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Technology In Primary Education, Boon Or Bane?
code_rage writes "This article in the San Francisco Chronicle attacks the zealous use of computers in grade school. In a time of teacher layoffs, San Francisco schools are buying 450 new computers with federal and state grants. The effects on education go beyond the initial costs: educational methods are suffering, as children are learning PowerPoint and teachers are becoming unpaid SysAdmins and content censors. This article is a well-written and brief update to Cliff Stoll's book High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom." Update: 12/01 00:40 GMT by T : Ooops II-- "Classroom" is now correctly spelled.
San Francisco schools are buying 450 new computers with federal and state grants.
The guilty should be paying
So I wonder when people were crying that books shouldn't be in classrooms.
When I was in grade school, people bitched about using TVs.
We need all of these things to teach our kids!
At my school we have Pentium 4's - but then people started to play games on them (we use Windows 98 either, so nothing stopping people from installing software).
So they underclocked them so people can't play games any more.
First off, I'd love to have a kind of computer 450 of which cost just short of 1M$ -- that would be almost 2K$/computer. Not exactly a budget cut type of purchase, if you ask me :-)
Second, they would not be having the technical problems they do now, had they not gone with that infamous OS from Redmond, plus they would save much on the OS/support costs.
But this is all secondary. The most important fallacy in blaming the computers for dumbing the classrooms is in that the teachers don't have a clue what the computers are for. Where I went to school, the games were prohibited. You had do write you program using pen and paper. Then you had to prove (in D. Knuth's way) to the teacher that it works. Only after that you were allowed to type your code in and try compiling it.
As for the web, IM, chatrooms, etc, one has to be blind not to recognize this as entertaintment which is not the purpose of the school. I would not have internet connections from classroom computers. Local network is fine, but one would have to prove than (s)he really needs Internet access for that project before the access is granted.
It's like bringing TVs to school. While they can definitely be a source of important information, hardly anyone would fancy buying TVs for the school to close information divide :-) How is the (internet and games enabled) computer different in that regard?
Alex
Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classsroom
...and why dictionaries do.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Only 450 computers? That seems a bit small for an area with thousands of children. Have any studies been done on the long term effects of computer use in a modern society? What kind of benifit do these devices bring to the children to warrant such a use of funds?
Learning to use a computer is just like learning a new language!
Expose the kids to computers, foreign language, poetry, or whatever--the younger the children are when they are first exposed, the better their minds are going to adapt to this type of input/output device.
Should computers be used for everything in education? No, of course not. Either should books, TV, lectures or anything else... the more variety the better.
Teachers can be lazy and use computers... just like they can be lazy and use videos.
...is what happened to the classical forms of education. Young stundents in their mid-teens could do complex mathetmatics in their heads, and knew classical Greek and Latin fluently in some upper-scale schools in the 1800s. Now it's not uncommon for students to graduate without a complete grasp of the English language -- much less math, foreign language, or anything else.
Honestly, I think that technology should be taught, but not used to teach, at least not up until a certain age. The classic forms of learning reading, writing, and arithmetic worked -- and they worked much better than any new fangled and more expensive method we have today.
It's not about the methods, it's not about the standardized tests. It's about the learning. Schools need to be reminded of this.
Instead, all they care about is high scores on the standardized tests. Damn the students beyond that.
dave
--> tech stuff with a cause
If we want public schools to improve, funding should go toward increasing teachers' salaries. After all, if you graduate from college with a degree in chemistry, are you going to teaching science in a rural or inner-city school system for $30,000 a year or go to work for that pharmaceutical company for twice as much?
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
But about how we USE computers in the classroom. teachers need to be educated about what to use them for and when. So often I see computers being misused or not used at all when they could be a valuable learning tool.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
Of what good are computers in the classroom if the enviroment (parents, ect.) is not conductive to learning?
----
"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
What I think is going on is that we've got all these funds for technology/connectivity for schools, thanks to a bunch of wasteful spending by the Democrats, and we don't have the funding for teachers or books because they're not the latest or greatest thing. Oh, and they don't benefit big business either.
My recommendation is to curtail this sort of thing in your own community unless there is a clear plan for the actual implementation of all this technology. There rarely is. 'Training' is another area that seems to be minimally effective...
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
If it a choice between teachers and computers, keep the teachers. Most schools already have computers. Unless they are really old, hold on to them for a little longer or upgrade a lot slower.
Surely the best use of IT in classrooms is to replace those awful old battered pointlessly out-of-date textbooks? We had some when I were a lad that were 30 or so years old then (mid 70s). The amount of information that was left out was astounding.
I don't think IT is a replacement for teaching but as a supplement it works well. But isn't this the problem IT faces in business as well? I've lost count of the number of times I've heard of a company or organisation that is blaming its current malaise on an IT system when what it really means is "we bought this system and laid off all the staff and now we can't cope". It's not just schools that face the problem.
I am a leaf on the wind
computers can be an extrodinary tool for the teacher. We've come a long way since our 'computer class' in grade school was 45 minutes of Oregon Trail on those new fangled Apple IIs.
What they should not be is a means of replacing teachers. You don't install a math and english tutor programs, stuff 60 kids into a class room then let them fill in what they don't understand on a computer.
When they graduate they would at least have some real computer skills.
I wonder when businesses will realize they are losing productivity through giving everyone internet connectivity and computers. I've worked at many jobs with direct control and monitoring capabilities of computers and noticed a large increase in the usage of online software and email for purely entertainment purposes. Internet access isn't the only culprit as at one job I remember a lady who would play solitaire for hours on end instead of doing her job. Most of the time what happens is in a crunch, the job gets done late and the company hires more people to fill the 'void'. Lack of a decent work ethic is a major problem today.
All the professors do is prepare PowerPoint presentations, then put the students to sleep with them.
Then they post them to the class website - why go to class at all?!?
I want a school that bans PowerPoint, I gotta take notes with a pen, profs should have to do the same amount of writing on the blackboard.
Computers are only as good as the teachers using them. Unless a significant amount is being allotted to training teachers how to use the stuff efficiently, its only use is going to be by students who find ways around the filters to get to play games.
Having a budget for computerized equipment is fine, so long as the teachers get paid first.
I agree with what a bunch of you have said. Computers are valuable educational tools that can even save money in the long run. They can teach things traditional educational tools (books, experiments, what have you) never could. Of course, having more teachers will help even more. If the government is going to grant money to a school disctrict that can't afford to keep its staff, it should go towards rehiring. We shouldn't dismiss modern teaching aids, but we shouldn't forget about standard ones either.
and that helped me a long way in my life till now, all though I never used any of those directly. I can see so many people who have tough time in college because they did not learn at least one language or workings of a computer in school. Teaching basic computer skills is very esstential now more than ever as our future depends more and more on computers.
okay teaching Powerpoint and saying its not helping kids at all is not very good strategy. Teach atleast basics of one programming language. High school students can understand math and that will help them understand computers easily.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
I live in New Zealand.
Most primary and secondary school teachers here are borderline-illiterate when it comes to computers, and I suspect the situation is little different in other developed countries.
Not surprisingly, there is no qualification for studying computer science in the final year of high school here, although some schools offer it as an optional subject for those who don't need entrance to university.
This is the year 2003. Like it or not, IT is a critical part of most people's jobs, and of the infrastructure running important services. It is also likely to be a source of productivity, and therefore wealth, in years to come.
So by all means cut down on the use of IT in subjects that don't make great use of it, but make sure kids are learning how to use and program them (at least a little). Why bother sending children to school if you are not going to prepare them for the world they will find when they leave?
the same was said of calculators in early 1970s and 1980s..
rather than focus on the computer we should focus on the fact that is a tool and that its cost is hgiehr than other more appropiate tools at the primary education level..
Both apple and thje wintel monopoly tout computers in shcools when it benefits them but often do not when it just benefits kids..
we should be asking who's hand is in the wallet of our education system budget now and why shoudl we allow them to take moneyout or dictate money choices to us?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I've been working for a school district since before I graduated from high school. Growing up during the 80s meant most of my schools either had C-64s or Apple IIs. One had a locked-down Netware network - read-only drives with WP 5.1 for keyboarding. Only the last one had any sort of network, and that was strictly due to the volunteer work of one dedicated teacher.
Yet, here I am, geeking out regularly, working to support a district technology department. This is in spite of not having much in the way of computers at school. All of it happened due to my experiences out of school, since the classroom was not a place to explore or go outside the strict curriculum.
I see it every day in the applications that are rolled out to the computers in our schools. We're buying these extremely expensive machines, and they're little more than video games or porn outlets. I don't have a problem with porn myself, but do it on your time at home, already. The kids just sit there and leech ISOs all day long, or go play games, or anything but what people had in mind when they voted for the bond proposal so many years ago.
I still believe that schools should be networked and that we should have computers in the classrooms, but we should stop pretending that they are some kind of magic bullet. They do let the teachers work more efficiently. They provide some degree of improvement when a teacher bothers to create a lesson plan which happens to use them. The problem is that most of these classes seem to be turned loose for an hour, and all hell breaks loose.
You can't encourage the kids to explore, since they're all using a brittle OS (you know which one I'm talking about) which breaks if you look at it funny. They add programs that "deep freeze" the machines, but then that conflicts with the antiviral stuff. You have to have the AV software, since the machines are so vulnerable to so many nasty things. If the kids do explore, they get caught and they get in trouble. So they either stop exploring (bad) or they start hating the people who run the schools and networks (also bad).
In the 70s, the trick was open concept schools. All of them have been rebuilt to have walls now. In the 80s, the magic bullet was video. How many schools have headends and satellite dishes that sit idle now? In the 90s, it was the Internet, and we're still playing that card. What's next?
Orwell (although obviously living in the 20th century) had one of those "classical educations" you refer to. It doesn't sound very appealing at all -- mindless memorization and physical abuse were what it mostly consisted of. You can read Orwell's famous essay Here
The biggest problem in my experience is that the teachers don't have a clue about what they're teaching. Many just rip shit straight out of a book instead of getting a decent understanding of what's being taught. The kids who knew more than the teachers ended up being much more useful than the teachers themselves. Almost each lesson that a teacher gave had at least one major problem.
Most of your smarter kids learn what they want to learn about computers outside of class. A good computer class would have a competent teacher showing the kids the fundamentals of computers and the problem solving skills necessary to use one, with more advanced classes ran by people who can handle them. Instead, most teachers show kids how to dick around with Word and make a crappy HTML page. Considering how most English teachers make it necessary to be able to use a word processor, Word is generally taken care of, so the kids are left with very little.
When you consider that most kids have computers at home anyways, most computer courses are an absolute joke and a complete waste of taxpayer money when we're talking about public schools. If the schools don't get things straight, I would much rather see no computers courses at all rather than the ones that they are offering.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
2. Spend $1 million on computers
3. ??????
4. Education!
"Are you on some kind of medication?"
"No"
"Well, you should be."
--Bean
In my primary education, I was introduced to computers in Kindergarten. Thanks to the wonderful products of MECC such as Number Munchers, Oregon Trail, etc. I was able to enjoy my math, history, and improve my typing skills.
LogoWriter introduced me to programming in third grade. From there, it was integrating BASIC.
I am of the opinion that these types of programs should still be sufficient for today's youth. After all, with crippled (censored) Internet connections, research is out of the question. (Ex: "breast cancer" -- a typical blocked search.) The whole point of the computers in the classroom is to learn valuable, transferable skills (math, programming, etc.) as opposed to "how to use PowerPoint."
This is a small anecdote based solely on my experience and not at all on reading the article...
Over the Thanksgiving weekend I stayed with relatives in Minnesota. My aunt is (essentially) a teacher's assistant for a rural school district.
Her (Kindergarten!) students would spend 2 hours of their half-days of school multiple times a week using computers. As she described the system, the computers worked quite well. The official pace of the class was set by the teacher. Students could practice letter identification, counting, money arithmatic, basic reading, etc. Students who were ahead of the class could keep busy. Students who were at or below level could be easily identified and the specific skills they were lacking would be exercised by the software.
I have no idea of what platform, software, initiative, etc. were at work here, but in the eyes of one Kindergarten teacher, this system was a good thing.
I was surprised. My instinct is that computers in the classroom are hard to get right--especially at such an early age.
-- Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
The problem right now is the teachers. It's not that they're doing anything wrong specifically - I'm sure they're doing the best they can. But if they don't understand computers well enough (and more importantly how that integrates into the classroom) then computers will be more of a liability than a benefit.
For the most part computers in the classroom are a case of "now go use the computer" with little direction, or teachers having to rack their brains for some sort of lesson that will mean they'll use the computer somewhere in it all.
When the next generation slowly fills the teaching ranks things will change somewhat, because they will see the computer less as a tool that they need to teach children how to use, and more as just yet another part of life. Internet searches replace encyclopaedias, animated computer presentations can supplement stories etc.
That is, the computer will simply become a part of the classrom in the same way that books, and building blocks, and painting materials are now.
Only until that happens will computers in the classroom be worthwhile.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I think students in grade school should be learning the basics first. The schools are failing because students aren't learning the fundamental skills of reading, writing, and simple math. Until a student shows mastery of the basics, he shouldn't be allowed within 100 yards of a computer.
The EUCD, and DMCA, allow publishers to rent books for limited times, etc. If a work is encrypted, you can only access it with publisher-authorised software. Anything else is circumvention, which is a criminal offence. So the software can disable your access after 10 months.
Kids can't take the computer home, so they can't take the book home, they can't buy second hand books etc.
We have to fight the DMCA and the EUCD. Make technology safe before making it a standard part of school. Do we really want to create a new schooling system where the motto is "sharing is violating"?
The content industry has worked this pretty well. Make fair use of "e-books" impossible *before* e-books become popular. So when e-books become popular, the publishers already have complete control of the public.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I do this for a PK3-8th grade school on 80 or so machines of P200 vintage.
The administration likes the money saved, the kids like it better than Win 9x and some of the teachers like it. The rest of the teachers either tolerate it or hate it.
As for the teachers that hate it, they're lazy and hate anything that's different. I actually had a science "teacher" object to using an OpenOffice book as she didn't like reading.
While we've got all this great technology, teachers simply don't make good use of it. They prefer to "train" students for the job market (this school goes to 8th grade...) by making them do presentations (OpenOffice Impress) rather than teaching them to WRITE.
I teach 7th grade very basic programming using Logo. Better than teaching them to simply click buttons...
My parents are head of an Elementry Charter School in Mesa, Arizona. We are doing a program where we give an opportunity to the students to join the "Tech Crew" for the school. In this program they learn how to video tape with DV cameras, edit video on Apple OSX G3 powermacs that were donated to the school, setup lighting, and setup Sound equipment. They video tape the student councel and events the school puts on and make video clips that get broadcasted on the school TV's in all the classrooms every few weeks.
I think computers make a great place in the classroom when used with an actual purpose. Sure, teaching typing is useful. But you don't have to spend ALL the money on expensive computers when you could teach typing and letter formating on cheaper computers or even cheaper typewriters.
The school districts give computers to public schools, charter schools have to beg, borrow and bleed to get computers. But the charter schools actually can make better use of computers than public schools because its easier to integrate a new system into the curriculum.
"Using Computers in the classroom" is a far too generic concept. Give the kids similar projects that are to be done with and without computers. Show the good ol' way of doing things and how a computer can help with specific tasks.
Sorry, but I've seen it. I'm a father of 5 children, and we home-school all of them. So far, to great success.
Within educational circles there's the concept of an abstract. An abstract is a concept that is highly divorced from reality. For example, the word "tree" is an abstract, the tree growing in your front yard is not.
Children don't really begin to understand abstracts until around 10-12 years old. Sure, they can point to a tree, but the reality of abstract doesn't really sink in until that age.
Which explains why algebra is generally very difficult to teach to children less than about that age.
Small children need lots of reality - for that's what abstract concepts are rooted in. Let them play in the sand, let them cut paper, let them stack blocks. Let their imaginations soar, actually work to preserve that dreamlike state that fosters creativity and intelligence!
You can nag about pencil and paper, but there's a real reason why these are preferable to a keyboard - the tactile feedback of writing a letter helps root these into the mind as a practical concept rather than a pure abstract.
Little kids NEED to write big, tall, 2" high letters as their size makes them more real, more practical.
Even as a computer programmer with 5 computers in the house, (mine, wifes, gaming computer, firewall, and laptop) I refuse to make computer training more than a minor part of my younger childrens' education before 12 or so, and I would happily and aggressively campaign against computers in the primary grades as a waste of money and a waste of human resources.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
One of my brothers' schools is giving out devices called AlphaSmarts, which are essentially keyboards with vi on a small LCD screen. The students are made to use these in class, and very little pen and paper work is done. There is also Literacy class-like English, but on computers.
What's the point? In a GCSE exam (upper level qualifications in the UK) he would not be allowed to even take the AlphaSmart into the exam room, let alone use it. And why bother with Literacy on the computers? Use a book. A book is tangible, you can annotate it, read it on the bus. You can't do that on a computer (laptops aside).
My brothers' handwriting is absolutely atrocious, and his spelling isn't too good either. How will a computer help improve his handwriting.
It seems that the main benefits here are not in the education industry, but the computer industry. Microsoft want their software in schools so kids know how to use Windows/Office and that software only. Apple regularly put full page adverts in papers like The Independent, championing the eBook for every class.
Another problem is the GCSE IT course. This course is not a "do a web page/spreadsheet/mail merge/database, then hand it in and see how good it is" affair, it's a "do a web page/spreadsheet/mail merge/database, then write a lengthy 30 page+ document with lots of pointless details about how you did it" affair. WTF!? If you do that, then you aren't marking students on how good they are at using software, you're marking them on their writing skills, and it's not really preparing them for the real world. I mean, how many times have you made a spreadsheet, after sketching it and meticulously planning it (yes, you have to sketch everything on GCSE IT)?
