Digital Enhancements or Expensive Distractions?

markmcb writes "Berkeley and USC have teamed up to launch a $3.3 million study over 3 years that hopes to shed some light on how today's kids are interacting with technology and the effects that it is having on education. The study aims to determine if digital devices such as computers and cell phones are shaping the way that teenagers obtain and process information. But given the price tag and the goals of the project, how much can this project actually help education? Has anyone out there in the high school level education field seen digital systems improve the classroom to the point that students actually learn more, or do they just tend to be fascinating distractions that detract from the classroom?"

Comments

That is easy, they don't

[Mr. Arbusto]

Seriously, I'm all about technology (I read slashdot) but most technology in elementary and middle school levels is just all flash and no bang. Sure there are programs that help students (Word, Number Munchers) but having all the technology in the world isn't going to help if reading comprehention and memorized math skills are none.

Re:That is easy, they don't

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Word processors, spreadsheets and presentation-builders do not help high school students.

As a result of using such tools, the students rely on them so greatly that they become crutches for students. Moreover, they teach students bad habits such as spending time thinking about format rather than content.

I'm no Luddite, but I believe learning how to do things without computers (even if you are a CS student) helps you to improve your own abilities and lateral thinking. I don't have any statistics to back me up, but ponder this: how many students nowadays can write a paper by hand and proofread it themselves?

Re:That is easy, they don't

[DoorFrame]

Yes, but having the ability to use computers is a skill that is required for interaction and employment in the modern world. If your family can't afford a computer, and you go through your education without interaction with computers, you're going to be computer illiterate when you graduate. I used to do temp work from time to time to cover my rent and expenses, and it was easy to get work simply because I am very capable with computers. I didn't need to be able to program a word processor from scratch, I just needed to demostrate the ability to use a word processor.

Give people the access to use computers their entire lives, and computers will be something that are comfortable using for their personal or professional lives. It will make life easier for them, and for everyone who interacts with them. Be able to handle a computer is a basic school that the education system should be teaching, and having computers available, even just to play games on, is an intrigal part of that education.

Re:That is easy, they don't

[zippthorne]

Students are not focused on powerpoint slides. they are sleeping. you just can't tell because the room is dark for the powerpoint.

schools? hell no

[orufet]

I live in a very well off area in Vancouver, Canada. Technology in my high school is a waste of time. Classes exist so people can learn to use MS Word. We run on Windows 2000. The programming classes learn what a variable is. And the machines available for homework are used mostly for games. All the history/socials/humanities rooms in my high schol have gigantic television screens that are *never* used. And guess what? Somehow, we manage to be short 300 math textbooks because there isn't enough money to buy them. Wow. I'm a geek, but seriously, get the technology OUT of my damn school!

Re:schools? hell no

[orufet]

If you buy so many pencils that you can't afford paper, then yes, I say you show throw some of the pencils away.

Re:schools? hell no

[Moofie]

Throwing the pencils away doesn't get you any paper. And we've strained this analogy beyond its limits.

Yes, over-reliance on computers is a bad thing. Over-reliance on ANYTHING is a bad thing. Getting rid of computers is an equally bad thing.

Sounds like we need smart, motivated teachers, and aggressive plans to locate and disseminate the best teaching techniques and technologies. How is throwing away computers going to get us closer to that goal?

Re:schools? hell no

[Manchot]

Many schools (especially private ones) get money donated to them explicitly earmarked for technology. That is, the donor alumni makes the school sign an agreement stating that the money will be spent on anything else. While this sounds all well and good, some schools end up having more technology money than they know what to do with. So, to an outside observer, it might seem that they are blowing money on frivolous technologies, but in actuality, they can't really spend it on more important things (such as textbooks).

Computers or Teachers

[idiotfromia]

Our school district is replacing over 400 computers next school year. This includes several elementary school labs, computers used for a few simple learning games, word processing, and internet browsing.

Our school board now want to make cuts to the high school music program and eliminate seventh grade athletics. Education priorities need to get into order. We need more teachers over more computers.

Re:Computers or Teachers

[mbrother]

Make that quality teachers. A bad teacher can do years of damage.

All falls back to the teacher

[YrWrstNtmr]

In the right hands, with the right curriculum, a little extra tech can be great. In the wrong hands, it is worse than useless.

Sadly, there are too few of those 'right hands'.

It's how they use it

[julienroger]

How technology affects students has more to do with how they use it, in my opinion anyway. I'm a high schooler with high grades, and I use technology a lot. I also know people who use technology, and have bad grades. The difference seems to be in what they use the technology for. I, for example, like to learn new things, and experiment (I installed Linux, and I'm still learning) while the people with worse grades just seem to use it for socialization. Not that that's a bad thing...

Re:Homework

[HitByASquirrel]

But just to clarify, this is absolutely my own damn fault.

Computer's aren't to blame, it's really just a matter of self-control.

School != education

[delirium of disorder]

The function of public education in the US is to enforce intellectual mediocrity and restrict the natural curiosity that children possess. Technology has a role in this process.

