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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.
Yes everything should be used. In my physics class last year we would use Laser Disc demo's for demonstrations that would require intensive amount of time, space, or equipment to recreate. This allowed us to see many different demonstrations in one day instead of having to set them up.
Wireless laptop computers were also used during the study of circuits. We would go online and use a shockwave circuit simulator.
I have firsthand experience with this in my old district...we are $1 million in deficit spending for the year...and just laid off 13 teachers. But at the same time, we are replacing a lab of 25 G4 GHz Macintoshes with new G4 Macintoshes. These are machines that are barely 2 years old, but we are replacing them anyway. By the way, they all have big flat-panel displays. Total cost (with "custom" installation) was near $100,000. But of course we have to maintain our lead in technology! In my district, I have gone the opposite direction, cutting back on expenditures for new machines, and converting everything to license-free Linux. But I am an isolated island of such thinking; everywhere else, it is SPEND SPEND SPEND on computers...even if we have no teachers to run them!
Kick ass.
In my high school physics class, we dropped balls from buildings. And we were happy to be out of the classroom.
The "irregular" teaching styles are the ones that I remember. I remember very little of the sitting-at-my-desk-being-lectured-to stuff.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
The reason the schools want computers in the classroom is the skills computer use at young ages bring.
The simple fact is kids with puters are reading far faster and typing far faster and that is a very useful ability. Many fear that without exposure at a young age a kid wont have a chance competing for good jobs in 20-30 years simply because everyone else will be 2-3 times better then they are.
So they all try to get kids exposed to puters and using them as much as possible in the hopes they get the reading speed and skills needed and the typing ability needed.
Its not what you learn in school that is soo important its what limits you pushed back getting there.
It also doesnt hurt that at some point a key powerful group of people feel that puters will replace teachers to a large extent in education and that right now they are just laying down the foundations of what is needed to make that happen.
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
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.
I agree - we should not expect teachers to be sysadmins. You might note that while I said it was teachers that represented the problem, I didn't blame them. I think they're doing as well as they possibly can. I think we simply aren't ready for computers in the classroom. Not yet anyway.
My point is not that teachers should know and understand the inner workings of computers, but that they should now about, and be comfortable with computers in general. That's hard for the current generation of teachers. Both my parents are teachers, and while they can manage on a computer it is not natural for them in the way that it is for people of my generation. They didn't grow up with computers, and they simply don't have the same level of natural familiarity with them.
It is simply the general broad exposure and degree of comfort with computers that teachers currently lack. That will come with younger teachers. For now though, teachers should teach with those things that they are comfortable and familiar with.
Does that make more sense?
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
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.
It depends on what you think the purpose of schools are. If you think that they are for learning then you're wrong. They are there to keep kids out of the work force for another few years and then give them enough skills in a trade to be productive. That's why there are nursing schools, computer science programs, MIS degrees, business majors. Those who don't graduate or can't demonstrate a level of competency in a field tend to get the lower wage jobs. If you really want to study Cicero or Plato in his original language then you can study it on your own time. I don't mean this to sound harsh, but it is the reality of our schools that dedicating teachers to ancient languages means fewer resources for mathematics and science, art,
and other knowledge I prefer.
Schools today actually give you a much broader set of skills than those 50 years ago did. A few folks learned Shakespeare and Latin. The rest learned agriculture and how to use a welding iron.
Now what are standardized tests for? For one, there's no way to qualitatively gauge all students because there are just too many. Colleges need a metric to eliminate a certain percentage of students so the standardized tests were used. The idea was that they presented a select group of questions that were representative of broader knowledge. The problem is that these tests began to define the curriculum of many schools so that teachers started teaching for the test. So you get a subset of knowledge (that portion that is on the test) at the detriment of more esoteric knowledge. The same thing happens with some computer certifications -- they were designed to test broad knowledge but ended up being the curriculum.
Young students today can still do complex mathematics in their heads (the typical AP math student that I tutor can integrate/differentiate, solve simultaneous equations, and other neat math tricks without pen/paper). However, Latin and Greek is not as useful as it was in the 1800s. Maybe political science has replaced it, or maybe those students now gravitate to business/finance majors. In the 1800s there was a lot less to know about physics and math also.
As for technology -- well, it's here and not likely to go away unless there's some sort of apocalypse. I agree that the technology is used improperly today, but I think that knowing how to use a computer is a life skill that should be taught in schools in an almost ubiquitous presence.
And your point is? Abraham Lincoln didn't have electricity, running water, or even a dry floor in his classroom. Maybe we should go back to holding class in the middle of a field somewhere. People who achieve great things do not always start out with the absolute best opportunities, but is this a reason to stop trying to provide opportunities to kids?
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
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...
When I was in grade school, people bitched about using TVs.
Yeah, and people probably bitched about filmstrips and movies as well. But all 3 were used very differently than computers are being used today.
Those TVs were well controlled in most cases and were probably only used for specified educational programming. They added to the educational process not took away.
We need all of these things to teach our kids!
The big problem with computers in the classroom is that they are being used the wrong way. Sit the kiddies down in front of some "educational" software and let the software do all the work.
As for networking the classroom, it's just not needed. Network the hell out of the library or computer rooms though. Teach kids these are tools not toys.
Primary school kids have no need to do "research" on the internet. They've not developed their BS filter yet and will be likely to come back stating something as fact that they read on some crank's website. Wiring a 6th grade classroom for net access in the name of "bringing the world to them" is the equivalent of dropping them off in a strange neighborhood and expecting them find their way home. Sure some rare ones can, but most are going to get lost and possibly harmed along the way.
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."
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)
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.
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.