The classroom computers thing needs as a serious sanity check, and the IT courses at schools must be changed NOW, if only to make them relevant to the subject at hand.
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
The thing in school that I would say helped me out the most was a strong math program that focused on the basics. Every class we would start with a 5-10 minute quiz that went from addition to subtraction to multiplication, to division, to factors, squares, etc. The class wouldn't move on to the next topic until everyone had reached a satisfactory level in the last one. Even the kids who 'weren't good at math' benefitted immensely from having the basics implanted in their brains for good.
While computers may be helpful for teaching some things, the most important thing is to have a strong focus on the basics: reading, writing and arithmetic.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
At this juncture, computers are still too expensive and teachers too unfamiliar with computers to make them useful.
Good software and educational content could go a long way toward helping students. Imagine if all students had the benefit of the best, most informative, most entertaining teachers in the country. Imagine if monitoring software could pinpoint when a student was having a bad day or was not understanding a particular lesson and alert the teacher of the need for extra personal attention. Computers could leverage and augment the best teachers to provide a better education for all.
Give it a decade or two and then see what really cheap computers and tech-marinated teachers can do.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
i really worry about the excessive computerization of society; it's as for whatever problem you have there will be a digital solution of some sort that'll make you trouble-free, and worry-free. And we seem to be further instilling this mindset into kids.
I say this out of experience as i've depended on computing as a thought platform for 4 years till i recently adopted a different approach of going back to basics. If we are to teach kids anything of value, we need to teach them how to think for themselves, and thinking, actually, doesn't require computation at every move.
My life has been much better since i abandoned computation as a cornerstone of my work. Yes it's a useful too, but it's not everything. Kids need to learn how to use their memory, and how to use a pen and a paper. They need to use good ol' trusted methods of simplifying something until they are manageable and memorable, and seeking patterns and strategies that'll ease problem-solving. While computing might be useful, it might also hinder the development of such thinking.
Just putting computers in a classroom isnt going to accomplish a single thing. What needs to be done is to look at a computer the same way businesses have looked at computers- a tool- a tool to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Unfortunately, most teachers dont know how to use this tool. Similarly, handing me a lathe to do woodworking wouldnt do much good. I would likely end up using the lathe in the wrong (and a very dangerous) way. The lathe in and of itself would do no good. Along with these installations, real training and group brainstorming sessions should be occurring so teachers can be better informed on how to use them effectively, and see ideas on how their colleagues are using technology to teach more effectively. These machines also need to be effectively locked down- Classrooms probably dont really need 'net access at all. And if they do, they would probably be best served by only having an allow list of websites. No net access + locking down the machines so no programs can be installed on them by students will probably solve most of the problems.
Ideas on how computers CAN help education:
1.) Reduce Materials cost.
Textbooks could be made better and cheaper electronically. Color isnt more expensive when youre output is a PDF. Interactive animations/demonstrations, better diagrams, etc are all possible. Its even possible to encode entire lessons and store them for later retrieval.
Many texts read in english classes are public domain, and are already digital. And digital copies never get lost, and dont wear out like hard copies.
"Dittos"- Most schools have copy rooms that rival major corporations. Expensive equipment, lots of wasted paper which costs money. These could easily be digitized and distributed electronically, and have a nice side effect of being a bit greener.
2.)Process- Homework grading is a manual, labor intensive process, and a big time sink on a teacher's time. Often, teachers just 'check' homework by walking around a room and seeing if crap was scribbled down in a notebook. For most subjects it would be easy to make assignments online. Teachers could then every single day get realistic assessments of where the class' understanding is, and where their weakpoints lie (IE everyone seems to be getting the questions about centripetal force wrong, this needs to be reinforced). Tests too, could potentially be done on the computer. Lots of trickiness involved here with security, but if done right could be done alot better and more efficiently than the scantron system. Teachers can do more, better. Students have more, and better resources.
Yeah, effective use involves a big paradigm shift. But there was a point in time when none of our officeworkers made effective use of technology either. The age of the technophobic teacher that laughs over her lack of understanding of technology MUST come to an end, just like it has been for most of the workforce. Computers are also expensive. However, many of these costs are one-time infrastructure costs for wiring our schools, and equipment keeps getting cheaper. Todays hardware is more than enough to be effective.
The problems is that people want to throw hardware at the problem, and have test scores magically go up. Replacing a 486 w/ a P4 doesnt magically increase productivity, either. What is unfortunate is that these installations are most likely going to produce very few results, and administrators around the country are going to see technology in the classroom as a failure, when the real failure was in the implementation, and lack of vision.
How is it we have schools that can't afford textbooks or to put teachers in the classrooms, and we also have classrooms with all these computers? Something needs to be done to even out school spending in this country. Property taxes is just not the way to go.
From the article:
Sure they are. That's why job postings always ask for candidates who have read widely outside of their chosen field, who teach citizenship classes and have invented a new variation on a chess opening. What they never ask for is a laundry list of skills and years of experience.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I think computers definitely have a place in schools. I don't like that so much of a failing school's budget is going towards purchasing computers rather than hiring (and properly paying) better teachers. People are too sucked in to the thought that computers will make their kids smarter; parents and school officials alike.
I think that computers can greatly compliment a classroom and a child's learning, I think its important that a child feel comfortable using many different software applications. When they get to High School and out in the real world they will be expected to know how to properly use one.
The problem is, that most teachers and parents think that if they put a child in front of a computer they will learn. That is so far from the truth. Computers are being overused in the classroom and at home. When I was in school, we had to put our spelling words in abc order. Today, kids are allowed to type them and let the computer do it for them. Spell-check has created a generation of people who can't spell to save their lives (forgive my errors, I can spell, I just can't type!). Schools aren't even teaching cursive writing. The teachers simply tell the children to type their work. My students can't even fathom doing simple math equations without a calculator. I wasn't allowed to use a calculator in school until I was in calculus and by that point it really didn't help much!
By allowing our children to use computers for everything we are taking away fundamental learning. They are missing out on vital skills that they will need as adults. Teachers, parents and school officials need to take a step back and look at what's important to a child's future. Having computers around is definitely important, but they should be greatly limited in their day-to-day use in school.
This is just my opinion and my observation on the current situation of schools. We need teachers who actually teach and we need for our kids to actually learn.
"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." -Albert Einstein
I have 3 kids that have gone through our local elementary and middle schools. Our schools use Accelerated Reader extensively. My wife and 3 friends have been active volunteers helping administer these reading tests and they all feel that it dramatically helps basic reading skills (no, not scientific, but there are some classes with more motivated teachers that encourage it more and the difference is obvious).
This is the ONLY good use of the 50 or so computers in the school. I think having 9 year olds use powerpoint is useless, and their limited web access is an equal waste.
Accelerated reader is a database of multiple choice questions for each book in the school library. I've started to write an apache/php equivalent....if I get any feedback here, it may encourage me to start a project on sf.net!
... as a school which has just started a laptop program.
From what I can tell, it's the teachers who are most worried about becoming "unpaid SysAdmins and content censors" , when in reality the computers are there to blend with classic teaching styles.
The trick is NOT to sit the students in front of a computer & get it to do the teaching for you, but to use it as an extra tool to enhance the learning experience. This also means that, even with a "laptop program" in a school, you're never required to use computers ALL the time. Those teachers who don't understand the difference are the ones who need to be retrained.
The problem with any technology in schools has always been trying to integrate it to support the curriculum rather than merely using it to show interested parties (accreditation boards/parents/distinguished visitors) that the school is cutting edge. Interesting research on Bayesian student models and education using inspectable Bayesian networks is being done in several locations -- this one is an excellent example. These systems allow the technology to be used in positive ways that don't necessarily need teachers with computer science degrees (except for a district sysadmin, perhaps) but take advantage of the great networking and individual attention that can be lavished on a student in a networked environement. I imagine there will be a slow balancing of the system as the pendulum swings back and forth between teachers and technology. We certainly were more teacher-centric in the 60s and 70s, but that, you must remember, was a reversal from the early 1900's where teachers were incidental to the learning of students -- much of the learning was done independently through books. Perhaps we'll reach a stage where we decide that independent learning through computers isn't the best direction to be heading and we'll start teaching with teachers again. But this time, because we will be used to the technology, we'll be able to use it more effectively.
A good teacher can teach without technology. In this day and age, many kids have computers at home, and if they don't, lots of libraries do.
My son got in trouble for enabling the IE bar on the taskbar - he got an inschool suspension over it. Why? Because the people who use the technology to teach with didn't understand that it was a feature of the operating system - not something he hacked. He also had to spend time turning a science report into a web page. I hardly think these are things that a) he couldn't learn at home and b) are necessary to a 7th grader.
A good teacher can teach without materials, books, technology - it is the teacher who does the teaching, not the tools/toys. That school district needs to focus on personnel and not technology that's going to be obsolete in a couple of years.How much does a SysAdmin make? Or even a Help Desk Technician? We should not expect teachers (or librarians, for that matter) to do the work of a SysAdmin and a Help Desk if they are not trained AND paid for this level of work.
Now, this of course raises the more significant question, which is why we pay more to SysAdmins and Help Desk Techs than to Teachers who are educating the future of our country...
I'm a first year teacher at a high school in Irving, TX. All the students in Irving ISD and all the teachers are issued laptop computers (Dell Inspiron or Latitude, depending on how lucky you are). I have tried to do as much as possible with the computers in order to successfully integrate them into the class. The main problem comes from the fact that all students, all the time have wireless access to the web. Even with web filters that have been installed and the limits put in place by their permissions under XP, they almost all find ways around it. Like in the article, we are having budget problems with many teacher lay-offs, as well, but that is due to a myriad of factors (the state's "Robin Hood" funding plan for starters), and the contracts with Dell had been put in place back when IISD actually had a surplus. Ultimately, I think that more tech is a boon, but most teachers will not know how to handle it just yet (give it another generation), and the people admins at the district level are more interested in what sounds good ("We've given all of our kids wireless net access! Hooray!") than what is the reality of the situation("We've given all of our kids ways to download console emulators and pr0n all day at school while they chat with their frineds on IM! Hooray!").
my pet machine
Computers are a tool in the classroom. They should be used as such. The teachers have to know how to best teach the students. I pitty the studnets that have a teacher that only lectures and uses no "tools."
Some Tools of Education: Textbooks, Chalkboards/MarkerBoards, Maps, Record players/CD/Any Audio, Videos/DVDs, guest speakers, field trips, etc. Basically anything the teacher chooses to use to help the student to learn the prescribed lesson is a "tool."
Look at the carpenter's trade. S/he builds a house. To do so, s/he must use tools to get all of the boards to stay together straight. S/he doesn't toss the lumber out into the yard and it is done. Likewise, a teacher can't toss the information out into the classroom via lectures. Tools are needed.
Now, are teachers being asked to be "sysadmins" instead of teachers? That is possible. I have a dozen computers in my room, but they are tools to use, and I maintain these machines. I want to. I am able to create situations in which the students learn. They aren't primarily learning about computers. Priarily they are learning writing and publishing as we publish the school's newspaper and they are learning History and English. There are other classes that teach computer skills.
{Side Rant}: Because of "No Child Left Behind", I cannot officially teach a computer class even though I know more about computers and programming than the "highly qualified" teachers. Thanks Bush. {/side rant}
Anway, before I was distracted, I was going to say that teachers aren't anything that they don't want to be. We are underpaid, We do more work in 9 months than anyone else does in a year, we deal with abusive situations, we are threatened, we are attacked, add anything else to this list. We do this because we want to. I love the children I teach. I put up with all of this for them. But, this is true with all teachers, In the classroom, the teacher is God. It doesn't matter if the administration has put 20 computers in the classroom. If the teacher doesn't want to use them, the computers won't get used. In the classroom, the teachers close the door and create the world that is needed to teach the student in way that the teacher knows best....
Bah, time to get back to planning for the month.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
seems to be the thing that jumps to my mind.
Some of the comments about computers being used in a multi purpose role (math, logic, history) in early grades bring the question to mind...how do the teachers know how to use this new tool?
Having a kindergarden teacher sit their students in front of a computer is one thing, but being able to use this tool and the software in an efficient and productive way seems to be the real question.
Aside from the CS teachers, are most teachers introducing computers as a tool in other classes qualified?
Where do they get the trainning for this?
How do shools evaluate the ABCs or 1s and 2s software package that the kids will use?
As a part of my job, I have been visiting schools in a pretty large district located in Southeast Los Angeles. I always ask the principal of the school I'm visiting what they need funding for the most, and usually their first answer is "technology". They always offer up so example of how technology is great, and it helps kids, and they mention the "amazing" power point presentations, or the "wonderful" iMovie films they edited. I believe that most of the criticism leveled against technology in schools in the S.F. chronicle article is very well founded.
Using a kids version of Powerpoint does not do much for a room full of schoolchildren.
I always ask the principal about the special things they do to make sure kids learn to read, or pass whatever standardized testing controls their funding. Invariably, they always talk about the positive effects of more one on one face time with kids having trouble in certain subjects - by taking kids out of class for an hour of tutoring in reading or math, or by having them stay afterschool an hour. None of the schools I visit ever have music programs, or dance programs. They can't afford to hire a new teacher, they need bathrooms that work, etc.
For as little computers do for kids in a classroom, their capital costs are incredibly high.
Which isn't to say that someday, or in some capacity, computers will truly serve an invaluable role in the education of our young. Their high costs, in an industry that is always cash strapped (at least in Southern CA) and whose staff and faculty are largely non-technically inclined, make them a poor purchasing choice for schools.
As a sidenote, I find it a little ironic that the S.F. Chronicle article spends a paragraph or two bashing attempts to objectively measure student/school performance - but then later on in the article points to a "100-point" jump in test scores as a sign that a non-computer learning program is doing well. They can't have it both ways. Attempts to objectively measure school performance have flaws, and are thus practically unusable, or they aren't. This sort of writing makes for a poor version of objectivity.
#include
The biggest problem with many school districts is that decisions on computing are made by people who have no idea what they're doing. In my school district, the powers that be say, "Just go with Microsoft", and sign away without consulting anyone with any reasonable experience.
I'm learning just how computer illiterate our public school system is because I have decided to go back to college to get my teaching certification so I can teach programming in secondary education (grades 7-12). Though I have over a collective decade of professional experience, I have to first become a math teacher and attain a degree in Education/Secondary Math with Chemistry (which will transfer the most credits and take the least time). After teaching for 6 months, I have to take 2 grad "technology" courses, and then I can teach programming in public schools. OTOH, an English teacher with no previous computing experience can take these 2 "technology" courses and POOF! they're now qualified to teach computing courses to our children in public schools.
The problem is not "the zealous use of computers in grade school", it's the fact that the dummies^Wpowers that be who are in charge of such decisions have no idea what they're doing and it's time for the public to realize it and time for the education administrators to admit that they are making unqualified decisions when it comes to technology.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
I think it is a good thing NOT to have internet access on computers you're supposed to work on. The students at the university I attend to agreed that that is a bad thing and so the computer lab clusters are just connected with the university network and not the internet. It's a lot more productive.
you may find the Higgs in this signature.
I think it speaks well of the Slashdot community to see that we believe in appropriate use of technology rather than flooding the world with the latest and greatest. To see so many people arguing against the use of computers in elementary school makes me think that we are an intelligent group of people without selfish interests.
However, as the technologically elite, is the use of computers in the classroom something we should start considering and preparing? Do we need to start building applications designed to educate children of all ages? Could a major selling point of Linux and open source software be its ability to teach young students not only how to use a computer but also how to read, write, do math, communicate with people, etc?
I see a tremendous opportunity for Linux here. If some organization developed a curriculum and program that would get young students learning, then we could get children using Linux and starting out with open source. What better community to educate our children than the open community?
His older version of this was required reading for my tech-ed undergrads and grads. It makes sense to hear this opinion, to see how to balance what's going on.
These guns-or-butter argument is secondary to the proper funding of education as a whole.
I'm sorry - but I saw my first Macintosh immediately after completing college and a year of grad school, and seeing the undeniable utility of nothing more than MacWrite/MacDraw was astounding. Computers do indeed beling in schools. To not do so would be denying students the power that everyone else has in dealing with information. The world has changed too much to go back.
I'm going to use the language of apple/mac for two reasons - I know it better, and because apple has been able to deliver secure-able workstations and out-of-the-box tools that get stuff done. Easy productivity tools for students at a wide range of ages. If you want to substitute comparable tools and systems from wintel or OSS, great.
Todd focuses on things like kids learning powerpoint, kids using turnkey learning systems, and teachers being ad hoc tech mavens.
He's right - these are problems, but precisely because they are the wrong approaches, not because computers in the classroom are inherently wrong.
Powerpoint - Unless there's a separate app, the student edition of MS Office is just cheaper. MS Office used by kids borders on mental abuse. No student needs a WP app with 1100 menu items. Our kids use Keynote and swear by it and mastered it in very short time.
Turnkey systems - these are the least proven of anything anyone ever thought of for educational use. Almost to a unit, they do not use proven techniques or leverage sound educational philosophy or psychology, or do it on a superficial or cartoon basis.
Teachers as techies - the focus should be on using computers as a tool to find, assemble, process, and create information and understanding. This is all using retail level stuff that all teachers can get to know easily: browser, wp, ss, paint, photos, movies, presentation...
As for the comparison to construction paper etc. - when we were in school (the 60s) the two slits thru which you were allowed to express yoursleves were book reports and shoebox dioramas. Compare this to what can be done out of the box with Safari, iLife, Keynote and AppleWorks. W much wider spectrum without so much as cracking a manual.
