Slashdot Mirror
Continued Opposition To Laptops in Schools
theskeptic writes "The WSJ has an article about opposition to programs that provide laptops to 6-8th grade kids. Detractors say that the kids are wasting too much time online browsing dangerous sites, instant messaging friends, and posting to Myspace. Parents are worried that serious learning is being neglected in the quest to 'dazzle up presentations with fancy fonts instead of digging through library books.' Some parents however are 'enthusiastic laptop proponents,' one saying the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son 'master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'" Gaaah.
It sounds like the vast majority of problems that this program is encountering could be solved by a halfway competent network administrator applying some basic restrictions.
(Hey....I'm a halfway competent network administrator...where do I send my resume? ^_^)
Seriously, though, a combination of Group Policy restrictions, a firewall at the school, and perhaps the use of a content filtering product like WebSense would instantly solve about 99% of the current issues, while causing relatively few problems in return. Sure, there's going to be a few hardcore users that manage to get around the system, but I think that if the student is savvy enough to outwit the Network admin, the school guidance counselor needs to talk to him/her about the various exciting and rewarding opportunities in the field of Information Technology. After all, hacking is an education in itself...a clever sysadmin would post rewards to any student who could game his system and show his work, so the sysadmin could plug the identified security holes.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'
I need to talk to that young man. I keep getting this error when trying to compile a PowerPoint presentation:
make: *** No rule to make target `mindblowingpresentation.powerpoint', needed by `pointyhairedboss.info'
* * * * *
All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.
--Jane Wagner
Children need neither laptops nor cell phones. They need to learn the basics. Not PowerPoint!
'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'
So now he's prepared to show his friends a 15 minute slideshow about why girls have cooties?
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
In my day, we had ASR-33's and our only bulk storage was paper tape! And we were grateful!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I went to a college that required lap tops, and even in the classes where they made sense, they were either kept off by rule almost all the time, or it was a game/chat fest. I remember one military science class that had 16 of the 30 kids all playing the same Red Alert game.
Too many kids can't do basic arithmatic without a calculator (literally they can't do it anymore unless they punch it in) why are we giving 10-12 year olds more technology? I think systems for home use (with computer assignments would be a far more effective use of the money).
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
A twelve-year-old making PowerPoint slides???
Wow. When I was 12 we were learning the basics of how to write an essay, look up stuff in the library, and how to organize a paper.
PowerPoint just seems totally wrong for kids in middle school. Teach 'em the foundations, they're gonna need them. They have the whole rest of their lives to get RSI.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If you cannot read, write, or speak, what good will PowerPoint do for you?
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
I'm with them, all because of that one annoying kid who clattered his laptop keyboard way louder than necessary and wrote comments in his class notes... using *\ \* rather than /* */.
Seriously. The majority of middle school teachers assign little- to no homework these days, and most schools provide plenty of time for internet and application access during school hours. In addition, schools can make computer resources available after hours in the same way they do tutoring and other assistance for students.
So why should we be putting laptops in the hands of 12-year-olds? Isn't there a better way to spend that kind of money?
(the district I work for couldn't possibly afford something like this anyway, we're treading water thanks to Texas' lovely Robin Hood program taking 51% of our budget)
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Apart from purposes of research or computer science courses, I hesitate to say that there's even a place for ubiquitous computing in the classroom. Typing noises *are* distracting, and a good teacher can teach more than 100 computers! And, as far as electronic demonstrations replacing *real* dissections and chemistry experiments for reasons of "ethics" and "safety" - some school administrators need a good punch upside the head since the virtual world is only a poor approximation of the real one.
-b.
'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'
The only thing I remember learning about PP in high school was how to make every slide have a different animation and add typewriter sounds to every.textbox.ever.
As much as I know I'll provoke the ire of slashdot, I agree with the parents. In most classes, Jr High, high school, or even college, there is no need for the student to have a laptop. I always find that I pay more attention, take better notes, and learn more, when I'm not distracted by the electronic toy.
Sure the students should have access to a computer, and it is beneficial to have computers for some classes, but there is no reason for any student to have a computer in 6th grade math.
In addition to this 12 yrs old is not the time to be learning how to make power point presentations. Sure it is a professional skill, and valuable at some point, but I'd rather have 12 yr olds who knew who Newton or Napolean were than, 12 yr olds who were capable of doing mommies homework.
But after school started, Ms. Adam started to worry.
Ms. Adam - that's the name grandpa Simpson is going by these days?
"My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!"
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Is it so bad to oppose laptops? I oppose them (disclaimer: have no kids) in schools on the grounds that they probably provide little educational value given their costs. They are typically given (like "a computer in every classroom") as part of a fad to use the coolest new technology, irrespective of any actual benefit. This is not to say students don't need computers -- they do -- but that's what the computer lab is for. The "enthusiastic parent" referenced didn't see her child master PowerPoint skills because because he had a laptop -- that was because he had access to *a computer*. He didn't need to have it on the go to accomplish that.
I'm all for using the best available technology -- as long as it makes you better off than before.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
It used to be that parents would put their kid on their lap and teach them to read a book. These days, since most parents are too busy to be parents, the laptops are supposed to teach the kids. Go figure.
All you need to know these days...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Back in the 80's and 90's filmstrips saw widespread use because they were a convenient and "entertaining" way to get students to learn. They eventually rejected the idea because kids were in "entertainment" mode (so to speak) while watching the filmstrips and really just weren't learning anything. I've got a feeling that this would multiply 10-fold when using laptops unless the machines were designed from the ground up JUST for education and lacked the ability to do anything that wasn't "school-related."
Kids + computers = fun-and-games. These kids go home and do nothing on a computer but check e-mail, surf, chat, play games, and things of that nature. What do you think they're going to do when they're put in a classroom with a computer in front of them? I know when I was in HS and we had classes in the computer lab or library...that's all ANY of us did on them. Things like that don't change.
And before someone cries "library, school computer lab!" - you have obviously never had to deal with a parent throwing a hissy fit about their kid's homework assignment.
really says it all. The stupidity on both sides is staggering.
"Thiss iz mi Powhour pont prezentation four Engish clas".
Here we go again with "I don't have time to watch my child, so I think the teacher/school/government should." Oh my god - don't have kids if you don't want to take care of them, which, BTW, includes monitoring what they do online. If you think that in SIXTH grade, they are visiting MySpace, it is time for a spanking/time-out/grounding/to run away from home and find REAL parents. This is right up there with parents who bring babies to horror movies only to be suprised they don't enjoy the screaming and loud noises. Also in this group: Mothers Against Video Game Violence. WATCH YOUR KIDS or I will call my local social work department on you.
Usually "concerns" like this can be attributed to people that dont understand the technology. There are plenty of ways to block ports, restrict access and diable services, any half-competent sys admin can accomplish this. The benefits far outweigh the negatives if its done properly. Take the "dig thorough books" comment as an example, many times a book is checked out or there is only one reference copy, that problem is completely eliminated if the data is available online. Typing and basic computer application skills are just an added bonus.
the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation
The terms "critical professional skill" and "PowerPoint presentation" should never appear in the same sentence. PowerPoint presentations are one of the most overused and misused pieces of technology. At my current job, I have sat through 400+ slide PowerPoint presentations on more than one occasion.
What they should be teaching kids is how to quickly and effectively get their point across.
is right.
Nothing like preparing your child for middle managment. well done.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. -- Edward Tufte
See everyone? This is why US education fails: no laptops! Heard about how Asian and European kids get better educations? It's the laptops.
When I was in 3rd grade, I learned critical professional skills such as Turtle Graphics and Vic 20 Basic.
Lord knows those came in handy when I entered the job market in 1995.
When I was in grade school we has a couple of computers, and about the only thing you could do on them was programming. So we learned to program.
/. huffy about it - yu know it's true). Heck. I'd start em off with slack and the command line. Most people these days - and I mean you recent college grads - can't fix simple OS problems or resolve obvious app conflicts because *you have no idea how a computer works*. GUIs are not computers. We may as well give you toasters or washing machines. Kids will learn to work with what they've got. That's more real world than anything I know.
The parents have found out the problem with modern computers - they come out of the box with "everything you need to have fun." Heck, isn't that the whole push of Apples new commercials (except calling Windows users stupid)? Why? Because that's how you sell computers.
They need to provide dtipped down, locked down versions for education. Oh, I know, think of the children. Look, they only have 5 hours of instruction a day, they should be making the most of it, not using computers to find a way to talk with friends. Heck, there is almost no reason that students in school need access to the internet. I didn't have access to more than the school library for papers, and did just fine. We're not trying to get these kids to do useful research, and we're not trying to teach them to be secretaries and middle managers - we're teaching them how to learn.
I say give them linux. It doesn't run anything that teens like without major hacking work (don't get all
Oh, and get of my lawn, you young whippersnappers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Giving kids pen and paper allows them to write love notes to each other and draw pornographic things, news@11.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I am also a laptop owner, college graduate and full-time nerd. Hell, I even think we should use less paper. Despite all of that, I am an outspoken opponent of laptops in the classroom.
As a teacher/professor, you are charged with getting through to the students. Helping them understand the material involves interacting with them. I can't fathom how a teacher could be expected to do that in front of 30 kids who are staring intently at the computer screen on their desk and not at the teacher. This lack of eye contact and interaction cannot be good for the educational process. I've seen it in action: it's tough to get through to kids sometimes and giving each one a laptop is not going to help.
Also, slightly less important, but still worth noting is how crappy my hand-writing has become since I started using a computer on a daily basis (this happened for me in 1994 or 1995). I've mostly forgotten how to write in cursive, my signature is a joke and when I do have to write something it is almost entirely non legible.
Computers are really great. With access to the internet in particular, you've got a wealth of knowledge (and lies and opinionations) at your fingertips. There are valuable computer skills that can be learned (programming, graphic design, even powerpoint, etc.), however, I don't feel that incorporating computer usage into every class is practical or useful. A notebook makes a hell of a lot more sense in a chemistry lab than a laptop... unless you set it on fire. Actually, the computer is not great set on fire either, so I'll strike that last comment.
When I was in school, note-passing was all the rage. It was the way that the students had come up with to communicate with each other (about things that should be dealt with outside of school) without the teachers knowing. With a classroom full of kids that aren't looking at you and all staring at their laptops, you can bet that many of them will be doing the modern equivalent of note-passing: myspace, IM, etc.
Let the little brats take notes in a notebook.
calling all destroyers
/.'ers are usually quite homogenous in their opinions, but usually they like to argue over the finer points to hating Microsoft. But the response to this article so far has been a resounding monotonous whine.
Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
Critics continue to argue that paper should be banned from schools, as it has been used by students to read "Playboy" magazine, pass notes to each other during class, and read forbidden Gnostic writings. Some parents, however, argue that paper helps their kids to learn essential skills, such as how to use neon colors to make class presentations less boring.
WTF is this doing as the main article link?
s ?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1094610967
http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThi
lame...
Next: Why do kids in class have access to the Internet? I can see that it might be appropriate in a library, under supervision - but in class? Of course it would cause interruptions! What: are these kids expecting free wireless at school?
But this ignores the underlying question: is there reason for portable computing devices within the classroom? I think yes. The problem is not the computer, it is how teachers design curriculums with computing in mind. That is, they don't. Further, there's little software designed to help teach to a curriculum. Most teachers aren't programmers and wouldn't have time to develop good software even if they had programming skills. So, there's a large gap between what a computer could do to help teach students and how they are currently being used.
I would suggest that a laptop (or handheld) is best used for note taking. But with specialized software it could also help teach math, geography, foreign languages, etc. Providing etexts for coursework could be useful as well. But giving kids laptops with wireless internet? Whoa... bad idea.
6-8 year olds with laptops? Unless you're teaching them how to program in C++, this seems a bit excessive. I say give em good'ole book and chalkboard education. Let em think for a change. While you're at it, hide the TV in the attic.
Laptops for students makes no sense. A laptop is just an expensive machine that is not going to do anything for a student with bad teachers and little motivation to learn. It'll just be another taxpayer-paid for toy.
Anyone who thinks school is about learning hasn't been to school in decades; at least, not a public school. They are essentially daycare centers designed to keep the little punks off the street until they're 18. The only reason they bother teaching anything is because they have to make it *look* like they're doing something worthwhile.
But in the end, how many of those students are ever going to need to factor a quadratic equation, know what a midochondria is, explain the tidal forces of the moon, be able to identify key characteristics of Southern Gothic literature, etc? How much of this stuff do you think they even remember?
Like most everyone here I went through high school and did the usual two or three years of algebra, plus another year in college, and today I couldn't tell you how to factor a quadratic equation if my life depended on it. I barely know what one is aside from some vague, dimly remembered notion of "something to do with parabolas". I'm 27. I'm not unique.
