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Computers Not Working In Education
salimfadhley writes "BBC Radio 4's current affairs program 'Analysis' is reporting [realaudio] [txt transcript] on emerging evidence that computers have harmed, rather than helped educational progress. There is still much debate among even the most enthusiastic supporters of schools technology about how computers should best be used.
Despite record investment in computers in the USA and UK, recent studies (not the ones funded by educational software companies) have shown a significant drop in core subjects (Math, English) in schools that place strong emphasis on Information Technology.
Evidence also suggests that whilst information technology has great potential in the classroom, teachers have not yet found better use for computers than as a big library. Very few schools have been able to use the new technology for cultural exchange, or to build practical educational networks with other schools.
Teachers do not know whether computers should be seen as an exciting but peripheral educational 'accessory', or if computers can actually be used to solve the most pressing problems of literacy and numeracy - the sorts of things that get kids through exams." The Economist had a similar article a month or two back, about Israeli schools that had similar results, along with an interesting comparison between how people see computers now, and how people in the early 20th century saw film strips in the classroom.
I'm not surpised. Schools tend to take away hours from maths and physics for teaching computer "science", so that would explain enough. Pity that MS Word is considered more important than algebra.
I was encouraged in high school to use calculators since my H.S. was trying to go "high tech". In fact, we were REQUIRED to use them on tests .... if you didn't, you were going to fail due to a lack of time to complete the exam.
...
... English was another issue ... and why I didn't get into a good school), so this is a good example in my opinion.
... and I finished WAY before the other students in the course. HOWEVER, when I got my exam back, I got a 54%!!! Every answer was correct, but in big, red letters at the top of the paper, the prof wrote "This is what you get for looking at your calculator so much!" ... then he wrote "I need to see a few more steps and where you got some of these answers".
:)
... kids today need to learn to think for themselves BEFORE they begin to use technology as a crutch ....
.... but at the same time, we live in a technology laced society ... so which is more evil ... to force kids to learn, but not teach them technology, or to teach then technology, but make them helpless without it ....
....
... can't live with it, can't live without it ...
...
Then I got to college
Now keep in mind, I was a pretty good math student (scored perfect on the SATs in Math
I took my first college Calc II exam, and of course, used my calculator for it. In all fairness, it was a difficult exam, but a fair exam. I thought I would be "joe slick" and finish quickly by using the latest and greatest graphing calc. available
Needless to say, that was the last time I used that calculator for anything but to check answers (or to get answers and reverse engineer them)
My prof was right though
It is an evil world we live in
It looks like technology is like women
Just my 2 cents
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Computers should primarily be used as an information reservoir.
You have to tread carefully when students start using them as active information _processors_ . Then you start to wonder what the net effect on education is.
See "Silicon Snake Oil" by Clifford Stoll in which he arrives at a similar conclusion. This came out about 4 or 5 years ago, don't know why anybody is surprised by this.
Part of the problem is that many schools are staffed with teachers fresh out of school themselves and put into situations that equate to nothing more than glorified babysitting.
The real issue here, and this applies to whether or not we put computers in classrooms or force them to use old-school slide-rules, we've got to get back to teaching kids how to think, analyze and take some mental initiative.
Unfortunately, this usually starts at home
--- have you healed your church website?
http://www.familyhaven.com/parenting/hightechheret ic.html
If you haven't read his book "High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian" you really should. It's got some great reading and some things we should think about as we design software.
What can we do as software developers to actually make computers useful in the classroom instead of so distracting? Any thoughts from educators out there?
Of course, many of the teachers (just like many of the engineers in the corporate world,) said "What? I don't think thats going to work." but the school boards wanted their schools to be considered hi-tech, and it was an easy way to get more money for education.
Now that this stuff has actually been tested in the field, we're seeing it all backfire.
And all jokes aside, while technology teachers tend to know what they're doing, many other teachers were given a manual and direct orders to "teach using these computers!". Obviously, thats going to have a negative effect.
From what I've seen, computers are mostly used in the classroom as electronic babysitters. Small wonder they aren't improving education.
