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The Future of Technology in Schools
citking writes "The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is running parts one and two of a three-part series dealing with the future of technology in America's schools. Part one asks whether technology in schools is merely a fad or, as some may argue, a necessity in today's technology-driven society. It raises some interesting points, such as the contrasting the wide availability of computers in schools to the generally limited use among students. Part two goes in-depth about the technology's cost, citing the dependence of grants that are disappearing and the effects of reducing technology staff. For part three you will have to tune in the the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tomorrow."
Technology in schools is in desperate need of a re-think. The recent evolution in open-source, as well as many newly founded partnerships should help see a more powerful move in this sector, but is it powerful enough?
such as the contrasting the wide availability of computers in schools to the generally limited use among students
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When you pay over $1000 per MS-based machine, that may be true. But as Linspire.com shows, students in Indiana will have their own Linux box at school:
http://www.linspire.com/lindows_news_pressrelease
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
The job of schools is to teach, or to provide a starting point in this world.
As I don't see technology becoming any less a part of this world, I'd argue that it's entirely relevent to use it in schools. People need to be brought up around technology to be able to readily accept it and take it for grante, otherwise the lurning curve is that much steeper. Just as long as it only remains a part of schools, rather than becoming the schools themselves.
Just another harmless drunk
Technology in classrooms is necessary. Not only is our world increasingly dependent on technology to do menial tasks, but the workforce of the future will be expected to be fluent with these technologies and it's better to get children accustomed to them as soon as possible. And let's not forget the obvious advantage of having advanced interactive content in the classroom.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Oregon Trail taught me everything I needed to know.
Technology is schools is another fad, just like them computer things and this new fangled Google-o-web thing. It'll never last.
This will join a long list of fads:
Cars, Computers, Bikes, Medicine, Porn.
We'll soon see them trying something new.
Hopefully, the fad is computers being used poorly in the classroom. Heck, Powerpoint alone tends to reduce my engagement in a class by 90%. Computers used in courses where they're relevant is great, and I've had some excellent ones to that effect. It's when people decide that a class on English Literature or Music History could benefit from the wonders of computers, without even having a "wow this is better!" reason to begin with, that things go sour.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
My wife is an elementary education major who is getting an endorsement in technology, and so is, naturally, very much a believer in education in the classroom. I agree, but that is kind of beside the point I wanted to make.
I honestly believe that if the Open Source community wants to go mainstream it must gain acceptance in schools. Because I learned first on Windows/MS software, I still do, and probably will alway feel more comfortable there. I love the ideals of Linux and the Open Source community in general, and I am learning more and more to feel the same way about Linux itself. It really has come a long way since the first time I tried it 5 odd years ago.
My point is, that people will continue to feel most comfortable with that to which they are first exposed. If I had grown up with Linux (I am too old - I kind of grew up with the TRS-80 and IBM Clones running DOS, but never really spent much time with computers until Windows 3.11), I wouldn't have the reservations (at least most of them) that I do about it.
Again, If you really want to raise the awareness of users, people like me are not the best way to go. Schools are the best hope for the future of Open Source.
Quick! grab the holy water, some crosses and the jezus action figures... oh wait. Wrong mythical figure.
But the basics my parents learned are more relevant today than ever - reading and writing and arithmatic should be the core studies required for all students. Add in history, language (especially for those of us in the US who think English is the only language), PE and an artistic course and that's a sound core curriculum. All of this can be taught without tech. Teach the buggers how to talk, write, and think.
I love tech and think it can have a place in schools if a few simple rules are followed. Use tech where it makes sense. Make sure the teachers know how to use the tech FIRST. Make sure there is sufficient and appropriate tech for the audience (skip PowerPoint and Word, geez, use a good text editor, who needs all the formatting whizbang crap anyway?). Try and find an IT support person/group that understands education and can communicate with the staff (nothing worse than a locked down desktop just because the IT dept can't be bothered to understand the teacher's needs).
I think it's more important to have teachers who understand their subject, are enthusiastic about it, and love to share that enthusiasm than to have computers for computer's sake.
I also think it's important that we stop adding course load on kids and trim the subject list back to something that is more human AND make the classes a bit longer (I had 1 hour classes when in high school, my kids were down to 45 minutes - how soon before we get to 1/2 hour of McEd?).
Tech is fine when used sanely with a purpose within a larger designed teaching environment. If something has to go, let it be tech in favor or better teachers.
For most students much of learning is a rote exercise. Exams are a regurgatation process, from some the product is as appealing as barf, from others it's a well served up platter where memory is complemented by order, and they can ask, fries with that? There are limitations to the amount of data students who learn by rote can process and having to learn Information Technology as a secondary form of literacy increases the burden.
There is no magic cure for education and the ever increasing demands burgeoning amounts of information makes on students. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic just doesn't cut it anymore.
The stone cold fact is fewer people have the faculties able to assimilate huge amounts of information, recognize patterns in that information and acquire the tools to operate positively on that information.
The best and the brightest are no longer culled from America only, or the west, the best and the brightest are cheery picked from the wide world, because the demands have pushed the requirements to a world set.
Along with ability there must also be the drive to endlessly read and update one's knowledge base.
Strong arguments now suggest our relatively larger brains came about from our more complex social structures, and, for many, maintaining social structures take first place over being a geek. Some people would rather get laid and revel in their place in the tribe. Go figure.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Not to say there is any replacement for a classroom (or good ol' old fashioned repetition) but, as an example, many concepts and theories in math and science can be more effectively demonstrated visually and interactively than they ever could from a static textbook. These topics lend themselves very well to simulation and demonstration. And once a student understands the basics that build into principles, then we can get them to use it in the class. And so on.
A math teacher friend of mine routinely observes that his kids are learning in different ways than how we did. The textbook is falling prey to a massive culture of distraction. IM, web, games, television, cellphones... the ubiquitous pull becomes even worse when the last thing a student wants to do is read a boring math text. I'm less inclined to simply blame the student - is it really their fault? Why not have those technologies reach out to them in the same way? Should we risk denying the reality of the world we actually live in (versus how we think it should be)? In other words, adapt to new learning styles. Make learning the game that they play for 4 hours a night (instead of reading math).
So thats exactly what my math teacher friend has started doing.
Its in its infancy, but longer term he will be using it for learning augmentation across the board. Its pretty interesting stuff, and possibly helpful for any other Math and science teachers here on /.
Right now i see the whole discourse on schools and technology centre on how much it costs to put computers into classrooms. And how to "teach technology" to our kids. Why? I think we should bury the technology and stop oohing and ahhing over it - and just start actually using it for what its meant for.