Most people "learn" the material taught in school long enough to pass a test, at which point it is forgotten forever, and school makes no attempt at pretending this isn't the case. As for "skills", as opposed to "facts" -- things like "how to research a paper" -- school is equally useless, cramming everyone into a one-approach-works-for-all method and emphasizing how you format your citations instead of why citations are important, or the content of the paper. I myself do not use notecards, outlines, and make only marginal use of rough drafts (certainly not in the rigidly formalized style touted by educators), yet consistently handed in highly marked papers. At the same time we were all being told that without these things, your "research" is wrong and can barely be dignified with the word "research" at all.
Really, what are we worried about the kids learning / not learning? In the real world, it IS more important for this kid to learn how to use a computer and make inane presentations, because that's what corporate America values, not your ability to think creatively, or recite the presidents of the US in chronological order, or memorize a bunch of math formulas you don't even understand.
Assuming we're going to keep the same basic curriculum and education system, then it doesn't matter if the kids are learning "normal" stuff, or how to make Powerpoint presentations. If we care at all about education, then it is time to utterly, completely scrap the system we have, start over with a system that actually works, revise the curriculum, and perhaps admit to ourselves that not everyone can be / wants to be / needs to be "well-rounded".
Throwing technical contrivances like laptops at the education system is useless but harmless; just more bread and circuses for the politicians to point at and say "See, we're really doing something to help the kids!"
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
They are not magic bullets nor will they, by themselves, cause a talented student to blow their potential. However I think that most schools look at them in one of those two lights. Some schools seem to take either of the two extremes and thus do a major disservice to their students.
Giving a kid a computer won't automatically grant them superior research skills or even get them interested in a topic they just aren't interested in. They can aid both of those. Laptops can make looking up a book in the library much easier when compared to a card catalog for instance. They can also allow students to explore materials that are not in their library if they find a topic that particularly sparks their interest.
That being said, computers can be used to goof off easily if the student is so inclined. Motivating the student is the job of the parents, teacher, and especially as time goes on the student themselves. The student who posts to myspace all day long probably isn't the student who 30 years ago would have been staying after school to learn how a slide rule works. They would have been the students that snuck a comic book inside their textbooks. Slacking is not a new phenomena.
But instead of taking responsibility, teachers and parents are blaming laptops or trying to use them to compensate for their own shortcomings. That is like trying to thread a screw with the hammer then when that fails, blaming the hammer manufacturer.
Monstar L
If you want kids to learn how computers work, then make it so they can experiment with them. Setting it up so that the kids depend on these computers for their classes means they'll be afraid to break anything, which means they won't get anything out of them other than the typical office-worker knowledge, which isn't very deep or useful.
If you want kids to use laptops in class, then stop pretending they'll learn anything useful about computers in the process.
Since I can buy a very capable laptop for about $500 these days (in fact, I have bought a few for my daughters in college), why are the schools paying so much?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I support the idea of 8th graders and up having computers.
Desktop computers at home and at school.
I don't support the idea of laptops for kids.
My personal thoughts based upon having a child recently graduate from high school.
1. It is important that children learn to use computers as it is impossible to get a "good paying" job without this ability.
2. It is important the children learn how to type quickly and accurately as they will be asked to type a lot in the near future.
3. Kids do not need a laptop as they have no need to carry a computer back and forth between school and home.
4. A desktop computer at home is much easier to supervise.
5. Teachers prefer typed papers over hand-written papers. And, we are not going back to the days of the Smith-Corona electric typewriter.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
Those in charge of school curricula have recognised that IT will be important in the future (at least we should credit them with that) but they have no idea in what sense or how to impart the knowledge needed to deal with this to the next generation. This is the generation that elects a senator who thinks the internet is a series of tubes! How can it be expected to come up with a meaningful strategy for teaching this stuff.
If all middle school can teach is how to make a PowerPoint presentation, then maybe it's best to leave learning about IT to the traditional method -- by kids hacking into the Pentagon's most secure system in their spare time.
Conquest's 3rd Law: Every organisation behaves as if it is run by secret agents of its opponents.
After all, he could still become a Stanly Cup winning coach.
Or a hockey GM.
Or the president.
Parents should be seeing that there kids are doing there homework and not fucking around. A computer is a great tool for learning if used properly. All that crap like instant messaging & myspace is useless if they don't have a internet connection. This goes back to "parents monitoring there kids on the internet" topic.
We sound just like our parents!!
How is that FLAMEBAIT?!!!
What, do you think Powerpoint is going to be THE NEXT BIG THING above and beyond basic math, science and history?
There is room for computing in the classroom as LONG as it is used to accelerate the learning of the hard skills like math, science and history. Powerpoint should be a side issue, with programming and entry level network administration training being closer to the forefront (but far behind math, science and history).
I can't believe what's being called 'flamebait' nowadays...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I live in Henrico County, VA, the home of the iBook riot. I'd like to do away with this waste of money altogether - there is no reason to burn 6 million dollars of taxpayer money a year to give every student a laptop. Want to use a computer? Buy your own or go to a library, or use a school computer lab. I'm running for Board of Supervisors next year, and I'd like to cut this from the school budget completely.
The dog ate my hard drive!!
So, we've got some junior high kid who can make great PowerPoint presentations but hasn't learned enough about anything to provide content to fill a PowerPoint presentation.
I smell a lucrative career in marketing in the making.
Some parents however are 'enthusiastic laptop proponents', one saying 'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'"
Powerpoint is a critical professional skill? I've never used it. I've never used OpenOffice's Powerpoint equivalent. Other than marketing guys, how many proffessionals actually do that kind of thing? I'm a chip designer doing VLSI layout, verilog RTL, design flow maintenence using various scripting languages and I have no use for presentation tools.
Does this parent hope their 12-year-old will grow up to be a marketing guy?
The problem isn't that pupils don't have access to computers but the outdated school books. They should learn how to work *without* a pc in their schools and thats good that way because once you know the basics its a small step to use a computer as a *tool*. The main reason to use laptops in school is IMHO that you can forget about those 20-year old biology books (i had several books which were way older than me when i was in school) and use current books so you can create interesting and modern education.
Anyone who has spent any time with today's teenagers know that kids are "wasting too much time online browsing dangerous sites, instant messaging friends and posting to Myspace" (and creating mindless PowerPoint presentations) whether their school provides them with a laptop or not.
Taking away their school laptop won't solve the problem -- today's kids are surrounded by computers whether their school gives them one or not.
What is needed is real training in time management and critical thinking -- things that must be taught whether or not the school provides a laptop.
At least providing all students with a laptop gives all students equal access to the information tools they need. Taking away the laptops won't take away the need to teach the personal management skills that our children need in the 21st century.
Please.
Whoever is pushing the latest, greatest technology into school classrooms needs to stop. Taxpayers are picking up the bill for this unproven nonsense just because schools feel obligated to be on the cutting edge of technology, where they simply do not need to be.
When my daughter, who has a Mac laptop AND a Mac desktop system, was asked to do something (it was PowerPoint), at school on their Windows computers, she didn't want to do it and so I wrote her a note to give to the teacher to the effect that using Windows was against her religious beliefs.
It was hillarious. They let her do the assignment on her iBook using Keynote.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Oh, PLEASE.
Aside from sites where adults recruit children to rape them or kill them (anything ending in ".mil" qualifies as the latter), I can't think of a site that could be "dangerous" to children.
I WISH the Internet as it exists now existed when I was a child. I could have prevented a lot of suffering for myself, in multiple ways. For one thing, I could have Googled the various slang terms people used to tease me for not knowing, thus sparing me the indignation of being pointed and laughed at for being too much of a nerd to know all the various sexual terms.
I'm so, so, so fucking sick of this "treat anyone under 18 like they're a fucking moron" thing that most "adults" have going on. (Full disclosure: I'm 27.)
It all boils down to the "ZOMG PEDOPHILES ON TEH INTARWEBS!" argument, which of course is a variant of the old "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!11oneoneone" chestnut. You know what? When I was 12 (or 13, or 14, or 15, or 16...), I wanted to get laid more than anything. People seem to forget that kids want (and have a right to) sexual pleasure too. And I say that as someone who doesn't even date 18-year-olds, much less 15-year-olds. Jesus Christ, people, stop being so ridiculous about sex. It's Just Another Bodily Function(TM).
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Florida making a rational decision? the end is near....
it's probably beyond estimating how many million man years will be wasted in school with these stupid laptops doing:
- teaching MS office (a free service to redmond)
- doing powerpoint (a scourge if there ever was one)
- scrubbing viruses (our new national pastime)
- re-booting (because you always have to)
- upgrading (because we have to replace the old holes with shiny new ones)
- setting up the firewall again (why bother, your machine is crap)
oh, and everyone favorite.
- getting expelled because the idiot teacher put the test answers on the public share and you had the misfortune of clicking on it
Why spend vast sums of money for kids to have laptops, when it doesn't really gain them anything?
I mean what is to gain really? I'm all for learning to use technology, but include it in the curriculum as a class, or part of a class instead of an integral part of the entire schooling process.
I view them as more of a crutch than anything else.
Parents who think learning PowerPoint is important? It's too late. Nevermind this kid's education. Just make sure we have an extra cell in the prison system for him.
I program computers for a living. I didn't get a computer until I was in 8th grade. What does that tell you?
This reminds me of the study that was done regarding chess. A lot of people got the idea that chess taught students "critical thinking". The conclusion of the study was that students who were taught chess learned... chess. That's it.
I'm also reminded of the first incarnation of "computers to help disadvantaged students" that I witnessed first-hand in the 80s. There, at the computer, was one of the "slow kids" interacting with a computer. What was it doing? A computerized version of... flash cards. Yes. The Atari 800 was being used as a virtual stack of 3 by 5 cards with simple multiplication problems on them.
Now, for those of us who were learning algebra, the computer was a fantastic tool. In fact, when I was just being introduced to the idea that variables could be involved in math problems, the computer illustrated the point most vividly. So, I don't think that computers are useless in schools. I think it probably makes sense to introduce them right around the time students are learning algebra, but it's hard to tell if I'm being prejudiced because of my own personal experience. At any rate, having a computer certainly made me better at... computing! Whether or not it would have made me good at anything else I can't say.
As a general rule though, I don't see why we should be spending several hundred dollars for a stack of 3 by 5 cards with multiplication tables on them. I certainly don't thinnk we should be giving kids eyestrain by having them read books of computers. Get paper books, OK? I definitely don't think we should be giving vocational training to kids in gradeschool. A kid with an average eduction should be able to learn PowerPoint quickly after graduating highschool, via a brief seminar. A kid with a superior education should be able to attend the same seminar, and recognize PowerPoint for the mind numbing crap that it is.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Excuse me? That's my way of communicating with my kid.
You haven't been a parent when there's an emergency at the school and all the land lines to the school are jammed by concerned parents calling in, and you can bypass that with a cell phone.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
...critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation...
Critical?
BWAAAAH HA HA HA HO HO HA HAAAAAAA!!!!!
You wanna teach the little whipper-snappers something about using computers? Network some X
terminals with Linux and have them learn BASIC, or LOGO, or hell, even Ruby or something. Give them the books and
have them figure out how to create a number guessing game, draw a picture, whatever. Put them on an intranet-free LAN
and let them build web pages. There's tons of stuff they can do that will teach them more about computing than learning
how to use the reveal transition in a crappy piece of presentation software that will be outdated by the time they graduate.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Unfortunately I see an undue reliance upon technology, be it electronic sources of information or laptops, which could create a chilling effect on proper research and the development of one's critical thinking skills. Not to say that the use of the Internet for research is invalid, nay, it is quite valid, but NOT as a primary source. I don't think it is necessary to expound upon the details of this argument, as they are quite self-explanatory.
Our (America's) primary and secondary education system seems to be promoting and rewarding what really amounts to sheer laziness, which more often than not is encouraged by our reliance upon technology, which leads to a reliance upon unreliable sources of information. Due to this laziness, very few children are taught and raised to be critical - to actually check the facts. Instead, it seems that children are rewarded based upon the flashiest PowerPoint presentation, which is a very legitimate skill - for a secretary. How is America going to raise the next generation of scientists, researches, explorers, etc., if children aren't taught to exercise their mind in a critical fashion?
The answer seems to have been given already and is staring us in the face. Good Americans shouldn't give a damn about science, research and independent thought. Good Americans should mind their business and do exactly what they are told and when without asking questions.