Our society seems to be beset with a mentality that calls for computerizing things because we can, rather than because there's a need.
ps - Get more replies when there's a reply button, eh Taco?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Which wasnt all that long ago... well grade 3 (1987) up until grade 9 (you do the math, i dont have a calculator handy ;), calculators werent allowed in the classroom. You had to work out maths problems on paper.
If my family was being held hostage by some mad mathematician who demanded that I solve some equation or my family dies, i'd skip right to the funeral arrangments. Thankfully there arent many homicidal mathematicians.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Ballpoint pens have been found to have no advantage over pencils regarding spelling.
Calculators found to not aid basic understanding and proficiency in mathematics. (Yesterday I saw someone enter 150000 * 1 into a calulator, then write down the answer so they wouldn't forget it)
It's a tool, just because you have it it doesn't mean you know how to use it. Too much emphasis is placed on the hardware in schools, too much money is spent on a fast connection, teach kids (and teachers) how to actually use them for academic purposes and you may see an improvement in some topics.
For subjects such as history and geography, the internet really can help a lot. To teach spelling or mathematical skills, maybe some software can be of assistance, but only if people know how to use it. The computer is not a replacement for a teacher.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
I used to work in a School District IT department. Computers were thrown at everything as if they were a cure-all, when the real problem was that the teachers were awful. It seemed that the ones who were yelling the loudest about needing computers in the classroom were the same ones who put up signs saying "Welcome Student's" and the same ones--English teachers, mind you!--who were saying, without a trace of irony, "Yeah, me and her are going across the street for lunch."
We need to turn out smarter teachers and give them incentives to perform, like better pay, long before we think about having a computer for every student.
Computers are changing EVERYTHING. Just because we do not know how to use them does not mean that they are not effective. In fact, the main problem is that computers are close to at odds with mainstream academic thought.
What happens when within 5 minutes I can gain most any knowledge I desire? Well..it kinda breaks down the walls, that is what it does.
The problem with such limitless resources, is not a problem with the resource itself, it's a cultural problem. Our modern education system sucks. Absolutly, positivly sucks. All it does is turn a majority of students completly off of knowledge. It does not encourage the kind of curiosity and logical thought that make for an intelligent person.
Our education system should consist of the basic fundimentals..Math general scientific method, language and grammer, and logical thought are the most important things we can teach. Everything else stems from these base things, and should be taught as such.
Love of knowledge is the most important thing that can be gained at such a young age. We should not throw this away just so we can have good little Christian worker bees.
As long as the focus is simply on getting "computers in the classroom" these kinds of results do not surprise me. For all the talk of quantity, I rarely, if ever, hear discussion on how computers will be used once they are in the classroom. Computers no doubt can, and should, play a roll in a child's education, but people need to remember that they are a means, not a solution.
If you really want a better education for our children we should return focus on the basics... Math - Science - Language/Writing/Reading. Computers can be used when applicable to help teach these lessons, but otherwise are not particularly necessary.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
I've tutored K-12 and college-level students for several years and have been in a lot of classrooms. One thing I've noticed, especially in education challenged South Florida, is that the school system is trying to use computers to make up for the lack of real teachers. The second problem is that most educational software isn't.
For example, many of the reading comprehension titles are no better than the workbooks from before -- read a few paragraphs, answer a few questions. In fact, they're often worse because the workbooks allowed the student to respond with a sentence describing the paragraph rather than clicking a multiple choice option.
I do think that computers are useful in post-lecture studies since it allows students to work at their own pace until they understand a topic. THis is especially useful for mathematics.
My kid's school (a 5th/6th grade intermediate school) has a beautiful, fully equipped computer classroom - and a teacher who teaches computing only. ...and that's the problem. The teacher knows *nothing* about computers. Practically all the kids know far more than she does.
Because she knows nothing, she dumps 'edutainment' programs onto the machines and has the kids play them continually while she merely maintains classroom discipline.
She spent three weeks (that's 40 minutes per lesson for 10 lessons) having the kids run some kind of 'typing tutor' program. Since all the kids learned to type in 3rd grade (at least as well as a typing tutor program *can* teach), they were all bored to tears with the repetitive exercises.
