Interactive Learning Fails Reading Test

motivator_bob writes to tell us the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the latest craze of interactive computer software is actually hurting the education level rather than helping it. From the article: "Parents have also bought into the enthusiasm for technology, spending millions on educational computer games for their young. However, research published in the journal Education 3 to 13 has found that pupils who use interactive programs cannot remember stories they have just read because they are distracted by cartoons and sound effects."

Comments

Re:Education is not Entertainment

[DroppedPacket]

*Bzzt* Wikipedia is to be use as an entertainment device only. Any similarity between Wikipedia and real facts, living or dead, is strictly accidental.

After all, if they really were facts, you wouldn't be able to change them. :-)

Re:Hear, Hear!

[rtb61]

Yes there is no benifit in adapting new technology to learnin. Word of mouth is good enough, hell it was good enough for tens of thousands of years, yeah even hundreds of thousands of years, let alone when you add that new fangled finger painting on cave walls to the mix.

Never look to bad examples as the only possible out come. Look at the printing press it did not do a single thing for education, just look at all the pointless comics it produced.

Computers used well, will enhance education, used poorly by teachers who have no idea and don't want any idea (children who never grew up) and the results will be bad.