To replace textbooks in a cost effective manner would require:
1) Rugged, reliable, long-life hardware that is too boring to steal
2) eTextBooks to be a lot cheaper than the printed version
Say a textbook lasts 10 years in a school (by school, I'm talking about the UK definition of schools, not university where you buy your own or use the library) - 100 copies of $textbook will cost say £2000. 100 advanced eBook readers would currently cost £20000 and be a lot less convenient in many ways than the text book. Of course, multiply that by 10 courses (assuming the average GCSE student does 10 GCSEs these days) and you get a textbook cost of £20000, or £200/student, or £20/student-year. Aforementioned eBook hardware, assuming 10 year lifespan, would also be £20/student-year. Of course, these eTextBooks would probably be licensed on a per-year basis, say £5 a year. £50 for 10 years, but you will get updates for errata integrated easily. 100 licenses would be £50000 for the 10 years, maybe less with a bulk discount. That's £50/student-year in addition to the £20 for the hardware.
I'm just cynical, but there is a reason these things are being pushed, and it isn't concern about the weight of textbooks in a schoolbag. It is to raise revenue for textbook firms.
However, I don't think much beats using pen and paper for making notes in class. Quieter than a room full of people typing, and I think it gets the point into your head a lot quicker.
It's apparent that computers in education are now used for keyboarding and application training. When computers were new in 1980's, Programming in logo and basic was commom. With the level of complexity and overhead with the new applications languages, programming has been relegated to HS and UNI courses. I appears the asshats that advocate crap like c++, java and c# are using the same wizard obfusication to block out any new developers and create job protection.
We need to get education back to ideas like Squeak and logo and C. The new "languages" are nothing but glue to connect libraries and teach NOTHING.
If you give kids technology while they are still young, and in school, they'll all grow up to be hackers who use Linux!!!
...they're great. But when I was in high school, we rarely used them for something good. Mostly we used them to search for information on the Web. Yes, it was useful, but we could as easily have used the school library.
I think schools should focus more of the computer education on the actual *use* of a computer. Teach the students *general principles* of GUI:s, try and teach them how the Internet works, what the difference between an image file and a text file is, etc. - even if it's very brief and in dumbed-down terms.
The computer education I recieved was more akin to "Click in these places in this order to do X", not "You want to write a report? Which program do you think is best suited for that - a word processor or a spreadsheet app?", which I think would have been a lot better, creating an understanding and a creative framework to build on when faced with challenges without clear-cut solutions.
A simple change like Firefox's yellow adress bar when visiting a secure (https) site rendered a friend of mine completely unable to keep browsing, because she had no idea what to do - she had only been "trained" to use white adress bars. She stared at the screen for a good ten minutes, completely unable to figure out what to do. Terrific. Over a frickin' yellow adress bar.
Once I got into uni, computers started to be actually useful in ways you can't replace with something else. Mathematical simulations, programming, you name it - but that's really not suited for younger children.
I think computers are touted as magical "solves everything"-tools, when in reality, they're not. They solve specific problems very well, but you can't use them everywhere.
I do not think the future of education is a computer on every child's desk, but I think that computers can be used to create tremendous resources to help further education.
For example, with something like this : http://www.moodle.org/
there is the potential to create independent 'schools' of various types... imagine a community of parents who home school their children organizing with such a tool to diversify the experience.
With such education portal systems becoming more available, they can find more uses in high schools... where being at home sick may not mean a day missed, where community colleges can better support classes not bound to an in-person schedule.
Schools can better facilitate summer and evening classes, distance learning. To give an example more relevant to this particular venue, a *nix user's group could set up a 'school' to teach people how to use and understands the various *nix and Posix based operating systems. Teach hobbyists how to program in new languages, and generally leverage these tools to increase the practical education of the open source movement itself.
I think the problem with the question is that people apply it automatically to Junior having a computer in front of him in the classroom, when there are so many other ways computers can be used to enhance education... and that education doesn't stop when you graduate and doesn't have to come from a school charging tuition.
With all this focus on Open Source programming, writing, music, videos, and other sorts of content... why not be equally passionate about 'open source education'?
From http://www.answers.com/technology&r=67
1a. The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives.
1b. The scientific method and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective.
2. Electronic or digital products and systems considered as a group: a store specializing in office technology.
3. Anthropology. The body of knowledge available to a society that is of use in fashioning implements, practicing manual arts and skills, and extracting or collecting materials.
To me, technology, like any other -ology, is the knowledge of something, especially using the scientific method. Everybody knows themselves and somebody else and animals, but they are not psychologists. Everybody knows a group of people, but they are not a sociologist. Most everybody has seen a calculator or a computer, but that does not make them a technologist either. Give a computer or a calculator to someone that does not know how to add, and they will not know how to add with the calculator either.
My point being is that there are a number of prerequisites besides hardware for technology to be applied in education. I get annoyed at the concept that technology is something that spontaneously does stuff for people. It doesn't.
Americans are already behind the most of the world in basic education like math, science, and history. I believe that all aspects of education should be reexamined. The feel good, "I'm confident in my ignorance", attitude simply cannot last much longer, unless we start outsourcing that too.
I'm not a US citizen so I can't really speak from experience, but the perception we get from the US education is that it's not very "high standard". By which I personally perceive it as not "in depth". For example history: as far as I can tell, you guys get mostly US history and some european history. Which is mostly limited to facts and names and not really the "bigger picture". The same thing applies to math imho: several US exchange students went over here and it turned out that belgian high school students learn Math paradigms which are taught at college in the US.
Besides, what's the deal with classes like "woodshop" or "household"?
So, even as technology is used in the US educational system, I don't think it would create any added value to the information. Worst case scenario: information taught through powerpoint and multimedia systems is less "rich" or "dense" then information found in textbooks.
That doesn't address the question at all, namely why students don't use the available computers.
I think the reason is very simple: people like to work in private (thus not at school), with things arranged in their own way (thus at home), and with their own software and settings (which school computers often don't allow).
Whether the computers at school run Linux or Windows, and if they cost three hundred or three thousand dollars is completely irrelevant, except, of course, in cas the computers at school have some software that students need but is expensive for them to have at home. And guess what? Those are the cases where you do see students using the computers at school.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
One computer for every three students? How did they ever think that many computers would help with the children's education?
Ridiculous quote:
Jena Haggith, one of Hansen's students last school year, said she preferred his use of technology for lessons over textbooks. "When I read from a textbook, I get so bored, so I don't know what they're saying,"
But how much time in lessons is spent reading the textbook? 5%, perhaps 10%. Hardly a justification for spending so much money. Also, the ability to read and comprehend dense factual text is a useful skill - how are these kids going to cope in the real world where everything isn't broken down into bite-size multimedia presentations?
But it gets even funnier:
But, he said, students perk up when technology is involved. "They're into computers, and they're into what computers can do," he said.