I'm not sure how much I believe that. My parents taught me algebra when I was in elementary school (I would have been about 7 or 8 at the time), and I managed fine. I don't think I'm particularly exceptional. I didn't understand all of it back then, but I understood the basic concepts, and understood the abstraction of logical puzzles involved.
Besides, a number in itself is an abstract thing. Do you not teach arithmetic until children are 12? Yes, 2 apple, plus 2 more is 4 apples - but does the same thing work for oranges? Only if you swallow the abstract concept of a number being an abstract property of all sets with 2 things in them. That's very significant abstraction in some ways. Most kids manage. They don't always get it right away, but that's no reason not to introduce it to them to give them more time to let the concept settle in their minds.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
I haven't taken a math class in 15 years (nor used it on a regular basis), but I remember many of the constants that I used up through my 500 level courses. That, despite being too lazy to memorize my multiplication table until the 6th grade. Until that time, I could traverse an imaginary table in my head faster than the information was needed. Sometimes, though, memorization is useful, and mine freed me up to do more important things with my brain, jumping three grade levels of math in a single year.
The bottom line is that you need to know how to spell, whether there is a dictionary or computer nearby or not. You need to understand basic sentence structure without a grammar checker or syle book next to you, and you need to understand how to arrive at the non-numerical answer for a math problem without the use of a computer or calculator.
In fact, computers and calculators were allowed in every advanced math class I took simply because they couldn't help you. The profs were certain of that. Then again, that was 15+ years age, so...
To sum up: memorization is useful, though not a substitute for comprehension. We need them both, and to go to one extreme or the other makes for an individual who either:
- Can't think on his/her own; or
- Is helpless without tools to assist him/her.
Neither of these is desirable.As a side note, the great chefs that I have worked with can use whatever technology is available to them, but are not dependent on it. Making a hollandaise with a blender or by hand is a choice they make on a situation-by-situation basis.
Put identity in the browser.
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 --
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.
... and yes it was a public school.
I think the main problem with our educational system is that it clings too tightly to outdated classics. They end up taking up all our time and resources when we should be teaching other subjects like logic, programming, communication (speech/debate), psychology, sociology (religion), and law.
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.
Regarding mathematics, I'm probably one of the few people that believes it's not important to be able to do complex math in your head. My reason is that a machine can do it much faster and more accurately than a human. Of course you still need to understand the problem well enough to ask the machine to solve it, which probably implies a broad understanding of the Math involved (just not the in your head level).
As for Greek and Latin, this is in part a matter of priorities. In high school (grad 97), I took a variety of classes including two years of chem, two years of bio, two years of physics, four years of math, four years of band, four years of English/Literature, three years of History, three years of Spanish, as well as a host of other classes like art, sociology, government, logic, programming, mythology, and even a bit of Latin.
Now getting back to what I was saying earlier, I'm sure there was enough irrelevant material/overlap in Algebra II/Pre-Calc/Geometry to make room for more thorough logic and programming. Likewise, one of the main points of my four years of English were critical thinking and self expression. Some of that time spent reading Pygmalian, Chaucer, Hamlet (twice), Oedipus (twice), could have been spent in a speech and debate class focussed more closely on critical thinking and expression. History could have been toned down as well considering half of my high school history was a repeat of what we had in junior high. Perhaps we could spend less time talking about how our forefathers fought and more time on what they were fighting for, eg government and laws.
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.
Without the calculator theres no way 90^ of us could do calculus.
Even with a calculator, 90% of us can't do calculus. Hell, I'd be surprised if 90% of Americans can do basic arithmetic with fractions even with the assistance of a graphing calculator, a computer running Mathematica, and a math tutor! Honestly!
How does a calculator help with calculus at all really?? Seriously... I just finished my BMath, and in 4 university calculus courses... I don't think I touched a calculator once. We weren't even allowed to bring a $1 non-scientific to exams.
Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
> Better teachers and smaller classes will do a better job in my view.
Can't argue "better teachers," that's a given, but I don't think that smaller classes are necessarily better. I don't see any valid reason that it would be, except the mystical student-teacher ratio, which I don't really believe makes that much difference anyway.
The argument goes, as I see it, that with fewer students, they get less one-on-one time with the teacher. Since kids always have to rush off to their next class, though, they don't have time to talk to the teacher 1-to-1 after. In addition, in a class of 5 (that would be a terrible idea, BTW), if one of them was confused, I would think he'd be LESS likely to speak out, as he would feel like the "dumb one" of five, instead of one of the "dumber" ones out of a hundred. Plus, with 100 people pondering the same data, it's more likely that someone shares your confusion and may speak up and ask (assuming you don't like speaking up in class, like me).
Also, if classes are taught in large groups, the student is more likely to find some people he relates to, and can study with. With the core classes (history, basic science, etc) taught in large groups, they can be covered easier and there are more periods available to teach more specialized classes instead of teaching the same class 10 times in a day, which is wasting time unnecessarily.
With 100 students giving back reviews on one specific teacher & course & period, the administrators can get a better feel for how the teacher is doing: %50 of 6 people isn't a very accurate statistic, but if %50 of 100 students have a problem, you can guess it's the teacher's fault and action needs to be taken.
"Show me where they teach 8th graders multivariable calculus."
I had the fortunate experience of growing up in an area with a really good public education system. It was a small university town in the midwest that had well qualified teachers (some of whom had their PHDs) and one of our local policies was to allow students to advance at their own pace. It even went so far as to pay for classes at the University if no equivalent was offered at the high school. Now, it could be argued that some of these students advanced at their parents' pace, but I know at least 3 people in my graduating class that learned multi-variable calculus in 9th grade.
Just my 2 cents...