By all means, use laptops in the classroom, but make sure they are used properly, to instill the right ethics (i.e. work ethic) and values. If they are primarily going to be used as toys, why not simply give the children Barbie dolls and toy trucks - it would accomplish the same thing.
I agree; I think it's possible for a computer to be an educational tool, but honestly that's not the way that your garden-variety PC (and its accompanying software, including Windows) is designed.
If there are really that many schools interested in sending students home with laptops, then it stands to reason there ought to be a market for a purpose-built computerized educational tool. Something that didn't function as an entertainment device, and was more like an educational appliance than a computer.
Frankly, something OLPC-ish might be more in order than just giving every kid an iBook or a Dell. Of course, parents would protest, because there seems to be this feeling that the earlier you get Little Johnny started on the MS Word and the PowerPoint, the more successful he'll be -- which is utter tripe. A well-educated person can pick up a book on Word or PowerPoint (or any other software package that they need to use) and figure it out in a weekend.
"Training" and "education" are two very different things, and I think that there are a lot of parents that haven't understood that. You can train someone to use a particular computer program, and still have them be utterly helpless when the slightest thing goes wrong, or when that program is obsolete; a well-educated person will have enough of a conceptual understanding to not be thrown by minor issues, and capable of training themselves.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I agree with the "luddites." Computers in the classroom, especially the primary education classroom, do not aid in learning. There are also many ways it can hurt learning, and the solution of "get a compenent IT admin" is not that easy. Thus, the likely costs outweight the likely benefits.
It's simpler, cheaper, and better to do without. We probably get more bang for our buck by devoting that laptop money to hiring more talented teachers.
As a former educator myself, I have to say that the idea that a middle-school student "needs" a laptop to complete writing assignments is more than silly. As a parent, I'd also be opposed to this "no child left without a laptop" program.
Leave aside the fact that Johnny can't spell because of spell-checking and that he can't write a coherent sentence because he thinks that Word's grammar checker is somehow useful.
You teach students to think logically, marshal their arguments, and then structure their ideas into a well-organized whole. At that point, (good) writing starts. Once you have something that's well-written, then you do the "computer-centric" steps, like formatting, adding a TOC, etc. The computer is a useful tool for producing written work (as a writer, I know this well) but it can interfere with the actual writing unless you have the ability to separate the process from the tool. From my teaching experience, most students are still working on this.
As I've said to my employer, I can teach any competent adult how to use our writing tools. In fact, learning the tools is a fairly straightforward process. What I can't teach an adult (in the time my employer allows for new employee training) is critical thinking, information organization, and grammar.
Let's face it: there are already too many distractions in school, for both students and teachers. If you subtract the amount of time that teachers are required to spend either "teaching the test" and on non-academic subjects, then take away the time kids will spend changing fonts and using "WordArt" you'll wind up with about an hour of real instructional time.
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How is that kid going to get into a decent MBA program without knowing Powerpoint?
"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"
-G W Bush
>> critical professional skills
:)
these parents have no idea what "critical professional skills" are... sure, maybe if your career goal is to be some kind of personal assistant for powerpoint, then yeah, ok... but powerpoint? critical? really?
but damn, you can learn powerpoint on your own, it's not that difficult... and certainly not worth spending the amount on a laptop...
now... if you said learning c++ was a critical professional skill, sure, that makes sense... but why can't the kid do this at home?
don't get me wrong, I like the idea of laptops in class, but only as a fast way to take notes in class, or convenience of keeping all your data and projects in once place (productivity tool)... considering the big distraction they can be, maybe for learning software or programming languages kids should use computer labs or the laptop at home only? But that doesn't even seem to fix everything...
school is about rigid regementation, partly to get the unfocused kids to focus (common theory of the school catering to the slowest)... having a laptop in the classroom presents a huge hole if websites, IM, or even a more interesting personal project is distracting the user...
this may sound lame, but maybe there needs to be some technology added here to force the laptops into a state where only relevent work is happening. something as simple as the teacher being able to see all screens to police the students to be on topic... or better yet, have in classroom computers with a good centralized user account system (i.e. linux with NFS mounted user accounts)...
Maybe the goal should be, a computer in every classroom... and a computer at home for every child...
More expensive I know... but it would help to regement things... Clearly, having a laptop for each child IS important for those children who have limited access to a computer at home. At least this way, the student can learn computer skills on their own...
Another thought. Has anyone done research into whether having distracting things like laptops help kids multitask better and actually focus better? It may actually help students learn to tune out distractions... Again, I bet there's a percentage of students that mentally just can't handle this temptation... I wonder if laptops for kids actually polarize kids, making the ubergeeks brilliant and well prepared, and the distractable kids uber stupid...
This issue is apparently complex.
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My son attends a "Charter" school -- one of the best schools in one of the best school districts in our state. It's not a perfect school, but it is good enough that there's no real reason to look to private schools until the high school years.
This year they opened a computer lab filled with brand new high end Dell computers. I was really excited to see what they'd use them for.
Sadly, the majority of use thus far is not for teaching programming skills, or exploring how computers work, but for "research" (read surfing the web) and homework (read surfing the web and using cut-n-paste).
In order to meet state requirements for computer education, they are also teaching classes on how to use powerpoint.
What amazes me is that in no other field would a professional teacher consider the teaching of a specific application as sufficient substitution for actual knoweldge of a subject. Being able to successfully grow a tomato plant in the greenhouse might be extra credit, but it doesn't get you through the biology exam. You can't present your tomato plant as proof that you understand the Krebs cycle. I know of no math class where so long as you can use a calculator you get an 'A' (though I've heard horror stories, so maybe that's not a good example!) You don't pass a creative writting course by demonstrating an ability to watch a movie adaptation of a creative written work.
What happened to teaching something about computers?
When I was in middle school, we built an Altair 8800. We learned programming, and even produced a project as a class that we got to code into the local university's Burroughs PLP.
The news every week is about how the USA isn't making enough engineers, mathematicians and scientists. And here nearly every school has all these computers that instead of using to teach these critical subjects and to develop skills and abilities that will lead to fixing that gap instead resort to teaching an application.
It's pathetic. And frankly, mind-numbingly stupid behavior on the parts of the schools.
Just my 2 cents
I am not a number. I am a free man!
- instead of
digging through library books.'God spoke to me.
When I was going to school, I would buy a bag of candy every morning. Snack size candy bars and the like. I'd sell them for about $0.25 each. Eventually I added more variety of flavors and sizes. I always undercut the vending machine.
Why do I bring this up? If every child had a laptop, so many more oppurtunities for "business" would crop up. Selling hacks for the school system, teach and setting up ad-hoc networking so that you can talk with your friends, and even selling alternate internet connections so you never had to use the school system. For example, you could get a Verizon net card and hide it whereever you liked. Sure, parts of your network would be found and disabled... but you could afford to replace those components.
So the school administered network option really doesn't work. It actually seems to encourage competition. I love the idea of these oppurtunities to challenge kids, but is computer security and hacking that big of a priority for middle school? I think the focus should be more on their studies. I'd like to see more hard wired desktops in school, or maybe some cheap text books on e-paper. Kids at a very young age are already paying more attention to multiple forms of digital media. I think, properly implemented, the next generation of schools might be able to squeeze in some education into those tightly woven attention spans. If it takes some lights and sounds, so be it! And extra points if you turn in your math homework on a powerpoint presentation that isn't annoying.
PS: That is what part of the alphabet would look like if the letters "Q" and "R" were removed.
OMFG! What are we teaching our kids? Has the curriculum really dumbed down to the point that using PowerPoint is "cricical"? I hate it! The entire universe cannot be distilled down to some bullet points!
... They're citing Joe Schmo's paper in their paper, but who is Joe Schmo? And is he objective?"
What happened to the "Three R's"? In an age where we're turning out an increasing number of high school graduates who are functionally illiterate, what are we doing? It's time to put an end to the "New Education" and get back to basics. Just recently, Dallas ISD published the stastic that only 26% of their high school graduates were functionally illiterate and they were actually *HAPPY* about it because it was down from 33% the previous year.
DISD credits this increase in basic literacy to "removing distractions from the classroom". They've been working on quite a few things, including mandatory school uniforms, banning cell phones, etc. Now you want to introduce the biggest distration of all - portable computers. One of the biggest problems is that most people are so uneducated that they aren't able to determine a "good source" from a bad one. Quoting from a recent newspaper article here "Students may know how to use an Internet search engine, but professors have complained that the online information students use is not reliable, said Mary Jo Lyons, information literacy coordinator at UT-Arlington....."There's nothing wrong with Google," Lyons said. "They know how to type in words and search, but it's how they evaluate whether it's a quality site. That's the problem.
In a world where knowlege, if not education is power all we're doing is setting ourselves up for becoming the next Third World country.
2 cents,
QueenB
HDGary secures my bank
At the K-12 school where I work, our upper school campus (grades 7-12) recently purchased a "mobile lab" -- a cart with enough notebook computers on it for a class to use, one notebook per kid.
Yes, we have sufficient web filtering and other blocks in place, so the kids can't waste time playing games or instant messenging. Yes, there is sufficient security on the computers to prevent the kids from installing a bunch of junk or otherwise modifying the settings of the computers. Yes, the school has 100% wireless coverage to service the mobile lab, but personally-owned computers are not allowed to connect to our network (wired *or* wireless).
Why am I posting this? Several comments responding to this article have stated things like, "That's what the COMPUTER LAB is for". But here's why that doesn't hold: yes, we have a traditional computer lab with a bunch of desktops in it. But we only have ONE traditional lab, and it's constantly overbooked. Many more teachers want to use it for their classes than there are time slots in the day available for them. So we have to turn classes away. As in many schools, space here is at an absolute premium... we don't have any "extra rooms" sitting around just waiting for me to load another twenty desktops into it. So the ONLY way for us to expand our lab facilities was to use the CLASSROOMS as labs... which means notebooks (and a cart). Sure desktops would have been a bit cheaper, but there was no place to PUT them.
I was initially concerned about excessive wear and tear on notebooks and the breakage that might ensue. But I was reassured by a number of my peers at other schools around the country that the mobile labs they've set up get a lot less broken than they anticipated, and furthermore, accidental damage insurance on the notebooks covers us just in case a screen gets broken or something else catastrophic occurs to one of the notebooks.
Shrug.
My high-school was heavily based on using technology to help you learn. One of the first assignments they gave us was to pair off and write a report on an environmental issue (just to ward off the inevitable, we weren't told what side to take). We had all the tools on the computer to work with and were encouraged to use the Internet to find information. Every other pair of students ended up with well done powerpoint presentations (or as good as one of them can be) that had maybe 2 paragraphs worth of information in them. Me and my partner ended up using the computer for information gathering purposes only and ended up with a full 5 paragraph essay written on actual paper. It was the best received report in the class.
As long as teachers set clear boundaries between when it's OK to be using the computer and when it's not OK, and use the computers as tools to gather and structure information and not as tools to do the equivalent of pushing your food around your plate, then they can be used quite effectively.
Jesus fuckin' christ!
Not to start a flamewar, but why is it that every time this conversation comes up, all people can think to say is "PowerPoint is a good skill to have. Give 'em laptops." It seems it's either that or "PowerPoint?! For a 13 year old? No computers! Back to paper! Bad computers!" I'd like to thank both sides of this debate for being to wholly unimaginative and extremist, thus leaving me room to make my case.
I'd like to just make it clear that I think that computers (laptops aside because that's a conversation in itself) are misused in schools today. That is not to say that they don't have an important place, though. Instead, that they are not being used for what they're made for, which is to enable human beings to do things that they weren't able to do before, namely, tons of tedious computations (I'm counting searching into this). There is a wealth of concepts that one could teach the youth of the world that are only really enabled by computers. Teaching kids how to write and understand a basic logo or python program alone covers all sorts of concepts, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
There are many other important computational and mathematical concepts that are impractical or impossible to teach without the use of a computer. Take Wolfram's NKS, for example: Couldn't it prove interesting to have kids work through some of the exercises and discussed them both abstractly and how they could be used to represent real phenomenon in the world they live in?
Not only is this useful for teaching kids what computers are really good at, if done properly, it could spark an honest curiosity in kids about how to better use their machines at home. I know I'm sounding idealistic here, but the reality is that even if only 2% of the kids you show this to go on to be great programmers, designers, thinkers, or anything where exposure to and the freedom to explore advanced computational ideas (many of which don't take a BS to understand) expanded the way they saw the world, you have already made the world a brighter place.
Because this is starting to get long, I'm going to save my points on why kids should feel ownership over their machine for another time. I would like to note, though, that of all of the activities mentioned here can be done on the CM-1. If you really need a machine more powerful than that to teach, My bet's you're using bloatware.