Fortunately, my son discovered that this stoopid program doesn't disable cut and paste - so he was able to complete all the exercises insanely quickly. Since the teacher allows them to surf the web once they have finished the assignments, he was able to go off and have fun by himself the entire time.
The crowning glory came at the end of the year when the teachers were handing out class prizes - my son was awarded the prize for best EVER score on the typing tutor by the dump computer science teacher - she proudly announced that he'd scored something like 3,000 words per minute with a 0% error rate. Some of the other teachers looked a bit strangely at her - clearly realising that something had gone amok, but perhaps assuming she'd just mis-spoken the results.
This is just one of many gaffes this teacher made. She had the kids "List 10 parts of the Computer". My kid duly wrote stuff like 'CPU', 'ROM', 'Ethernet Ataptor', 'Motherboard' - and the teacher gave him zero on the "test" saying that the correct answer was 'Mouse', 'Keyboard', 'Television' (!), 'Mouse pad', etc. When my kid complained that his computer at home didn't have a mouse pad she told him that this was nonsense and that ALL computers have mouse pads - this dissuaded him from telling her that the monitor is not, in fact, a TV set.
Similarly, she had the kids write down the 10 good things and 10 bad things about computers. My son complained that he couldn't think of 10 bad things. His teacher gave as an example: "They crash a lot" - well, since we only run Linux at home, my son knows that this isn't necessarily true and that it's not the COMPUTER that crashes - it's the SOFTWARE. Inevitably, when he complained he got in trouble.
I've written several letters to the teacher in question (she doesn't appear to read her email - even though it's provided by the school) - with poor results. I wrote and even visited with the Principal to try to get something done - but of course she just says that qualified staff are hard to get - and the State doesn't require that teachers are trained in the subject they are teaching.
So, can we conclude that teaching with computers is "A Bad Thing" ?
No!
Not unless we've carefully checked that the teachers and curriculum are sensibly chosen. Clearly, if my son's school had spent the money that went
into that computer lab in some other way, they'd have gotten more value for money and the kid's grades would have been better...but that doesn't prove that teaching computers are bad - just that they are ineptly managed.
www.sjbaker.org
The link is wrong... if you click on it, you are taken to a cybersquatter's page with a butt-ugly picture of Alan Greenspan.
The real link to The Economist is here.
I don't want to be offensive to you but I think that teachers and principals do need to see this. One of the things that is wrong with the current educational system (in the US anyway) is too many people are worried about keeping their jobs and not making sure that kids are properly educated. It becomes a huge political circus rather than a public service to better the next generation.
... well you know, and legislators to stop passing laws that give more money to districts where kids pass, thus encouraging teachers to pass kids regardless of grades. */rant*
... don't get me wrong I do believe that educational software has its place. Personally I think its something that parents should have at home, or something that should be in libraries, even school libraries. Places where it can be used without taking away from the time to learn the real important stuff.
Reports like this are a step in the right direction, showing teachers that Math, English and even fine arts are so much more needed skills than calculators, word processors, and MS Paint.
*rant* Now if we could just get school boards across the nation to get their heads out of their collective
Back on topic
My two cents.
The Anti-Blog
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Nowdays it is too easy to goof off on computers rather than use them for educational purposes. In fact, it seems that current 'educational software' is mostly a bunch of cartoon chrud with a little bit of math etc. here and there.
An elementary school math tutor for the kids who were behind asked me to make a math tutor computer program that wasn't cartoony etc. Getting exact details on what she wanted was like pulling teeth, but in the end we wound up with a piece of software that was kid-friendly (meaning easy for them to control, some kids have coordination issues when it comes to moving mice) and actually helped improve their math abilities.
One thing that I am quite proud to have worked with is the AR Program (Accelerated Reader). The concept is to have point values and difficulty values for most of the books in the library. Kids check out whatever books they want (they are strongly encouraged to use books of an appropriate difficulty level) and can take computerized quizzes on them. The kids can trade in points they earn for candy and small, cheap toys. It actually works! I would have imagined that the kids would have gotten tired of it quickly, but the teachers take it seriously and the majority of the books in the school library have AR quizes available.