Shut down IMs, email, and other distractions. Make it accessible across the board. Do it right. But keep doing it.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I don't see how they only got 450 computers for $1 million. That's over 2 grand per computer. You can get four Dell computers for that price. I know it's the government and they like to overpay for stuff, but 4X the price is a bit much! Instead of firing teachers, they should spend some time thinking about how to be more frugal with the little money that they do have.
-I DDoSed your mom.
I goto a school which has a computer for nearly every student, and we are the best school in the district. Hell, if anyone is going to look at the "negative" benefits of computers in the classroom, look a the positives first. IT sure has done wonders for us...
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating that PCs should be yanked from schools all together. But thinking back to high school (I graduated in '99), I can't remember the majority of my classes ever even attempting to use a PC, and when we did, it was rarely effective. Entire class periods would go to waste because we were supposed to be down at the library doing research, and instead, the teacher was trying to trouble-shoot the printer because it wouldn't print, and the only admin was across town at the other high school fixing their PCs because the entire district shared him due to budget constraints.
But PCs were definitely nice in the library. The school had moved its entire book index onto the PCs, and it was easy to search and find materials, and allowed the school to rip out that massive card catalog and install shelves for hundreds of extra books.
We also had computer literacy courses that were mandated; nothing fancy, but it was a nice introduction to basic word processing and spread sheets.
My school also had a lab where it taught BASIC and C++. I took both classes; the teacher didn't really know what was going on, so it was really more of the play-Quake-over-the-LAN class.
But other than those 3 instances, I'm really pressed to think of a need for PCs to actually be in a classroom. Our math and science teachers wouldn't even let students use those $100 graphing calculators that they demanded we have, much less a full-blown PC. There were a few instances where our English and writing classes would allow us access to PCs to do research for papers, but in many cases, the content filters were so restrictive that many students found it impossible to do any research in school.
The point is: PCs in the school are great, but PCs in the classroom are a complete waste of funds. There's no reason for them to be there because most classes have no use for them, anyways. Schools should funnel some of that extra money they'd save into employing more teachers and making the figures on their paychecks look a bit less sparse.
As a parent of 3 children (2 in elementary and 1 entering elementary next year) this scares the hell out of me. I make my living in technology, and spent several years as the technology coordinator for a school district. Spending on technology is good, BUT not to the exclusion of experiences that can only be easily had within the classroom environment: labratory science, music, foreign language, at least.
Technology spending is a must, but it must exist in a peaceful equilibrium with the other things that are necessary to provide students with a well-rounded education. No amount of computer software is going to make up for the thrill of watching an actual (not virtual) chemical reaction, seeing the guts of a frog, conversing with a native speaker of a foreign tongue, or being able to play in a marching band.
The scary part is that depriving the children of first-hand experience may have detrimental affects to their cognitive abilities. Instead of being able to look at or do things and draw their own conclusions, software often feeds them that information. If we don't generate students that have the ability to think for themselves, the United States will doom itself to becoming an has-been in the world economy and as a prime policy player.
instead of just buying them Dells or Gateways, why don't they buy some enexpensive motherboard & CPU combos and towers with powersupplys, & a few sticks of RAM and a few monitors and some Linux distros on CD rom and teach these kids what computers really are, give them hands on training on assembeling a computer then installing and configuring a Linux OS all they way to going on line and looking of rany updated software for whatever distro they decide to use...
fucking powerpoint is not going to teach those kids about a computer, might as well sit them in front of a television with the Nickelodion channel blairing out cartoons!!!
When I was in elementary school, we started having an Apple IIe per classroom by the time I was in the 4th grade. Unfortunately the only thing they were used for was typing and math drills. Today, I see mixed results, I can type fast but still don't know my times tables.
A bright spot was in the third grade when an adult used to bring in a computer and we would each get a chance to program in LOGO. I always felt like there wasn't enough time and we were barely scratching the surface. I longed for more time to experiment.
The problem, as it seemed to me back then, was that teachers didn't know what to do with these foreign objects that were dropped into their classrooms. Thus, they tried to make them do something they did understand, transforming them into automated drill sargents.
If teachers could be made to understand a little Lisp programming, for example, and were convinced to relinquish some of their control and rote-memorisation scripts, kids could really learn something about computers.
I teach history, AND technology. i am finishing a masters in ed. tech this spring, and next year I will be teaching the AP java class. except for technology classes, which i feel should be a separate part of the curriculum, computers really have no place in schools. sure, they're nice to type papers on, but other than that, they do nothing for learning. before the flames start, i am a technophile and a teacher. let me give you a few examples:
-powerpoint has become the new project medium. students spend hours with the eye candy and little on content. and then teachers show these off as some sort of great accomplishment.
-students need to read more, write more, and think more. none of these are skills that require computers. infact, spelling and grammar have deteriorated because of the fscking F7 key (that's spell check for you emacs is my word processor crowd!!)
-truth be told, many teachers are lazy. and computers are a great way to appear to be something good, when in fact teachers are taking a week in the lab as a week off. or they dump the kids on the computers and let the computer teach them.
i am i think a pretty good history teacher. i have thorough knowledge and a deeper understanding of the discipline. i challenge the kids to read and write and think critically, and apply what they've learned to present, as well understand the ideas and people, not just memorize facts. (for instance, in my 10th grade mod civ class, we've read everyone from aristotle to plato, thomas more to john locke, hume, ricardo, marx, and many in between. we've done a project simpy titled, "defend the stuarts". you history buffs will appreciate that. not that there is a right answer to that, but, damn, ya gotta think about that one.) now, i've not needed the computer for any of that. computers are simply a way for the schools to show how much they're doing, when again, they're not doing the one thing they need to do, which is educate. school technology is all about playing PR game. it is sad. worst of al is that now we teachers have to compete with the computer. if we are not exciting enough, interesting enough, entertaining enough, etc., the we de facto excuse the kids for tuning out in school. i can't compete with that. i am a teacher, not an entertainer.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
The article makes a big deal out of the 80 billion spent on school computing just in the last decade -- it sounds like such an outrageous number. Yet with 47.6 million school children in the U.S. and an average expenditure of $7,500 per pupil, public education spends $357 billion annually. IT spending accounts for only $8 billion annually -- a mere 2.2%.
An IT budget of 2.2% seems very small when you consider the information-intensive nature of education.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Paper and pencil sucks .. ever since that got introduced in schools 3000 years ago ..students have been dumb.
..dont listen properly ..and most students never go back and refer to their notes later on.
.. and fortunately the pen & paper are only a supplement. Somewhat.
Before that, you used to have to be attentive and had to learn by listening, watching, and doing.
The damn paper and pen has replaced all that, and what do we have? Dumber people.
Students take improper notes
The reason we have a somewhat OK educated people is cause the oral tradition remains
Richard Stallman recently pubished an article about why schools should use Free Software exclusively:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html
I'm not a fan of computers in schools, well maybe one or two hours per week in a designated computer room is okay, but Stallmans point is important about how we shouldn't teach our kids not to share.
An audio and a video recording that includes most of this essay is also available on the GNU philosophy recordings page.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Throughout the country, computer technology is dumbing down the academic experience, corrupting schools' financial integrity, cheating the poor, fooling people about the job skills youngsters need for the future and furthering the illusions of state and federal education policy.
Yeah, you can say that again. With the typing skills I got in high school, plus the basic computer literacy they gave me, this is the number of jobs I could get: 0. As much as I tried to get a job in data entry or secretarial work, it just wasn't there, and I didn't have the skills to qualify.
Perhaps the sort of jobs that exist for the computer literate are the same kinds of jobs that have always existed before. It's just that now if you want to work in a grocery store or a warehouse, you have to know how to at least use a computer. But getting work that purely deals with computers? Forget it. Welders and mechanics are paid more than sysadmins, especially with how those fields are in demand and aren't flooded with qualified applicants. A lot of people of my generation bought the hype that we were fed in the 80's about 14 year old whiz-kid millionaires, followed by the hype we were fed in the 90's about a critical shortage of computer techs. In the meantime, the wrenchheads that took mechanics in high school and went on that path instead are getting paid twice what I am.
I think I just got 0wn3d.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Not quite.
one "s" is enough to spell "Classroom."
No it's not.
-no broken link
Update: 12/01 00:02 GMT by T: Ooops -- one "s" is enough to spell "Classroom."
Homer:"Having kids is great, you can teach them to hate the things you hate, and they practically raise themselves what with the internet and all."
I think that explains why we need computers and not teachers! Any questions? Look it up on that internet thing and get back to me...
Sure, kids in their mid teens could do complex arithmetic in their heads in the 1800s. But how many of them could factor a quadratic equation? How many of them could explain the basic makeup of DNA? How many of them would know the makeup of an atom? I knew all this stuff in jr. high.
There is only so much time in the day to teach kids stuff. As time progresses, certain things become deemed more and more elementary and are delegated to automation, hence calculators taking over most of math. But this doesn't mean education is necessarily suffering - it's progressing. People who graduate from HS today have as much (even more in some fields) raw knowledge as someone who had a doctorate in the 18th century. Would you rather them spend more time on basic math and less on science and advanced algebra? Of course not.
If in 20 years, my son knows the fundamentals of string theory in junior high, at the expense of having to use a calculator to be able to do simultanious equations, I'll consider that a *good* thing. Leave the mundane tasks to the machines, leave the ones that require actual thinking to the humans.
Sure, that makes sense. But what some districts are doing (as mentioned in the article) does not.
I don't claim that we should eschew all new methods, only that the technology treadmill has limits. As the article mentions, it makes more sense at higher grade levels, and when used appropriately. PowerPoint for primary education is not necessarily bad, but the article points out that scholarship really has suffered.
sir, i'm almost 21, and i still havn't masterred math. given, i'm a second year university student taking (and currently passing:) ) university math courses...
math is a BIG feild. i don't think i've met anyone yet who's masterred it, beyond mabye four profs(each who seems to me to only have masterred a few select, specific areas in math...but i could be wrong on that part.)
careful not to require them to have multiple PhD's before they get into elementary computing.
i'm thankful my elementary school had apple//'s. even if the teachers were clueless how to use/apply them. i only wish i could have been let on more often.
as for the topic? what pisses me off, is that schools will spend multimillion dollars on computers'...and then let them just collect dust. my highschool had the best computer lab in the province, as far as highschools went.
and no one was allowed to use them unless they were with a class and a teacher,..and while some teachers DID use them, not very many did, (which was wise, because they all ran win95 and were as buggy as hell).
and now? they have a hundred or so win95 boxes that are completely useless. their only hope is linux, and they are NOT going to go that way.
want another example? The University Regina has a Media Lab which basically consists of 30 top-of-the-line Mac's. or top of th line for last year. they keep it behind a glass wall that you need a password/keycard to get through... and guess what? 97% of the time there is NO ONE on these machines. what a great use of tuition and provincial taxes. summary: if you buy a computer, use it. if you don't want to or have time to use it, set up a secure system on it, and let others use it for you.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Learning to use a computer is just like learning a new language!
The only difference is that language will not change over a decade as much as technology around computers will. I was typing with WordPerfect 5.1 a decade ago. Have you heard WP lately? What does this tell you?
If kids need computer skills, high school may be a good starting point. Unless you are teaching 5th graders command lines to admin Unix machines, becoming a "computer literate" won't take much time. That's what GUI's are for. Computers in grade schools are not used to teach real "languages," programming in C++ or Java. The article mentions some negative consequences from using PowerPoint-like program, which ironically restricts children from creating what they want.
Applications are designed in a way which even dummies can use them. But at the same time, as long as you have only a keyboard and monitor to interact with a computer, there are restrictions on what a computer can do. Maybe this will change (keyboard and monitor become obsolete?) by the time these kids become adult. Who knows?
If it's possible for you to download the semester's worth of PowerPoint presentations, spend a week going through the material and trying it out on your own, and you learn just as much as the old-fashioned taking-notes-with-pencil-and-paper method, then why should you go to class?!
... not that they should go back to teaching you less because of artificial anti-technology constraints.
School isn't supposed to just be a difficult obstacle course you have to maneuver through. You're supposed to be learning things. What you should be complaining about is that, now that the time-consuming black-board scribbling has been done away with, your professors should be spending this extra time teaching you more
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
Is this not yet another band-aid we're trying to apply to our very sick public education system? Give 'em all computers and maybe some of the real problems (such as our distressingly low international rankings in math and reading) will magically disappear. The kinds of skills children need to learn in grammar school aren't very amenable to computers. How to read and retain effectively what's been read, the mysteryious workings of numbers, even the construction of a blobby salt map of the Roman Empire--all these are best left in the hands of a skilled teacher. A computer can't see the perplexed look on the face of a child in the back row.
It seems to me that computers can be added to the curriculum as they are required, and used for their logical and reasonable purposes. When kids start doing "reports" in the middle grades, computers become tools for research. Later on, they can serve many purposes, with those kids who show interest and aptitude learning to write programs, while everybody learns the basic word-processor/spreadsheet/database triad that keeps the office world going.
It seems to me that simply throwing them into an already-troubled system simply robs kids of "face time" with their teachers while lulling the rest of us into thinking all's well in our schools. All's decidedly not well.
Anne
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
I remember primary school. We used to paint, play musical instruments, read (and be read to) and roll down the grassy slope to see who could withstand the dizzyness the most.
If the computers could interact in this way then fine, but drone kids sitting at desks is a way of creating a drone recipient society rather than an active and questioning one.
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
When I was in grade school, apple gave the schools computers for very low amounts of money. I always assumed that they figured that we would learn how to use apples better... and I, or my family, would therefore buy one.
:)
I seems like a very logical business plan.
Should we be donating a bunch of *nix boxes to our local schools? I know that my learning curve would have been much more enjoyable if I had been introduced to unix in grade school than my senior year in high school.
By then I had little chance of being a jedi ninja hacker...
The high school I go to was designed to the high tech school of the school district. 80% percent of the computers in the school are the original machines given to us by Intel coroporation back in 1997. They are Pentium 133-mhz machines with 64 MB of RAM running Windows NT 4. Because of this, teachers have intergrated their use into their teaching. Its great and for a long time these machines kept up fine as well as the network. But once the district IT department wanted to move my school on to my giant Active Directory domain (we were on our own and had a private internet connection as well) and the school district cloud, thats when all hell broke loose. They forced the school IT people to put virus scanners on these old 133-Mhz machines, which slowed them down a hell of a lot. They also took away the school's computer purchasing power so they can get what each department needs. Now, any computer has to be a Dell OptiPlex. That hurts me where I work in the school's television station because for the same price as these Dells, an Apple eMac would do a better job. So my word of advice is, don't create a central IT department in a school district. It becomes a bureaucratic layer of crap that doesn't do anything.
I want a school that bans PowerPoint, I gotta take notes with a pen, profs should have to do the same amount of writing on the blackboard.
My notes are sometimes barely readable by myself. Have you tried taking notes from a professor with a bad handwriting? Or in math class, with subscripts or even subscripts of subscripts?
Not to mention, a good set of slides only provides a structured overview of the topics, they're not magic, and usually don't have the kind of explainations a professor would present at the lecture.
I know you can take some classes without actually bothering to be present, and still get good grades, I've done that at the university. (Best grade: 1.3 = A...) And if you can do it, and is disciplined enough to do it, hey great! Just don't pretend you can do that in every subject, or that there aren't students that would need the lectures - even with Powerpoint presentations and the textbook, many don't clue in until the professor walks them through it, or they'd simply shirk.
If you feel listening to the class is wasted, find something interesting to do. They might check up on you though, once when I was 17 and lying over my desk half-dozing, the teacher put the chalk down in front of me and pointed to the problem on the blackboard. I walked up, solved it, and returned to the same position, hehe. Also at 19, I spent all the math and physics classes for two weeks programming my TI-82 calculator. Just because I was bored.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
As an employee of a school system's technology department, I speak on behalf of having computers in the classroom. At the school system I work at, GPAs have only risen since we have introduced computers to the students in classrooms, labs, media centers, and lunchrooms. Students are also more well behaved, and computers provide access to tons of education media. The school system I work also provides a way for students to understand technology. We have different kinds of computers (Dell, IBM, Apple, Sun, and even some Silicon Graphics Machines,) different operating systems (Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, RedHat Linux, Apple OS X, OpenBSD, and various others,) and finally many programs that enhance the teaching environment. Oh, also since I work for the school system as a Network Administrator, it would kinda suck to see if this stopped all of the sudden. I kinda like my job, and I don't want to lose it. My two cents..
"Snatching defeat from the mouth of victory on a daily basis."
The biggest problem is Liberals just don't have the heart to say a kid has to learn something. It's always about touchy feely crap. That's why you get kids who 'graduate' but don't know how to do simple addition. Some Liberal opined that the kid would 'feel bad' if he got a problem wrong, and he'll feel bad if he is made to correct it, and he'll feel bad if he doesn't get promoted with the rest of his peers, and he'll feel bad if he doesn't graduate, and he'll feel bad if he doesn't get into college, and he'll feel bad if it isn't Harvard, and he'll feel bad if he then is made to perform to college expectatins, and he'll feel bad if he can't get the diploma, and he'll feel bad if he then can't get a job, even HE DOESN'T KNOW SHIT BECAUSE HE WASN'T MADE TO LEARN!!!
Not panaceas. I remember in chemistry class back in 94-95... we had a bunch of Apple IIe's, simulating chemical reactions. We weren't learning computers to learn computers, we were using them to do experiments that we otherwise wouldn't get to do- it was an interactive program, not just a demo.
