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Students Outpacing Teachers With Online Skills
beaverfever writes: "The Christian Science Monitor ran this commentary by Tom Regan on how students in middle and high school are outpacing their teachers when it comes to understanding the potential of and using the internet for learning and doing research. The article addresses a study, The Digital Disconnect, recently released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Regarding the study, Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, is quoted: 'Educators have a choice: Either they need to adapt or they will be dragged into a new learning environment.' Both the study and article are about two weeks old, but an interesting read nonetheless."
Not for nuthin', but at a local school where I went with my GF to pickup her little sister, I saw a room full (20-25) of 5 year old kids using DELL LAPTOPS and MS WORD. It's a spooky sight to see a little penquin sized thing complaining because FILE-OPEN dialog box is sometimes a bit confusing. They were using portable mice because the little rodants fit more easily into their hands. Ever see a 5 year old girl browse the web? twilight zone spooky. And I though I was kewl at 13, using ZModem and tradin' warez on BBS's here in Long Island, New York. CRAZY!
I am one teacher who knows more than my middle school and high school students. They hate it. They don't get away with anything in my lab. I know all of the tricks. OF course, the rest of the teachers in the school need clue sticks, but I am working on all of them. I suppose most computer teachers should be ahead of the kids, but that's isn't necessarily how it really is, and most teachers of other subjects just don't get the internet-thing either.
My fiance is in a computer class for nursing students. She would skip it, but she wants the easy 3 hours of 4.0 to boost the GPA. She has had one class and already she is ready to shoot the lady. Some key phrases:
Once you switch to Cox [High Speed Internet] you will never go back to the Internet!
The reason all these computers [windows boxes] are slow is because they all run off one CPU!
She told me there were more, but she was busy trying to electrocute herself to get out of class...
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
My mom is starting her first full-time job as a teacher on Tuesday. She's, umm, middle aged and was a stay-at-home'er. But she took a couple classes over the years and learning Windows 3.1/95 and office. In her previous private school part-time jobs, she typed every one of her lessons. So she STILL HAS THEM. She uses Power Point (I'm actually not a big fan in the classroom), but to spice up her Latin for these high school kids she used a Smart Board. This is essentially and interactive chalk board. At her new full-time job, the school (where money is tight) bought her one. She asks me questions a lot. I try to answer them. She is in no way an expert, but she achieved competent user level.
She is so far advanced tech wise for most teachers it is incredible (sad that is) and she's pretty sure it's the reason she got hired for a job that will be a stretch for her first year.
The saddest part? Her new school's admin seems so technologically inept, it's going to be quite difficult. They make her use an iBook (she knows Windows. She's trying to concentrate on learning Latin 4 this summer. Not Mac OS 9.1). It has a (broken) CD-R, but the admin doesn't believe her. (It says so in the Hardware and it screws up cd-r disks. Try to do that with a regular cd-rom) He says e-mail your files to yourself, but if she updates 10 files, she has to e-mail ten files. Not very efficient. It reads her files poorly and transferring them was a nightmare.
My point I guess? A major failure here is the need competent people to help teachers along. Most teachers were running the classrooms. Not taking computer classes. Computers make things much harder, unless you know a good way to set things up. I'll tech my mom to use FTP, get her a zip drive, find a copy of DAVE client or figure out something else to make her life possible.
The school gave her a partially broken computer that makes things nearly impossible to back up or move. Their advice as she picked up her new computer was "It's a Mac. You'll love it."
Oh and if you're interested in the Christian Science Monitor. (As in why should I read a "Christian" newspaper.... go here before you complain about this news source.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Most internet and computer users first encountered the world wide web at their PLACE OF WORK... How many teachers do you know with laptops on their desks? And if you do, how long have they had those things? Not long I'll wager... Technology funding is seriously lacking in most public schools. My school district cannot seem to pass anything reasonable, so my son is relegated to a 'computer lab' where he is bored out of his mind making powerpoint presentations... Of course what he does at home eclipses his school curriculum, but until technology bond issues are passed that put a significant number of computers in classrooms with broadband access, not much will change... so VOTE FOR IT!