I have volunteered in several elementary schools, but in the one where they emphasized this AR program I regularly saw kids leaving the library with books and actually eager to read them. That is a very big thing; getting kids modivated to learn/read is one of the biggest problems in educational. This computer software is not advanced; it could be made to work on an AppleIIGS, but the fact that it is actually getting kids to read (and to like it!) is profound.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I hope that spellcheck is comming soon to slashdot. :)
Seriously though, I think that in the 80s a huge importance was placed upon computer education. The common notion was that everyone will need to know how to operate a computer later in life.
Well, they were partially right. Everyone should know how to operate a computer, but for practical purposes in High School education, that's a 2 hour class with perhaps a semester course in typing.
A computer will do much of the work for you. It will do your math, check your grammar, and allow you to do research from your home. The problems here are obvious. There is little need to do things for yourself. I've found that most children do not have the discipline to willingly learn advanced math and grammar on their own. The problem is two-fold here though because many parents don't have the discipline to discipline their kids.
As for research, I'll be quite blunt. The net is a poor tool for younger students. There is too much opinion and just plain bull shit on the web to be of great use. It takes a more seasoned approach and a level head to be able to filter out the crap, and I don't think the majority of high school kids benefit by using it to do their research work.
It's not a one-size fits all situation however, and it's difficult to administer a solution. If I were in charge though, I'd have one guideline: If your kid has ADD or some other modern learning disability that requires he get special attention in school, his computer access should be limited. Afterall, the kid's problem is distraction, so a computer (with web access is even worse) is definitely going to be a greater distraction than a learning tool.
I was just kidding around when I had made that post. But seriously, when you read the transcript the story isn't as bad as the headline. A lot of questioning if software is good or not, with arguments both ways. The big problem that was mentioned is teachers not understanding how or where to use computers. There are places where they can be useful, and places where they are not. Teachers need the training to make that distinction. It really does come down to the teacher.
I am very unsurprised by this.
Computers are useful if you are teaching subjects which necessarily require them.
Computer Programming, wordprocessing, keyboarding, Drafting/CAD, video editing and photography are all subjects for which I have seen computers effectively used.
What do these have in common?
You don't teach them in elementary school!
I really think that computers in elementary school classrooms has more to do with principals obsessed with whiz-bang technology rather than anything to do with a "need" to "teach" students something they couldn't learn without them, or couldn't learn as quickly or effectively.
I hear arguments about basic computer literacy... but basic computer literacy is difficult to teach, I don't think it can be taught properly in the current classroom environment. That is, kids need lots of time alone with the computer. You can't develop that literacy a little bit at a time with multiple kids to a system interrupted constantly by a teacher who doesn't understand the technology.
To me, the first step in teaching somebody computer literacy, is getting them to overcome the fear of breaking something. Most teachers I've met are still at the stage of "Just click the icons... and hope it doesn't crash."
I can't wait until people realize that computers in elementary school classrooms are a stupid idea.
I've never met a kid with "ADD" who cant pay attention to the television, or the video games, or books when they want to read them.
ADD in school is just a petty excuse teachers make for students who rebel, they dont just want to admit that they suck as teachers, their classes are boring as hell and their students arent learning.
In a class where a kid is not learning a damn thing or a class thats boring as h ell, suddenly the symptoms of ADD appear.
I think if a kid really does have ADD the best way to deal with it is to let them use the computer, and let them learn in their own way.
Also when a kid is on the computer, if they do have ADD even if they are distracted they still learn something, even if they go drift off into other websites as long as the school has things setup so the kid is always learning no matter where they go on the net, it can work.
Dont allow any games, perhaps you shouldnt allow someone with ADD to go into a chatroom, but if they have a problem paying attention and the goal is for them to gather as much knowledge as possible perhaps the best way is to let them direct their own learning. Not everyone learns in a structured way, and the solution is not to blame the ADD, but to teach them in a way which they accept, even people with ADD know alot about certain things.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
many teachers(remember i am a public school teacher), lets face it, have a very easy job. having them bang away on a computer for a few days, especially if there's a lab tech in there, makes it a piece of cake.
it's not that technolgoy should not be in schools. i am finishing a masters in instructional technology. it's just that beaurocratic problems and inertia make change damn near impossible. for instance, are district had spent lots of money on an netrworking infrastructure, moving towards, as our former, now retired, (and clueless) tech admin said "fewer, more powerful, servers". this at the time that that the indsutry was moving towards more, smaller, servers, disrtributed computing. so did we change. no, inertia. so, get to your school boards, they are elected you know, and demand accountability.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
A lot of you have said the same thing, but kindof beat all around the subject without getting to the real point, so I'll put it in plain language:
Computers in the classroom do NOT teach the subject matter to the kids. They only teach the kids how to use a *particular set of desktop applications* (not necessarily even anything about the computer itself).
