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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.
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!
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?
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.
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, 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)
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.
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
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.
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