No, they're perking up because they know they won't have to do any work for the rest of the lesson because the teacher will be too busy troubleshooting to keep an eye on the kids
The best and the brightest are no longer culled from America only
Er...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
well please take into account that excessive technologisation distracts students! with a simple textbook - everything is nice and clear, with a computer - not so sure.
I still can not imagine e.g. math classes with computers - although numerical methods are somehow important - the true understanding comes from paper and pencil.
I have attended one of the best schools in my city at the time. We had only old craps - not realy computers - x286. There were no computers used in classes apart from "computer sciences". When I see young people massively distracted by "technologization" I think this is NOT the right way.
Of course - students MUST know how to use a computer. And do it well. But please - does every lecture now has to be computer-aided now?
best regards - michal (totaly distracted)
I'd say that the days of closed book tests are gone. It's open book tests, and part of the skill of the student is to learn to distill what is relevant from a dizzyinr choice of information sources
This is from the teacher side of me - I teach after-school classes, and I'm working on a degree in education.
The teachers treat lab periods as if they were days off. They sit the kids down, turn on the software, and let the kids zone out. There' no interaction from the teacher; the "Compass" software just does the work.
And what's worse is that the software doesn't teach concepts or methods. It teaches for the TAKS (Texas Assesment of Knowledge and Skills standardized test). The kids go from grade to grade, knowing nothing, learning nothing except how to click the X.
What happened to true educational software, like Number Munchers, Oregon Trail, and Carmen Sandiego? These actually made the kids think, do quick maths in their head (I've not met a kid outside of middle school who can pull this now), and they sure didn't teach for any standardized tests.
Now to the IT side - I manage the school LAN, which is about 250 Windows machines (ranging from Pentiums at 200MHz running Windows 98SE to quad-Xeon boxes running XP for my gaming - gotta be a BOfH) and 100 or so Macs (PPC 603e and up).
School districts, as you know, are massive organizations, easily on par with major corporations, and the different divisions require different outfits - for example, while every machine in the district I work at is loaded with Windows and Office as a base, the different levels get different software. Elementary gets Compass and a bunch of programs funded by grants (Orchard, Type to Learn, Lexia - basically total crap that's a pain both client and server side); middle and high get Plato (a version of Compass for the older kids) and development tools and editors in the labs (Dreamweaver/Fireworks/Photoshop, Codewarrior, a bunch of compilers and apps), and the admins get specialized database software to do attendance, check grades, create "student profile databases," and whatnot.
At my campus, we've got 60 laptops for the kids, in addition to four computer labs (60 Macs, 60 Dells), plus the requisite two student machines per classroom (which are never used). On top of that, we have campuswide wireless-G coverage (and that's impressive, since we're a brick-and-mortar school built in the mid-50s), quad-Xeon machines for me and the resident DBA/lunchroom and bus monitor, and bloody flat panel monitors left and right on dual-head cards. Finally, we're getting 30 more laptops on the Beaumont Grant soon, and we don't know how we're going to fit those in, since the laptops are rarely used as is.
The teachers don't know jack about their software, they surf the Web and get infected left and right since we're not allowed to install Firefox, and we're bogged down with crap software that we have to install. On top of that, the admins took the dedicated LANtech away from the building (I'm a contractor, brought in to work on a grant's machines, and the building principal - my old childhood principal, to boot - extended my contract to cover the rest of the campus, with no extra pay) and they're trying to centralize things at a helpdesk _with no remote management software_, all in the name of saving money.
You can't pull stuff like that when you have over 50 schools to deal with, a shrinking tech services department (they laid off five techs at the end of the last school year - my boss was one of them), and a staff that knows next to nothing about the systems there except how to check their mail.
Schools are losing their direction with technology, and they need to seriously reexamine what they're doing with it - both for the IT staff's sake and the kids.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
I'm sorry, but I'm fairly certain that these school districts have football teams along with swimming pools, etc. I know of a local school (Manheim Central) who prides itself on having a killer football team. God knows what would happen if one day they didn't have one. My guess is that the funding of the team always manages to get through.
I wonder if these same schools are struggling for a tech budget while sports are funded this way. That would be the first question I'd have for the Racine district (in the article).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against sports in school per se, BUT... I AM against funding non-academic activities over academic ones. What are the priorities for funding here?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Computers in school cannot be fully usefull until they are universal. 1 to 4 ratio ONLY at school is no good. Teachers have to be able to assume this tool is available at a certain level to all of their students just as they demand pencil, paper and 3 ring binders etc.... Untill that is the case they will ALWAYS be a secondary, extra or just plain extraneus paperweights in the classroom.
To those who say computers can't be usefull in classes such as lit, history or music etc.... Hell Make a wiki for a lit class dealing with a work and have assignments for differnt students to write various portions and make them all responsible for comming up with a final wiki on the subject and continue to build these through the year. History could work much the same way with students exploring their discussions and building timelines of events and posting and responding to each others thoughts. Music... hell don't just study music theory, break out something like Garage band and some instruments and start putting it to USE as your learning it and record, edit it, produce something and distribute the end result to the rest of the school if it sounds good. Not just trying to make music but to put each theory to work and build a piece of music unique to each classes talents while exploring all of the various elements of theory covered by the class.
To date the focus has been on having computers and that is all wrong. They need to function the same as pen and paper. As a fundamental tool for exploring and learning the subject at hand. All of you who are slashdotoholics who say give it the ole tried and true pen and paper deal tell me that the web isn't the first place you turn when you want to find out some new piece of information. If the info isn't there it will certainly point you in the right direction. Why would this not work for a classroom?
People who say computers can't be better than the way its been done before are the same folks that once said printed words were no substitute for oral tradition and for all I know the ones that said oral tradition was for wussies who couldn't figure it out all on their own.
Computers are better at the collection and sharing of information than older methods. THATS WHY WE USE THEM. This will make them powerful and ESSENTIAL tools for education if people would get their thumbs out of their asses about it. They are not substitutes for teachers and never will be. But as that science teacher so ably demonstrates. They are valuable tools in the right hands.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Just being able to cram more material in a bunch of bulletted lists, and flip pages quickly, doesn't mean people will understand more.
1. Humans aren't like a hard drive, that you can just dump megabytes per second into. The human mind has actually very limited bandwidth, as such, but is actually a sort of a pipeline, with buffers behind buffers. Any one overflowing will mean information being discarded.
Wisecracks like "but then I suppose most students aren't going to complain about courses having less content" are good and fine, but miss the point by a mile. It's lazy students complaining about too much content, it's students leaving the class with actually _less_ content they actually assimilated if you just overflow them. And I think it's a _very_ valid complaint if I wasted an hour and ended up none the wiser.