Tech is can be used to liberate (students could use camera phones to get evidence of teacher's sexually abusing them, and open source software could help students learn to code), or it can be used to oppress (schools use security cameras to make sure students only abuse the drugs they are given: aderall and other amphetamine based ADD drugs and not creativity enhancing drugs like cannabis, and large open source based databases could be used to cheaply to track and build psychological profiles of each and every student). Therefore, from the prospective of the policy makers, technology must have a limited role. Students can have access to the web as long as websites that hold dangerous information and allow free contribution, for example wikipedia, are blocked. Students can use graphing calculators as long as they don't write their own programs for them. They can learn chemistry by memorizing chemical equations, but if they actually learn to think critically and devise original solutions, they might be capable of making explosives, so..... any in depth or critical approaches to learning must be marginalized. Evolution can be taught to a small number of AP-biology students, they might go to college and become biotechnologists and can be trusted with real knowledge, but the rabble must be subservient to religious interests and can't be allowed to learn too much.

Sure some individual teachers can be great progressive inspirations for kids, but few of them are allowed any real control over the curriculum by the corporate, religious, and government plutocrats that make public school policy. Students need to drop out so they can actually lean something. Academic studies should focus on how we can get students out of the schools system and save them before its too late, any attempts at reform are impractical at this point. The fact that George Bush won the last election should be enough to demonstrate to the world that there is a crisis in American education. Maybe France or Finland can intervene and save the quarter of our population that is too young to vote and subject to imprisonment and coercive indoctrination for most of their days.

Re:Education

[LiquidCoooled]

It wouldn't work.
The parents of the kids would never willingly allow their kids to be brought up deprived of IT.
They have been told for years now that IT is the future, and here are you telling them that "as an experiment" we shall see how well your kids do in the absence of IT.

You are effectively playing games with the childrens' future, and no parent will allow it.

The parents would prefer to send their kids to the best available school to give them a chance to grow into the best they can become.

Share the money and stop playing with them.

On the actual topic, I think there is too much IT for the sake of it, and most subjects could be taught more effectively with a real interactive intelligent tutor rather than some computer screen.

Real purpose of study

[deacon]

To spend 3.3 million.

Grad students will do all the work. Profs will take all the credit and most of the money.

The result will be whatever the bias of the profs is. A prof who believes that technology is overused will prove just that. A prof who feels that more tech is good will prove just that.

If you doubt this, I suggest you get into grad school and work as a research assistant kissing your thesis advisors butt for 2 to 6 years, just so you can get your damn degree and get out.

Oh, ya, I've been there and done that.

"Research" Grants are a business and way of life like any other. You survive by getting big grants as often as neccesary, and you provide the answers your sponsers want to hear.

Walmart is practically Mother Teresa by comparison.

a modest investment

[janneH]

The implication that this is a lot of money is just way off base.

A brief Google search suggests that the US spends on the order of 500 billion dollars per year on education (http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/economic/edu cationlibraryspending.htm). It would not be unreasonable to spend a percent or two of that amount on research directed at understanding and improving the process - which would mean five to ten thousand projects of this magnitude (the annual cost for this project being about 1 million). The idea being that a one percent investment in research will typically yield more than a 1 percent improvment in the process.

A 3.3 million dollar project would pay for itself in one year if it improved teaching efficiency by 0.001%.

Taking that money and using it to support schools directly - say for more teachers - is like saying that we should not do any more biomedical research, but instead use that money to pay for more doctors to deliver health care. You might get an overall improvement in the first year, but in the long run you pay a huge price. There needs to be a balance between short term and long term expenses - giving up the long term view because you have short term problems is - well - a short term view.

You might argue with the details of the research - and whether the money is well spent in this particular case. But as a general matter it is if anything a modest amount of money.

Re:a modest investment

[Westacular]

It seems almost every other poster has completely missed the point of the study. Did anyone read the article? It seems like every other thread is simply full of "we need teachers-not-computers in the classroom" kneejerk reactions, which has nothing to do with what this study is focusing on.

From the article:

"Technology is changing all our lives, but it may be revolutionizing the way that young people think, learn and experience education," said Jonathan F. Fanton, president of the MacArthur Foundation. "Common sense suggests that exposure to digital media affects young people in formative ways, reflected in their judgment, their sense of self, how they express their independence and creativity, and in their ability to think systematically. So far, there is little empirical evidence to back this up."

This study isn't about "technology in the classroom"; it's about finding out if and how the technology that's everywhere is affecting kids and the way they learn, with the ultimate goal of using that knowledge to possibly find more effective ways to teach today's kids -- and that is something that is worth much, much more than $3.3 million. No where does it even imply in the tiniest degree that the results of the study will focus at all on the question of the application of technology in classroom; there are many ways that traditional teaching methods could conceivably be tweaked to be more effective for so-called "digital kids", and this is where the real value of a study like this lies.

Re:Classrooms?

[EEBaum]

We should, however, teach them how to Write TFM in a concise, helpful manner. There are a lot of badly-written FMs out there, and after a while it's quite irritating being told to R them. Better yet, they could be taught to design things in such a way that makes TFM less necessary to R.