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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?"
Instead of just seeing how kids interact with technology, why not just study where in the class, or even school, that they use technology, what types of it, and the percentage of students who actually use technology.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Indeed. We don't want n00bs who can't even add 2 and 2 together to be worrying about technology just yet.
That being said, however, technology can be used to teach students extremely well; especially with interactive lessons.
Technology in our school isn't all flash and bang. Our school get AutoDesk Inventor, for example, and it's been a big hit, and has helped with a lot of things, including CAD and design process(es).
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
What we really need is for someone (Bill Gates - you listening?) to set up two identical schools close to one another. Students then get randomized to one school or the other. You could then use this as an experimental system to test which educational programs actually enhance learning. (Note that these are not medical experiments - no need to start getting upset about "experimenting with kids.") I don't think there is any other way we will be able to obtain real data with which improve our education system. If you made sure that these schools had plenty of resources (ie more so than the average surrounding school), then I am sure plenty of parents would agree to allow their kids to participate.
This certainly isn't the first time that computer technology use in schools has been studied, so I'm a bit at a loss to see what the fuss is about. Certainly my research group (see www.ikit.org) has been researching just this for 25 years. In general, there are two types of software for education: computer assisted instruction (CAI) which has been found to not have lived up to the hype (yet); and what Jonassen calls thinking tools, software designed to augment human cognitive abilities. The latter have been working very well in the classroom, and students using such systems have shown good results. However, teachers can't just be thrown the system and told to go to work-they need to be trained as to how to use them, something that school boards have been reluctant to do as it costs money.
In the end, some school official found out what was happening and put a stop to it.
Oh yes. I agree that people should be trained in using computers. However, stocking schools up with computers only makes it so that these kids use them for anything but training.
Perhaps juniors and seniors should be trained in using PCs. However, kids younger than that should be trained in working and thinking, in real terms.
The problem is that using computers to do things restricts you to that particular environment. I know of teachers, who after a few years of using computers, cannot teach without PowerPoint.
I was blessed, one could say, to have been taught just before computers penetrated schools, where teachers prepared their lessons and you would focus on black-/white-boards and on the teacher, which stimulated attention. Now, students are so focused on Powerpoint slides that the teachers usually have a tough time garnering any attention at all.
I see the same thing at the undergraduate level. Technology is obviously helpful: science students can't do their work without computers, word processors, spreadsheet programs, etc. And the internet is an amazing resource for getting extra information, watching lectures online, downloading class notes, etc.
However, alot of money/effort goes into "multimedia education" and this stuff is mostly useless in its current form, IMHO. There are all sorts of CDs that come with science textbooks, that have interactive demos that supposedly help understanding. However, these demos are "all flash and no bang" as you say. They are not really interactive anyway (the number of options available to the user is very very limited), and the information content is nil compared to a traditional textbook. The impact they have on student understanding is basically zero.
Technology can help when added to conventional education (showing computer simulations of a concept can help alot!)... however, the vast majority of technology-inspired education-revolutions I've seen implemented at the undergrad level have been pointless.
At my school (a school near San Jose, CA) my math department will be trying some of what you mention. We currently are ordering all of our textbooks with PDF versions as well as paper (not every student has a computer, even in Silicon Valley). We also have LCD projectors in most of our classrooms. For the students who have the technology at home, we hope that these devices will make a difference. We also hope that by using the LCD projector we can capture our notes (we use a stylus to write) and distibute them electronically to students. While technology will make some difference, and improve some of the education, it does has to be balanced with a more traditional approach. While it would be nice to teach math from a more analytical/creative point of view, we MUST follow the standards created by the state of California. The tests for these standards are very traditional (solve x^2+2x-1=0, for example) with no calculator allowed. If I fail to teach my students how to solve these BY HAND, I will lose my job, regardless of how well my students may know the more interesting parts to quadratics. Unless the laws are changed (unlikely) the technology is almost useless. The best use of technology has been the graphing calculator in Alebra II and higher courses. Mathematica is nice for Calculus, and SPSS would be wonderful for Statistics, but ultimately our students will be assessed without the technology.