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Technology In Primary Education, Boon Or Bane?

Posted by timothy on from the lobbing-money-and-calling-it-an-investment dept.

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.

5 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. Microsofts fault by tarquin_fim_bim · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    San Francisco schools are buying 450 new computers with federal and state grants.

    The guilty should be paying

  2. the DMCA is the real problem by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    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.

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  3. Re:School Computers.... by diamond0 · · Score: 2, Offtopic

    Linux is not license-free.

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    There is no hatred more pure and true than that expressed by children.
  4. Conservatives = dumbing down of education. by EvanED · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    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.

    Which is why I should be in charge. :-p

  5. Uh...say what? by EvilSporkMan · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    From the article: As any adult knows, system crashes are a fact of high- tech life.
    I run Linux. What's a system crash?

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