Three "R"'s. That one always slays me. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. How many of those words begin with "R"? Spell check would have come in handy there...
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Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
First, while I don't have kids, I do live next door to a family with 4 boys. It's a condo and the boys hang out right in a common entry area between my unit and thiers. I noticed that they would be playing games constantly on mac laptops that were provided by the school. My personal take on this is its less a problem with the schools, than it is with parents who are looking for something to keep their kids occupied. These kids had little or no supervision. I didn't personally have any problems with the kids, but I can't say the laptops were, in my opinion, helping the kids educationally.
There was a time when movies had plots. So you knew who's ass it was, and why it was farting.
-Not Sure
Did the laptop teach her son how to suck-up to his boss by stabbing his co-workers in the back all the time producing nothing of value for the shareholders?
What?
It never ceases to amaze me that people always want to design some computer gizmo to replace all the things teachers are good at. A talented and motivated educator that can observe and adapt to childrens needs, observe their personal interest and use those interest to motivate them cannot be replaced by a computer. At least not at this point in the computers evolution. Here's a thought. Let's try and use the computer to do things that teachers don't do well. Suppose a program was written to monitor individual student performance on a more fine grained basis in real time, so that teachers could pin point critical skills the student is lagging in early. Waiting until the end of the year for some stupid standardized test that is taken after it is too late correct problems seems to me rather brain dead. But given the way society claims to value education but pays teachers I guess we get what we pay for.
Some parents however are 'enthusiastic laptop proponents', one saying 'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'
If this was the late 90s this kid would already be making tens of thousands of dollars at a dot-com, maybe even running one himself!
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
What was the reasoning behind the cheap laptops for third-world kids? If they somehow had software that would be useful for them, wouldn't the same apply to US schools? I agree that just because you have a laptop in class, doesn't mean it should always be on. But surely there's something it can be useful for. It doesn't sound like these districts have figured out what that is yet though.
Learning to communicate effectively is important, but a twelve year old needs to learn how to think critically and solve problems before they learn to be a sales-weasel. Aside from that, powerpoint is a terrible communication medium, with no more educational value than the clear plastic cover I used to put on my papers to get a better grade.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Wont' someone please think of the chil.....
echo $SIGNATURE
Heck, I've been making PowerPoint presentations for years, and I didn't even know there was a compiler available. I've been stuck using lousy interpreted presentations.
I'm so far behind the curve...
You know what, FINE. Let the tykes have their laptops, PDAs, blackberrys, uber-graphing machines, and so on. That's fine. I have accepted the children of today have access to a vast array of technology I did not back in the day ( minimum seven years ago ). When I was going through public education I was grinding out math problems with wooden pencils, learning the dewy decimal system for research with physical books, and writing essays on paper (sans spell check). Now kids are tied to technology, having more complex class earlier, and coming out of high school with IT certifications (it's happening in a neighboring school district). It took a large quantity of alcohol to get over the hump that these kids will be faster at some things, will climb the work ladder faster than I can, and will probably be my boss one day. That's fine because I have one ace up my sleeve: the almighty power switch. The Borg like dependency on technology might let them have an edge on me, but the moment I flip that switch they are dead in the water.
I have seen this Achilles heel on multiple occasions, but here's one good example. It was my senior year of college (a few years back), and I was assigned a presentation with a snarky little prick still in high school, taking college credits, for a general studies class. He was irritated on my lack of "accessibility", the turn around time it took for emails (he treated them as a variant of IM), and my fondness of doing library research. He expected all of our data to be found on the web, crammed into a power point, and rattled off. I grew tired of his constant bitching, and tasked him with making the power point. Three weeks later he made a stunning power point: animations, colors, and all the bells and whistles. I printed off a copy "just incase", and headed to class. The classroom's PC went down before we started and I smiled when the brick thudded in his pants. He vehemently wanted to switch days, but the teacher told us he would downgrade us for the lack a visual. I smiled and said that wasn't a problem, and started the twenty minute presentation. The kid didn't say much which initially confused me. I asked him after class what the problem was (figuring he was sulking because of the lost presentation). He said he didn't know the material! I laughed, but realized he wasn't kidding. I was shocked to find out the weeks of research I was handing him (and the written paper), which he had to READ to distill the power point, never actually stuck. He went over the material to grind into a power point, but did not comprehend the depth. He smoothly rehearsed the power point slides, but once that crutch was gone he was toast.
Again I say, let them have their technology. Let them paint themselves into a corner. Technology fails and with it the house of cards these kids call an "education". I have versatility on levels they scoff at, and when the lights go out I'll be smiling in the dark next to the switch with my pencil grinning from ear to ear.
Then you should go all the way. Make them *typeset* their reports. And don't just teach them triangles. Make them learn 3-D geometry and do graphics in 3-space and make them *really* write proofs.
If you're going to give them tools, give them the need, and hold them to the expectations implied by the need.
I'm serious here. In my first geometry course, we only did triangles, only in the plane, because all we had was pencils and paper and chalkboards.
If we'd had computers, the bar could have (and should have) been raised.
If you give them internet access you should be expecting more depth and breadth of their research. If you give them word processors, you should expect far more comprehensive and far better edited work, than you would expect from typewriter or longhand papers.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
You said powerpoint? He's fit for manager then.
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HAHAHAHA.... the same things employers worry about. Get a decent IT Admin and block them from going to any web site you want, oh get a clue before you get an Admin.
i personally don't think the damn kids need to use the "internet" in particular during classroom time any way.. they should just make sure the kids can't use the damn internet.. i think its perfectly fine for a kid to use their laptop to take notes on, to make spreadsheets, design portfolios for projects, powerpoint presentations, calculations, and etc... you know.. the things computers are supposed to be used for when it comes to education.. if they need to use the internet for research, then they can use the internet outside of the classroom.. maybe a Wifi lan in the library, and computers for all students to use.. and simply block all the stupid popular sites.. what the hell is so hard about that?
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I thought the issue would be with laptops in college lecture halls (where they can steal students focus and provide little value).
As far as grade school students using them to create powerpoint presentations I'm going to have to say somebody needs to be hired on full time to determine just how many what this is fucked up.
I run a company that provides technical support and consulting services. At that age I was focused on the thinking rather than presentation. Presentation is a skill easily learned into adulthood. Thinking is a skill which becomes increasingly difficult to pick up the older you are AND it's in extremely high demand.
-Tim Louden
PowerPoint is the worst 'skill' you can force on anyone, and teaching kids how to communicate with it is setting them up for failure if they want to address a large group of people.
o ted-you-moron read the slides to you, word for word. And that is what PowerPoint has become for so many people: a script to read off of while your audience falls asleep.
If you've ever worked in the corporate world, you've sat through a presentation where slides were clicked through as some middle-management-we-couldn't-fire-you-so-we-prom
Somehow, I don't think that we want the next generation to learn this horridness. If you want to make them present (something I'm not too against) make them use actual visual aids. Make them give a speech. The people that affect their audience the most are the ones that can stand without an LCD projector behind them and still teach/speak/present/not look like an ass.
... that would last them the rest of their lives, instead of something guaranteed to be obselete in 5? I'd love to see what ./ers think would be appropriately useful books. In others words, what 10 books would be the most important to the educational and social growth of a 2nd grader?
1. Basic mathematics (algebra/trig/geometry)
2. Basic physics
3. American history
4. World history
5. Basics foreign language (maybe teaching simple stuff from the top 5 most used languages)
6. How to manage you finances (saving/buying houses, cars, investing money/stocks/bonds, how to calculate loan rates, credit card rates, etc.)
7. Basic biology (plants, animals, species/genres, amoebas, yada yada)
8. Catalog of important literature grouped in various ways, useful for researching
9. I'm out of ideas
10. Subscription to a global newspaper *shrug*
Lets think forward and give each kid a 700W or the latest blackberry so that they can learn how to read emails on the go and incrase productivity!
you can edit word files ON THE GO!
make them write emails while changing classrooms.
Dont these parents know that this is the "age of technology?"
I think i was first exposed to computers when i was 3 and was getting into programming by about age 5. By fourth-grade I'd discovered that most of our educational games were written in basic, and started screwing with them :)
At this point in time I've been programming for 80% of my life and professionally for about 40% of it.
I was always far more into making my own games than playing anything I'd bought. The problem is that i'll bet good money these computers dont come with a single development tool, and i'm sure that kids "hacking" them will be frowned upon.
Both sides make me say that. Wasting too much time on IM and MySpace? Cell phones can do that, and so can passing notes. A halfway decent network admin could, with a couple of simple firewall rules, at least force them to learn a bit about networking (proxies) in order to IM and MySpace.
This is not the laptop causing the problem, it's really two things. The curriculum sucks if you get points for dazzling fonts. But that last sentence suggests that the parent has an obsolete view of research. Web searches are a major part of research these days.
And in the other corner:
Compiling a PowerPoint presentation is not a critical professional skill, and it's laughable to think that it creates opportunities.
But hey, I'd rather have a clueless but supportive parent than a nazi:
Welcome back to high school. You may not have noticed last time around, but that's what school is, especially at that age. The only reason I can imagine anyone spending a significant amount of time trying for grades is because expectations are so insanely low at that level -- which is why college is such a shock for a lot of people, by the way.
So give up the idea that they're really learning anything doing classwork -- school is all about building social skills. This is a primary reason I'm a geek, by the way -- one year of homeschool, the other 11 years were at a segregated private school. I learned more academic stuff (higher expectations), but I have no social skills.
Nazi parents again. Shame.
I understand that they are not full citizens in any sense, but this is a severe invasion of privacy. Worse, it will have the opposite effect as intended, which means it's a huge pain for students, but still doesn't do what parents wanted. Kind of like prohibition.
Basically, someone like me would customize logs in return for a little popularity.
Oh, and this just gets better and better -- look at the image caption:
Anything can be used inappropriately, especially by kids. We're back to that old argument about Son of Sam and the dog. Look, as a parent, it's your right to ban computers from your house, but this is taking it too far:
Still, the other side is sounding just as retarded:
Not to mention the OS. If you're that concerned with cutting costs, try Linux, OpenOffice.org, and the Gimp.
Oh wait, they're laptops, nevermind. In that case, you're most likely stuck with getting an OS anyway, so Li
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Seriously, it either comes out of the Principal's discretionary funds (which are used for a lot of more important things, quite frankly), or it comes out of money either donated by, fundraised by, or secured by the parents.
I read the long print version of the WSJ article at lunch, and I'd have to say it's fairly accurate.
Not every school can be like the one my son goes to, where they get Bill Gates to give them 40 WinXP desktops with flatscreen LCD monitors, and Apple gives them an entire computer lab to crank out the student newspaper on.
Most schools can't even get the school district to pay for a single computer per classroom before grade 6.
So, don't be surprised if the concerns stated are mostly those of parents - they're the ones who got the computers in the first place.
And, yes, they thought you were going to use them to study on and do homework, and it never occurred to them you'd surf the web for fun and watch flash anime and videos and IM all your buds or spend 90 percent of the time in chat like most teen and pre-teen girls do.
They actually think they got you a cell phone so you could call them, not so you could call all your friends and text message them.
Is it unreasonable? Depends on your perspective.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You've never signed your name?
I write in cursive all the time when I write quick notes or whatever. Sure, you probably print, but that's a personal choice. I'm glad I was taught both so that I can choose which one I want to use. Not to mention it's much easier to read other people's cursive if you've been taught to write it. Puzzling out Grandma's letters got MUCH easier once I learned how to write myself.
I use shorthand. It's *much* better for signatures, if only from a uniqueness perspective. When people forge my name (and some have tried), they get a nasty shock when I show them how I really sign my name.
From a note taking perspective, shorthand is faster than cursive. Typing is faster still. Printing is more legible. Cursive is a failure by any metric you care to give: it's both slow, hard to write, and hard to read.
I can type this sentnence with my eyes closed. In fact, I did. When you can do the same thing with cursive text on paper, with the same speed and legibility, give me a call.
Cursive sucks.
'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'
"She further added: His PowerPoint presentation compiled so well it got him into the executive trainee program at a Fortune500 company, where he successfully taught adults five times his age how to use PowerPoint."
Parents are usually living in some strange delusional state. They want to think their little darling is their ticket to easy living when they retire. Little do they know a sizeable portion will get stuck working as Wal-Mart greeter after their little darling's legal bills eats up their retirement fund.
"It is by Starbucks that I set my mind in motion"?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I agree, however, if the laptops replace heavy books, then I'm all for it.
In fact, instead of laptops what they need are decent e-book readers of some sort and I'm not sure if any exist. The text books kids carry around, in addition to being about worthless from an academic point of view, are cumbersome and too heavy.