Properly harnessed, computers can massively enhance the learning experience. Used just so you can use them, they will at best be a waste of money, at worst interfere with learning.
Don't throw computers at teachers. Make sure there is a lesson plan where the computers actually let the teacher do more than he/she otherwise could. Don't give it an internet connection if it doesn't need one. Dont' put any software on it that does not support the educational mission of that specific computer.
And don't buy brand new computers- except for computer science students(and even they don't really need it) you don't need top of the line, or even mid-range, systems to run useful educational software. Those Apples in chem class, they had been marked for the trash heap when my teacher grabbed them... ten year old+ systems, yet he made use of them to do things safer, cheaper, and more effectively than he could have done so without those computers. Got more out of those things than the 486's the computer lab had.
As with anything else in education, creativity and discipline is the key to effective use of computers.
Let me start this off by saying that I am in no way against technology (obviously, or I wouldn't be reading Slashdot). As a graduate student currently, I've found that being able to hook up a laptop and show a powerpoint presentation can be a big help in many classes.
The trouble is, many times computers, instead of supplementing existing materials, are replacing them. To take two related examples, I believe one of the most useful tools in the modern classroom is the whiteboard. It has all the benifits of a chalkboard, without the mess. (And it's quieter, since markers don't make the annoying chalk scraping noises)
At my university, every building is now full of "smart" classrooms, meaning there's a big tower of equipment in every room (most of which I've never seen used). I'm not faulting that - one of the improvements was that the professor can just plug in his laptop and have his presentation projected on the screen. My problem is, they spent millions of dollars on all this fancy equipment (do you really need a VCR in every classroom?) and yet, as far as I've seen, none of the classrooms have whiteboards. There are whiteboards in the computer labs, but not in the classrooms. (They do have chalkboards, but that's a poor substitute)
In the public schools there's a similar problem. At the high school I work at, they do have whiteboards, and they get a lot of use. So much use, in fact, that the teachers have to buy markers with thier own money, because there's no budget for them, so there often aren't enough. How many markers would one computer buy?
End rant.
Twenties Retirement
i think in my university there is really, really lax regulations(at least from what i've seen) on attendance. and really, you shouldn't have to go...i've taken a course that you describe or two. ...one of which i either slept through or skipped ALL the classes, AND didn't open my textbook, and still passed with 1% short of the class average(65%)...the other which i went to every class, and took every note written that i could,..
and failed with a mid-40%.
the problem in these cases is the class size of both these courses were the biggest of all the classes i've taken...
on the other hand, classes where class size is smaller, say 20-50, you can ask questions. you can get clarifications. you can get the prof to interact, and to lecture instead of just flipping slides or powerpoint slides. i mean really, if half the class doesn't have a clue, half the remaining class is asleep, that leaves, oh, 5-13 people who are paying attention, and they could probably use the interaction as much as i could.
the smaller class size, the more likely you WILL learn what you have to, given you have time outside of class to do the homework you are collectively assigned, as well as do whatever else you have to do(this is where i screwed up, mostly)
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Todd Oppenheimer, the writer of the article, mentions Accelerared Reader. He does not go into detail, but an educational researcher at UC Berkeley said the results were not as impressive as the AR marketers claim.
My question then becomes, in your experience, was it the AR program itself, or the motivation of the teachers (and parents) that made a difference?
Perhaps, but two would be great :-)
OK let me also say something about the subject: I think the crucial thing is do we view (the ability to use) the computer as an end or as a mean.
Most would agree mean or tool, so I would think that it would be good for a teacher to first tell the class about something, then have some discussion and what-if speculation and _then_ use the puter for further research into real life examples of what was talked about, or perhaps with a program that does certain calculations where the pupils merely need to know how it should be calculated but not perform it theirselves, or so.
So, computer usage as a tool, not as a goal. I'd be pressed to feel that generally one could say that when the teacher says Listen kids, not only the murmering should fade out but also the looking at thge screen should be suspended until the collective/community intermezzo is over. Then it's OK to go back to merely me/my problem/my screen/my what-if/etc.
In the end it probably means that knowledge transfer does take both personal "one on one" style explaining and challeging as well as individual exploring. Taking only the individual route can work well for a long time, until (s)he gets across something that forces him/her to change insight about a LOT of things merely because they were never guided enough to recognise flaws in their reasoning at an early stage.
Being self taught is great and may suffice but not without a good foundation which really requires personal knowledge transfer IMHO. And of course one person isn't a copy of the other so milages will vary.
My 3 year old daughter is getting good at using a mouse and often plays colouring-in games and sometimes ma-jong, while my 6 month old son is having a lot of fun trying to eat his keyboard.
I haven't (yet) had much success teaching them how to hack or compile their own kernel but I'm working on it ;).
Seriously though, what students can do on these computers needs to be carefully managed.
- Restrict access on the internet to certain sites, white or black listed. ;)
- Lock down the machines and only allow certain applications.
- Run linux
30 years from now everyone will grow up with computers and with people teaching them who also grew up with computers, only then will the computer age really have saturated our society.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
the only thing i could ask, though, is whether or not the human mind could handle a higher learning pace than a given point. hiher educated people all the way up to stephen hawking have mentioned the sheer mass of human knowledge available...becoming "current" and up to date in a feild such as mathematics, in a specialized area of mathematics takes 12 years of school plus 4 years of university, 3 years of university, 2 years of university...currently. while what you are saying right now DOES make sense and i DO like the idea where you do draw the line? is this purely up to the people with education degrees to decide? we COULD half the education process. so by oh, 14 you could have a PhD degree equivilent of knowledge in you...but would that be enough? how about _7_ ? or is this absurd and taking your idea for something that it is not? personally i think i have a firm grasp on some concepts that i just would not have understood at 7...or even 14. but mabye i'm some sort of a retard, or something :/
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I think that when judging the effectiveness of computers in the classroom we too often try to think of the computers as the teachers rather than tools with which to teach. We could write an article about the 10 billion (guess) that gets spent on furniture for classrooms every year and say that it isn't increasing our math scores if we're making kids sit on the floor and write on the wall.
Until teachers embrace the computers as tools to teach with and augment their teaching plans with them then there will always be complaints that we're wasting money on technology for technology's sake. Luddite companies do the same thing when they point to IT as a cost center and fail to utilize their investment to provide return.
Computers in and of themselves cannot fix our education system. But used correctly they are a ways to a means and can certainly improve the way we educate our youth.
Its true.
If you expect a top-notch eduation with a diverse group of people- some poor, some rich, some willing to learn, some who are not, some loud and racous, some violent, some peaceful, etc, then you are in for a major shock.
Its not impossible to tackle this, but the current system of schooling does not properly accomodate those who want to be educated from those who don't want to be, those with special needs, those who need other types of help, etc.
I'm not dissing anyone's social condition, I'm just pointing out how we currently do eduaction is not working out to some of the standards that we want to achieve.
It's not just liberals who are responsible, conservatives have an equal share. Which party is the one that advocates not teaching evolution because it isn't provable science? Are most people who tried to ban the Harry Potter books, probably the most read book amongst young kids in a long long time, conservatives or liberals? See, the blame is equally spread.
:-p
Which is why I should be in charge.
i think you emphasize a point that not everyone is told when they get to university, but is not only vital to learn, but is so completely forign from highschool and elementary school that people who have NOT been to university would never think of it. at university YOU pay to be there, at least here YOU pay a good minority of prof's salaries(33%)...and YOU are resoponsible if/when you screw up, and if/when you succeed. If some activity is not as productive as you want it, and you are sitting idly, do something else instead! i am getting actually kind of good at drawing since i started doodling in a sketchpad...i constantly do another subject's homework in class...i sleep occasionally(*careful. this idea is only applicable to those who can sleep without snoring...if you bother anyone else with your activities, expected to be kicked out of the class, or crucified by angry students.)...and hope to one day have a palm pilot to connect to my university's all surrounding wireless network. but generally ALWAYS BE DOING SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE!!!!! if you are far enough to be in university, you KNOW there isn't enough hours in a day to accomplish everything you need to do, nevermind everything you want to do...so EVERY MINUTE is vital.
...i don't even remember drifting off......but my prof stopped his lecture, ran to the back of the room, grabbed me, and proceeded to physically throw me out of the classroom, saying that people don't fall asleep to his lectures' or something.
i thought i'd be removed from that class for sure, but i showed up the next day, and sure enough, i was allowed to stay(i think...i didn't ask or anything;) )...and EVERYONE had coffee.
[/mildly interesting story]
in a related story, one day i had worked all night(i was working full time while taking a "full-time classload"...ug!)...and when i got to my 8am logic class i was kind of tired. keep in mind my class had some 2-300 people in it...and i was at the very back, somewhere in the middle.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I should say too that my point is not nearly as strong when applied to elementary school. You don't really do research reports or anything (at least I don't think I really did, maybe a small one or two), so the benefits of the Internet are much lessened. I think though that even in middle school there's no question access should be provided.
The replacement should be to use computers. No we should not ship standard computers running windowsXP and just throw them in a classroom, but I'm in college and our teachers have projectors and smartboards which are internet ready, we have computers which are used properly. We have wi-fi networks. The problem is not that computers are bad, its that most school systems suck and we just toss computers at them when they dont truely know how to use them. Maybe they can learn something from colleges on how to teach hundreds of students in a classroom using computers to assist.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
1) It is cost efficient use existing hardware that is considered outdated in addition to being free of MS software licensing issues.
2) K12LTSP has pre-configured install CDs available for download , so minimal setup is required.
3) Using diskless clients greatly reduces time spent troubleshooting/changing/testing hardware components on each desktop. When software issues occur, there is a single point of troubleshooting. This saves a fortune in support costs.
4) Far fewer viruses. How much time did you spend patching or cleaning up a MS machine this summer?
5) With some special configuration, they can be used with Macintosh clients.
6) The learning curve with teachers is minimal, and for many students nil.
The administrators and vendors may prevent widespread implementation of K12LTSP in schools, and that's a shame, because in my view this is ideal for both cash-strapped school systems and time-strapped teachers.
That said -- it may not be so unreasonable for the school(s) in question to spend the millions on the computers, even as teachers were being laid off. Should a school turn down free technology money? Understanding HOW schools are forced to spend their money and WHY is essential to understanding this (rather common) situation.
So, perhaps we need to bug the state and federal governments to redirect THEIR funding priorities. When we blame "the schools" for situations like this, let's understand who we're really blaming, and let's change the systems that really need to be changed.
And its funny how we dont complain at all when it comes to using these things in college. No its only when its used in gradeschool that somehow its a problem.
Look, wiseup! This is 2003 not 1903. We do not need to teach kids using old technology. Class sizes are getting bigger, how are we going to teach 100 students? With a chalk board and books? There will never be enough books for every student and it would be a waste of money. Whats the solution? Use computers! DUH! Suddenly you can teach 100-500 students easily and its proven. Look at college campuses where professors routinely teach 400-500 students in a big room using computers, projectors, and the internet such as blackboard.
Maybe if we applied the tools to teach big classes to highschol we'd educate better, but of course our grade school education is subpar because we refuse to use the new technology.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
the days when they used those nice little reliable computers called BBC Micros! They had one in the corner of each classroom and they were wonderful machines. We used to waste hours typing in listings from books to play pointless games. I'm afraid if I hadn't started with BBC Micros, I probably wouldn't be so blatantly addicted to the internet as I am now. In primary school I don't think we used them very much though, from what I can remember. I know they did by the time I left the school, because I really wanted their digitizer pad! Since they 'upgraded' to a load of Windows computers, I didn't go into the computer room again, it just wasn't the same.
Bored? http://www.dodgybloke.co.uk
In the case of computers, it is the software applications that they run and schedule and guiding used. In the case of television, the programs viewed and the schedule and guiding used. In the case of books, the author and publisher are responsible for validity of information, the content appropriately classified and the schedule and guiding used. The modern and effective teacher is responsible for setting schedule and providing guidance in the use of the described. To the extent that increased pay and segment of budget increases the numbers or quality of teachers, so it should be allocated. To the extent that increased or improved distribution methods would improve the education produced in the youth, so it should be allocated.
Questioning the use of funds for a particular area given limited information is useless. Unless the entire situation of the schools of San Francisco is known, no judgment can be made on more than supposition and projection of experienced difficulties. In this only discrimination results, baseless judgments from a particular or assumed experience.
Well, computer science is not what most students are being taught with computers. Many teachers, like most people in our society, do not entirely realize that computer programs are mathematical functions, nor that they are something that ordinary human beings can learn to write. Yet ordinary students are supposed to be able to learn algebra and calculus both which are alot more complicated and harder to grasp by the average mind than C, C++, or basic computer use. I still can't figure calculus out and I suck at algebra, yet I can code in C, Java, Visual Basic, C++, Python, Qbasic, HTML etc you get the picture.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Not that it would be a first.
The article talks of the cost of computing and the digital divide between rich and poor areas.
E-books, with DMCA enforcement, will be a digital wedge. Poorer families, where money is shorter than time, can barter for printed books. They can buy them second hand, and pass them from one child to the next. If the future school books are licensed for a 10 month period only, or if they are digitally "tied" to one computer, the cost of schooling will go up. Children must have the course material, and I doubt the publishers are going to sell e-books for a third of the regular price (because regular books probably get used by three children, in succession).
(background: the parent comment was modded as Offtopic by a modder)
From my experiences at school, I really don't think that availability/lack of computers are an issue, they are a tool, and have uses, but they really can't teach. The main problem is the teachers and what is being taught. In school, I saw no evidence of people being encouraged to think, everything was based on wrote memorization. Thats really the only reason to teach something like math beyond a certain point. In short, although schools need to teach some basic skills (reading, writing, arithmatic, etc.) which they are doing an OK job of, they need to at least encourage people to think for themselves in order to become productive members of society. If poeple got used to questioning ideas and critical thinking at an early age, I honestly don't think that nearly as many of them would do things like run up massive credit card debts. Just my $.o2
Sig is a crazy old German guy.
Computers may be overrated in many schools,
but in some of the poorest and worst schools,
I absolutely advocate computer classes.
Here's why.
My best friend teaches basic computer skills
in one of the worst San Francisco high schools.
She regularly has problems with guns, drugs,
gangs, riots, pregancies, attacks, abuse,
lack of funds, bad admins, you name it.
In spite of all this, her kids are learning:
they learn to use the web, email, and Office.
These are the fundamental tools of research,
communication, and business presentation.
Why are these important?
Not because of what they are--
but because of what they inspire.
When these kids see that they can use these,
They are inspired, and see real-world success
as within their reach if they can work hard.
They gain confidence, which these kids *sorely* need.
They gain ways to learn more, even on their own time.
Should these kids learn critical thinking?
Read Shakespeare? Write essays? Of course.
But until they are inspired, all of that's moot--
and computers are inspiring these kids.
Would love to hear feedback about this,
or similar stories from other teachers.
Cheers, Joel (joel@school.net)
The bigger issue for a middle-school teacher that I know is that not only are the teachers not trained how to make use of the computers, but that with a litigous society it leaves them wide open for lawsuits if the students use the computers for something untoward.
The state should have a program by which every year they organize all the parents to do a mass purchase on say, three specs of machines and bid it out to Dell, Gateway and Apple and whoever else wants to play. Then, more kids can have computers at home.
AND THE HELL OUT OF THE CLASSROOM WHERE THEY ARE A WASTE OF MONEY.
Do the same thing with bandwidth at home.
If I take myself as an example:
:)
I have grown up in aschool system somewhat like this one: I have typed my writing for school since 2nd grade; I started builiding web sites for others in sixth grade; by seventh grade came Java, and then Perl... now I'm a senior in high school. So where has it all gotten me?
I'm posting to slashdot!
Clearly an education heavy on techno-literacy leads to degenerate, lazy teenagers! What more evidence is necessary?
Denn wir sind wie Baumstaemme im Schnee. Scheinbar liegen sei glatt auf, mit kleinem anstoss sollte man sie wegschieben
Just because Socrates taught under a tree does not mean we should never go beyond that, but then again it would be unreasonable to replace Socrates with a tree and call it education. This is in effect what is happening in SF. Lay off teachers and buy computers.
The fact that this is precisely what happened to Socrates, is an irony that he might appreciate. Not to mention the fact that he was killed by a plant.
Using expensive traditional PCs in classrooms just does not work. Using LTSP based thin-clients does. K12LTSP.org is the answer to the cost issues raised in this article.
;-)
Wikibooks.org is a new project that could save millions. Can you say open source textbooks?
Finally, there are valid points on how PCs are used in the classroom. After 22 years of teaching, here's what I think about it.
Think of it this way. Sir Isaac Newton was a genius. One of the smartest men in the world and now we expect gradeschool students to learn the same maths this super genius was messing around with. DO you really think every kid, every teen, every adult is capable of being as smart as Newton, Einstien, and all these fellows? Hell no. And its not important for us to be a math genius to learn to use the math which these math geniuses may have invented. Without the calculator theres no way 90^ of us could do calculus. Without the word processor half of us could not write a paper with perfect grammar. Do we want to go back to the 1800s? Or move foward? I think some people want us to continue to teach the same way we did 100 years ago even when the material we are teaching is 100 years ahead. Thats just impossible, some things are impossible to teach the average class without the help of computers and as classes have hundreds of students it will be impossible to teach something like multivariable calculus to a bunch of 8th graders. Guess what though? Thats what we have to do if we are to keep up with Japan and China.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Maybe if these open source people were to focus on actually making more educational tools we would be able to have a nice way to teach people. All we have so far is http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia is a good start. Blogs are useful also for professors. Now we have some of the tools to teach courses using the computers and the internet but we need much much more before we can replace the current flawed method with a slightly less flawed online education method. When we have an E-school, I'll support the idea of E-learning. Until we have the E-School and plenty of open source tools which help teach well then, the only tool i've seen was blackboard, and if we can do a fantastic site such as slashdot, we can do better than blackboard.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Thanks for posting the links, Cuda. I just listened to the NPR interview, which was a debate about the "digital divide". The host, Tavis Smiley, seemed to accept the need for computers in schools as an obvious truth, and the other panelist, Shireen Mitchell, felt this was an issue of racial equity of opportunity and educational quality.