When giving someone new information, they also have to assimilate it in some (preliminary) form. The speed limit for writing on a blackboard and the mere exercise of their transcribing it by hand into a notebook serves just that purpose: gives them a chance to at least move that stuff into the medium term buffer before more stuff is dumped upon them.
Just flipping through lists after lists is just a way to overflow their short term buffer, at which point almost everything after that is just wasted. You could just as well call it a day after that point and let them go home, because they'll be just as wise at the end of it.
That doesn't just apply to classrooms, btw. Even when studying at home, the best thing you can learn about _how_ to learn, is to recognize when you're having a full buffer and take a 10 second break. My grandma taught me that, and frankly, it's been the best advice I've ever got by far.
2. Teaching/learning is also a question of motivation and attention. How much you're left with after class isn't just a function of how fast the teacher could plough through bulleted lists, but how well he/she could hold your attention.
If just giving you the maximum content in the minimum of the teacher's time, all classes would consist of a 10 second, "Read chapters 3, 4 and 5 until next week." Heck, you could even dispense with that. Just give 'em a big list of books at the beginning of the year, don't see them again until the exam. There is a reason why schools and universities don't work like that.
The teacher's role is in a sense also a social one. He/she is there not just as someone to regurgitate information which you could have gotten just as well from a book, but also (or even more importantly) as someone to keep your attention through that.
3. Look at the effect Powerpoint presentations serve at work. Much as management _loves_ colourful powerpoint slides, I've yet to be even in a single meeting where they actually helped. You either end up with far more questions and basically get slowed down to the actual bandwidth that people can digest, and even lower (losing all that speed advantage), or you end up with everyone forgetting everything that was in those slides before even the meeting is over.
I don't know exactly _what_ it is about Powerpoint slides, presumably the 1 and 2 effects, but maybe something else too. But they seem to act more like attention dissipators than something to help focus and memorize and understand. Things that would have been (and occasionally _have_ been) by having someone doing it interactively at the blackboard, seem to go in one ear and out the other when a Powerpoint slideshow is involved.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In the district where I go to school, we have 2 types of computers: laptops (with wireless access) and thin clients (in each classroom).
Since I've been in high school all we've done is work in Microsoft Word, which is, of course, expensive, but is also 'the standard'.
I would prefer to have to actually learn to think for myself, not be told 'click the little button with the B on it'; I'm not a sheep, folks; I don't know about my peers, but I should not have to 'learn to use technology' when I already know more about it than the people charged with taking care of it.
It seems entirely ridiculous to me to equate using word with learning about technology. Many school districts (read: 'mine') needlessly spend thousands of dollars a year to buy new technology, and it just sits there unused. All because the district wanted to, essentially, keep up with the district next door. Having new technology does NOT mean that it's being used.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
It seems confused. Are computers used well in the classroom or not? I wish the article would make a judgement! It didn't really make a point; it appears to me unless computers fill a void that otherwise exists in education, there is no need for them to be used. And, if as one teacher interviewed in the article suggests, it is true that not using technology to assist conducting lessons would be easier, let it be. An engaging teaching style will transcend all whiz-bang computer technology.
Like the saying goes, "If you can't do something, you can't do it with a computer."
If we had schools capable of turning out well-educated young adults with a firm grounding in the fundamentals of rational thought and at least a working knowledge of math, language, history, and science, well, the absence of computers in the classroom and whatnot wouldn't be significant.
And if all you have are schools turning out masses of people so ignorant that they actually think "Left Behind" is a good series of books, the presence of computers in the classroom isn't going to matter one good goddamn.
Larry Cuban's 2001 Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom
If you can read you can do anything.
It's about quality education. Schools can throw all the technology they want at kids, but computers alone won't give children an education.
Teachers must be properly trained to use this technology to its fullest. I'm afraid that won't realistically happen until the next generation of teachers emerges that has grown up all their lives around computers.
Computers should never come at the cost of student-teacher time, nor at the cost of fewer teachers. Nor, should schools compete with each other as to "who has the bigger, faster" setup. If it isn't actually improving education, it is worthless.
Saving schools money is good, as long as those savings are going to improve the educational experience, and not back into the budget for someone's pet project.
I remember my high school trying out computers. We only touched them when we all had to do something, and take turns, etc. The computer was a glorified typewriter, and the students were still required to hand write drafts, for instance. (I cheated, and scribbled on my notebook until a PC opened up.) But, I was patient. I knew most of the kids had never even used a computer. I, and the geeks I hung out with, averaged 2-4 at home. Still, I would have loved a school laptop back then. I finally bought my own in college.
College was different, but not much. I was more of the outsider for having it, as most of my peers had regular pen and paper. Then again, most were asking for printouts of my delicately constructed lecture outlines to compare to. While others left for the library to do a short paper, I was already half done before leaving class. Of course, I was left to my own faculties come test time.
But, that is another problem. A student who doesn't know how to work without a computer may be at a disadvantage at the college level, much as a student who doesn't know how to work with a computer is at a severe disadvantage. I remember the same debate over calculators being introduced into the SAT. Some college professors (not all, or even a majority) do not care what you work best with. They'll plop down a blue pad in front of you, and tell you to put all your fancy gadgets away.
Did computers help me in school? Not really. I didn't really care about education until college, and what mattered there was choosing a smaller school where I had lots of one on one time with professors when I needed it. They could have given away iPods and iBooks, and whatever else colleges are giving away now. Take them in exchange for 100+ student classes? No way!
As a side note, while I think moving some text to computers is good, I think I would be wearing some very thick glasses if I had to have read Anne Frank on a laptop.
I8-D
...is the sorriest excuse for a newspaper in North America. People with IQs above 13 who live in southeastern Wisconsin get one of the Chicago papers or another out-of-state pub (NYT or even -gasp- USA Today).
I have never made it through 3 pages of the Journal without seeing either typos, inaccurate information, or blatant gerrymandering of facts.
If the Journal said that all students would get free laptops, I'd invest in an abacus company and prepare for the Golden Age of Retro Math.
I work in K-12 and my wife is a teacher. After assisting her in grading math exams, where the students were not allowed calculators, most of the students failed. The next week she gave a similiar exam and allowed calculators and surprisingly enough the same percentage that failed the week before passed this exam. During parent/teacher conferences many parents were upset that the students were not allowed to use calculators, but they are only memorizing what the symbols and numbers are, they really have no comprehension of what they mean.
This whole idea of covering topics and material just to pass some state exam so that the school can keep their funding is a waste of time.
The same goes for technology, some of the school districts in my area have computers and technology just to say they have them. They are rarely used or are only used as a "reward".
As much as my livelyhood depends on technology in schools, I'd rather they got back to basics and be out of a job than to keep seeing these students fumbling along.