So IMHO, they need a device that is:
* About the size of a paper notebook (ie- smaller than a normal laptop)
* Can read various e-books
* Touchscreen
* Basic web browser and maybe other basic apps (ie- Firefox + Open Office)
* Can be "docked" with a normal computer (ie- acts as an external drive)
* Can be locked down by school administrators
I live in Fullerton, one of the communities discussed in the article. The deal was that they built a new subdivision, with extremely expensive houses in it -- real estate prices have gone nuts here recently, like $700,000 for a four-bedroom house with almost no yard. So they had this new community of very affluent people, and they built a new elementary school for them. (I live up the street in an older subdivision, which is served by an older, preexisting school.) They wanted to make this new school super duper special and innovative, because, after all, rich people deserve to have the best schools, right? So they announced that certain kids (I think it was one grade at that school) were going to be required to have laptops, and the parents would have to pay. If you could demonstrate that you couldn't afford it, they would supposedly buy one for your kid, but that would be pretty hard to demonstrate, given that you bought a $700,000 house within the last year. If you just said you didn't want your kid to participate in the laptop program, the district's solution was that they would transfer your kid to another school.
If the public schools really want to do something super special, there are a lot of other options that would make sense, e.g., resume class size reduction, which was abandoned a few years ago because of the budget crisis in California. Another idea would be to pay more money to lure in math and science teachers who actually have bachelor's degrees in their math or science.
Find free books.
Kind of appropros.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
All the most desired jobs are either in the technology field, or work directly with it. Even casual entertainment is being driven by some kick-ass technology. Sure, you don't need to understand the underlying science to use a game machine, but the stuff is everywhere.
Given this, how long do you think it will be until there are "computer" like things built into library tables, hallway walls, and desks in classrooms? In a few years kids will be packing more heat (digitally speaking) than you see in most Fortune 500 Board rooms today, and thinking nothing of it.
Like it or loath it, it's here. Better start talking about how to use it effectively or else you'll be using in ineffectively by default, and who wins there?
[full disclosure: I'm a professional teacher, school technologist, web site engineer, parent, and homeschooler. I get it, and so do my kids.]
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
And parents were able to communicate with their kids before the arrival of the telephone.
There are cell phones now that only allow you to call 1 or 2 numbers (that, of course, being your #), which are ideal for kids. I'd be more than glad to settle with that. But there's no law saying the State or any authority can keep me from being in communication with my child 24/7.
Oh and I pay taxes into those schools, so those school authorities are accountable to me. I as a voter get to decide what my rights are as a parent.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
As a lucky AP student in one of the higher quality public schools, I was fortunate to have recieved training on computers in school beginning in as early as the 3rd grade. By the time I got to high school I was self trained in C and inline assembly, but the best my school could offer me were the options of mediocre courses in either PASCAL or COBOL. I dropped out of high school and decided to go to college, which I also dropped out of because I was making more money during the dot com boom than I could have hoped to have made had I graduated (not to encourage others to do the same). I am now 31 years old, but I haven't forgot what it was like to be a frustrated youngling who did not fit perfectly into the system, and felt like I was wasting my time with computer teachers who had psychology majors. I bucked the system. I got suspended one time for forging a note so that I could skip class to sit outside and read a programming book, which was not so much an attempt at learning as making a rebellious statement.
Kids will be kids (actually, make that total brats), and I was no exception. We can't fault children for wanting to learn or for detesting the educational system we stick them with, but as much as I would have liked it to be, not having laptops in schools is a very reasonable standard. This may be difficult to accept, especially for a child who is deprived of a quality learning experience already. Parents have plenty of reasons to be stressed about schools, but no laptops in schools is a good rule for several obvious reasons which I'm sure others will post. If they fixed the rest of the educational nightmare, this may be an issue, but I doubt it would then be debatable.
I have to say, I love having my laptop in school. I am currently a law student in my second year, and have been using my laptop to take notes in every class and write every exam since I started. And I love it. My handwriting is very bad, gets much worse as I am rushed and nervous (like class can make you), and have always had difficutly taking notes in class. But no more. Now I usually try to type down everything the professor says that I feel is important and I go over my notes within a few days and pull out what is important. Then I take that and put it into a collection of everything that is important (what most law students would call their "class outline."). Furthermore, now when I take an exam, my professor can actually read my answer, as opposed to the past when my "chicken scratch" surely gave more than one headache. Its great. Now, I never use my computer for non-class purposes while actually in class (honestly), but a lot of my fellow students do--at least a little bit. And professors don't like it much when people are surfing instead of paying attention. But if they took away my ability to use my laptop, I would be screwed. I simply not be able to keep up and perform as well as I know that I can without it. Of course, I realize that I am very different than an 8th grader, and my commitment to using my laptop for school purposes/professional attitude is probably much stronger, but I still think that younger students can benefit from using the computer. (I have suffered from a congenital tremor for my entire school career which makes my hands shake and consequently my penmanship extremely bad and--again--taking notes/exam writing difficult). The simple solution is not allow wireless access to the students. Sure that won't solve everything, but it is a start. Then, of course, you could simply take away their ability to use their computers if they screw around. So I obviously agree with anyone who points out that limiting access to the wireless is a good idea. Whatever is done, I think that the computers should stay because I think they could really help a lot of kids. to answer one thing that might come up in replies to this post (if anyone reads it and feels so inclined). I will not necessarily be screwed when I take the BAR exam. Some states already allow people to take it on computer and more are on the way. And yes, I plan to take the BAR on my computer. And if I can't for some reason... well.. we will deal with that when it happens. :)
Last year I taught at a private high school that required all of its students to purchase laptops. At first I thought it sounded like a great idea; how cutting-edge. But before the year was over, I came to see the whole program as a waste of the parents' and the school's money.
The issue isn't really anything from the technical end. IT had WebSense up and running, which blocked anything they deemed inappropriate for anyone connecting to the school's wireless (nevermind the few students who found ways around this). And IT could monitor what each computer logged into the system was up to at any point in time. They kept a record, so if a teacher suspected a student of doing anything unacceptable, but didn't want to make a big deal about it during class, all it took was an email: "What was Johnny doing between 1:15 and 1:30? Oh, playing a game? Thanks." And the next day the kid would get detention. As TripMaster Monkey said, a competent IT staff solved all of the problems from that end.
The issue is why is the program worthwhile? In what way does the education of the students become more successful by requiring their parents to spend xxxx dollars on a laptop for each of their children? And is it worth the hassle to the school's IT people?
Some might argue that it helps develop the students' computer skills. I'm not sure about national statistics, but I can assure you that every one of my students had at least one computer in their home. And trust me; they knew how to use it. Toting a laptop around campus all day didn't make them better users.
I have also heard arguments that each student having a computer affords for excellent instructional opportunities beyond the standard lecture and note-taking approach. Of course this is true, but I would have much rather had a projector in my room (which I did not) so that I could show visual aids from my computer. They are many ways to reach out to students with different learning styles and to make class more exciting that don't require every single child to have a laptop. And many ways that are less expensive.
In addition to the burden on IT of keeping up with the above-mentioned 'security measures', they had to employ one guy who did nothing but repair laptops (or send them off to be replaced) five days a week. That was his entire job. I've seen more laptops in multiple pieces, with broken/missing keys, and with cracked screens than I can count. Children in grade school do not need to be held responsible for keeping a laptop in running order. The average fifteen-year-old can barely be help responsible for walking across the room without tripping over his own feet. High school students rough house, drop things, are clumsy, are forgetful (I would never dream of leaving my computer on a bench for two hours), and just generally are not prepared to take care of these expensive pieces of equipment.
Most importantly, I know of very few teachers who in any way used the laptop capability regularly in their class. Some teachers forbid the students from using their computers during class, probably to reduce unacceptable use. I never had any problems with in-class laptop use because I taught physics and I don't know many people that can keep pace note-taking with that much mathematical notation (and 98% of the students couldn't type fast enough to keep pace in history class, either...so much for the 'saves paper from note-taking' argument), so if a laptop was out while I was teaching, knew someone was up to no good. The only time the computers ever saw the light of day in my room is when I didn't want to start on a new subject for the last five minutes of class, so I would let the kids work on WebAssign homework. As for lab data analysis, the upper-end TI's that all of the students had could do everything I needed, and if they couldn't, it's nothing that couldn't be done at home.
My point is: mandatory laptop programs in grade school have a short list of benefits which is overwhelmed by the subsequent detriments. The (questionable) honing of computer skills and introduction of new (seldom-used) teaching tools does not outweigh the cost to everyone involved and hassle to the IT group.
Learning to communicate effectively is important, but manipulating a Powerpoint presentation is not learning to communicate effectively. It starts with content; embellishments come later. "Empowering" a student with a laptop suddenly shifts the focus from content to presentation.
Admittedly, this is a problem more pervasive than the school. All too often we hear about politicians winning elections because they have a less disheveled look than their opponents (and not because of their policies). We really should take a hard look at ourselves and our materialistic and superficial tendencies; it is only then will it become apparent that the issue is only one manifestation of a systemic problem with humanity in general (note: I am not flamebaiting nor am I a misanthrope)
The first year was an unmitigated disaster. I spent my study hall and my lunch hour every day working as a helpdesk tech, and we averaged thirty kids an hour with dying and dead machines, all suffering from malfunctions, viruses and just plain abuse. When people weren't loading their machines full of music/movies/warez/porn, they were playing games and IMing each other in class. This contributed to all sorts of network problems, which exacerbated the problems the machines already had. (Did I mention that the Microsoft "Knowledge Technologies" package had more bugs than the AP Biology fruit-fly lab?) Moreover, you couldn't use the laptops for any of the programming, advanced graphic design or publishing software we used, for which having a laptop might actually have been useful - that stuff was all Apple-based, and restricted by hardware dongles to boot. Finally, since 90% of the teachers were technologically incompetent themselves, they had no idea how to use the machines in class. I can count on one hand the number of kids who actually used the machines for anything useful during class time, and that counts myself. (Five classes out of six, my laptop sat in its bag and I took notes on paper.)
The program is still in operation, and it's still useless as ever. Nowadays, they added two new functionalities to the machines, digital whiteboards and computerized attendance. The latter program takes class attendance using a map of IPs and locations, which any enterprising geek can rig by using a static IP.
I can't fault the program completely, though. I had a great laptop when I went to college. I just found it completely, utterly useless in high school.
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
A snap reaction I had to reading the introduction:
Detractors say that the kids are wasting too much time online browsing dangerous sites, instant messaging friends and posting to Myspace. Parents are worried that serious learning is being neglected in the quest to 'dazzle up presentations with fancy fonts instead of digging through library books.'
In other words, school should be "serious" instead of fun. What's wrong with fun? We try to create a society in which people promote positive emotions, like joy, in themselves and others. I believe positive emotions provide enormous benefits if they're used correctly. There's a reason they're called positive emotions.
The kids in school might go overboard with surfing and messaging if you give them laptops but it's going to be a connected world in the future. The kids having fun doing that kind of stuff has a meaning. It means they the patterns of actions they're performing are being accepted as actions in the future. Just like laughter indicates that a human accepts a pattern of thought. If you can somehow slip in some teachings into the dayly routine of them having fun in the school buildings, my guess is that they'll more easily accept the new information in their good mood.
If, on the other hand, you make the kids do things that mean that they won't enjoy their time in the school building. You'll automatically link the school building and the situation of "going to school to learn" to negative emotions.
One counter-argument in favor of doing it the old-fashioned way, that I can think of, is that restricting the way kids do their learning and getting them down is that it'll prepare them for the harsh realities of their later lives. I would think there would be enough other harsh realities in school without the restrictive ways of teaching. Like the socio-political games of "who is the coolest". I bet slashdotter would know something about that.
Maybe you can start off with the looser kind of learning linked with hard targets to work towards (test driven development) in the beginning to link learning with joy in their young minds, and later add more restrictions as a preparation for later life. My guess is, that a society is better off with smart kids who are a bit unprepared for harshness than jaded stupid ones.
However, I'm not a social psychologist (or whatever it's called).
- -- Truth addict for life.
Mr Anderson
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Pretty easy to proxy everything and use DansGuardian to filter objectionable content. It's also easy to block port 5190 to stop IM's, etc. Libraries do it, why don't schools? I don't get it.
I got a laptop at the start of eigth grade (the start of high school here). Me and 20 or so other students used laptops for pretty much every class except Maths (junior high school maths doesn't exactly involve complex modelling). Our "laptop program" class did fine. It wasn't actually a class full of nerds. Yes we had them, but the majority of the class were normies, equivalent "jocks", "musos" and "whores".