Oppenheimer made his case as simple as possible: he doesn't want *any* kids using computers in the classroom until approximately middle school. To paraphrase, he felt that poor schools should not mimic everything that rich schools do, or at least not without considering which parts are effective. He also gave an example where a school with 90% kids of color outperformed a rich school (that strongly used computers) in the same area.
So, why is this an issue of race?
SysAdmins
So, the systems are running linux and/or unix variants? I didn't think so. So why use this UNIX/Linux-specific administrator terminology? Windows Administrators aren't sysadmins, they're Windows Administrators.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I took my BS in Comp Sci and used it to become a teacher. Honestly you want to know the biggest fault of the system that I see RIGHT NOW is?
I have people who can't turn a TI calculator off telling me I have to use those same Calculators in my classroom. Meanwhile, at the beginning of the year I had to show kids in Trigonometry how to do long division, square roots, and exponents before I could even begin to touch on sin, cos, and tan.
Yeah technology is wonderful at helping people bridge the concrete with the abstract. But if they have no clue about the basics do you think technology will save them.
Personal observation #2: All you parents and future parents pay attention to this. The kids who succeed are the ones whose parents actually show interest in their kids work. Some things that accomplish this is to make sure they are doing their homework, know what classes they are taking, and actually go to parent conferences.
Final observation: It'll get better as the hierarchy at the schools themselves end up being more computer adept. You wouldn't believe how useful a Smart-Board and other technologies can be in the classroom if the teacher knows how to use them. Same goes with calculators and other technologies. Right now there is a feeding frenzy going on with the idea that every child needs to learn technology out the yin-yang while in high-school. Once people start realizing that most of what we teach them they will pick up on their own if left to their own exploration.
BTW: All you unemployed Computer geeks. You might want to look at your state's Non-Traditional Licensing office and go into teaching. It is a great job. (Except for the pay but hey, I get vacation out the wazoo.)
To a point, computers in the schools are good. But if it means laying off teachers, then computers become a hinderence. In my opinion, a good teacher is worth a hundred CRAYs.
Save Sam and Max!
From the article: As any adult knows, system crashes are a fact of high- tech life.
I run Linux. What's a system crash?
-insert a witty something-
My high school calc teacher was without a doubt one of the best 2 teachers I ever had -- We never touched a computer once in her class. And God help me, if I had had Maple, I would have been *SCREWED* It's definetely better to learn it first without a computer and then learn the computer shortcuts.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I am a 23-year-old high school teacher, and I was raised with a keyboard in hand. As someone with a technical background and not much older than the students, I am certainly comfortable with installing, using, and maintaining computers. However, I have grave doubts about their extensive use in the schools.
One point that has not been adequately made is that this will be a recurring expense. Computers obsolesce quickly, to a degree such that 5-year-old computers will generally not run new software. Not only are computers for each student a significant expense, but the investment must be made again in 5 years!
At North Hollywood High School, where I teach, each classroom was recently equipped with three or four modern PCs. Less than six months later, perhaps 80% of them were nonfunctioning, generally due to abuse by students or teachers. In some cases, kids actually opened up the cases to steal the RAM or hard drives for use at home.
Computers are an excellent research tool and can be a good source of explanatory animations for difficult concepts. However, they cannot teach students to think, which is the primary function of an education. They certainly have applications, but the idea that a regular curriculum should be largely supplanted by a computer-based one is absurd.
"DO you really think every kid, every teen, every adult is capable of being as smart as Newton, Einstien, and all these fellows?"
How will you ever know, if you never ask people to even try? Here's your crutch. Now learn to walk.
"Thats what we have to do if we are to keep up with Japan and China."
I seem to remember both school systems not being so dependent on technology. I guess the lesson there is to put our faith in the people, and not so much in the technology.
I understand the frustration with insufficient budgets for education - but aren't these funds for new computers often coming from different places than, say, the funding required to increase teacher salaries, or funding for after-school programs/activities?
I don't think the average person either understands, or wants to understand the complexity of school funding. If Cisco or Microsoft comes along and gives a grant for new PCs for a school - it's not an option to redirect those funds for anything other than what they're intended for.
Not only that, but even if we *are* talking about actual tax money, usable for anything a school district wishes, being put towards new PCs -- it may make good sense. Some of the gradeschools I've seen are still trying to get by with 10+ year old Macintosh systems in serious need of repair. Teachers are losing valuable classtime waiting for these slow computers to run software, reboot after crashes (often due to bad RAM or failing hard drives), and losing their own student projects to worn out floppy disks, etc.
While it may be true that the vague argument about "giving kids access to computers at a young age helps prepare them for tomorrow" is worthless, it's NOT true that gradeschools can't make good teaching tools out of computers. There are some excellent programs out there to teach basic math, reading/alphabet/phonics, and spelling skills - as well as geography, science and even basic foreign language skills. If a gradeschool isn't using the computer as an additional teaching aid to teach the core skills they're supposed to be teaching already, they're simply misusing it.
I'd even go as far as to say using the Internet in a gradeschool evironment is largely unnecessary. Sure, there are SOME creative and valid ways to use it, but it's far from required. If a teacher is telling gradeschoolers to "go look everything up on the net", that's just a cop-out. Instead, he/she should be locating the best learning software possible to teach the curriculum.
I'd much rather see a school using carefully selected, top quality learning programs on their new PC in a classroom than funneling the funds into some "school band program", with the vague goal of "nurturing an appreciation of music in youngsters". Most kids grow up enjoying music with or without band/music classes, and the vast majority won't ever turn an enjoyment of school band/music class into a profitable career down the road.
Assuming about $500 a computer, and $45,000/teacher/year that works out to only 5 more teaching positions, for just one year. If you assume that you can use the computers for five years before they come useless, we're talking about one teaching position that is being lost in order to buy these computers. For an entire city with millions of people! I agree that computers in schools are kind of useless (and I think teaching kids to use PowerPoint should be made illegal in publicly funded schools...), but this one deal is hardly the end of the world, or even really that big of a deal at all.
When I was in elementary school, we all had apple-IIs and we didn't do much with them other then learn to type. I remember once in middle school, learning to use a database, and a word processor on some more apple IIs, and playing around with some Macs in Industrial Tech class.
In High school we had Macs, and they were mostly used for surfing the web, writing email, and writing papers. I don't think they are a substitute for a teacher, and I think we should rely on them less, but that doesn't mean that we should have no computers in the class room.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
As many posters have correctly stated, the purpose of school is to teach people how to learn, how to teach themselves. So what is the purpose of a computer? The simple answer is to compute and to process information. And, of course, computers are machines, and just like all other machines, they're designed to give the user an advantage. So computers are designed to give the user an advantage in computing and information processing. But aren't these some of the things we're trying to teach kids to enable them to learn? Giving kids computers for learning is like giving them motorcycles to do laps. Computers only add to students' mental atrophy (and their physical atrophy, no doubt).
Save me Jeabus!
450 computers == 5 teaching positions. How many computers do you think they need over there? They could spend all their money on teachers, and nothing on desks, chairs, books, computers, etc. But that would end up pretty useless. Obviously there is some amount of each you should have, and you need to make tradeoffs.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Teachers can be lazy and use computers... just like they can be lazy and use videos."
And parents can be lazy, and use schools like a glorified day-care.
Notice the immigrants who came over, and how well their kids are doing in the same school system that everyone else says is bad.
It's not the schools, or the teachers, or any other excuse. It's the parents being involved in their kids education.
No amount of technology will change that basic fact.
I say save money and skip the computers until highschool. Make sure *every kid has their own laptop* in highschool (high school provides). These would be $300-500 units (2GhZ CPU and 1Gig RAM) provided by the school with free software. If the price can't be that low - then tough shit for the manufacturers - the schools should just go buy the machines from India.
before highschool no computers at all
I think not.
Not having a computer is logically antecedent to inventing one. Thus, the statement, " The people who invented the computer didn't have computers in their classrooms.," is self-evident at best and is quite possibly the mindless uttering of a dumbass.
But that's just my opinion, since I have no MOD points at this time, nor any crack to accompany them.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
"Lack of a decent work ethic is a major problem today."
I wouldn't worry about it. Indians have an excellent work ethic.
So ... we should first teach the teachers to use technology effectively, and then let them show the students how the technology can be an effective tool? What an absolutely radical idea. It would work, but first, you have to get the politicians and other bureaucrats whose job depend on pandering to the masses to step back and objectively decide that we need to take a technology breather.
"We're buying these extremely expensive machines, and they're little more than video games or porn outlets. I don't have a problem with porn myself, but do it on your time at home, already. The kids just sit there and leech ISOs all day long, or go play games, or anything..."
And yet no one sees a problem with them growing-up and duplicating this behaviour at work?
How many Slashdotters use their bosses T1 to download ISO's or surf Slashdot, or other no no's?
Ok, most schools (including mine) have 200+ computers on their network. the idea is for schoolwork, internet use is also allowed. But what has happened? EVERYTHING becomes censored. in one class your talking about free speech. the next everything becomes blocked or censored in the name of "security or Safety" this in my opinion is total B.S because people need to learn the diffrence between right and wrong. Maybe im a little offtopic right now but its true. there is no use for technology in primary education if its not doing three primary things. 1. Offering a wide variety of options (my school has no programming or CS courses, if your caught doing anything more advanced than opening Word or IE your silenced) 2. Showing people the proper use of technology (I.E demanding people learn how to protect themselves from threats over elctronic mediums) 3. Promoting Pure clean education, and by doing this i dont mean through "censorship" or something like that. if you learn things properly before you are at a keyboard. there is no need for censorship. however there is always a need for security.
Children don't really begin to understand abstracts until around 10-12 years old.
I dunno, I was programming in BASIC at age 6 . . .
Last year, I worked at a private school as a first grade math teacher. Our principle was a technophile though he had very little understanding of computers and their uses. But he wanted computers in the classroom.
Private schools are businesses, and ultimately exist to make a profit, so like so many private schools his target customers were the elite, wealthy families of the area. He instituted a requirement that every child attending should bring a laptop to school. Part of this was marketing, of course: parents were keen on the idea of using computers at school, and so they were excited to be sending their children to a school that required them.
But these children were 6 years old. They came to school, toting their laptop bags, and I was under immense pressure to use these things to help them learn math.
The school had an IT department whose job it was to write flash applications to aid in learning and development. Now, I'm a technically minded guy and I often write myself programs to quiz myself on things I need to learn by rote, and so initially I thought, hey, I can have an influence on the programs these kids use, and thereby make sure that they are learning effectively.
That's not how it ended up happening.
When we did use the computers, I had to spend 90% of the time policing the children, making sure that they were actually using the educational software the school provided them, and not just playing games, watching moves, listening to music, or whatever. We got very little work done. 6 year olds are children; when one of them broke the rules and fired up winamp, it distracted them all.
Within a week I knew this methodology to be a bust. But I was under considerable pressure by my employer to use the computers, and so for several months I toiled with them, trying to "train" the children to use them responsibly in class.
With 6 year olds, even without computers, having a crayon in your desk that you can play with when you're supposed to be doing addition problems is already distracting enough -- we all remember getting our toys confiscated. A computer is just far too much of a distraction. Ultimately, our math marks were so low that parents became concerned. The principle told me: we need math marks up, I don't care how you do it.
So I stopped using the computers, and in a month, using the traditional methods with which I'd been taught, the children were competent at mental math, and were moving ahead quickly. And surprisingly, Math class was no longer "boring." Because they were actually using their brains, finally.
Once they were back on track, I started getting pressure to use the computers again. I told them that the reason their skills had been so bad was because of the computers and the distraction that they caused. I couldn't get anyone to listen.
So I quit at the end of the academic year.
Computers in classrooms? Ha.
At my highschool the macs were so crippled with "security" software that they were a pain to use. We're talking about OS7/8 here, so it was all single-user, non-protected-memory, etc. Just doing simple things like moving files around was a pain. They were crash prone ("Save your work before printing!"), far more so then win95/98 and most people had PCs at home anyway.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I think I realized this a while ago. Last year, as a high school freshman, I wrote this and turned it in as a rather insignificant essay for my English class. What I say is just repetition of many of the comments above, but I think its important that people see that some students feel the same way. I do, and have since more than a year before this article was up on Slashdot. I realize now how terribly-written my essay is which makes it even more curious that the comments I recieved from the teacher were not on the quality of my paper, but rather a half-page rant firing back at the viewpoint I tried to express. Her tone was along the lines of "Do you really think we don't need computers in school? What about the poor kids who can't afford them at their homes?"
My point: It all comes back to the excessive use of technology. I couldn't write a decent essay because I was distracted by IMing and trying to create a pleasing piece for my website while my teacher didn't care about my writing enough to actually try and understand my point since she was busy playing Flash games on her 17" LCD panel.
I should also note that it is interesting to me how a group such as Slashdot readers who understand tech on such a deep level are some of the biggest critics of its widespread use in public schools. Maybe we understand it as more than a wonderful cure-all to our learning needs.
Where they see what inspires children to become whatever they wanna be..
yeah right.
I agree with what you say...
"Learning to use a computer is just like learning a new language!"
Which is why it should be treated as such and given its own class... as it already is. You learn your new language in language class, and you learn about computers in your computer class... you learn how to read and write and do maths etc. in your other classes, you do not need the distraction of a PC for those... to have the issues of crashes, or reboots, or running out of batteries or accessing the web, or IMing your classmates.
Where is the benefit in children so young requiring these PCs?
Have a nice computer lab... the computers can be years old... it doesn't matter, what do you need heaps of power for in a teaching environment? They just need enough to do word processing, spreadsheet usage, maths, some programming... and some fun stuff... NONE of which need anything more powerful than PCs 5 or more years old.
I'm a geek... I love my PCs, I have many, I have a wireless network, I work with them all day... but I see how very distruptive they can be to learning... keep them out of the classrooms of the young!
They didn't want us to have calculators either.
This article makes lots of statements without a single citation.
Can you imagine starting your freshman year at college (or your first post high school job) with NO computer skills? We have remedial classes for students who can't multiply or spell. Now, remedial classes for those who can't copy, paste or save.
I was lucky enough to have two talented teachers for parents.
I was doing maths in my head before I went to school, and algebra by the 4th grade, and I didn't find it hard at all.
But I suppose some of this was just my own ability. Teach your kids everything you can when they are young, don't rely on the school system because it is targetted at kids who aren't taught anything by their parents.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
My fondest memories of middle school (in Israel, though) were the physics/statistics/Pascal/dBase linked courses. You'd learn about forces and energy in Physics (well, mechanics really); you'd learn about standard deviation in statistics; you'd learn about loops and such in Pascal; and you'd learn about tables with dBase. Then, you'd encode the statistics formulae in Pascal, so that you could analyze the data in your dBase tables which came from the physics experiment you did.
In order to accomplish all that, you needed to actually understand all the material in all these classes, because no one explicitly told you how to combine your skills -- they just told you to do it, or suffer the consequences (bad grades, that is). Thus, it was not enough to merely memorize some formulae, which is what most computer-less students do nowadays.
Similarly, in high school and junior college (this time in the US), I dearly loved my graphing calculator, ye olde TI-85. I wrote some Calculus and Physics (mechanics again, and some EM/optics) programs for it, without which I would have spent most of my lab time on simple arithmetic. When I didn't understand some concept, I didn't have to wait for the test -- I knew it right away, because my program failed to work. And of course, there's no way I could have went through all that English without a word processor -- the white-out expenses alone would have put my family deep into bankruptcy.
So, basically, my education was greatly enhanced by computers, not reduced to mindless data entry or whatever the article seems to claim. In addition, I was fortunate enough to be computer literate, and thus I could move ahead a bit by skipping all the basic computer literacy classes.
Note, however, that my education was better than average not because of computers themselves, but because of teachers who used them effectively. This is a critical point that all these "technology is evil !" articles always manage to miss. A good teacher, armed with a good curriculum, can teach physiscs to his students armed with nothing but an abbacus; a bad one will ruin their education even if he had his own personal Beowulf cluster.
>|<*:=
When I was in schools we had TVs and movie projectors (IIRC 16mm), but not in each classroom. We had a chalkboard in each classroom, and the teachers that used them had overhead projectors. Despite the usefullness of TVs and movie projectors for education, when a teach wanted one they had send someone to the library to bring it to the classroom, and return it afterwards. There isn't enough useful content for those machines to justify having one in each room.
Many of todays classrooms have TVs, in part because TVs have come down in price significantly. However if you look closely you will notice that the good teachers rarely use them. Most topics are not well taught with TVs.
Comptuers are useful in schools - in the comptuer lab. All students should be required to learn to type, and otherwise manipulate a computer. However that is not enough a part of the day to justify having one on every desk. Send the students to the comptuer lab. Perhaps with a dedicated teacher like music and gym? I'd like to think that teachers would know enough to not need external help, but they can't know everything.
Such unimportant skills as figuring out prices (after tax) mentally and on the fly, keeping running totals while shopping, doing a rough budget in your head, figuring out approximately how much time you need to complete a given task, etc etc etc. Riiiiiight (/sarcasm)
As a former English teacher, what is needed most is development of reading skills. And many websites require a lot of reading, or at least more than TV watching, and sometimes more than using a textbook.
