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Students Do Better Without Computers
Gogogoch writes "The Telegraph
is reporting a large study that shows that the less students use computers
at school and at home, the better they do in international tests of literacy
and math. The more access they had to computers at home, the lower they scored
in tests, partly because they diverted attention from homework. Students tended
to do worse in schools generously equipped with computers, apparently because
computerised instruction replaced more effective forms of teaching. " Worth noting that it took almost 20 years for PCs in the corporate environment to actually have a positive impact on productivity; might the same be true in education?
Clifford Stoll's 2000 book High Tech Heretic made a similar claim about the dangers of computers in basic education.
./ under his own name and aliases.)
(Stoll posts in
Computers cost quite a lot of money. Furthermore, in the US, the federal program that provides low income schools with computers is notoriously inefficient and corrupt. Such money can be spent on other things.
I know of an inner city high school that had a crumbling building but was equipped with an ultramodern computer lab (we all know that it takes a 3 Ghz Pentium 4 with 1024 MB ram to do high school research) and a $100,000 3D printer. It's just sad how beauracracy manages to waste our money.
E = m c^3 Don't drink and derive E = m c^3
Didn't read the article, did you. Their report also noted that being able to use a computer at work - one of the justifications for devoting so much teaching time to ICT (information and communications technology) - had no greater impact on employability or wage levels than being able to use a telephone or a pencil. So no, your post has been proven wrong. But thanks for playing.
Well, except for the fact that it assumes the article is about American students when it clearly isn't.
Amen.
I teach in the school of ed at a university, classes meant to help future teachers understand the proper way of using tech to teach something else. Even by the end of the semester, after lectures, assignments, expert models, and micro-teaching with feedback, some of them still don't get it.
I find the ones who understand us quickly are the science teachers. The English teachers are usually second to get it, followed by history, dance, and everyone else. The interesting thing is that this trend seems to be independent of the time we spend, and the resources that are available in each field. Science does have tools like Logger Pro, but we cover video editing for the dance people, and they just don't see its usefullness.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
... than right here.
What Matters (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy didn't read the article, yet felt qualified to comment on it anyway. Other people who didn't read the article found his comments "insightful" despite the fact that they contradicted the findings of the article.
Re:What Matters (Score:3, Informative)
You did read the article and quoted part of it, yet your rating isn't as high as the guy's who skipped the reading.
Welcome to Real Life. It's just like this in the work force which is why the article makes so much sense.
It isn't what you know. It isn't what other people know. It's how well you can re-state their pre-existing opinions to impress them. It's all about what other people (who didn't do the reading) BELIEVE you know.
Japanese schools work better than ours because they are extremely competitive, do not refuse to provide higher level instruction to those who excel and because they innovate. The parents there also regard school very highly and go out of their way to make sure their kids are competitive.
No, the problem is that every student in the U.S. gets a secondary education (high school). On the other hand, Japan weeds out the very best at an earlier age. A kid's future is decided before he or she grows up.
I am a history teacher, and part fo the problem is that the educational establishment, i.e. teacher colleges, etc., stress all kinds of crap about engaging them, motivating them, etc. We have to de facto compete with the freakin computer, television, ipod, cell phone, etc., while the kids are sold a bill of goods about how learning should be "relevant" and "personal". I want to scream. Kids don't read or write anymore. I did my MA thesis on technology and writing, and guess what, writing suffers immeasurably when using a computer. Hell, I'm a geek like everyone else around /. But, the problem is education is denigrated today. It's all about whether it will earn you a dollar.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
The research referenced by the article: Computers and Student Learning: Bivariate and Multivariate Evidence on the Availability and Use of Computers at Home and at School.
It should be said that I think teaching users to program is the most important way for them to be able to use a computer as a tool. If you can't program, then none of the computer's strengths for automation will be available to you.
And programming teaches really useful problem solving skills, cheaply.
When I went to study Chinese in Taiwan, I was in a small class with four other students, all Japanese. I thought that they were going to be robots, always ready with the entire lesson memorized, and they were going to leave me looking like a pathetic lazy American.
I was certainly suprised when most of the students would regularly show up ten minutes late to class. The teacher, who was Chinese, wasn't terribly punctual either, but we still had a great class.