And yes we procrastinated, but every student does, laptop or no. It didn't matter because we were delivered content in such a way that it was optimised for "electronic learning" (as our principal liked to call it). We had an intranet site through which learning material was distributed and assignments/homework/classwork was submitted, and had reasonably tech savvy teachers. Because the subjects were delivered like this, work (especially group work) got done a lot faster, despite "procrastination".
Kids are going to screw around in class and after whether they have laptops or not. Nowadays when I don't have my lappy with me for classes I just draw in my book or fall asleep like a normal student. Also, Myspace is only harmful only to your eyes (zee goggles! zey do...) and perhaps your musical taste. If kids gain access to harmful materials because they own a computer, it's not going to be at school (hell, I couldn't even access much learning material with our school's blocking policy), it's going to be at home. Where you'd have a computer anyway. With internet access. If you can stop them looking at "harmful" sites on there, you can stop them when they're using a laptop. Remember, they're just like big computers except easier to carry.
Except the real solution is to get rid of compulsory schooling entirely and get people doing "unschooling",
0 031028151034651
http://www.unschooling.com/
and upgrade libraries and turn school buildings into learning centers (or democratically run "free schools"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_school
for those children whose parents cannot afford to supervise their children during the day directly).
See for example John Holt's writings:
http://www.holtgws.com/index.html
or John Taylor Gatto's:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
or any of many other radical school reformers.
All your suggestions sound good on paper but miss the point that people have tried for decades to reform schools incrementally and they are still broken -- or rather, they actually are still performing the mission they were designed for, which is dumbing kids down into compliant workers, obedient soldiers, and gullible consumers so they will fit well into a well ordered industrial economy, a mission now obsolete in a post-industrial and post-scarcity information age.
The future is not to still idealize Prussia and even earlier empire building aspirations back to Plato
http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=2
which developed these techniques of "education" but instead to look into the future, where people start asking questions like "why work?"
http://www.whywork.org/
and how to structure an economy when "Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator: Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain":
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html
(Sorry to read about your loss, and it sounds like you were doing a lot of great things together, just needed more time to go even further.)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I am just amazed how we ever survived without all of this technology and somehow learned in school with books and paper and pencils and put a man on the moon (if you believe it happened) and developed all of the technology that is in these laptops that everyone thinks kids must have to learn today.
Even kids in college today weren't exposed to laptops in grade school. And yet the experts tell us that without throwing all of this money into technology either a) our kids won't be ready for the business world, b) college or c) they'll fall behind the rest of the world.
Well, it sure seems that not too long ago, before schools spent class time teaching kids how to do powerpoint presentations and instead taugh reading and writing and math and science that graduates were better prepared for the business world and college and their performance compared to the rest of the world was signficantly better.
It seems that while some may do better with technology, overall, it appears to be a distraction from the core skills one needs. The best powerpoint presentation in the world won't help you if you can't organize your thoughts and articulate a sentence. Spreadsheets are great tools, but they can't solve a problem if you don't know how to formulate the question. The web is full of information, but if you can't discriminate between what are valid sources and what are conjecture or simply someone elses opinion, then it's not really useful (in the old days, the advantage of the library was that the library gave credibility to the sources kept there).
If Johny can't read or write or add or multiply, then all of the computer technology in the world is not going to help. Sure, it may allow him to get the correct answer, just as using a calculator, but that simply turns him into a technician and doesn't mean he has actually grasped actual concepts (just what buttons to push).
The article mentions powerpoint, an obvious business tool. Since when was the purpose of public education (aka tax funded education) to teach how to use a business program? Isn't that the purpose of an employer?
People wonder why our public schools are failing. As others have posted, it's not because they are under funded. We pour billions of dollars into public education. It is, however, what we spend those dollars on that is not always in the best interest of furthering the learning of students that is the problem. Hiring and retaining competent teachers would be far more productive than any number of laptops, more costly, too, but if the goal is to educate students, then that is what the focus should be.
'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'
More like:
'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical googleing skills, like how to rip-off someone else's PowerPoint presentation.'
I was forced to learn cursive as well. While I don't use it to write(my signature is a scribble) I do read it quite often(Grading math papers). I also find the people who write in cursive ussually have better penmanship. So an hour a day for nine months was probably worth it, esspecially since alot of that time practicing was also a spelling lesson. After, that it really didn't take any extra time to write the essays in cursive. So I'd say I'm glad I learned.
First off, your eternal forgiveness all if it shows through, but I did not RTFA. That said:
My senior year of high school was the pilot year for a mandatory '1:1 eLearning Initiative', which gave a crisp Sony Vaio laptop to each student for a pittance of an insurance deposit. Essentially, as great a learning tool as a laptop can be in eager hands [It's a fantastic one.], during that year, I observed a level of lollygagging and general poor manners that outshone my previous three years' highschool experience combined. Students have been slacking for years with pens and paper, but if you give them a bunch of shiny widgets to play around with and a devil-may-care, laptop-as-only-and-supreme-learning-tool administration, what you get is a bunch of bored teenagers with a veritable mandate to be ill-mannered cockmouths in class. That year of school was a year of daily and recurrent disgust at the depth of the treadmarks that a class full of students can leave on a teacher whose power to hold his/her students' attention has been hopelessly marginalized. No matter the subject or curriculum, if the laptops were opened for any reason, what resulted was a bunch of introverted flash-game diddling, e-mail chit-chatting, etc., etc.
Erm, incoherent, blahsy-blah. Hurm. [/ranting][/raving]
But, yeah, in my opinion, America's youth are not socially apt or courteous enough to handle the power of a laptop in school.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
SLIDE 1
-------
Power Point is not pointless (*scroll effect*)
SLIDE 2
-------
It has these benefits:
* You don't have to think in sentences
* Bullets allows you to effectively fake knowledge
* Many more things (*sound effect*)
SLIDE 3
-------
It's also required by future managers
to make unimportant ideas seem important.
(*flashing effect plus annoying sound*)
SLIDE 4
-------
Power Corrupts.
PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely
-- Edward Tufte
It's also a good place to place random quotations.
SLIDE 5
-------
Q&A?
If a student's hard drive were to crash, then they'd be left with nothing. Is anyone going to make regular backups of the student's work? If so, who? Not the parents and not the student. A failed drive could result in a failing grade for the student. How does that help?
From looking at some of your other posts, I have come to the conclusion that you are a skillful and accomplished troll. Congratulations, sir. Have you considered joining the GNAA?
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I would favour a technology class in the middle school. It really depends upon the state and it's laws, but here's a rough idea. An extra class period may or may not be needed.
From 6th grade to 8th grade, there's be a class where half of the days you'd have P.E. and the other half of the days you'd have a technology class. Depending on the student's level, it could range from typing all the way to programming. Learning how to do PowerPoint presentations would be inbetween somewhere.
During the other subject areas, you could still use a computer, like to type up an essay or do research, but mandating that a computer be necessary wouldn't be allowed.
People rely on Powerpoint far too much, and I certainly don't advocate teaching it to middle schoolers.
While at university, most of the projects I did for my marketing and advertising classes involved giving presentations, and everyone used powerpoint. I had one professor though who was real old-school. He didn't use powerpoint during his lectures (he didn't even use the classroom computer), and told us we couldn't either because they are overused and improperly used in the "real world". Best damn idea ever. I got my first "real" career job several months ago, and I haven't had to use powerpoint once yet.
If we want to teach kids useful MS Office Suite knowledge, show them the power of Excel. Hardly anyone knows how to use that program to its full extent (I fondly remember always getting stuck doing the excel work in my group projects because I was the only one who knew how to use it effectively most of the time.) If you want to stand out, be an ace at Excel... it can actually be used to deliver something useful.
Laptops for kids is a great idea. It teaches them computer skills that are becomming required in the every day work place.
Laptops inside the classroom are a BAD idea for the younger ages because they are not mature enough.
When I was in K-12 I hated school as many kids did. If you give a kid who doesn't want to be in class a laptop then he/she will use that portal to distract them from school and use it as a tool for entertainment rather than a tool for learning.
Don't believe me? Just think back to math class and how much time people wasted messing around with their graphing calculators.. Imagine that multiplied by 100.
Real Life? As far as I know, the sole reason school exists is to train people to be better at doing their jobs. As it happens, most people spend their time at work stumbling around the internet avoiding work, and assembling the occasional powerpoint with flashy fonts and crude clipart and animations. While my job doesn't quite allow for that (I work in retail...) I really think it's pretty hypocritical for parents to get home from emailing jokes and letters from deposed african officials to their friends on company time, then say that having laptops in school encourages slacking off... And even if those aren't the parents, there are plenty of other things to waste time in school, if we don't have computers. I seem to remember spending all day nearly every day sleeping or talking with friends in class, even the ones where I was sitting right in front of a computer the whole hour! Hell, especially those ones! Maybe schools should ban paper, because students can draw pictures and waste time? Or ban friends because people talk to them and waste time?
Apparently. God forbid people simply learn how to prepare meaningful slides and charts for a presentation. Instead they need to include sounds, animations and screen transitions between slides that are practically content-free to deal with the short attention span of the average American.
I believe that kids using computers at school is essential if they're learning how to program, type or use online resources. Barring that, what's the benefit?
I just wonder when the goal of going to school changed from academics, to job or skills training. It seems universities are getting more and more like that, too. That's great people will know how to do things, but I wonder how inventive, innovative, and creative they will be. I suppose they will be good little worker bees.
Lane Myer: I have great fear of tools. I once made a birdhouse in woodshop and the fair housing committee condemned it.
> That one was to actually vary the pay of the teachers and their tenure based upon the results of the standardized test progress of their students.
Right - think carefully about that just a little bit. If someone's pay is directly based on test scores, then... the teacher will want to get every kid that isn't promising kicked out of their class. Slightly slow child? Poor english? Minor health issues? Whatever, they're out of there! No time for charity - there are high scores to be earned!
> Beginning about the 4th grade students should no longer carry books. They should be issued laptops.
Great idea. And who's going to be paying to replace these laptops every year? You don't actually think that laptops are going to last more than a year (if that) in the hands of 9 year olds, do you?
> Schools are not under funded. They are grossly over funded.
> Teachers are not under paid except in their early career years.
> You get what you pay for.
You've got a bug in your code here fella.
> A note to the mods. This is the most on topic least troll and most informative listing you have ever read on this topic.
No, this is the one of the least on topic and least informative postings today. Your thinking is cloudy and you're ranting half of the time. You should probably start taking your meds again.
You claim responsibility for the No Child's Behind Left program. That's just precious - this is the program by which every school will eventually be a "failing school". See, eventually every school runs out of progress, every school will fail to get good grades out of some tiny minority sliver, and every school will fail to get 100% of their students over the bar.
I know the critics of the public schools are disgusted at the poor performance that some of them deliver. Then again - look at the poor performance that these critics deliver:
- poor grammer (see above posting)
- inability to pass tests they require of high school students (see Colorado Governor Owen's big testing failure)
- inability to work with numbers (see how NCLB will cause all schools to fail within next 5-7 years)
Testing is a good thing, no argument there. But giving testing numbers to the numerically illiterate (whether it is pointy-haired bosses in corporate america or ranting anti-school libertarians) just doesn't work. Here's a suggestion - lets take a look at the parents role a bit, ok? Why do we expect teachers to work miracles with kids that are allowed to play videogames, watch television, and play sports 4-5 hours a day? Where are the parents of all these poor-performing children?
Gatto's work is awesome. See also http://www.edflix.org/gatto.htm (got the link from a previous slashdot poster), or search for his essay, "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" (which became the first chapter in his book, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden curriculum of Compulsory Schooling)
For the uninitiated, Holt's observations and insights into effective education came from his experience teaching in the 1950's:
Will have to check out your other links later. Thanks.
+1, informative from me.
'the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.' So her son can become an over-worked, under-paid executive/admin assistant to a jerk of a boss who under-appreciates him? Wow, sign me up! Seriously, computers are making us stupider and do not belong in primary education institutions except for specialized, scheduled 'computer courses'. Laptops should not be in the classroom for note taking, etc. as penmanship seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. Reading any Internet forums proves we are training a bunch of grammar- and spelling-challenged idiots. Can they use MS Windows? Sure, but can they add/multiply without a calculator? Can they write a grammatically correct paragraph?
A teacher has to enjoy what they're teaching. A teacher has to be able to communicate not only the facts about what their teaching but their enjoyment of the subject matter. Whether they have a bachelors, masters, or PhD in the subject matter is inconsequential.
Do you need to know calculus to teach arithmetic, algebra, or geometry? Heck, if I had a bachelors degree in mathematics, I'd be bored stuff teaching kids algebra! I wouldn't be using my college education one damn bit!