When I taught, the computers were kept in a separate classroom and only accessed once a week. It certainly held their attention, and the appropriate webpage can test their reading skills.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
But now that is over, in part because the cheapness of comuters leads to widespread use of them, and now so many people can do many things with them....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
When I got to junior high, I found there were lots of kids with computers, instead of just a handful of kids with forward-looking parents. (The country club area fed into the junior high.) Our 8th grade computer course was all about Logo for the Commodore 64. Because I only had a Vic 20 at home, I was suddenly in the same place as all the other kids who didn't have computers. I did know programming, so I managed an above-average mark of a B. But the kids with computers at home got A's, because they were able to spend extended hours working on their projects. As the years went by, these kids made great gains, as their affluence allowed them to move up to Amigas and PCs. Seeing that it was going to be a nighmare to get enough computer time for other courses, I bailed and took drama. I needed good grades to get into university, and these "rich kids" were wrecking the curve in the comp sci classes!
When I look at the kids from my inner city school and subsequent schools, it was generally the kids with computers at home who went into engineering and computer science. I don't think any of my other classmates went near the sciences.
Of course, the upper and middle-classes have more than just computers on their side. They have money for tutoring, weekend trips to science centres, parents who went to university, etc. Computers are just the start of this imbalance. If I were a school administrator, I'd put my money into making sure inner city kids have a mastery of the 3 R's as well as exposure to the arts and sciences. Computers are just a symbol, not a panacea.
-- SYS 64738 --
Oh come on if that is so much of a problem, why not unhook the children from the Internet and just buy DVD's with all the relevent content.. I think we should also go back to the way it was in the old west, interview the teacher, hire her, if she doesn't do a good job, fire her, hunt for new prospects.. If that doesn't solve the problem, I don't know what will.. Oh yes Homeschooling, there is a concept.. If you can't control the schools, you can bypass it altogether.. Let the government figure it out..
Just say no to license servers!!
This is very topical to what I do. My job is definitely multifaceted, but primarily my job is (supposed to be) training teachers in K-8 to effectively use technology in the classroom. Since NCLB Act makes technological proficiency mandatory by the end of 8th grade, a large part of my job is getting these teachers to teach computers to students, as the schools I work for do not have computer teachers for K-8.
We kind of break things up a bit, we differentiate teaching using computers as resources, and teaching skills on the computer. For the former, consider showing a presentation using powerpoint or videos from the web. For the latter, we have broken down the skills into categories and very narrowly defined sub-categories. We determine what skills students should learn and then we determine when they should learn it. On top of that we provide the lessons to the teachers and explain what skills the students should be expected to learn.
All of this is useless without a trained teaching staff. I work for a small schools, K-8 and about 650 students. Consider K-2 doesn't even get trained on computer skills. That means that at these schools 3-8 grade teachers, 21 of them, need training in order to provide technology instruction to 650 students. This instruction ranges from hardware components to office applications to the concepts of how technology has impacted our life.
This is a nightmare. But it is worth it. And not just because of the law requiring it. It's worth it because right now I'm working with about 60 teachers without a clue. PC's have been commonplace for at least a good decade depending on your viewpoint (I'd argue about the time AOL talked everyone into getting a computer). Computers are necessary for everything at the school including attendance and grades, even the library card catalog (only on computer), as well as lesson plans. This is only what the teachers have to deal with at the school. They are ill prepared for it and most of them barely capabable of the skills needed in a modern workforce. Computer instruction is necessary to avoid that problem for the next generation.
These kids getting out of 8th grade will be voting for your president (in the USA) in 5 years in the election after the one this next November. Will they be able to use the voting machines? Or more importantly, will they be able to understand the consequences that the technology inside the voting machines will have on their voting rights? Having basic knowledge of government, history, math, and being able to read, those are the very critical items that must be taught. However, without the skills to use that knowledge, without the resources to research, and the insight into how those resources work, then those children will become men and women whose knowledge is useless.
The old rule of thumb for buying a computer was: first, figure out what programs you want to run on it and then find the hardware that supports your program. It is probably still mostly true. It doesn't seem to have been followed in the elementary, middle and high schools lately.
The school systems described in this posting and the comments seem to have first acquired the computers and then cast around for useful programs to run on them.
The schools don't have a clear idea of what programs they should be using to accomplish their educational mission. Apparently, a good deal of money goes to putting the MS office suite on classroom computers and letting the kids make pretty powerpoint presentations. At best, this is just vocational education - teaching kids how to use the business/office programs they will encounter when they get out of school and start to work for a living.
Students should be getting INSTRUCTION on the subjects traditionally taught in school, not just voc ed for the computer age
What happened to the educational software we were promised when personal computers became widely available? Where is the computer assisted instruction (CAI) we thought was coming? I don't mean trivial toddler-at-the-keyboard programs, but the interactive learning experience. The one where the computer held the knowledge of an entire field of study, organized into digestible bites, that would be presented to a student at their own pace, with lots of reinforcement, and periodic testing to assure that learning was taking place.
Not long ago, I did a search for CAI software using several search engines and come up nearly empty handed. I had imagined that over the last 20 years we would have seen a tremendous amount of CAI covering every subject imaginable. There was almost nothing. And another significant lack - that probably explains it all - almost no general purpose CAI software that would let a teacher or expert of just a dedicated person lay out the facts on a topic.
Am I wrong about this lack of general purpose CAI software? If so where is it? Can we alert the schools to its existence? So they can return to a focus of using their computer resources on teaching facts. Instead of shilling for MS "productivity" packages.
We need technology in classrooms, we know it is not a magic bullet, and we also know it is often poorly implemented. How is that much different than the rest of the aspects of schools? They do the best they can, and they often do a great job with the many challenges they face and the honestly bare-bones limitations they have.
I've mentioned this before, but Larry Cuban's book, "Oversold and Underused" is a discussion of computers in the classroom (and you can guess the slant. He's an education professor at Stanford, and the book is wonderful (as is his more general book "Teaching Machines" that looks at how the promises of filmstrips, TV, etc. never deliver in terms of shaping schools).
In my own experience, the deployment of technology is a large hurdle, and teacher understanding is also a problem. My school had iMacs, but they had some governing program so that only they could modify the machines, making it impossible to fix any problems, even small ones. The program also made the macs behave differently, very un-mac (this was OS 9). I had to lobby to get a machine "off the grid." (I was a music teacher and needed to really be able to add and subtract programs).
In terms of the cost, it really is small overall. Salary costs are over 80% of school budgets, and tech funds often come from and live in another part of the budget, so cutting the computer purchase doesn't free up more money for x by default. Hopefully, schools won't knee-jerk upgrade, as many of these machines can last 10 years or more (I had a teacher with a classroom of Mac Classic machines which the students used solely for word processing and editing of their stories).
Did you know that LOGO, like Common Lisp, and unlike Scheme, has two namespaces? Proving once again that LOGO is a better language for the future.
I received a good education through our public schools, and since I graduated I've heard and seen nothing but how the system is going down the hole. And why? Money. Where does it all go? We pay billions of dollars a year in taxes as a country and yet our schools can't get the five grand for a roof repair? I mean come on, that's a little rediculous.
Now as far as computers in schools are concerned, I'm for it. As a tool, computers are excellent in the classroom; they are a great way to get a child to sit down and apply themselves to whatever it is they are doing at the moment. But should computers replace a teacher, ever, no. Teachers have something no computer will ever be able to give a student, and I would really hate to see the day that is lost.
I just don't understand why the money being spent on four hundred and fifty computers can't be used towards teachers and other things a child will need in school. Buy a hundred computers, use the rest where it's important. Out of those four hundred computers, how many will be put in a classroom? Half if the children are lucky?
Gah!
There is no spork.
In a time of teacher layoffs, San Francisco schools are buying 450 new computers with federal and state grants.
Hopefully, the only teachers that lost jobs are ones which follow anti-masculine,anti-boy,pro-feminist girl teaching methodology.
Schools don't allow the use of calculators in any of the classes till 12th grade. And definitely not in the exams. You sneak one in and you are barred from appearing in the exam.
Kindergarten Class Held Hostage by Compromised Linux Computer
Atlanta, Georgia [AP]: Kindergarten teacher Ms. Baxter, in the middle of pouring juice and cookies, forgot to apply patch 0222-320 to the Linux kernel and now the students are unable to complete their writing assignments because a malicious cracker has shut down their network LAN.
Ms. Baxter unwisely chose to use an unstable kernel because the latest features on the WhizBang computers purchased by the town aren't supported by earlier Linux kernels.
Later, the children, in desperation to draw pictures, began drawing on their computer monitors with crayons. The administration is considering suspension for Johnny Smith, age 6, for inciting the children to a so-called "crayon" rebellion.
Mr. Gibbons, the district superintendent, remarked: "We have a zero-tolerance policy on artwork on school property, aside from graffiti of course, which is now freedom of expression according to our new Hugs4Thugs Diversity Initiative."
The new computers are part of a new bond, costing taxpayers an estimated $100M. "It's for the kids," says one local parent, "raise our taxes. We need to support our kids. Tax us, please. Baaa baaa."
Local politicians are jockeying to claim responsibility for providing the computers. Mayor Bob Bobson remarked, "I knew Ricky Stallwart back in the 80s when he invented NEW/Linux over at MIT."
In the meantime, the wrenchheads that took mechanics in high school and went on that path instead are getting paid twice what I am.
Now, imagine what fluency and expertise with computers could gain you combined with a mastery of automobile mechanics. Do you think that those same wrencheads wrote the 8051 assembly that controls the engine's timing and fuel injection? Of course not. Some engineer, though - who understood BOTH systems - did, and likely made several times what your mechanic friend does.
This is an example that goes close to my own experience - I have an engineering degree, and also do a lot of tuning on Hondas. There are not many people who can reverse engineer the existing ECU anymore - or design piggyback systems that can work with the ECU to do things like double your car's power, combined with a turbocharging system.
Computers are a TOOL. They let you do things more efficiently. You can control a machine. You can write a paper. You can move data around. The value is not in moving the data or the machine, but what the data represents or what the machine is producing. THERE is the value. The age where computers themselves were a unknown is coming to an end - the money is in finding ways to make those computers do things. In some ways, that is where the money always HAS been.
Technology has commoditized the unspecialized programmer - commodities cruise towards 0 price in volume.
At the end of the day, it's about the value that's added to society. If you can add value, you have a job, and your salary reflects that. Shuffling data around and technician level work has a very large body of people who are qualified to do it - and the price drops down.
For what it's worth, learning to weld and work with metal and fix mechanical things has been a very valuable addition to my skills. Don't discount mechanics - it's difficult work that not many people can do well. Try rebuilding a engine sometime. It is nontrivial, and the pay scale reflects that.
..don't panic
Ok...does anyone truly know how the calculator faired during this portion of its introduction to the classroom? I would have to imagine that it was met with similar consternation. I work at a large university and I consistently get grief from those ever stolid, change-is-bad engineering faculty that refuse to use computers in the classroom. I know that the Internet has made things a tad bit more complicated, but I would have to imagine that circumstances may have been similar from a pedagogical standpoint.
"But now that is over, in part because the cheapness of comuters leads to widespread use of them, and now so many people can do many things with them....[emphasis mine]"
There's an element of irony here. I guess your boom's coming later.
Anyway the "boom" was because of a bunch of people with poor (nonexistent) business plans, and the ability to con a bunch of VC's to fund them. So in other words, you've put your cart before your horse. Boom first, ineptness second, and a lot of the people who rode the wave weren't inept. Stupid maybe. Greedy maybe. But not inept.
i have nothing but anecdotal evidence to cite, but that alone contradicts your blanket statement in a way that no research can.
i almost agree with your stance against computer training. i just hope your stance on television exceeds it.
...here's why:
1. Books were perceived as a SERIOUS threat to learning when they began to be published, hence one of the reasons that the church and nobility were the only ones that had them. They were more or less a controlled substance for a very long time. Books were the end of the 'all-knowing' lecturer and were met with great unrest among the academic community of the time. And, btw, just because a classroom is outside doesn't mean it's not a classroom.
2. The only insightful thing you said and then lost its application on the new was that "[insert technology here; you said 'TV'] is a double edged tool. It can be used effectively, but there's also the danger of sitting back and letting the [insert technology here; you said 'TV'] do all the work." Hate to break it to you but any technology used in a teaching experience is a double edged sword. I have seen EVERYTHING used as a crutch for bad pedagogy. Sound instructional methods can take full advantage of ANY tool you bring to the classroom, whether it be an in situ lab experience or a CD-ROM. Poor pedagogy is to blame, NOT the technology.
3. We need all these things to teach our children is ABSOLUTELY correct, given that they are used MOST effectively within the learning experience. We are experiencial learners as a species. ANYTHING we can use to share an experience with someone else to convey knowledge is an advantage. I do agree that fundamental knowledge is irreplaceable and that there is NO EXCUSE for using the computer to rob our children of basic skills in math and written language, in particular. However, a much more advanced set of problems can be solved and explained using technology AFTER basic fundamentals have been mastered. I could go on forever on this one...
4. Your deployment strategy is ridiculous and shows a glaring lack of knowledge of the K-12 educational market and its needs. I assure you that the $1 million, and a price of $2,200 per system is a bargain should it provide WORKING systems to the classrooms. Yes, even I could build 450 machines for less, but I cannot supply the software and support necessary to maintain them for a three year minimum life-span in the K-12 classroom. And to quip that using Linux on Franken-puters would be doing them a favor is positively asinine. Linux is barely ready for the desktop in administrative settings. It is not ready for barely computer-literate K-12 teachers that are having enough problems feeding their own families! I could go on forever on this one too...
To conclude...you are an idiot that has no sense of what you are talking about and it is GLARINGLY obvious to anyone who actually works in academia.
Being intimately involved with technology in a K-12 public school system in New England I see this SF issue as political or massive incompetence because they are paying way too much per node. I get big discounts on all most all technology related purchases I make. I have read some good things about what is happening in Maine that I am attempting to clone in my district.
http://us.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/10/23/school.laphttp://www.middleweb.com/mw/msdiaries/02-03wklydi
http://www.govtech.net/news/news.phtml?docid=2003
Perhaps the issue is HOW technology is integrated and supported in the classroom!
Computars are teh bringars of pr0n!
n0rp is teh b0mb-d1gg1ty!
OMFG LOL A/S/L G2G L8R!
Ben in DC
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be moved by statistics" Oscar Wilde
was this quote about that one school:
In class after class, students are encouraged to conduct almost all their research online, which means that books, magazines and other in-depth sources play a minimal role in their bibliographies.
This is ridiculous. Even at my high school, which is extremely tech-heavy, I was routinely told by teachers to do as much research as possible from books, periodicals, etc. instead of the Internet. The big problem with the Internet is reliability of information. I'm not saying Internet research doesn't have its place, but discounting books, encyclopedias, periodicals, etc. blows my mind.
I belong to the ______ generation.
I agree with you. In my state, Oregon, we have a state mandated testing program. It is in addition to the standardized tests you and I both had.
The requirements of this program are directly tied to funding at both state and federal levels. Basically this system assumes that:
- teachers need to be told what to teach because they won't do it right without help from the state, (I call bullshit.)
and
- the students and their parents need feedback that is easy to digest and quantify.
The result being:
- teachers have little time to really teach things that matter because they have to meet the testing goals early and often;
- students go through school learning a bunch of task based information that does little to foster critical thinking skills;
- the state of Oregon spends a bunch of money on out of state developed testing programs (figure that one out...) to get information that does nobody any real good because:
it takes months, on average, for the results to be returned ruining the feedback loop for the most part. (Students are already onto the next task by the time they get the results from the first one.)
This means:
the best shot for the teachers is to simply teach to the test, or suffer the consequenses,
and
teach to the lowest common denominator because of the funding and job performance issues.
To top this off, the state uses the schools as a lever to prop up its excessive spending in other areas while the teachers hands are tied and their compensation is low.
This whole thing sucks and most folks here do not even know it. Teachers cannot say anything negative about the system. Parents can withhold their kids from testing, but the school is encouraged to fight that because of the funding issue. Many schools do not even know parents have an option. (I read the statutes and printed them for the school along with a letter detailing my reasons. They 'did research' and found it to be true. They fight me on it all the time, even said it was because they get comped on the tests.
The schools cannot really inform the parents because they have a conflict of interest. The State is not going to do it because the program looks good to the powers that be, plus they get dollars for doing it. Teachers are all quiet, unless they know you and can safely speak their mind. Students are simply trying to do what they are being asked to do. All of the positive information you will find on the net regarding the CIM/CAM program is State produced.
Sure there are bad teachers, but where I live, the problems appear to come from higher up. One good thing to note though:
Last year my son asked me about Open Office. He was doing his powerpoint slides on it using the Linux LTSP lab at the school! Cost of software is an issue that is leaving room for multi-OS exposure which can only be a good thing.
The problem I have with the whole mess is this:
Most teachers are behind the times on computing issues. (Other issues as well, but I am not qualified for those.) The education they go through prepares them well for the three R's, but is seriously lacking in computing.
Our state has a ton of out of work computing professionals, many qualified to teach some of this stuff with authority. They can't actually do that because they don't have the education background!
If the state was smart, they would find a way to get folks into the K-12 classrooms for subjects not covered in the basics and give their future taxpayers an education that might actually give them a fighting chance at making some real dollars to tax...
Sorry for ranting, I guess I am trying to say it's not all the teachers fault... --at least here anyway.
Blogging because I can...