Second, as only one person pointed out, and as has been largely forgotten by the educational system as it stands today -- after presenting the subject matter, it must be drilled, and the drilling must be done such that the learner has to interact with the drill, if only by writing it down with their own hand (NOT by typing/clicking it -- different neural pathway, so doesn't work to embed the information). Why? Because rote learning is how you make the subject matter STICK in kids' brains. And if it's boring at the time, tough -- do you want them to really remember it or not??
Third, as only one other person touched on, the issue of discipline in the classroom has gone by the wayside, and given how easy it is for most kids to get more interested in bypassing what's allowed on their computers than in the subject matter, computers exacerbate this. Now the object is to keep kids "interested" -- and it's clearly not working. The old method of "you will sit still and learn this like it or not, end of discussion" may not have been "enjoyable" but it WORKED. Make up your minds -- do you want to keep kids entertained, or do you want them to grow up into competent adults? Because you can't have both.
Want to fix the problems generated and exacerbated by computers in the classroom? Easy. Restrict computers and in-school computer use to one place: the classes that are specifically *about* computers.
That won't do anything for the more-basic issues of bad teachers and bad school systems, but at least it will stop masking the problem.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Expecting underqualified teachers to teach challenging subjects while requiring them to use unfamiliar hardware, someone else's idea of appropriate software, and an unstable environment (email, messaging) when no-one has really thought out the necessary changes to classroom behavior and trained teachers appropriately...well, I think it's a recipe for disaster and I'm extremely relieved that all my children are past school age. With luck the system will have changed by the time any grandchildren are old enough.
A true story. A few years back I briefly considered going back into teaching. To be exact, I considered doing a course that would have qualified me to teach teachers to use IT in the classroom. There were two problems. First, the college turned out not really to know what the course content should be. The person in charge was a pre-IT trained educator, not a computer scientist or an educational psychologist. Oh, and second, he admitted that there was no guarantee that the Government would actually fund these training posts.
In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is looking for the way out.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
There is a saying in educational technology (yes, that is my field), that computers will never replace teachers, but teachers who know computers will replace teachers that don't.
Well, a European associate turned that around: If you can be replaced by a computer, you should be.
I started my undergrad in graphic design, and there is a rightly prevailing attitude in that field that the computer is no more than a tool, and knowing a few graphics program does not make you a designer. The same holds true in education.
We have seen too many educational packages put together by business, marketing, and computer peopl,e and not enough with real instructional theory behind them. Most educators are not capableof that.
Computers are just tools, and if they've failed, it is not the computer's fault, but the people who used them incorrectly.
I for one am using computers to teach lesser-taught foreign languages (Arabic, Swahili, Korean, Chinese, etc.) to people I will never meet, and who do not have the time or resources to attend school. Computers have not failed here because: a) we are getting as good results as in-class equivalents, and b) these students would otherwise be left without this education.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I'm a little angry, so forgive me if I get haughty. I didn't respond well to "rote learning" as a kid.
Second, as only one person pointed out, and as has been largely forgotten by the educational system as it stands today -- after presenting the subject matter, it must be drilled..
"Rote-drills" only work for the small percentage of kids who are wired for that kind of learning. And many of those kids won't focus their attention enough to learn even then.
As a result, bright, precocious, successful kids become more successful. Some truly brilliant kids who are developmentally delayed, who have ADD, who have different intelligences are relegated to "career tracks" where they will not blossom. So when the pathways develop that allow for higher math learning, for example, the kid's already in some vocational program learning to be an MCSE. What a waste!