My father was a high school math teacher for 21 years because he loved teaching math. He has a masters degree, which he got while teaching. He never used the math he learned getting his masters in the classroom. But most of his former students consider him to have been a good math teacher because he communicate his interest in math as well as the facts. He didn't suddenly become a better teacher because he had a masters degree.
You don't have to be a genius to be a high school teacher--it's high school! But you have to be able to interest others in what you're interested in. That's the hard part.
Ahh... I haven't been here in a while :)
From a budget standpoint, laptops don't make sense. As another poster suggested, the money would be better spent on a computer lab. I remember in my middle school (only 7 years ago, hah), we got in 35 shiny new iMacs in the computer lab. What did we use them for? Video editing. The bulk of the class was spent running around trying to make a film. Yeah, it was an elective class, but it showed me something important:
A computer is just a tool.
The next weird thing was in High School, how they would have "computer" class... it wasn't a programming class, it was just a class demonstrating how to use Appleworks and Microsoft Office. How, exactly, does that qualify as teaching? It's basically one big hand-holding session! The students in that class... what exactly are they learning besides "how to use 'x' piece of software"?
School teaches you to think and act when faced with abstract concepts. Teaching specific "programs" or giving kids the chance to be on MySpace or Facebook 24/7 isn't going to teach them anything.
.-.
A number of years ago I used to work as the on-site technician for a school running a laptop program, I also spent several years doing back to base servicing for several schools from a reseller workshop.
My personal opinion is that in primary school (up to year 6) the kids should be using a class room shared machine in groups, years 7 to 9 should be using open labs and probably have access to a computer at home. Years 10 to 12 would direcctly benefit from a personla laptop.
Portable computers with their accessories still weight 5kg or so, this is an unreasonable weight to have a small child carry in addition to any other personal effects they have for the day. Most children in primary schol have little concept of the value of the laptop they are lugging around, I saw far more "accidental damage" from young children dropping them on the ground, spilling things in them, throwing them at each other or having them vandalised by classmates.
The average usable lifespan of a laptop computer is 3 years. The sooner you start the kids using a laptop - the more you have to buy while they are at school. In the later years of schooling they are more likely to be doing large projects over an extended period of time which will require multiple drafts and the ability to work on the project in multiple locations at a time suitable to the user. Being able to control their own working environment will be key for these older users.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
These days, since most parents are too busy to be parents, the laptops are supposed to teach the kids. Go figure.
:)
It's necessary for the government to educate the kids, because parents need to work to support the government.
If you add up all the different kinds of taxes, it comes out to >50% for many families... Where a single partner could support the family in the early 1900's, it now takes two working stiffs to provide for the same living standard. Parents send their children to "voluntary" Kindergarten not only because they don't know any better (having been to the government's schools themselves), but also because it's like "free daycare" -- which explains the newfound popularity of "all day kindergarten".
When my mother was that age, kindergarten cost extra in her Texas town. Her parents weighed the numbers, and decided that a caretaker was cheaper. So she skipped Kindergarten. When her parents went to a parent-teacher night with their youngest daughter's first grade teacher, they were shocked to learn that their daughter already knew how to read. Shocked, because they certainly hadn't taught her.
What happened? Mom got bored at the caretaker's house, and with a wee little bit of help from the caretaker's kids and her slightly older sister, she taught herself to read. But she learned a much more important lesson too: she learned that if there was anything at all that she wanted to learn, it was her responsibility to teach herself. That lesson served her well, and after jumping from school to school to school growing up, she spent her last three years of highschool in one place, and graduated valedictorian. Did well in college, finished her formal education with a MS degree, and was a favorite teacher of many of her college students for a time, until her incompetent peers motivated her to do move on to something else.
See also this comment in this story (by someone else, with some good links on education).
I've got mod points, so this comment will have to be anonymous... (Whoops! almost forgot to log out, hit preview and this message came up in red: "If you continue to post this comment, all moderations done to this discussion will be undone! Are you sure you want to post?" Slashcode is aWeSOmE!
What students should use computers for:
Word Processing Papers and Book Reports
Word Processing Notes that they have taken in class
Preparing Presentations for a Class
Using the computer as a graphing calculator in math class
Using the computer in a computer programing class
Using the internet to "wikipedia" or "google" an answer to a teacher's question during an inclass discussion
Posting assignments to the class blog or white board
Using the computer in class to read assigned text.
Problems and how to deal with them:
Pornography - the same way as with paper porn: detention or suspension. Use your own computer if you wanna wack off.
IM Chat - same way as passing notes: intercept them (view unencrypted messages using ethereal.) Or Block ports and IM clients.
MySpace & Social Networking - same way as other socializing...not during class time. Do it at home or study hall.
Other problems - computer inspections by trained IT staff for illicit or unapproved material and programs.
Abuse of computer privileges - specially designed restricted/locked down laptop with linux as the OS and detention.
You're going to be competing against East Indian kids who wrote their first database-based file system by 16 and who are now onto AI projects at 18.
Of course you're also competing against kids who are struggling with Partial Differential Equations at 18 and their third foreign language, too. Guess which language that is.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Notice the "R" is always in quotes. Notice that this was a joke even one hundred years ago when the saying got started. Notice that the core statement regarding basic education is still correct. In short, this is an example of "making your point with humor".
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
whats wrong with teaching 12 year olds how to make power point presentations? Sounds better then wasting their time in college!
My son was required to save up his money for his first laptop. He likes to play games on it, and I recently discovered, much to his total chagrin and ignorance of autocompletion, that "http://g" led to girlsgonewild, not google. Whoops! Oh, shit, Mom! His laptop time is limited in line with TV. He's done the power point thing in school as FORCED on him by teachers, and it is complete and total bullshit. He didn't learn a damn thing. The only win I can see for his education is his natural curiousity about the hardware and learning some networking. He gets this at home, and needs the school time to learn the basics.
I often wonder if this whole push for laptops in school is really much more about building up brand loyalty among young users. It's also a huge new knife into the backs of families in poor areas. We still have such disparate environments for kids in public schools - what a waste to provide laptops when there are kids in crappy conditions, putting up with substandard teachers.
Why is your comment insightful when it misses the whole point. The point is not to teach kids all about computers, the point is to teach kids about how to use computers in the profession they ultimately choose. This is repeated on slashdot over and over, but to drive a car you don't have to know how to change a timing belt, change the brake pads, or even change the oil. So why to use a computer should you have to know how to install install new video card, install a new operating system, or even install more memory?
Elementary school is supposed to be for the basics, where even calculators are not allowed. A computer lab used as a teaching tool for certain lessons and after school activities is optional.
Students hardly need to learn computers anymore since they grow up exposed to them now.
MECC quality educational software is a thing of the past. My schools had staff that knew less than I did from K-12. This was an advantage for 1 school, where the teachers gave kids open ended progamming goals to ALL the kids they didn't have a clue how to do. The class figured it out together and wrote programs using logo. That was true learning and group work.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Hear, hear!!
In speech courses, you first learn to organize your information.
The second thing you learn is not to compete with your presentation materials. Certainly laptops will become the target of the replaced textbook vendors in the K12 arena, and that means students will be busily reading the textbook searching for the example "just like this problem" and basically paying any left-over attention to the teacher.
A darker, more sinister, view would be that teachers embrace the rich presentation and basically take a back seat to it, allowing the laptop to teach while they act as "guides" or "learning adminsitrators" in the student's self-pursuit of knowledge. And these are the "happy" endings, the "unhappy" endings include finding out how to LAN pary Starcraft on the school provided laptops so no learing is done.
The schools are just factories for making a working class, college for making a white collar worker, Master's for making a manger, and Doctor's for making a professor. Sure exceptions exist, but my most wealthy friends command a good sense of bookkeeping, a strong work ethic, a desire to learn things, and an indifference as to how they learn it. School is fine, but so are books bought from the bookstore, or working with a professional a few years to understand the business.
That said, large scale success is still mostly luck exploited by those who know enough to exploit it.
PS. Two great posts, back-to-back (read your one-of-the-guys post too).
This has been a problem for quite a while. Read "The lost tools of learning".
http://www.brccs.org/sayers_tools.html Presented by Miss Dorothy Sayers at Oxford. In 1947.
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
Are laptops even used for browsing anymore? I only see people browsing the web on their phones and PDA's. Parents will massively freak out if you try taking their kid's cellphones away. How are teachers going to monitor what kids are browsing at school on their phones?
What really disturbs me is that the IT industry in general seems to no longer have a need for young workers or excellent workers -- mediocre will do just fine and it'll help more if you are built like a football center than if you are three times as smart as the guy sitting next to you (as anyone 18-22 entering the industry would be). There are almost no interns or entry level jobs, looks like these kids need to learn how to do everything themselves since the only way they will be working is to start their own business... or else get a low-paying service job.
That's funny. Here in Maine the MLTI (Maine Learning Technology Initiative) has been going very well. The state started the program in 2000 and apparently the results have been good enough to convince the legislature to approve additional spending to renew Maine's contract with Apple Computer for MLTI.
See: http://www.maine.gov/mlti/
Providing the infrastructure to get something like this going is key. That is where the Maine School and Library Network (MSLN) comes in. MSLN, run by the University of Maine System, provides Internet access to the majority of Maine's 2000+ K12 schools and libraries (any k12.me.us or lib.me.us address belongs to MSLN). Along with these network connections are manageable website content filtering services that are used to limit exposure to sites not appropriate for minors. Filtering is not the entire solution though. The solution is teachers teaching students to be responsible to the point that filtering isn't necessary.
If you just give a school child a new laptop but don't engage them to think creatively then you just end up with another distraction. If this is what is happening then you should blame the teacher and not the laptop.
Along with laptops in the classroom Maine also has a distance learning H.32x videoconferenceing network, also managed by MSLN. This allows Maine students to interact with classrooms in other states and even other nations.
The next step for Maine will probably be moving towards online resources for education rather than expensive text books. There has been discussion about creating a Wiki for use by teachers to build up state-wide curriculum and supplemental learning resources.
Much work is also being done in understanding the most effective ways to teach with technology. At the University of Maine-Fort Kent (UMFK) virtually all classes are now built using WebCT to the point that students expect their classes to be available online. The different thing about UMFK is that while almost all of their courses are online, there are very few online-only courses. Rather than being used to replace the classroom technology is used to enhance the learning experience.
I'm not saying Maine has everything figured out. There have been plenty of bumps along the way since 2000, but for the most part technology in education has been statistically proven to be a good thing. Especially in attendance rates, grades, and enthusiasm for learning.
If this WSJ writer wants to do a story on Laptops in education, maybe he should look at a state that has been doing it successfully instead using one bad example to trash the idea.
* A Slide-rule, preferably Log Log. I recommend a Pickett all metal with the instruction booklet on how to USE the thing. Teach the kid his tables, arithmetic, algebra, and as much calculus as you can jam down his/her throat. Buy the book 'Calculus Made Easy' by Silvanus P. Thompson. Sit down with the child and teach the math. Make it fun. Use it every day, If the kid has a D.S buy a copy of 'Brain Age' as well. Its a great game. I play it every morning and it aides in keeping my mind sharp for the rest of the day.
*Alright, we have math covered. Next step. Listen closely. Richard Feynman is your god. Buy the Feynman lectures on physics. In both audiobook and print format. Through in a couple problem books, such as "Feynman's Tips on Physics: A Problem-Solving Supplement to the Feynman Lectures on Physics". And read the man's essays; namely "Judging Books by Their Covers". Which goes into the hypocrisy, idiocy, and laziness surrounding children's textbooks.
*Alright, so we have math and physics covered to start (start them early on this). Now for a little chemistry. May I suggest "The Golden Book of Chemistry" to get their minds going? Download the ebook, or go to lulu books and buy a bootlegg copy. Its both out of print and its copyrights expired. Fantastic book, got me into the sciences in a flash. Good starting point to chemistry. Never, EVER, underestimate a child's ability to learn. Make the learning fun, but hard. And let them do the dangerous stuff. Make sure they follow the safety guidelines, and teach them safety, but let them do it all. Do. Not. Mollycoddle. Them.
* Now for the really fun bit. Both a spot of literature and creativity. Tolkien is childhood crack. Read it all, gristle and all. Just gives the child a little to chew on. All the books, 'The Hobbit' onward. Afterwards, try something light and fast. Read (and have them read) some Terry Pratchett. Diskworld aides with humor and puns. Get them started on punning and they will do it all their lives... Anywho, make this "special" time with your kid/s. Get them to learn to love reading. Get them a library card as a reward and give them full access to whatever. May I suggest the military section? (Also do not underestimate a child's love of gore. The campaigns of Caesar is a good starting point. And this is true of both girls and boys. Do not start treating girls as 'weaker', or equality will never truly enter their heads...)