Just make sure you don't have some bozo that sells
$EXPENSIVE_GADGET at a public sale for a 10th of what it's worth, and has only a few hundred of them.
I would contend that proficiency with "technology" will come naturally if used as a tool to do another task.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
I wish shop and home ec were required in my school district. Because im a guy and i dont know how to do half that stuff. But i am taking AP Computer Science (Java programing II) and "Computer Networking (CCNA 2)
as soon as I get divorced, will you marry me?
It isn't that I don't like to work near other people, it's that I don't like to work it near...a lot of other people. Uh, did I coward that? Ah crap.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
...is to have bullet points then yes, it is better to do it on the blackboard. Unless you happen to be that math professor who loved using double subscripts (x_1_a anyone?), or that russian guy who could need a spellchecker. But I've also experienced a class that was made *much* better using PowerPoint. Why? Great visual illustrations, sidetab which made sure you got the structure/overview right, and bulletpoints coming up by enter presses as if he was writing, paced at a sane speed. And he managed to speak around the bullet points, not just "And here we see [bulletpoint 1], [bulletpoint 2] and [bulletpoint 3]". Which goes to prove that a good teacher can make a good lecture even better, I guess. I admit that's an exception to the rule, but I wouldn't take powerpoint as definite proof that the lecture will suck.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In most American schools, "if the student wants to be, they will be." The question is simply one of desire on the part of students and also their parents to some degree. The value of learning has to be instilled early on. America's biggest problem is a culture (i'll refer to it as the "ghetto" culture) that exists in neighborhoods and schools and schools that actually discourages learning, for a variety of reasons. Even most of the jock culture doesn't view intelligence negatively persay, unless it comes at the expense of social and athletic ability. Basically, in these places, the community and parents place little to negative value on education. In these schools and communities, smost tudents and parents don't demand challenging classes; thus these classes aren't offered because there simply isn't sufficient student demand to meet them. That's why US schools score much better on these international tests when we excluse our very worst schools. There is far more variance in educational quality in the US than in most developed or partly developed countries. Though this isn't a total surprise, given the the generally greater ethnic and geographic spread in the US.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
The best tech for schools is already given us by god. The bible is simple, low-power, portable, and standard. All this vanity, pretending we can create our own miracles with science, is a waste of time. Better to send our tax money to the church, where it can really help us get to Paradise. Our time in this mortal life should be spent in obedient reflection, and killing heathens, doing god's will in sending everyone to the eternal afterlife we're destined to get.
--
make install -not war
And the only software on them was WinXP and Works (no Office...just Microsoft Works). B$, isn't it?
On top of that, they don't keep the computers up...that's our IT guys' job.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
Forget computers. The pinnacle of classroom technology in Oklahoma is a Laddie pencil & a Big Chief tablet. Next year, we're gonna get a mimeograph machine. Yep, everything is looking up in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is a lot like a post nuclear society. Pockets of high tech surrounded by wasteland. You have to have an SUV so you can drive on the roads. Yes, you can have that offroad driving experience without ever having leave town.
Best of all, you don't have to send your jobs offshore. Oklahoma is also like a third world country. You don't have to send the jobs that far. You don't have to pay them that much. And they speak slightly better English than them there gosh dern feriners.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Your reply touches upon something fundamental about how and why we learn. Whether learning is habituation, memorization or due to more narrow interests, we as a community are required to grow a future workforce.
Richard Murnane and Frank Levy (The New Division of Labor, Princeton U. Press) discuss the challenges we face in building this workforce. To describe the skills that future kids will need, they use the terms "expert thinking" and "complex communication."
Technology-enhanced schools definitely have a role to play, as much of future work will depend upon technologies. On the other hand, the debate about "Technology" often focuses on access (see many posts above) rather than method rather than pedagogical implementation. Indeed, our schools are hell-bent against the sort of innovation in teaching that's required for an effective workforce.
And in response to your post, computers are adept at containing the overwhelming quantities of information that we simply can't consume. Therefore, very much in line with Profs. Levy and Murnane, I believe we have to teach kids how to *think with* and *communicate with* the technologies as part of our school curriculum. There's a much richer send of tinkering and playing inherant in thinking and communicating with; for example, the computer is often a plaything (let's play a game!) and not a play tool (let's use a computer to explore a leaf!) and no, instant messager doesn't count as complex communication =>
I think you're getting at something important here - the use of computers in education isn't just a matter of the computer (hardware or software) or getting them into a classroom. Computers by themselves do nothing, they require training for teachers not just in basic computer use, but in how to use educational software and incorporate it into their teaching. It also takes training to help the kids learn to use the computers and the software (possibly requiring less resources than to train the teachers). Computers also require a support system - techs to install them, admins to keep the network up, etc. This is a massive investment!
It makes the local headlines to say you've bought laptops for every kid in the school - but did they also spend on training and tech support?
Innovation in tutoring software is going to come through advanced assessment schemes. For instance, software that simply tells me if I'm right (or wrong) in my answers is, IMO, quite passe.
Instead, software could explore the relationships between incorrect answers - for example, is the student forgetting to carry a number in some situations? Or, if the student arriving at incorrect answers, what other commonalities do those incorrect answers share?
Great programming and careful attention to the learners' quirks can pull some of these guideances together. More, however, is needed to understand how this can 1) be done easily through code and 2) make a difference in a learners' entrenched, "buggy" pattern of finding solutions. Best of luck to your friend! Please, innovate!
Todd Oppenheimer's book should be required reading for anyone interested in this topic. While there is some anecdotal evidence that technology can help students, the statistical research on this has shown that these are either (a) temporary gains from encountering a new teaching style, or (b) dog-and-pony shows devoted to gifted students that could learn just as well from other sources.
The cost-benefit ratio of technology in schools, at least as it is used now, is highly questionable.
citking writes "The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is running parts one and two of a three-part series dealing with the future of books in America's schools. Part one asks whether books in schools is merely a fad or, as some may argue, a necessity in today's book-driven society. It raises some interesting points, such as the contrasting the wide availability of computers in schools to the generally limited use among students. Part two goes in-depth about the books' cost, citing the dependence of grants that are disappearing and the effects of reducing library staff. For part three you will have to tune in the the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tomorrow."
My point is that technology is a tool. It is a tool that is used in just about every aspect of adult life. We need computers in the schools if we want our children to grow up to be technological-minded.
They may not be used to their fullest capacity by schools today, but that is because teachers are not accustomed to teaching in a tech rich environment and students are not accustomed to learning in a tech rich environment.
However, three or four generations of kids from now, the posted statement will appear as silly as my version of the same statement, as technology in schools will be as ubiquitous as books are today.