The old method of "you will sit still and learn this like it or not, end of discussion" may not have been "enjoyable" but it WORKED.
It really didn't work that well. It worked for lots of kids who were in school, who were suited to it. Remember, lots of kids dropped out during the "glory days" of instructivist rote-drills. Lots of kids finished school at 8th grade, then went to work in factories or farms. These are the kids who were wasted on "rote drills." Sure, some of them were just unintelligent. But many of them weren't suited to the 19th century education you advocate. That worked well in the 19th and early 20th centuries. We had lots of laborer jobs. Now we have an information economy. We just don't have that many of those types of jobs anymore.
We shouldn't just throw away kids who don't respond well to rote learning. It's a very narrow view of learning and very elitist.
Want to fix the problems generated and exacerbated by computers in the classroom? Easy. Restrict computers and in-school computer use to one place: the classes that are specifically *about* computers.
I guess that would be the easiest way to do it. It's probably the easiest and quickest way to be eclipsed by Europe and Asia. How about doing more research and figuring out how to make computer assisted learning work?
Now, if you're truly interested in what real educators have learned about the educational process, you can do some googling on the following topics:
Constructivism
Multiple Intelligences
Ed Tech theory
And here begins my rant about Slashdot, and parent poster, please forgive me if I offend. Lord knows I've said and written some incredibly stupid stuff - orders of magnitude worse than what I took offense at in your post.
Why do we tend to write things like "Of COURSE, any IDIOT would know that XXXXX would solve YYYYY problem?" Do we think that the experts in the field are all sitting around with their thumbs up their fannies? We have a huge field of research in this area. It's fine to share your opinion. That's what Slashdot is about. But come on, don't be so arrogant about it - like the solutions are SO OBVIOUS, ANY IDIOT could figure them out. We are working on the solutions while so many others are just whining and griping.
Inform yourself, do some digging, some reading. Problems are almost always more complex than they first appear. Solutions are almost always more difficult to achieve than it seems they should be.
End rant.
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
The most important educational software I ever used was:
Logo taught me about controlling the computer and doing fun stuff with it that didn't come prepackaged. Oregon Trail taught me to enjoy working with the computer and in groups with other kids in solving basic problems (e.g., whether to float or ford the river, etc.).
We didn't use these in the classroom, though, but in the computer lab. I don't see how they can be reasonably integrated into the classroom with class sizes as small as they are (small compared to college lectures, e.g., where a laptop with diagrams and whatnot the prof is looking at can be a helpful aid).
-l
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Like practically all of you, this study comes as no suprise to me either. When I was in K-12 back in the mid 80's to late 90's the only thing I remember using a computer in class for was playing a game. I never wrote a single paper at school using a computer, nor did I ever use it to do research. Having a computer in the classroom meant one thing to students and one thing only... games. And the funny thing is none of the teachers I've ever had discouraged that attitude, or more accurately, encouraged the perception of the pc as a learning tool.
I've always beleieved the pc (like tv) has had minimal impact in my acquisition of knowledge because a pc cannot teach you to think. It is the attitudes and actions of the teachers and parents of students that set the stage for their apporach and attitude towards education.
That being said computers cannot be ignored as a tool for aiding students in becoming educated (internet, online encyclopedias, word processing, desktop publishing, blah, blah). For that reason I think school districts shouldn't spend money in purchasing and maintaining computer labs and should offer incentives to the parents of students by supplying them with vouchers to make purchasing a computer for their home more viable. That way the cost of maintaining/upgrading equipment is transferred from the school to the student who is the actual user of the equipment. After all, if a student has purchased a study guide to help him perform better in math or english and if it requires special software to be installed why shouldn't he be able to do so? Let the use and upkeep of computers be the responsibility of those who use them. A voucher system would also give students the opportunity to purchase a computer they are most comfortable with whether it's a Mac, pc (windows/linux), desktop, or laptop. Why should the student be forced to do his homework a certain way using a specific computer/application when he has a choice?
In my mind, there are a vast number of reasons for schools not to have computers in the classroom and having a voucher system in its place. From my own experience, a voucher system for purchasing a computer would have greatly eased the buying process of my family's first pc and I am absolutely positive that is true for millions of other people out there.