Teaching students programming or other truly complex or specialized skills related to computers is a good thing, of course, as these subjects are ones that actually require some instruction to acquire in many cases, although not all cases by any means. But basic use of the Internet? Playing games for cryin' out loud? This is a waste of time and resources, especially when American students are falling behind in essential academic subjects like reading and mathematics. You see schools cutting back on subjects deemed "non-essential" simply because they do nothing more than enrich the students physically or culturally, like phys ed and the arts, but making all-out efforts to put computers in every classroom and to string cat5 all over the buildings.
Even in impoverished areas where it cannot be assumed that the students have access to a computer at home, I would argue that we would be better off exposing these kids to music, drama, or the plastic arts rather than putting computers in their classrooms. The Internet -- and especially the part of it most people see, the Web -- is very easy to learn with modern tools, and any moderately intelligent kid can pick it up in a week or so. This is not a "life skill" we need to spend very much time on. And when the students arrive knowing more than the teacher, there's no point in even trying.
And the brethren went away edified.
Please note that the *.com sites are newcomers to the Internet. It was only a year or two back that the number of *.com sites passed the number of *.edu sites. And this claim is even highly dubious, because a lot of commercial sites have hundreds or thousands of names for a handful of machines. Most .edu sites have just one or occasionally two names per machine.
.edu sites are typically have a lot more information available to visitors than commercial sites. Most commercial sites use most of the disk space for accounting information which is not available to web clients. Their online product information is typically small. But educational sites typically make all but the most recent in-progress pages available to users.
.com sites, and judge the Internet by that, you are guilty of an egregious misreading of what it's all about.
;-)
Also, the
So the educational part of the web is in fact a lot larger than the commercial part.
If you only look at
Also, note that scientific publications are rapidly going online. A few now exist only in electronic form. Both economics and ease of use are pushing for this change. This is probably the most "educational" information you can find anywhere.
(One could argue that some of the pr0n sites qualify as "educational", but maybe I won't go there right now.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
On the contrary -- when we used to copy blocks of text out the encyclopedia, at least the information briefly passed through our brains. Copying blocks of text, pasting it into your paper and tweaking it to avoid plagiarism charges doesn't even accomplish that.
...the barrier to entry of book publishing means that there's less garbage.
I'm not refering to copying for the sake of plagiarism. I'm talking about copying for the sake of having all the information you've researched in one place (an html file, text doc, data dump). You read it online, find that it's something you want, and put it away for later. Then you can search for it (either by keywords or a title you give it), and find it easily. All of this is considerably more difficult with an encyclopedia and copy machine.
Absolutely. Research online requires more fact checking, though you should be doing the same with any source, books included.
Reading every Google hit on the Hundred Years War won't give you a tenth as much as reading a single half-decent book on the subject.
Have you read every hit? Perhaps there are books there in online form. There are undoubtedly a good number of papers, both student and professional, as well as class notes, book lists, and bibliographies. I'd wager the information in those links are better than even a single "good" book, much less a sinlge "half decent" one. These types of links are some of the value of the internet. I consider it a very important part of the research process.
When I was in Jr. High, myself and at least another half dozen of my classmates all knew more than our teacher... that is, any of the kids who'd had ANY experience with computers.
:D
Of course, it'd probably have been better if our teacher wasn't chosen from the pool as being the person showing the most aptitude at getting the flashing '12:00' off the school's VCR...
Grade 12 in high school was different. We had a former MIT grad teaching. Got us all manner of cool things to play with. First time I'd not known more in computers than the person allegedly teaching me.
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
Teachers want to teach, and not learn. ever
tried to run a serious business AND invent/ code / document / distribute your products at the same time ? I doubt it. you probably wouldn't be here. (Very Time Consuming). well thats what teachers have to do. basically.