If you have the time and inclination you should try and get a copy of Richard Feynmans Surely you are joking book. There is a section where he talks about the folly of rote learning like this, and how the physics student in Brazil has a lot of mental "information" available but understand almost no physics.
Help fight continental drift.
Yes, I am the Technician that services Aptos Middle School mentioned in the article. This school uses Accelerated Reader (AR), and the students are inspired to read because of it. They read a book, take the test, and they are motivated by getting good scores on AR. Every day thier library is packed with students ckeching out books and taking AR tests. I imagine this has helped kids to become excited about reading and discover the bounty of knowledge and mind-stimulation that comes from reading. So AR is a good program, IMO. They call me immediately if it ever goes down so it's a highly desired program. We bought a nice server to improve the reliability of AR, among other network programs in use. Aptos Middle School has a starving tech budget, noted by the computer lab with original Pentiums at 75Mhz, 100Mhz, and 133Mhz. 16Megs of ram, 2 gig hard disk. They get used every day and the computer teacher teaches them good stuff. Good teacher. Many of the students have some type of computer at home I believe. It's a more affulent area. All of the teachers have laptops to do electronic grading and attendance, and also to become more computer literate. I also service other schools in my district that have varied levels of teacher ability and varied levels of computer spending. Many of our schools have a good tech program but I don't see major correlation between tech spending and test scores. So what I'm getting at here is this: Tech spending is not a panacea. Computers are not a babysitter. Learning happens from the teacher and with parent involvement at home. Students need to learn Internet research skills along with traditional research skills. Schools do need to spend money on computers but if teachers are getting cut then it is not worth it. Teachers need to be tech savvy and to be able to teach basic computer concepts, and specialized computer concepts in the upper grades. Yes training in standard office applications does help for vocational training. It also helps those that move on to college as well.
I don't know what you mean by 'calculus,' but most calculus can't be done with a calculator. The cheapest calculator that can perform basic calculus functions (differentiating, integrating) that I'm aware of is the TI-89, which is closer to a PDA than a calculator.
The only thing that calculators are really good for is giving you things that would be tedious or impossible to calculate by hand, like roots, logs, etc.
or more precisely, expensive multimedia 'learning' software and 'presentation' programs. The research is clear, there can a great deal of learning with computers, students can learn many things they simply can't any other ways, and teachers can learn much more about how their students are learning. But it doesn't take expensive computer presentation software or educational games, nor does it even take 'fast' computers. What it takes is a decent text based forum, these are free (like phpBB or even slash) and some interesting subjects to discuss. Add simple freeware graphic applications, some freeware graphing software, students from different nations and different languages, etc. and a whole lot of learning can go on (and Todd O's failure to learn how to do a lit review notwithstanding, there is a wealth of research that demonstrates the kind of lessons that are learned best with a computer, the best ways to do them, etc. Todd should learn to AskEric This article does have some good points regarding spending too much time playing point and click games and making powerpoints, however he mars his point with alot of FUD (for instance his attack on doing research online: well guess what Todd, most college students do most of their research online too, because most journals are available full text for students!) The 'digital divide' comes in when kids get to college and don't know how to use online databases to do their research!
1.), regarding the Church's response to the printing of books: It was the printing part which made books a threat; books themselves predated the printing press by centuries. And, of course, written records of knowledge pre-dated the "book" format by a lot more -- scrolls, tablets, and wall inscriptions are all forms of written communication. No, it was not the books that were threatening to the Church: it was the printing press, which made it a lot harder for the Church to control the dissemination of knowledge. It is not surprising that the Reformation was underway within 100 years of Gutenberg's printing press (invented 1436, completed 1440); the printing press made it possible to create and disseminate heretical works much more widely, presenting a great challenge to the Church's authority.
Oh, and I'll admit that it was a bit disingenuous to claim that they didn't have classrooms; that was a rather feeble attempt at humor. In future I shall keep my jokes strictly to myself, to avoid confusing people.
2.) I did not blame a technology (TV, in that case) for poor pedagogy. I merely observed that it can be used in one of two ways (well or poorly), and provided an example from my own experience of one poor application. Perhaps I should have included an example of a good application, for balance; but offhand I can't think of a time when I was particularly impressed by the use of a TV in the classroom.
3.) I don't quite understand your argument. Furthermore, I think we actually agree on this point. I was arguing, first, that technology is not strictly necessary; and second, that it can be immensely valuable when used properly. It isn't strictly necessary: you could get by without it, as evidenced by the fact that people did get by with out it until very recently. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use technology in schools; just that we don't absolutely require it, as the original poster suggested.
In addition, I said that ". . . they [computers] should be a supplement, not a staple. There's plenty of time for more computer-centric education during the later years of education (eg ages 12 and up)." That would seem to be in line with your statement that ". . . a much more advanced set of problems can be solved and explained using technology AFTER basic fundamentals have been mastered." In brief, computers should be used in moderation, as a supplement to more basic skills, particularly in early education. How are we in disagreement here?
4.) I will concede you this point; I do not know enough about K-12 expenditures. As this guy pointed out already, with better data and much more politely.
I DO, however, know that the San Francisco Unified School District referred to in the article has recently experienced budget cuts because of the State of California's 1.7 billion dollar cut to the education budget, and that they are currently working on a "Master Technology Plan", which they hope ". . . may result in operational savings to recover the cost of technology investments by the District." They are planning public forums starting in February to get public input on ways to do that. At such a time, is it really unreasonable to suggest switching away from expensive proprietary solutions?
It may be that you're right, that Linux isn't ready for widespread desktop usage in K-12 schools. (Though this school and this one and this one an
it does make more sense that way.
:/ i hope i'm ready.
of course this has little to do with the topic.
but i am not happy. actually i'm moderately stressed out right now, concerning math. final exam one day from now
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
says it all. you sir are the 0.000001% special case that totally goes beyond all my logic.
:/
and you totally need a laptop, and a wireless network in your university.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
they know best :)
as long as you remember that they have no comprehension of what the point of education is, take time to explain the effort. Ok, maybe primary school is a bit early to make choices but
kids know what they like
A blog I run for the wealth
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| ____a,___jk_POOF_NIGGAH_CUNTS
...if Linux was taught in the schools, we
wouldn't have any of these problems.
Windoze is spreading it dUMBness like a
virii across our academies.
Where don't you want to learn today?
I rest de case.
Michigan just finally ditched a lame laptop program by the governor. She felt that giving laptops to every 6th grader in the state would be a good idea since that is when they lose interest in school on average. Hmm, except they weren't entirely free to the school district, terribly expensive for taxpayers considering a budget deficet and education spending cuts. And she didn't think to include any teacher training, support, etc in her plan. So she was going to spend a fortune buying laptops for students with no plan to continue the program next year, and no plan for what to do with the laptops.
I love technology in the schools. But since my postion in the schools deals with technology integration into the curriculum and training of staff to use the technology in the classroom I hate these plans to throw technology into schools thinking a computer with no support, plans, or training, is going to help students.
I am the IT Manager at a Senior school here it the good old UK. Recently we had OFSTED (The Goverment inspectors in) and decide that we are a bit crap and put us into whats know as Special Measures.
:)
We have been in that for a while now and things are improving - mostly because the Teachers are scared shitless of losing their jobs.
One thing that happens when you go into special measures is you get loads of money thrown at you. The Senior Management have decided that every room that is used by a teacher also needs to be a IT suite. Now we have gone and ordered 50 laptops with pc card wifi cards (they will be stolen) and 4 waps per room. wtf? They did not consult me becuase I am just a figurehead and screwdriver guy as my job title is a joke so they end up with some compnay ripping them off.
What will this solve? nothing. Teaching is getting better as we have got some good new teachers in and the crap ones are appling for jobs else where. But good old senior management think its the bees knees. All it will do in fact is make one of my technicians lifes hell as they run around this large site solving stupid little problems and the kids will be distracted and so bang. there goes ya improvements.
Well back to work
-- Do not bite the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
This article is right on target. I feel very strongly about this issue.
I read only the first para of that sf chronicle article before I decided to comment.
The governments are fucking stupid.
Roughly 4 years back when I was at michigan tech, I found out that a masters student(mech) was from some university of wisconsin college(hard to remember but I think it was Eau Claire). That college, had more computers per student than mtu. Increased productivity at his college. But only because the students using them knew how to harness them properly.
He told me computers in college do make a lot of difference. But in high school, its just eye candy for most. A conduit of porn and games. Nothing more. There might be exceptions but not at the cost of public money.
And in the past 2 years, MTU has had its budget cut by 10 % each year. Many people lobbied to keep the budget as it is, but no. The govt needs to cut down on aid to its most productive seector-college education.
A college education brings atleast 15-20 times more benefit than what the govt invests in it. Dumb fucking govt doesn't understand that.
MTU is losing good students because of this. Enrollment is dropping because tuition for an engineering college costs far more than an arts college. In 2001, the figure at my college PER credit hour- 371 $ engineering, 167 $, arts/humanities.
From 2002, engg majors have to pay 800 $ extra per semester.
The us is killing the goose that lays the eggs.
As lesser engineers graduate, the us loses more of its technical edge. Colleges can't get grants because they can't attract enough bright students.
And what else does the govt do? It sets aside a few million for laptops for school kids.
This, while the budget of productive colleges are being cut. MTU even has a link on the its mainpage. Laptops for college students brings about far more productivity. Guaranteed.
A few months ago, there was a story on slashdot about laptops for 6th graders in a Maine school.
A slashdotter then commented- in grade 6, forget about laptops, if I had my head attached to body at the end of the day, it would be fortunate.
Do you know how sorry the situation of higher education is in Maine?
At grades 6-12, the most important need is to DEVELOP THE BASIC SCIENCES.
When you go to college, how the heck do you expect to develop software if you don't know how the decent working knowledge of maths and physics?
Laptops, desktops are all fucking secondary and shouldn't even figure in.
What's the use of learning power point presentations in 8th grade? The fucking use is when you become a manager in a company, you'll use it to show how much your fucking company saved from outsourcing that work. You'll use it to show how to cut corners, how to cut quality, how fucking intellectually bankrupt you are.
Computers won't save you. Only a rigorous curriculum of maths and sciences will.
No wonder, the US needs to import engineers(not software people). Because there is a genuine shortage. There are more damn lawyers in los angeles county than in entire japan. Yup, you'll be busy making presentations on power point laughing with glee as to how much you'll earn through litigation while bankrupting a us company.
If you rather spend the millions on teachers and books, it brings more value 5-10 years down the line.
Mod it whichever way you want. I made my point.
What is the cost of a textbook? How long does it last? What is the cost the special wiring and staff needed to keep the textbook working?
" When business leaders talk about what they need from new recruits, they hardly mention computer skills, which they find they can teach employees relatively easily on their own."
Hmmm, sure, because business leaders are down there training new employees themselves. I worked for a bank where for some reason they decided to hire a bunch of idiots. Apparently because it was such a suck ass job that no one else wanted it. Well, since after months they still could not use Windows let alone any specific application software, another employee and myself were reassigned. We got to sit in a couple of 4 person cubicles with the illiterates to "help them". This babysitting pretty much consisted of walking them through every basic function they were trying to perform.
I've seen one teacher at a school hired and she admitted to me during training that she never would have taken the job if she had been told how much of their work required the computer...and then she quit after 5 months. So not only was she not able to do the job, not only was the time of other employees wasted trying to do her work for her, not only was my time wasted trying to train her, more time was wasted because someone new needed to be trained again in 6 months. That wasted a ton of resources and certainly was a harm to the education process at this school.
I've seen this kind of behavior at every job I've worked at, employees are hired by management without a real understanding of the technical skills required for the job, and downplaying their significance for those prospective employees that are obviously intimidated by the computer. Then the new employees are thrust on the departments with no ability to function at their job because not only can they not use the software they need for the job, they don't have the skills or the background to learn the software, or often don't have the knowledge or skills to even use the operating system.
Of course, this is not just a problem with students learning how to use computers so that when they enter the workforce they will be able to handle jobs assigned to them. This is also a problem of managers not understanding the job they are hiring people for, not understanding the technical skills, and of those managers for assuming someone can learn Windows, mouse and keyboard skills, office applications, and company/task specific software in a few hours.
I've been riding the wave of the technology revolution for the past thirteen years, seen the good and the bad (in that order) of computing in the classroom.
:) We got a computer (a 386DX running DOS 5 and Windows 3.0) the next week, thus beginning my rise into geekdom.
:)
When I started Kindergarten, 1990, the classroom (district: SRQ, FLA) of ~30 was teamed up with 60 more 1st and 2nd graders who, besides collaborating on projects, shared a classroom that was equipped with filmstrip, overhead/opaque projectors and a Laserdisc player (each room had a CCTV to get 'beamed' VHS tapes from the media center too). in this room, there was also a set of 25-30 Apple IIc's (with speach synths, 5.25/3.5" drives and color monitors) powered by a Mac classic. I was the only student among the 90 who figured out what 'user name' and 'password' were on the login prompts, the third week or so of school, i saw a few boxes at this prompt, and proceded to enter my name... no luck (remember, I was 6 at the time), then saw a number on the top of the monitors, typed that in. It worked. And when open house came around, the teacher sent me to the lab to power it up, much to my parent's surprise (we didn't evn have a computer at the time), I was running that place
Two years later, I transferred schools, the classroom has a single Apple IIe, monochrome + 2x5.25 drives. quite a step back. Again, I took over, keeping the disks safe from harm and the system running. trips to the computer Lab (20+ of the same) were likewise
the following year or so, after I left they got some nice powermacs.
moving up, later in 2nd grade (transferred again, this time to the big 'Gifted' school), found a lab full of LCII and LCIII macs, I knew more than every student in the 2nd grade, and debunked a few misnomers the teachers tried to peddle (also thwarted the typing nazi's with my 25 WPM one handed). Later, in the 4th grade I befriended the Programming/Astronomy teacher who ran a lab of 486's e/ Win95. The school was 90% MAC otherwise, but I kept on top of things.
The teachers who had computers in their classrooms occasionally used them for teaching, but this was when they were still primative (best you could do is pipe the signal to a TV), and thus wern't used as a crutch... yet.
6th grade, and a new school, LCII's and one very nice PowerPC in the room, during that year I befriended the technology facilitator (think 50% sysadmin, 25% helpdesk, 15% drone and 5% teacher) who put me to work inspecting networking cables (not all boxes had ethernet lines properly installed). We got internet connectivity later that year, along with the vaunted AR (Accelerated Reader) program, used as a big fat crutch for taching reading comprehension (it assigned books 'points' and a 'grade level' based on the size and complexity of the book, passing a test gave you points, which if accumulated could be used to 'buy' prizes, thus the student's feeble and porous minds think "Books == points == reward"
I rarely used the thing, and still read books like H2G2, 2001, 2010, and lots of verne and HG Wells all in 6th grade and throughout middle school).
7th grade saw my first technologically immersed classroom. the gifted pilot program at the school (of which I was in the flagship class) paid off, with 4 new classrooms, 3 of which had 4 brand spanking new All-in-one G3's with OS 8, and the 4th room (the science lab) had 8 of these machines! one box to every 4 students. Having a handicap (and the IEP that went with it), and a little sucking up to the teacher got me my own box (#8). The G3's wern't used as a crutch, the class was lab intensive but all were done in the real world, the computer served as a resource (information, Word processor, etc) and as a toy, occasionally. (after a given assignment was completed, the give group coould play games (which were, thankfully science related, Gizmo's and Gadgets being one (basic mechanical and electrical principles) and Simcity 2000 being the other
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
Is this why companies are canning all American programmers over 40 and replacing them with english-illiterate H1b immigrants?
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
Waaah, porn on the internet!
You certainly don't want your kids to see other people in the nude. Look at Europe, millions of Europeans are exposed to nudism and porn throughout their childhood, that's why they're all crazy! Waaah!
And BTW, you dont need to have internet to get porn, Penthouse has been giving that to kids for ages. You better put in place a locker-search program to stop that. Yeah, that's what kids need, they need to learn how good it is to regard everybody else in constant suspicion. Yeah...
What's next? A witchhunt?
Well, I've read the article, I've read half of the discussion at +4, I've read countless articles about the same thing on /. and everywhere else in the past, and it seems that everyone is blind. You want magic bullet, I will give you your f***ing magic bullet.
Software, not hardware! Applications, not OS and office. It is so simple, so obvious, everyone should be ashamed of not thinking/speaking/shouting about it. You can't teach physics with computers, you can't teach them with Windows, you can only teach physics with proper applications.
It is possible to write tons of physics software. Some examples:
- real (simplified) applications physicists actually use in their work
- Matlab calculations for all kinds of complex exercises
- well-written online textbooks, exciting and interesting, interactive and hypertexted, animated and fun
- every traditional physics experiement simulated
- every traditional physics experiement extended with computer calculations/simulations
- off-the-presses news from physics journals, translated and retold so that kids can understand at least some of the ideas
Have you seen any of that? Guess, no... How difficult is it to make that? Not really, takes time and money, but the biggest problems is that everyone is a f***ing idiot.
There are shitloads of materials on the Web already, there is lot of experience people have. The only problem is to take the best practices, make every teacher follow them (or be creative if he is up to that) and give them proper tools.
P.S. Pardon my swearing.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
The real issue here is that the computer should be held as a tool. It is not a replacement for any of the techniques in the classroom. It cannot be held as a golden chalice of education. A desktop box will never be able to replace knowledgable, motivated, breathing educaters on the classroom floor.
...at an elementary for quite a few years. While I still don't understand how this was possible, "computer class" mostly consisted of one class at a time coming into the lab to play educational games.
When the school bought new imacs to replace some of their older macs, instead of going into the lab the machines were claimed by some of the teachers for their classrooms, where they would collect dust.