* History? Just throw in a nice history book in a subject they like if you want. What is better? Traveling. A child learns so much more with leaving the dusty pages of a book. Its like a chemistry set, a necessity if you want the knowledge to last. Let them pick a book at the gift shop and move on.
*Camping. Best way to give both a love of nature, a little lesson in thrifty packing, and living off the land. Sugar pine tea and all. Mix in a little geology (pick up a geology merit badge book, great summary. Also pick up the forestry, survival, and nature. Whatever you can. Great little primers, even if they are not into scouting.)
*Turn up the heat. If you want them in school, fine, just take an interest and augment it as much as you can. Involve yourself in the lessons of the day, read the textbook, and do the homework. Look for errors and things that will hurt them later on. Remember children's textbooks tend to be wrong in many ways. Rain is round. Two prisms will not "break" and "fix" a bream of white light (you need three or a lens). And the math is dumbed down to all hell. Aim to finish algebra by fourth grade, not starting it.... I remember my father spending three days on a problem I had in fifth grade as homework. Managed to finish it as well. Took five pages of crimped writing of calculus to get it down. Came into school with me. Sat down with my teacher. And asked what the hell was going on. Turns out the answer in the book was wrong, the solution to the problem was wrong, and that the teacher never noticed it wrong before. That she had solved on the board with the teachers edition, and never noticed it was done wrong. And came out with the wrong answer.... Never put full trust in a textbook.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
...that people seem to be so quick to blame the parents. Granted, a heck of a lot of parents these days are allowing the government to become surrogate parents (teachers, day care minders, hell, even the jails), but I think you'll find that a lot of it is due to the seemingly concentrated effort at taking power AWAY from the parents.
Let's see - mandatory schooling, 'child protection services', the whole 'being mates with your kids' thing - the list is endless. And parents are fine with the responsibility being taken on by other people. Mandatory schooling means that the parents don't have the power of choice - how they are going to educate their kids (Homeschooling is perfectly legitimate). The whole child protection thing is itself abused by taking away parents' punishment capabilities. If you can't curb your kids' behaviour except by offering 'groundings' or 'time outs' or resorting to verbal threats you have lost an incredibly huge amount of power over how your children view your authority. And finally, the ultimate authority breaker - the socially accepted (these days) thing where parents try to make friends of their children. Don't get me wrong, there has to be love in the parent/child relationship, but kids cannot be on the same level of the pecking order heirarchy. It just doesn't work, and ends up just looking idiotic - though unfortunately the people who do this don't realise it.
Anyway, that's just a rant I've had boiling for a little while. Heh...
If you must have computers in the classroom, then put them in the classroom. Give the students a flash drive to move their work to their home computer. That's what they do at my daughter's high school. They assume she's got a computer at home, and they require her to have a flash drive. Now, of course, there are some (30%?) students who don't have computers at home. Instead of giving every student a laptop, give those with no computer at home a desktop for home for the year. They're cheaper than laptops, and you only "give" them to those who need them. Not that this old drop out from the 60s can see the need for computers at school, anyway. Particularly PP.
Computer skills are not just "good to have," but are absolutely vital these days. That said, laptops in the classroom can often be a mistake.
It might sound like inconsistent heresy, but for many, laptop computers in the classroom are more of a toy than a tool. When I went to law school, laptop computers with wi-fi were the norm. And due to the "stadium seating" in some of the bigger lecture rooms, anybody seated at the back was able to see exactly what the vast majority people were doing on their computers. Instant messaging, buying shoes, playing solitaire--it wasn't a pretty sight. I mention this because it tends to underscore the extent of this problem. After all, these were fellow law students who:
1. Were paying about 100k each for the their seat at the school (or at least somebody was).
2. Are extremely bright
3. Risked a great deal by not paying attention in class
And they nevertheless spent their class time in the worst ways possible. Those are the legal professionals of tomorrow--the people who will be saving your ass from one predictament or another. Do you really want them to not know to file a critical motion or raise a critical defense on your behalf because they found pen and paper to be less entertaining than a laptop years back?
Force-feeding kids on technology doesn't embolden them, it cripples them and teaches them to take technology for granted. If you really want kids to develop computer skills along with a healthy attitude towards technology, you teach them the old-school, "analog" way of doing things first. THEN you introduce the computerized method so that they have an appreciation for what the computer can do to improve their problem-solving.
I'm posting this on a school provided laptop right now. Of course, I'm a bit outside the article's purview, being a high school senior, but hey, two cents.
.dmg images. Cannot change most of the system settings. Cannot declare war on Oceania, as we have always been at war with Oceania.) &c. But there is no internet filtering. And, of course, the battery bay is unsecured, so you can pull the ram, thus zapping the PRAM, disabling the security and letting you boot into single user mode...
For whatever little it's worth, these (or a least my.) laptop is very heavily secured. Open firmware is passworded, student account is heavily restricted, (Cannot install programs. Cannot decompress
and lets block all non-80 ports, possibly remove admin access, installer loggers on the machines etc etc. They'll then all waste days and weeks hacking away to their machines, probably killing a few along the way, to get their machine working properly.
Actually that's maybe not a bad idea, like powerpoint, beating back restrictions and punching firewalls are also valuable skills any coporate cog worth their salt requires.
Detractors say that the kids are wasting too much time online browsing dangerous sites, instant messaging friends, and posting to Myspace
... this nonsense must be stopped immedidately!
OMG, they're reading and writing, and they're having fun doing it...
Parents are worried that serious learning is being neglected in the quest to 'dazzle up presentations with fancy fonts instead of digging through library books.
Some parents however are 'enthusiastic laptop proponents,' one saying the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son 'master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.'"
w erpoint.ap/
So she didn't get the 2003 message by artist David Byrne that PowerPoint is a schizoid, dumbed-down way to spend time and try to convey information?
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/12/30/byrne.po
I'm torn about laptops in schools. I think kids need exposure to technology, but does every student prior to HS need a laptop? As kids are maturing I think they need less distractions in the classroom so that they can learn the basics. Have computer classes or class computer time, but I don't think kids need a laptop prior to HS.
Once in HS, this might change a bit as you would expect students to be more mature and perhaps be able to deal with the additional distractions a laptop in the class could bring.
The new "Three R's" would be:
re-format, re-install, and re-boot
...is The Flickering Mind by Todd Oppenheimer. Reviews a number of studies regarding technology in classrooms.
I'm still waiting for a reasonable explanation as to why my tax dollars should be providing personal laptops to ANY students...not to mention the money need to maintain and replace the ones that will certainly come up missing or sold on eBay.
Elementary and middle school students have ZERO need for a school-provided laptop. There is no empirical evidence of benefit to students or teachers. I don't see any need for computers in school at all unless it's for a computer-related class. They are a convenience, not a necessity. Students should be utilizing their brains, not keyboards. There actually is an entire world out their that runs without the aid of computers and kids need to learn this FIRST. This type of thing is just adding to our dependency on them. Google and Wikipedia are not proper reference material. They can be useful tools in addition to traditional reference material.
...if the issue was simply technical. Indeed, even considering how tech-savvy some students are these days it isn't that big a deal to rope in the network and keep kids from surfing during class--then the damage is limited to what can be done to the local config of the notebooks. However, the concerns of critics go far beyond technical isssues.
Quite simply, children not yet in high school are simply not mature enough to be responsible for a notebook PC. Have you seen how badly textbooks degrade? A textbook in the hands of grade 7 to 9 students usually geets destrroyed in 5 years--and that is for tough hardcover texts. Softcovers are usually torn in one or two years. Even good students will drop, mangle or lose their machies and the vast majority will not last more than a year. Maintaining and replacing such machines would be a tragic waste of public money.
Second, schools should address much more basic shortcomings, like properly training and paying teachers, addressing class size increases, implementing more effective discipline, a more relevant curriculum for maths, English classes about spelling and grammar until they actually LEARN it instead of trying to do english lit to a bunch of 13 year olds who write 'leet-speak...the list goes on.
Finally, I've rarely seen a public school effectively using computers to their full potential for pre-high-school education. They are mostly used to replace inadequate libraries and provide basic electronic lessons or to enable students to add "bling" to their reports and projects using Powerpoint and so on. This is all fine and good but students can use their home PCs or make use of a shared lab. If you want to make effective use of technology in grades 9 or lower then replaces textbooks with low-maintenance, ruggedised e-books--if only to conserve forests ad save the backs of students carrying all their texts around in backpacks slung over one shoulder.
Here are some ways I'd re-priortise money overspent on computers in primary education:
* Hire more teachers, and pay experienced teachers more. Large class sizes are not really bad in high-school but before that much over 20 kinds in a class is very detrimental.
* Make the teaching profession a REAL profession. Right now teachers aren't professionals in the sense doctors, engineers or lawyers are. Instead they are like tradespeople, and education is too important for us to treat them as such. Teacher's unions should be dismantled and banned and replaced by professional associations. Unions top priorities are working conditions like salaries, benefits, holidays and so on. Professional associations also set those standards for employers but also make sure employees meet competency standards and conduct themselves professionally. Just like a medical board, or bar associations or engineering societies, membership should be mandatory and they should enforce continual licensing.
* Put practices of other professions into place for teachers as well. Doctors have internships, engineers have apprenticeships where they are junior-engineers or engineers-in-training for up to 4 years. Teachers only get limited classroom/applied training, all before graduation. A "Junior Teacher" should work under the guidance of a "Professional Teacher". If a class is a bit large then pair a Junior and Professional in the same class so that children get both classroom learning and individual attention. Additionally, there should be a code of ethics and a "standards of practice" enforced by the association. So much misguided focus is put on standard testing methods for students, which is unfair to teachers since little to no standards are in place to guide them in achieving their goals. Finally, there should be a more rigourous "Continuing Professional Development" requirement for teachers to make sure they retain and improve their competencies. Rightn now there are few to no requirements, and teacher "professional days" are not always mandatory and are sometimes more like retreats than ser
While you may have a good point regarding cellphones (or other 'convergence devices') as educational tools, I thought I'd take a second to respond to the comment about paper notetaking versus other forms.
The reason that most people still use paper, aside from the fact that it's cheap and fault tolerant and almost universally available, is that there's really not a superior electronic note-taking system.
A keyboard might be an acceptable input device, but only in a very specific set of circumstances where all you're doing is entering text. But note-taking isn't stenography; even in a basic lecture class, many (if not most) people's notes contain more than straight text. At the very least, it might be primitive graphic objects like boxes, arrows, and the like. In many places, the ability to draw diagrams are a must -- I have file-boxes full of notebooks that are probably heavier on diagrams and equations (both of which don't really lend themselves to keyboard entry, although someone very comfortable with LaTeX might disagree) than they are on text. While the paper can handle all forms of static content, a keyboard-entered computer can really only manage text.
Let's consider a person taking notes on an 8-1/2"x11" sheet of paper, with a 0.7mm (0.0028") pen or pencil. This translates to about a resolution of 360 lpi, or an overall resolution for the sheet of 3960x3060 (in the landscape orientation) at 1:1 size. Find me a computer monitor that can do that.
So to really do what you can do on a sheet of paper, the computerized system would either have to have a display capable of displaying the same data density, or have a very clever zooming interface. And not only would it have to be able to display data at this resolution, it would have to be able to record it: your input device (e-pen/stylus/touchscreen) would have to be of an equivalent resolution. Tablets with resolutions in the 300+ dpi exist (with pressure sensitivity to boot) but I've never seen anything that good actually placed over a monitor, certainly not one of paper-like resolution.
I can imagine such a system being constructed -- I don't think it's beyond the capabilities of our technology now -- but it would be ungodly expensive. Right now, it's probably cheaper to put notes on paper and then run them through a high-speed/high-res ADF scanner.
Electronic notetaking does have advantages; the ability to embed audio recordings or video alongside the more traditional notes, but none of these seem like compelling features unless you can get the notes themselves right. I've tried using the Notebook features of Office (on the Mac), which is fairly cool -- it records audio and syncronizes it to your typed notes, so that you can re-read your notes later while hearing the audio that inspired them -- but in the end, typing just doesn't give anything near the flexibility of pen and paper.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Ad heavy and lame.
your dry ass LECTURE that's just regurgitated from the text they have to read anyways
Most kids don't read the text these days because they know that teachers will just cover it all anyway. If reading the text were better enforced, the teachers could actually spend time covering extra material that the kids might find more interesting.
It's scary being a Flash and Flex developer on Slashdot. You guys are unnaturally rabid.