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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?
Parents need to be comfortable with computers to be able to understand HOW to get kids to get full use out of a computer. Thus I would expect the current generation of kids to be one of the first to be able to improve their education through the PC.
Though of course, parents will also be using it as a surrogate TV.
are the problem. most of the time the kids know more about the computer than the teachers do. and the teachers don't have any idea how to use the computer to teach. perhaps now that so many programmers are out of work some of them will end up teaching and will make some decent educational software. (not holding my breath)
Having been to a highschool that just got "computers in the classroom" kick while I was there, I've seen what it did to the teaching style.
The whole thing quickly turned into a babysitting device. "Do the math exercises the computer tells you to do while I grade your homework. When you're done, just sit quietly and keep yourself amused." Needless to say the plan lasted about a year before remarkably level-headed people sorted things out and things went back to normal (more-or-less).
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Agreeing with parent, students are going to find a way to dick around in class, especially if the class is boring. As such, I still have an extensive collection of TI-83 plus calculator games. Unfortunately, teachers are sometimes a despised entity in the community. I know lots of people who think teachers are OVERPAID. Their arguments are of course ridiculous and I think anyone who believes this should have to stand in front of 50 teenagers and try to make them learn ANYTHING, let alone try to teach them something inherently boring like stats, econ, calculus, etc...
So they're bad a wrote memorization? Can we test them on understanding HOW to find things and HOW to categorize them? (Things that, presumably, they'd learn in a computer based environment.)
Students were once taught how to use a slide rule too, we don't seem to be lamenting the loss of that skill now.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I must disagree. My computer was seized for 2 days for running a DC++ server on the campus network, and I did more homework for those 2 days than any other week in recent memory. I could have watched cable TV to make up for it, but the bulk of my wasted time was in surfing websites and playing video games. Watching TV while doing homework is mostly productive, but using a computer while doing homework (at least for Mechanical Engineering students) is extremely unproductive.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Even better - I have a 3-yr-old, and we already keep his computer time down. (It's scary how good he is a Need for Speed.) With another one on they way, I've started look ing for ideas on how to handle multiple kids on the computer, especially when they get older.
The best solution was my sister's (she has four kids): No one, including parents, get to use the computer, or watch the TV until everyone's homework is done. It's amazing to see her 14-yr-old helping her 12-yr-old with her math because the older one wants to get in some gaming.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
This was all good an such, however there have been two things that have universally suffered: penmenship and spelling. I started typing reports and such at an early age and used it on everything but one report in the fifth grade which was mandated had to be hand written. Now my handwriting's been crap since day one, but I used to be able to spell worth a crap. Now I spell better in my second language (german) than I do in english primarily because I've been using spell check since MS Works 1.0 and anymore so long as I get close, office will automatically change the word.
I am sure that looking up information online has come in handy, but I can remember a couple years ago professors not allowing more than 1 internet resource per paper. And it was a good thing. Some went a step further and would allow no more than 2 electronic resources, which I found annoying because I often used Lexis-Nexis and EBSCOhost to find articles and frankly is there a difference if the New York Times article I found was on paper or electronic format if it says the same thing? Most of the students would grumble about having to actually go to the library and look up magazine articles or perodicals.
Frankly I think computers, and the Internet, has only fed the "I want it now" culture. If people now can't find the answer within the first page of Google, many are too lazy to dig deeper.
When it comes to computers in the classrooms, maybe we should hold off. Instead of having a shiny toy on every desk, anyone think we might should ensure that kids can actually read a book, spell, and do math without needing a machine to do it for them?
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
from my parent (previous) post: There is an amazing book on this topic -- it's a fairly dense (ironic) read, but hits on lots of these points, and offers research, and real life descriptions where computers were and were not effective. As one might guess after some thought, the positive "effect" of computers in the classroom has/had little to do with the fact that there were computers, and much more to do with well-rounded and caring staff dedicated to the education goals. I don't have the link or book name readily available, but if there are enough responses, or interest, I will reply to my post with the link....
As promised... here is the book and link: The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not only that but now teachers are judged based on standardized test scores so they teach the kids to do well on the tests instead of actually understanding the material or going outside of the boundaries of the test material.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I have no less than 10 teachers within my close family (2 brothers, mom, grandfather, 4 aunts, mom-in-law, sister-in-law), all at differnt stages of their respective careers.
