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Good and Bad Uses of Tech in Public Schools?

Posted by Cliff on from the what-have-you-seen dept.

skot asks: "I am a high school math teacher and recovering journalist working on an article about innovative (and insane) uses of technology in the classroom. I have seen schools plunk down thousands of dollars on handheld computers that teachers and students basically use as notebooks - fancy, expensive notebooks. I have also seen teachers try to forbid their students from using the internet in a research project. I'm sure many Slashdot readers have lived through experiences like this - and more. If you want to share your stories, I'd love to hear 'em."

4 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Handhelds = Cheaper Than Notebooks? by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 2, Funny

    Huh. That's odd. My notebook cost $1.50, and I bet schools can get them even cheaper in bulk.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  2. Re:Crazy teacher by MerlynEmrys67 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You are lucky... My first computer assignment in college (circa 1985) had to be turned in Punch Card format.
    Now the interesting thing is that there was 1 working punch card "puncher" and one working punch card "reader" left on campus... of course there was an approximate 2 mile walk between them, so your edit compile debug cycle was
    1) walk to puch card writer wait to type up your punch cards
    2) spend 15 minutes walking across campus to reader, submit job to perplexed operator
    3) take output to quiet room to figure what the hell was wrong
    4) Walk back across campus to the writer
    I got a good impression on how bad it used to be, so I have learned to take advantage of all of the modern tools in the world to help me do my job. Turned out to be an interesting class, just don't get me started on my assembler classes where I wrote C code, and turned in the compiled output

    --
    I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
  3. One Word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Powerpoint.

    Power Fucking Point.

  4. Re:You forgot the part about... by k12linux · · Score: 2, Funny
    My favorite story is of a friend who had two 3-inch tall stacks of cards (about 800 cards I think) sitting on his desk in his dorm room. They were carefully rubber banded because they were not numbered or marked.

    His room mate (a jock type) walked in, saw the cards, unbanded them, shuffled them, banded them back up, then left. My friend sat there for about 5 minutes with his mouth open then crashed his head to the table. I almost thought he was going to cry. I didn't stick around to see what happened next. It was just too painful to watch. lol