At one point one of the teachers asked my mother for some help with her computer, as it wouldn't turn on. My mother went in, and traced the cable for the power strip that was wrapped crazily around the table leg and, in the end, plugged back into itself.
Even with all this computer spending, there is no reason to believe the students are even using the resources. If the teachers can't use the computers, why assume they can use them as teaching tools? While I can't imagine why you'd need a computer in the classroom (and I had a computer in every classroom since 2nd grade), it seems doubly ridiculous when the teachers can't use them anyway.
Fair warning, I'm going to ask questions here that I don't know the answers to (which isn't very fair). Feel free to pop in with answers, I'm honestly curious.
.... Now, what's left? .... That's the percentage of IT costs from funding available to "school programs" ...... That's a better percentage to look at, because it reflects more of the "discretionary" spending that IT really comes out of.
IMO, all questions are fair and the questions you ask are good ones.
A more proper "percent of spending" for IT in a school budget would be after taking out some other costs. Take out teacher/admin labor costs, building maintenance/construction costs, etc.
I'm not sure that I agree with the premise that IT is discretionary. Perhaps the real problem with computers in the classroom is that they are seen as a discretionary program -- a mere add-on to traditional pedagogical techniques. In contrast, many companies see IT as key infrastructure that lets the company do what the company needs to do. This IT infrastructure is critical to the productivity of manager and workers because it supports the effective accomplishment of the task at hand. Most companies would just as soon turn off the heating or electricity as they would turn off their computers.
I would argue that ubiquitous IT in classrooms (i.e., 1 computer per child in virtually every classroom) would improve education in the same way that it has improved business -- increasing productivity, accelerating processes, decreasing errors, and decreasing costs.
I think IT could improve the productivity of teachers in a myriad of ways -- either enhancing the amount of quality time a teacher can spend with each student or increasing the number of students a single teacher can handle with a given level of teaching quality. Under the current approach, the average teacher really has very little time for each student. Between lecturing, taking attendance, sitting quietly during tests, or while helping other students, each student probably gets less than 1 minute per class-hour of the teacher's undivided attention.
A computer could provide some level of individual attention the other 59 minutes of each class-hour. Although I freely admit that the computer's attention is a far cry from that of a teacher, it would help. Self-paced learning and self-paced testing would enable students to learn at their own pace, while the teacher spends more time coaching individual students. Classrooms could also adopt the management-by-exception principles that IT-enabled companies are starting to use. Rather than require the teacher to spend valuable time monitoring every student's work, the computer would do the routine monitoring and only alert the teacher to students have special problems. This would enable the teacher to focus their attention on the students that need the most help and could even inform the teacher to the likely nature of the problem (e.g., whether it is difficulty with a single concept or a more general malaise or personal problem).
The IT-is-discretionary viewpoint is valid if the costs of classroom IT prohibit its ubiquitous use. If school districts persist in spending $3k per computer, they will never be able to put a machine on every desk. If school districts think they need the latest tech at all times, they are missing the point of the technology. With suitable software, schools could use older, cheaper machines (or retain current machines for longer time periods).
Thanks for the question -- I'm sorry if my answer is indirect. Perhaps we all need to consider the role of IT in the classroom -- whether it is discretionary or infrastuctural.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I think he's got it a little wrong: system crashes are a fact of Microsoft life. Ask a Mac user how often their system crashes. Ask a Linux user how often their systems crash...
From one perspective, this is good because the mainstream press is starting to notice that Microsoft has a horrible track record when it comes to system stability. OTOH, it bothers me that the average user accepts system crashes in much the same way they accept rainy days. When I first started programming, a programmer's own professionalism would prevent him from releasing buggy code. But with the advent of widespread commercial software, there came into play a financial incentive for releasing buggy software. And unfortunately, this has given rise to a generation of programmers who have no qualms about releasing buggy code, who believe that writing good quality software is a statistical impossibility.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Without the word processor half of us could not write a paper with perfect grammar.
/w spellcheck at least have slightly more comprehensible requests.
Biggest laugh I've had in awhile. I work in schools, the teachers here definately learned their schooling in the days before calculators/spellcheckers were available to students.
You should see all the interesting spelling errors on computer requests I get (non-technical words)... and these from teachers - albeit not english teachers. Those that use email
p.s. Is it just me or does 80% of the population not know the difference between lose (as in, to suffer a loss) and loose (as in, slack, not tight, etc)
You are a teacher and yet your writing style is atrocious. Consider the following:
..."
1. "Honestly you want to know the biggest fault of the system that I see RIGHT NOW is?" This convoluted sentence barely makes sense.
2. You should write "turn off" a TI calculator rather than "turn a TI calculator off".
3. There is a missing "?" at the end of "do you think technology will save them".
4. There is a missing apostrophe in "kids work".
5. In the next sentence, there is the phrase "Some things that accomplish this is". At a minimum, the appropriate verb should be used. Even better, say "Interest can be shown by making sure they are doing their homework, by knowing which classes they are taking
6. There is a phrase stating "as the hierarchy at the schools themselves end up". Again, the wrong verb is employed. "Computer adept" and "feeding frenzy" should be hyphenated. "High-school" should not be hyphenated.
7. "Once people start realizing that most of what we teach them they will pick up on their own if left to their own exploration" is missing a conclusion.
Curiously enough, I also have a BS in Computer Science, but I do not believe it qualifies me to teach elementary or high school students. I am barely capable of correcting Slashdot posts!
Now compare this to Isaac Asimov's "Oh the fun we had"... I think both are equally distopian, so a middle ground needs to be found, but we could argue about this all day and get nowhere, because it's a matter of personal opinion.
> When was the last time someone forced you to
> share your toys with the other kids?
You're comparing information to a physical object.
Toys are an "excludable good". Stallman doesn't ask you to let others use your copy of a program, he asks that you don't try to exert control over others that also happen to have a copy of a program.
> Stallman's point is that everyone should be
> COMPELLED to share whether they want to or not.
This is not true. I don't *have* to give anyone a copy of a GPL'd program that I have. I can even make changes and still not have to give anyone a copy. If I *distribute* copies, I can't prohibit others from sharing. That's all.
People must be *allowed* to share.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
My wife is a Kindergarten teacher. Her school district tries to provide computers for the classroom but they just don't have the resources to do it right.
I bought and setup a computer lab for her kindergarten classroom. It has 4 workstations, a server, monitors, keyboards, mice, speakers and headphones, all bought brand new and designed to work the way she needed them to. The computers are used as a center in her classroom (like puzzles, library, listening center etc..) It is only open during the times when center's are open and they are only allowed to use certain software.
I strongly believe that there is a lot of good that computers can do in the classroom if they are used correctly. The key to having them work well is figuring out where they can help in curriculum and choosing the hardware and software to best make that work. I think the biggest mistake schools often make is overlooking software needs. They buy the hardware, set it up and wonder why the only thing people ever teach is PowerPoint. A lot of schools don't realize that a computer with Microsoft Office isn't really and educational tool. The school software market is a dry place mostly populated with software targeting administrative tasks and assessment tools. The kids software market is mostly driven by home users because schools don't spend money there. Kids software often requires the CD to be physically present in a machine in order for the software to run which is completely inappropriate for a school environment. This is a good example of an industries greed costing it huge money. If schools start organizing and pooling money together they could make it worth the software maker's while to build the software to be classroom friendly.
Different children learn in different ways. One thing you will find in children is that some kids (ADD and ADHD kids in particular) will have a much more rewarding learning experience in a place where they get to use a computer. Computer's can be a calming influence for ADHD kids since the quick response to input allows them to stay focused on something longer. They tend to crave computer time, which gives the teacher a bargaining chip for a student that they not have one for otherwise. This can lead to better behavior in the rest of classroom activities and a more positive overall learning experience for that child and for the rest of the class.
I think people who advocate removing computers from the classroom are suggesting the wrong solution to the right problem. Computers can play a beneficial role in the classroom if they are used right. The right solution is to make there are clear educational goals in setting up the computers and that the computers are properly designed and configured to fulfill those goals. One of the thing I would suggest is that states should form a group in charge of designing architectures for schools including software setups for each grade level and helping the school districts implement these setups. Designs should be based as much as possible with no proprietary hardware involved and only buying proprietary software when necessary. Also, since new computers have gotten so cheap to buy and so easy to maintain often times it is cheaper to just replace the old computers than to maintain them. Anything below a Pentium II should probably be chucked.
The details of my setup:
The whole classroom setup was put together for about $2500 including the server and software. The workstations are 4 Dell 2350's I bought for about $330 a piece around a year ago. The server is a PowerEdge 400SC I picked up just a few months ago when they got cheap. I bought 4 17" monitors which for this situation was optimal since any bigger would take up too much space in the classroom. The mice are all optical so they don't get dirty and frustrate the kids. The computers all have speakers with volume control knobs and headphone jacks so it's easy to control the volume of the headphones. Each one has headphones plugged into it with a big hook
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
you know...
Very true.
You say doubleclick Open Office and File-Open. Well, what about "Save". What does that mean exactly? Does it mean keep for later, or does it mean erase what I had and keep what I see now?
Where is the information stored? Why is some information preserved when I turn off the computer while other information isn't? How do I know?
I am sorry, but the basics of computing should be common knowledge today.
The level of detail does not need to be high, but it does need to be higher than you indicate. My school went through the basics of electricity. magnets, and radio. Most people today understand how the radio works, they should know how the computer works too. Understanding how the data flows in a general way is not that hard.
It could be framed as a simple game of sorts. Have all the kids play the different roles. A couple of them are the CPU, others are the RAM, others the disk. Use the Intercom to illustrate a network to the other classroom.
Could be some field trips, or special class sessions like they had for cars and telephones when I was young. Those were interesting sessions that everyone got something out of. At the very least, the fear factor was removed as the "magic" behind the tech was replaced with some understandable representation.
None of these things are what I wish I had learned. (I was a geek, so I learned them anyway.)
Society today is making the same decisions about computers as they did cars long ago. They are going to be an important part of things. Literacy is important, basic understanding is important.
None of it is hard. All of it matters.
These are things I want to happen sure. Why? Because I believe technology today is ahead of both the law and the ability for the general public to debate on. We bitch here about stupid laws and yet we also say that the stuff is too tough to learn or not needed as part of a general education. The combination of technology and government is one that leaves most of us at a disadvantage as long as it continues to be ignored.
My reaction to this is change. Every item I listed can be covered easily from 6th through High School. Much of it can be framed around everyday situations and needs we all have. The rest can be optional, elective, extra credit stuff that the really interested or board can persue.
Maybe that list is too inclusive... I can accept that. What I cannot accept is the lack of attention the subject is getting now. A big part of school is about building our future leaders and wealth makers. Good schools make a nation strong.
The current state of things, at least in the schools I have seen, is pathetic. Simple task based education with very little depth and almost no regard for the social issues past the lame propaganda put forth by the media companies.
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To answer the questions you need go no further than read "As the Future Catches You" by Juan Enriquez. It clearly explains, using facts that the future economic and scientific growth of the world directly relate to science and technology education. There are many mentions of great peole who did not need computers to succeed, but then during their times, no others had computers either. The playing field is not level and we know that the future of science and technology and in many ways economics are related to the use of computers. Currently the statistics say that 1 in 3 youth worldwide use the Internet on a weekly basis. Students are using technology, we as educators have an obligation to support student learning related to technology. We have to keep the students competative with the rest of the world.
David Goodstein, Vice Provost of CalTech on the collapse of the PhD pyramid scheme which drives science education in the USA and started to fail in the 1970s and, in his words:
http://www.house.gov/science/goodstein_04-01.htm
"The problem, to reiterate, is that science education in America is designed to select a small group of elite scientists. An unintended but inevitable side effect is that everyone else is left out. As a consequence of that, 20,000 American high schools lack a single qualified physics teacher, half the math classes in American schools are taught by people who lack the qualifications to teach them, and companies will increasingly find themselves without the technical competence they need at all levels from the shop floor to the executive suite."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
How come you didn't mention binary logic this time? Or how to represent things in numbers?
If you took my examples of openoffice, File|Open to be a complete list, then I'm sorry. It was more of an attempt to set the scale than enumerating it.
I'll agree that knowing what a hard disk is, a permanent storage medium, is good, but sectors, cylinders and write heads are just too much. You don't have to mention NFS, CIFS, query broadcasts and mount daemons to talk about network storage, just say the computer saves the file on the server. You don't need binary logic or even knowledge of fourier transforms to use wlan, just say "It connects the laptop to the network wirelessly."
Just explain that the computer is built of black boxes instead of being one. No need to explain everything down on molecular levels like electricity and radio.
Think of it this way: Do you want more than basics points about postindustrialistic influence of abstract art?
Maybe we agree more than we think and the issue is semantics.
When I listed binary and the logic operators, I was not talking anything more than basics. What they are and how they work. Maybe do a little counting and some addition for a bit just to make 'em stick.
The logic operators are easliy done in many contexts --not just computers. You could talk about sets of things, use them to give instructions, place conditions on things. Again the idea being to learn a bit about how computers "think".
Many of the items on the list I gave are about setting expectations. As a kid, the radio was a fairly impressive thing. Once I knew the very basics (They have a place to broadcast from, the stuff they want to say gets converted into electric waves that go through the air, my radio reconverts that into (mostly) their intended sound) little things along the way made more sense. (Why does lightning make sound also could it be because those were both electrical?)
Detail is a problem with this sort of thing however. It is easy to add too much. I guess my point is that whole areas are being ignored when they should not be.
As for numeric representation, I will stick with this one. It is as simple as the little code puzzles they put on the back of cereal boxes, but it means a lot. The idea of symbols being numbers and numbers being the things computers work with is important. Many of these same ideas apply to math as well because they help tie the abstract to the real.
When we work with a computer in any sense, we agree on the abstract representation the computer makes and apply the results to the real world we live in. That is why we have to have interfaces and cannot just talk or write to the computer.
In any case, take any school subtract three items from the list and do the rest and the kids are going to be in pretty decent shape compared to what many of them get now.
Detail is tough, agreed. I would rather see something more than we see now.
Blogging because I can...
It's really hard, if not impossible, to interest and teach such wide groups, which is why high schools (here atleast) have elective classes for dealing with radio (physics) and binary (math).
Why does lightning make sound also could it be because those were both electrical?
I'm sorry, what? If a rock falls to the ground, is it electrical? I'll assume you just struggled for an example.
Fair enough on the binary and operators. Though I still would keep the operators because understanding those work for a whole lot of things besides electronics. Basic critical thinking skills for one.
Think about it for a moment. What if a kid was told they can have a candy or coke and chips or milk? I have done this wanting the kids to keep the sugar down while still allowing the choice of getting two treats at the store. I can tell you that almost every one of them took that to mean they could have the candy and the coke. They understood their correct choices only when the or/and was explained and the condition understood with a little discussion. Working through that kind of thing is a general critical thinking benefit that *will* help them later on when reading things or making complex choices.
Linking these things to computing somehow later would be easy.
As for the radio example, that was a real understanding I remember having when I was very young.
The key point was that sombody told me the sound got converted into electrical waves and back. (using the terms given to me as a kid BTW). A bit later someone else said that lightning was also electrical.
Hearing the sounds on the old AM radio during a storm related the two ideas more fully. It is these sort of simple conceptual facts that I was looking for with regard to computing. Nothing too technical like what frequency (using the radio example), but enough to spark understanding at a basic level as a foundation for later learning (or not depending on the kid).
The idea being with computers to understand why so many things are the way they are. Maybe even to set some initial expectations as to the computers working nature enough that things will be less of a surprise when they go exploring later. (Again, or not depending on the kid.)
Again using the radio example, neither fact was beyond reasonable expectations for young people to know and understand, yet hearing them made a difference to me. Now, I am the type to ask wierd questions anyway, but I can tell you from experience with my own kids that they sometimes benefit from stuff like that. It does not hurt, keeps school interesting and they just might gain some simple understanding while sitting board on the bus wondering about their world.
You should have thought through the radio thing a bit more.
BTW, I assume you have started higher math to a degree. Do you remember when you understood we only really add things together? The + sign does not really mean add, it means positive.
When solving terms (2x+3x-5=7x+3), the signed terms get added together right? Where is the + sign in that? Kids spend a bunch of time learning that + means add and minus means subtract only to spend more time unlearning these ideas in favor of signs and simple operators to process and solve equations. Does not seem to hurt them one bit as most of them get through it.
The stuff I am talking about is no different really. (maybe binary math is to a degree) I am not saying change everything, that is like the new math crap I spend time working through with my kids. But I am saying educators would be wise to link a few things to computing when it makes sense where they do not now. --Technical details aside, don't you agree?
Blogging because I can...
This is why I, Richard Nixon instituted the policy of Block Grants which enable state and local governments to decide for themselves how best to spend the money.
This concept has now been corrupted beyond all recognition. In 1992 President George HW Bush condemned the idea that the states getting money at all, suggesting he prefered a centralized big federal government. And he called himself a conservative, the scumbag!
And don't get me started on his son.
Grrrrrrrrr!
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
I suppose I should have thought the lightning thing through more. I just saw "Why does lightning make sound also could it be because those were both electrical?" and replied to it (this is ./ you know :D )
+ as a unary operator means positive, as a binary operator it means add. Unary: (2x)(+3x)=6x^2. Binary: 2x+3x=5x. Same thing with minus. And signed terms are 3x+(-5), unsigned terms are 3x-5. They mean the same thing, so you don't even think about it when you do it.
And sure, I agree. Everything you learn should have applications mentioned. If the applications you want to mention lie reasonably close to the path you intended to take.