I am sure I will be in the minority here on slashdot, but I strongly feel computers in the classroom only distract students from learning.
Computers are an END, a topic to learn about in high school to prepare students for a high tech world.
I saw my first computer when I was 13 and I became an expert, writing interpreters in 6502 assembly language among other things, before I graduated high school. I was old enough to benefit from exposure to computers.
In grammar school the computers are used as babysitters or play-rewards and don't, in themsevles, have any educational value.
Perhaps someone will point out an example of a teacher who really incorporates computers into an interesting and useful curriculum, but that is the exception not the rule.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I am a high school teacher and from what I've seen in 10 years of public education is that technology is far more a crutch than anything. It's like "A week in the lab, yeah!!" We are consumed with powerpoint (which should be banned from schools along with guns, knives drugs, and rap music) and making pretty things that look good but lack content. I did my MA thesis on writing and technology and lo and behold, not only do comptuers not improve writing, it actually hurts it by interrupting the pre-writing and totally eliminating the rewrite.
They have their place, as I teach the AP Comp Sci class, and will expanding the computer programming classes soon. However, as a history and econ teacher first, reading, writing, and analytical skill suffer.
I have an MA in Ed. Tech, so I'm no Luddite. Computers have their uses, but most often they're a crutch, or worse, used improperly. Definitely have a tech curriculum, but integrating it into other disciplines, no way.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
There is no need to teach programming skills to every student anymore than there is no need to teach every student how to draw blood. It is a specific job skill for a specific type of career, not a skill needed for life in general. How many nurses need to know how to use a debugger or database theory?
If there are enough students interested in a class for specific job skills then go ahead and offer it but to claim that everyone needs them is ridiculous.
Instead of worrying about teaching them how to use a GUI (which might be irrelevant in a few years) I'd much rather see kids learn a truly valuable skill that will help them no matter what job they end up in, such as financial (i.e. handling credit, mortages) or communications (i.e. speaking to groups) skills.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
When I went to high school, there was no question about whether computers should be used in education. They used computers in classes where computers were the subject -- for example, computer science, typing, database management (as part of a business class). In all other subjects where kids weren't taught how to use a computer, computers were not used.
Simple.
In college, computers were not used in class at all -- and I was a computer science major. Computers were found only in the lab (and in the library, but those were strictly for writing and printing papers). In the classroom, teachers taught with books.
#1. It is Federal Law that students be proficient with technology before high school (by 8th grade). Schools must comply.
#2. The paradigm of computers has changed. Rather than WWII ideas of giant computational devices, we now see that computers are also a tool that allows us to collect, organize, understand, and make new observations on information. These technology literacy elements of information literacy are absolutely essential for students to learn. We are in an age where as a culture we know so much, but as individuals we still are in our infancy of being able to really absorb all this information.
#3. Good teaching is goal based. Putting kids in front of the computer while the teacher checks homework is not teaching at all. It's a horrible practice and any teacher doing it should be reprimanded. If the teacher isn't really trying to teach anything, if the teacher isn't assessing student's ongoing work, if the teacher isn't actively helping students toward the goal of the lesson, then the teacher is not doing any good at all (and probably harm instead).
We tried a technology program at my old high school and it failed rather miserably. Technology has its uses in certain classes, but for the majority of the high school curriculum the laptops that we used were ineffective, completely useless, or too much of a liability to be used. The program lasted four years where students were required to purchase a laptop for use at school from the school.
The major problems:
(a) cost. The laptops averaged about $2100 for the hardware and software (Windows XP Home and Microsoft Office STE). This doesn't figure in the cost of viruses, spam, etc aka the TCO.
(b) network reliability. The school network, a combination of a wired LAN and a wireless 802.11b network, had no security. You could do as you wished with only your mac address logged, and port 80 proxied. (Hint, a mac address can be forged and tools like ssh or even anonymous proxies exist.)
(c) classes. Out of the classes that I took my Senior year:
Theology
English
Photography
Discussion & Debate
African American History / Psychology
Calculus
Genetics
Botany / Statistics
and the classes I took Junior Year:
Chem II
Physics
Anatomy & Physiology / Zoology
Precalc
English
Art History / Music Appreciation
Theology
Spanish III
I could use a laptop, had I had one, in ten out of twenty classes. Laptops are ineffective in our high school mathematics curriculum below possibly precalc and possibly only with an advanced program like Maple/Mathematica/Matlab which I'm not entirely sure are beneficical in Calc III at my university. Laptops were ineffective in introductory spanish classes (even banned due to translators), and not powerful enough to do advanced manipulations for Photography.
For our science department, which was about 95% lab-based, laptops were a major liability and we used software and hardware that was custom-written and constructed by my teacher for Apple IIe computers. Putting a $2000 laptop in a lab where we are using HCl is a really bad idea. Destroying a (maybe) $5 Apple II isn't so bad, but a $2000 computer is another story. Laptops also do not aid in dissection (though they very well could have, if we could escape things like formaldehyde and sharp objects, at least with the correct software), nor do they aid in basic measurement.
The classes where laptops were useful were Statistics, English-based language courses (not including Debate, where laptops would be a hinderance in addition to not being allowed) and social science courses.
(d) software (related to classes). Most classes did not have special software available to distribute to students. Licensing fees were large and the faculty was not always trained in the most up to date, computer-based solutions. For example, there are several statistics packages for PCs, including use of Excel, but to my knowledge, these capabilities were not used.
(e) downtime. Hardware failure or software failure (viruses, worms, buggy software) could cause a student to be disconnected from classes that use laptops for weeks at a time while repairs are made.
A laptop program may work somewhere else, but I have not seen it happen, or be close to working at my high school. I hope it was just a bad example.
Computers are not the end answer for education in schools. Computers are a tool and nothing more and should be used as such. The wrong thing to do is to substitute computer software for teachers.
Giving a calculator to someone who doesn't understand math doesn't help them. Using this type of logic, giving someone a saw and hammer makes them a master carpenter.
My girlfriend (I know...a Slashdot reader with a gf. What's the world coming to?) is a high school math teacher who just started teaching in a new district in CA. She likes to call the district technology dude a "technology nazi" because evidently his stance is "you will not get any technology in your classrooms until you can prove that the kids need it". This has already caused me to go on raving debates left and right...
One coworker says his girlfriend's father (I think that's how it went) did a study on kids and multi-media and showed that kids actually did BETTER using old-school methods of using paper and such rather than watching multi-media programs. I rebutted that I wasn't talking about multi-media per se but technology in general. Used wisely, technology (and "technology" is a VERY broad term) is just another tool to help kids (or anyone for that matter) learn. Especially these days with the MTV generation, attention spans shortened, multi-tasking quite prevalent, etc...a computer can be much more engaging than other tasks not using technology.
