teachers to guide and inspire, I do hope we have plenty of both.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
So will he be the "West Wing" candidate in 2004? Intellectual progressive governor of a small(ish) New England (or thereabouts)state?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.