So, all of those rumors about Japanese kids all being super studious...they aren't neccesarily true.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
"No Child Left Behind" sounds like a really good idea except for one huge problem. There is no funding to carry out the mandate. I've have talked to several teachers at a few different schools and they have all said the same thing, "NCLB" good idea, very bad implementation. As is, a town near me may end up closing atleast one of its schools due to lack of funding. When I stopped by my old highschool a week ago, one of the teachers told me they basicly had to pay the school $500 at the end of the previous year and the year before that. And people wonder why public schools are going down hill.
While many teachers really love what they do and are very good at it, they can't afford to do it. Now someone is going to say they get paid great and only work 3/4 of the year. Well, many of the teachers I talk to(highschool and gradeschool) put in around 60-70 hrs a week.
My question is, what are our schools supposed to do? With ever tightening budgets and a rising education requirement, computers in the classroom won't be an option, as they won't be able to afford them. My view is that the Fed shouldn't be handing down mandates unless it plans to fully fund them, and I mean fully. "That's just my opinion, I "could" be wrong."
Well, then read this... "Japanese high school students less willing to study than U.S. peers"
http://japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=3 30 861&page=5
As for students sleeping less and possibly suffering stress related to too much technology in their daily lives, refer to a link at the bottom of this piece.
(Discclaimer: Japan Today is regarded by some, even some of its readers, as a biased "expat forum". I am not an expat, but I recently visited the Tokyo area for almost 3 months.)
My personal take on the public view of students probably isn't worth much, but it is possible to see many children walking on tthe streets, alone, at 7 AM, with their books and packs, heading for the trains. Schooling (as in studying, not abuse) there borders on the brutal, and the typical US parent would scream murder if somehow the Japanese education methods were imprinted upon the US, instantanly or over a 15-year period.
Students attend "jukus", or cram courses/schools, may of which cost the attendees' parents quite a pretty yen. I've seen schools where students attend on weekends, usually Saturday for 1/2 to nearly a full study-day, but sometimes Sunday, for extra measure. (They are attending early on because they really are nationally and daily competing to get into the best schools. Going to the "wrong" pre-school can have ramifacations far into one's eventual career. I have a friend who shunned Todai and who chose a less-stressful local college (his TOEIC scores are in the 95% range of the highest score attainable in the TOEIC exams, but he is an example that could undermine much of what I am saying in this tome: Now that he is back in Japan, after being away over a year, his English skills are rapidly declining, principally because he has no one with whom to daily USE and reinforce his English. (he is also studying a European/Asian language, which he is apparently doing well with) but now that he is in a local college, studying a foreign language, he cannot even change majors. Once in program of study, it is, according to him, virtually if not completely impossible to change it, other than dropping out and losing once place in school and face in society or workforce endeavors. And, no, Todai's old reputation for letting entered students "sit on their asses for 4 years since they obviously must be the brightest people in all of Japan, if not on Earth if they managed to be accepted..." is not necesssarily true anymore. They've been working on cleaning up that albatross of a stigma. There still is some if not an unspokeen level of "Hire Todai Only" or Todai Alumnus attitude is some of the bigger corpororations, but overall, if Japanese students are smarter in the Maths and Sciences, I suspect is has to do with the complexity of the language.)
Japanese, the language, itself is literally or actually disconnected from any other written or spoken language on Earth. (But, some could say the same of Thai or the various Chinese characters.) Some considered it the "devil's curse" and other things, but, really, almost any non-romanized, glyphic/ artistic character-based written language will be hard for learners of romanized languages. Historically, some of the Japanese characters, some 2,000 of the most-used and official sets to 10,000 others, in far less use, but still needed for translating obscure or older but relevant documents and art works, are directly borrowed from Chinese language going back well over 1,000 years. But, it is quite possible to master spoken Japanese, while the written and read part is quite daunting for many foreigners. Moreover, there are plenty of Japanes who, because of disuse, gradually forget a large swath of their own written language and consult dictionaries or other help. Even a MATH teacher was fired for not knowing some or many of the LANGUAGE-related conversation words that students are required to know and master prior to their being graduated from school. Yet, a number of students and adults are of mixed opinions as to whe
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