I find it a bit concerning that administrations can take this stance. How do they expect to prepare our kids for the outside world when they aren't exposed to "outside world" tools? If that particular teacher doesn't use technology effectively, it'll show in their student's grades. If they do, it'll be reflected. But to make such a blanket statement that technology is useless to kids is pretty damn scary if you ask me.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Maybe people should rethink the idea of schools!
Why send your children to an institution whose primary purpose is to train them how to obey authority so that they will not disturb the status quo and eagerly run off to war for you? Unless, of course, that is your goal.
If your goal is to educate your children, enable them to learn, allow them to experience and interact with the real world, don't lock them up in a building all day behind a desk under the guise of teaching them.
Our town has one technician for (at least) three schools. Result? The maintenance for our systems is very bad. For example...
...Of course, it's not the tech's fault; there's too much for one guy to do. But the systems need to be kept running to be any use. Increase the tech budget!
Near the end of last year, we were assigned to give a ~3-5 minute presentation to the class. We also had to do the research in school. I spent the research time fixing the computers and scavenging mouse balls to replace those that had been stolen; I did the presentation off the top of my head.
Many of the school's computers regularly corrupt floppies and cause great inconvenience to those of us who need to transfer files. Without a USB drive, you're screwed.
Early last year, one computer was demanding a BIOS password to start. For weeks.
WHY are we still taking classes that are based around memorizing facts? (Music History - huge culprit!)
Factual knowledge is a commodity. The magic is in comprehension. Why did I pay some old guy over $100/hour to write things on the board which I then memorize, and write back to him on a test from memory?
Class needs to be about comprehension, about compromise, about learning how to solve problems and live with other people, and about living with unanswered problems.
Classes should be mostly project and discussion based, and sometimes lecture based. In all events, the class should be scripted for me (for $100/hour/student, it shouldn't be a big hardship) so that we all have a searchable record to refer to of our meetings.
I am very disappointed by what I found in what I thought was a good university. I have a feeling most universities aren't terribly different.
Powerpoint is just on a the surface of a much deeper problem.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
While I agree that in some cases we are losing the higher math/english/etc in favour of helper-technology, assuming that a certain knowledge of technology is not an important part of education would be a serious mistake.
Technology is pervading today's lifestyles. No, you might not need to know how to program, etc, but skills such as typing and/or word-processing are becoming increasingly important in today's world. Email and IM are in many ways replacing letters as a long-distance communication medium. Most workplaces use computers at least to some extent. Hell, even the bigger grocery stores have little machines you can use to check prices on.
Nowadays there really is a lot more to learn. Basic math skills should not be forgotten, nor english skills, but I think that there's also a growing place for technology for schools that should be better integrated alongside the core skills as well.
You might think this ludicrous... after all math and english are important right? But look back not too far and you'll see that your "basic" skills of today 9such as reading, writing, and mathematics) were actually the domain of the elite at one point in time as well.
I find that less geeks nowadays (and certainly less non-geeks) play games such as chess nowadays. Certainly chess has a place as a portable intellectual game, but elements of strategy-type PC games etc have their appeal. As these games become more mainstream, I wonder if we'll see lunchtime 'tournaments' being shown on lunchtime displays one day, to ultimately take their place among school "sports."
I know in Korea and some other countries gaming as a competetive skill is certainly taken much more seriously... can anyone from there comment on its place in society/schools/etc?
I am sure similar has been said before, but I will type it again.
As a Library media tech for a high school let go for "lack of funds" there is no reason to keep buying tech and building labs etc if you can not afford the upkeep or the people to staff them.
The school has a great library, closed half the week because they can't staff it, yet they are building a cafeteria add on to the gym, put in a new statue of the school mascot, and a great LED announcement board is in the student quad.....
"before joining them at tables stacked with laptops and fetal pigs reeking of preservatives."
I hope they realize how much bacon they could gotten from those pigs had they been raised to maturity
I think the setup in my HS was nice, about two dozen computers in the library, a nice locked down wired network and another three to four dozen in the computer classroom. There were also 6 in the chemistry and physics labs used to enter the results of our experiments, check for errors and make sure we understood a concept, at least a little. For any type of classroom demonstration there was the blackboard and overhead projector, there's not much you can't do with an overhead projector and a few transparencys, they're just swapping that with powerpoint on a big monitor.
There's no need to be wasting money giving every kid a laptop. There have been enough posts to prove that, the kids will just try to bypass any security and use it to play games and use IM instead of paying attention in class.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
As a technology worker in a local community college, I see lots of potential for advancement in education. Thankfully, my supervisor trusts me implicitly to make good decisions on technology. We are moving to open source solutions for the majority of our online learning, and it's looking like upper management is begining to see that providing courses to students when it's convenient to them (ie, distance and mediated learning) really is cost effective.
Think of it this way: We're out of classroom space. We can't cram more students into existing classes, and we can't build a new building due to space concerns. Commiting to a lease on another property is not feasible at this time, so we're left trying to find "creative" solutions. That's my job. We've got virtual classrooms that let instructors meet with their students online, and the scaling costs are significantly reduced compaired to brick and mortar classes.
On the other hand, we have lots of instructors who feel threatened by this, and it's tough to work with them.
This tagline brought to you by 1500 monkeys in just under 17 years.
"Technology" is a tool. A means to an end. It is not an end unto itself.
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]
I haven't tuned in to anything from Milwaukee since Laverne killed Shirley.
If school districts looked at switching to OSS (like Linux, OpenOffice, etc), they could save money...of course that will never happen since M$ will simply "donate" copies of Windows and Office.
Just sad really.
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
Read The Flickering Mind by Todd Oppenheimer for a detailed analysis of the problem of technology in the classroom, especially in K-8 classrooms.
Kids don't need to be spending their time learning fucking powerpoint or word. They need to be learning the fundamentals.
There's a reason Japanese schools have stuck with chalkboards and abacus's (abacii?)... they work.
This will make a bunch of tech companies and consultants a lot of money once they convince school boards that this technology is "vital" for kids' education, but in the end the kids won't benefit one damn bit.
Anyone remember the NEC e-Rate scam last year? Same shit, different year.> I'm not a US citizen so I can't really speak from experience, but the perception we get from the US
... you guys get mostly US history and some european history.
> education is that it's not very "high standard".
I am a US citizen, and I can tell you that there is, unfortunately, a great deal of truth in this perception.
> For example history:
True. Some time (relatively little) spent studying US history is mandatory, with about one year of "world history". The precise content of the world history component seems to be dictated by the current fashion in education. In the past, this was almost entirely Western European history, no depth. There have been various requirements to broaden it to cover the rest of the world, while no allowing additional (mandatory) time.