The common thing I see as a problem, is not the teachers or technology. All of my reletives v iew the tech as another tool. In fact, my grandfather was responsible for setting up the first computer labs in schools in Oakland County, MI in the 1970s (remember we're the lucky ones with county wide muni-wifi coming soon!).
Anyway, the problem they all cite is lack of support, software and overall expertise on the equipment. They always seem to be getting new stuff, but almost never are they properly trained. Even when they are trained it is on simple operation procedure, NOT how to make the technology an effective teacher tool.
Too often teachers simply send the kids to the lab and say go at it. Providing little instruction. the kids mindlessly point and click and have a great time, but because the concepts for a partiucular game are not reinforced it is simply an hand eye exercise.
I witness this first hand myself after taking my 5 and 3 year old to the public library. Both wanted to play the computer because it had fun games, neither actually did any thing educational. Basically clicked around and whated outdated shockwave animations.
Heck they both get more education playing my 5 year old dreamcast, because he had to learn to read the menus, and count objects and whatnot in the games.
Another big problem is the school board will push through bonds that can be used to purchase capital equipment, but NOT software. It has happened on more than one occassion that the idiots bought a bunch of new PCs but didn't have the funds to buy any software.
One time the state gavce $1500 to teachers to by a personal computer for home, but they did not give them $$ to buy the software they use at school. Since it was a "personal" machine they could not install software using any school liscenses.
My aunt and mother in-law both had nice ibooks laying around in a closet, until I rescued it and put linux on it and used it for a while. (I had to give it back when they retired, I never did hear how the new teahcer liked YellowDog).
So administration makes dumb decisions and there is never enough $$ ot support the equipment and train properly. It is sad, my local district has been spending bucku bucks lately on buildings, pools, athletic fields, theatre etc.
But in the same shortsighted way they spend all the money on tangible things, but cannot afford to properly staff the stuff. It costs $8 buck for a choir concert, that money used to be fund raiser for a trip, now almost all of it goes toward paying for the use of the theatre.
I am sure the admin people mean well, but it sure as hell seems silly that all the upper level jobs in our district are filled with $80K -$150k + jobs that have a doctorate in education requirement to "manage the pools and fitness centers" or be a athelic director. It really is ridiculous. Oh well I am ranting and getting away for the point.
The administration at all levels needs to GET A CLUE.
I disagree. I'm an old geek who had to use a typewriter for papers in college. Since you could not correct or change a thought in mid-page, like you can on a computer, writing consisted of multiple hand-written drafts. This was very time consuming and resulted in optimizing for the mechanics of producing an "acceptable" paper rather than polishing the content and thought process.
Add idiot professors who would not accept papers with corrections and the process of creating a paper in the good old days was often conterproductive, assuming you were trying to promote creativity and insight rather than mechanical skills.
It got to the point that I actively avoided classes requiring papers which worked OK with my computer/business degree but left a hole where my liberal arts education should have been. My failing but I feel it would have been different if I had the technology to ease the process.
Of course, I only had the pub, girls, etc. to distract me and avoided the hours of computer games that the same technology would have brought me.
Also, as the father of a college student, I think it's a copout to blame the technology for students failing to read, write and connect. Most kids have *always* avoiding studying but get them connected with a good teacher and relevant, interesting (to them) content and watch them go. Bad teachers, uninteresting content and even the good ones drift off. And there are always lots of students who don't care and never will. The best teachers seem to both dispair over these and accept that they're just going to be that way.
If investigated fully you will find that many parents don't have a respect for education, or atleast the education system. Many parents view the failure of their child to learn as a failure of the schools. These parents forget that they are ultimately responsible for their child's eduacation. Schools and teachers are only there to assist. This causes cynicism amounts teachers who are tired of having students dumped on them and being blamed for the child's poor learning. The children themselves quickly figure out that their parents only pay lip service to education. Why should a child be expected to respect their teachers, when the child's parent dosen't?
There are many faults with the school system. Parents have to realise that they are one of the problems.
Actually, I think teachers stopped teaching anything interesting when NCLB was enacted. I've seen it with my kids' teachers. If it's not on the test, they won't waste their time with it.
My son's teacher spent a lot of time on interesting and creative pojects in science and culture. Two years later when my daughter was in her class all of that was gone. Virginia's Standards of Learning (SoL) regeme was in effect. All teaching was replaced by test preparations.
This is in the best school distrect in the state! There was never any doubt that the school would be accredited.