It is -very- definitely possible to get a broader exposure to history, but it depends on the willingness of the student or the student's parents to take appropriate "electives".
I got a great deal of additional exposure, but I -like- history. I still study history, just for fun.
> Which is mostly limited to facts and names and not really the "bigger picture".
Also unfortunately true in many cases. Many schools do much more, many do the minumum required. But you can definitely get through with just names and dates.
> The same thing applies to math imho: several US exchange students went over here and it turned out
> that belgian high school students learn Math paradigms which are taught at college in the US.
Unfortunately very true. Again, the students -can- get exposure. I had advanced algebra in elementary school, advanced geometry and trigonometry in middle school, and advanced placement calculus and physics in high school. But I could have gotten a high school diploma, if I chose, with only minimal exposure to elementary algebra, and a fraction of the time spent studying math at all.
> Besides, what's the deal with classes like "woodshop" or "household"?
Most schools have courses called, when I was there "industrial arts" and "home economics". These give kids a basic exposure to practical industrial crafts (wood and sheet metal working, welding, electronics, several types of printing, etc.) and basics of running a home (childcare, cooking, sewing, basic home bookkeeping, etc). The idea is preparation for work and marriage.
In some ways, they are a holdover from the 1950s "Father Knows Best" idea of America. However, in part it is due to a relatively classless society.
In many parts of Europe, the quality in-depth education you refer to was only relatively recently available to the lower classes, and in some places is -still- kept from them (as a practical matter). American schools have been much more open to the lower classes. Our typical school day and year is largely a holdover from the need to adjust the school day for children living on working family farms.
> So, even as technology is used in the US educational system, I don't think it would create
> any added value to the information.
At the low end it doesn't. However, you need to know that a poor education is -not- a typical situation in public schools, with better educations available in expensive private schools. Many public schools offer -exceptionally- good educations, and most allow and assist a motivated student to get a fine education. And many of the finest private schools are small church schools, with very small enrollments, and a great deal of assistance for low-income families.
Even at the low end, most teachers take their jobs seriously. They can't prevent students who will not learn from abusing the system, but I strongly doubt that situation is different in most European countries. But teachers in the US do try to encourage the students to take advantage of the opportunities available.
There isn't "one true picture" of education in America. The mere fact that America is republic of 50 largely autonomous states that is collectively several times larger than most European countries makes it impossible to have a single valid picture.
A bad one. Let's see. Two countries with education systems producing excellent technology players: India and China.
How much do computers factor in their school and daily lives as children?
Or is it simply hard work on the basics...?
If students are bored by text, shouldn't we improve their attention spans?
Reply after reply seemed below seemed to reflect the worst uses of technology to prove their anecdotal points... kind of like saying your schools were bad because you remembered some coach who read the paper and cussed instead of taught. The problem is not technology but its proper execution toward learning in schools. There are many schools that let math teachers teach math and english teachers teach english and have IT teachers who teach the skills kids need to use the computers to do their work both at home and in the classroom. Back in the 90's political correctness saw one computer in every classroom! How the heck would that work? Yet our president and his whole education department poo-poo'd labs because they were too cheap to fund them. I agree with many of the open source advocates who have spoken on this topic. PXES and other Linux solutions provide inexpensive ways to bring massive numbers of inexpensive boxes to the masses of kids who need to write and calculate and problem solve. Kids don't need brand new laptops in a one-one configuration (unless they own them) when schools can be technologically rich with labs for a fraction of the cost. Our school is a recycling center for companies who donate their P-IIs and P-IIIs by the hundreds! We have over 20 labs for a school of 1800. We use DANA Palm devices for english classes. We allow students to bring in their laptops & PDAs from home. We loan out computers for kids to take home (we have a very diverse school). We are a Microsoft Academy, a RedHat Academy, a Microsoft MSDNAA, Microsoft FreshStart Program, and a CompTIA school... with both VUE & Certiport testing centers. So lots of kids get certified, lots get summer and afterschool IT Internships, and lots get to take multiple computer classes (1475 of our kids take at least ONE full time computer class in a lab daily). In addition all of our departments use computers in the class and visit our many writing labs. Yet in this "sandbox" kids have a good time, they learn alot, and they go to college in very high numbers (85+%). We have the highest rate of CIS/Engineering majors in our large district at our local colleges despite NOT being a magnet school or pre-engineering program. The main thing we do that differentiates our approach is mandate a minimum of two years of computer classes then after everyone is on the "playground", offer them the tools and the courses to progress up the ladder. That ladder includes over 37 AP courses (Newsweek rated us 300th out of 27,000+ American High Schools), and 12 Technology Majors. We have large numbers of females and minorities in our tech classes, so it is not a white mail enclave. The main thing is that we do not break any budgets doing this. We do not "Admit" only smart kids. We just execute a well-thought out program. This is a program that could be replicated just about anywhere.... No spaghetti code here. -- Eastern Eagle
First of all, parents are pushing responsibility for their children's education on to the schools. Schools just can't do it all. Ask any 1st grade teacher who reads in their class. They'll tell you that the ones who read at home with their parents read well in school. I think the same goes for math. I learned long division long before my teachers taught me. My brothers showed it to me. Education is the responsibility of the parents, not the teachers. Also, schools are taking more and more responsibility for other needs: counseling, food, clothing. Look at a school in any lower-middle class neighborhood, and ask yourself how many students eat free or reduced lunch (that's reduced from the already subsidized price). Then, ask how many eat breakfast there. I have had students who get all their food from school breakfast and school lunch. The school program just can't deal with all of these issues forever, and we aren't even done talking about character education and responsibility!
Problem 2: ...." We don't know. We aren't experts. You graduating with a 4.0 from your high school doesn't make you any more an expert than my experiences with road construction make me an expert on paving! In fact, once former teachers become administrators, even they usually forget what it's like to be in education.
Everyone who has ever sat their butts behind a desk in a public school for even 5 minutes grows up to become a self-styled Education Expert. These people are slashdot posters and congresspersons and chief executives. They all know exactly what's wrong and they complain and legislate and mandate (but no one funds it), all the time thinking they have The Answer. They don't. YOU don't. Sorry. Steve Jobs surely doesn't. Many people (like me) drive down the highway and see the construction and think, "Idiots! They are so dumb! Why don't they
Anyway, there's my rant. Maybe it isn't on topic, but really it is. We don't know. Ask some teachers. As a teacher, I think that technology is a tool and can be used or abused. Perform research on effective uses, train interested teachers in its use, then let people who know make informed decisions.
Disclaimer: I do not advocate giving teachers full authority over the purse-strings. Some kind of management is needed. I am only saying that I am sick of "experts" and irresponsible parents.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.