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.
Children need neither laptops nor cell phones. They need to learn the basics. Not PowerPoint!
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$k8 tH!$
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
The problem is that most school districts refuse to pay for the level of quality in network professionals that they need. Therefore, they get mediocre (generally) computer skilled people running their networks. I'm sorry, but a mac expert just doesn't cut it anymore. You need someone who knows how to manage IP layer traffics as well as various network applicances and Windows-based PCs (for the teachers who inevitably bring in their own laptops). Until the districts cough up for qualified people, their networks will continue to degrade.
Actually that's more than part of the problem. Many schools don't have halfway competent network administrators, and they certainly don't have the resources to maintain that many laptops, and they would have to maintain them. After all, if little Johnny's laptop stops working, and that laptop is important to his participation in school then someone is going to have to fix it, and in many cases the parents aren't going to be able to afford to.
What's more, this would give each of these children a tool that would allow them to get online at any hotspot on the planet, and lots of parents are going to have a problem with that. Sure, there are probably ways to make it so that the wireless card only works at school, but then why not simply use much less expensive desktop machines?
This doesn't even take into account problems of sabotage, theft, or accidental damage. Do we really need kids in urban areas carrying around hundreds of dollars of computer equipment? Plus, every year hundreds of thousands of school books get destroyed. Computers are far more fragile than books, and more expensive to boot.
Basically, giving kids a general purpose laptop is a horrible idea with very few redeeming virtues.
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.
Can you assign homework without checking to see if they have books? paper? pencil? pen? time?
Unless you are teaching computer programming, you shouldn't be assigning computer work.
The computer is onme aspect need for reference, but there are others.
As long as the reference is cited, what do you car if it's a web site or a reference book from the library?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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?
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.
The problem is that many schools are chronically underfunded and can't afford books or enough teachers, let alone a competent network admin qualified to manage a 1000 user network, who can easily pull down the salary of 4 experienced teachers in the corporate world. As a result, most admins know less than some of the students at the school, which inevitably leads to problems.
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.
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"?
A hearty amen to that. Further I think the teachers need to be a bit more tech savvy and learn to actually implement the laptops as more than just fancy typewriters. Most teachers in our local district wouldn't know MySpace if it bit them in the ass. Further they need to know when to have students shut down the laptops. With some education, minus the MySpace/social networking fear-mongering the media puts out there, teachers could really leverage the technology to their advantage. I know one guy who's English professor has required all freshmen to maintain a blog for the semester making at least two entries a week. Grades have gone up in the class over 15% since implementing that. It is just a matter of the education system educating itself first.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
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."
And you believe everything you read on the internet?
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.
A few years ago, my late father and myself conducted a 2 year study of every single school system in the State of Alabama and looked deeply into the issues of what made them tick and not tick. This resulted in a series of proposals based on what actually happens towards fixing the schools. Every single proposed solution at that time was passed except 1. 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. Yes I did propose and it has gone nation wide the testing of schools by testing the progression of the students! I am the one everyone likes to hate over this.
The critics are absolutely right about the ineffective use of testing and such. My answer is shut up about the defects as an excuse not to test. Lets test the students and get better tests and better testing methods if you don't like the results. I whole heartedly support more efficient evaluation methods and any efforts that can direct teachers towards better results. The methods here are standard industrial and technological evaluation methods.
Schools are not under funded. They are grossly over funded. Teachers are not under paid except in their early career years. This may vary some from state to state but bureaucracy pays more by tenure. Lets cut this crap out that funding of the schools is the problem it isn't even the problem at all. The issue is that the system does not reward people for trying. It rewards them for expiring the clock. You get what you pay for.
The issue of Laptops in class has mostly to do with the issue of teachers being quite unwilling to adapt to the present time. Here are a set of solid proposals for the schools around the world.
Beginning about the 4th grade students should no longer carry books. They should be issued laptops. Their books should be documents on the net freely available to them. The school systems should hire the authors directly and fire the school text book companies. It would save a bloody fortune.
The issue of the style of interactive texts in the schools that is developed should be based upon an axiom my father said about teaching me the slide rule. (Yes I date to that time) He said, you may use a slide rule when the answer you get is more important than learning the method of getting the answer. This should be the objective of the design. All lessons should require the method be examined while that is what is being learned. If this is done, the tricking with cute fonts and cut and paste reports will do no good in grading.
The real matter here is design. I discussed this with the authors of www.starfall.com and their effort to teach phonics on line. (Excellent site by the way) I told them that the cute interactive graphics and funny cartoons should only work as a reward for full development of a lesson. They are doing more and more this way in time. This should set a map for people to see. One can clearly see that this is a job never done. It is a work in progress forever. That is why we will always need teachers and not just computers for training.
A note to the mods. This is the most on topic least troll and most informative listing you have ever read on this topic. If you can't see that write a criticism as a response or get a life. Otherwise this deserves every mod point you can give it. Slashdot shouldn't be a shout-down and heckle society.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
Its not just the sysadmin, its mainly about the teachers. If the teachers know nothing about computers, and there isn't a curriculum based around them. While you may be able to add protections, what are the children really going to learn? How to surf the web?
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
Professional what -- pedants?!
Or what the groupthink is out in the blog-o-log-o-spherical.
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.
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.
Being able to determine what is and is not valid on the internet requires a background set of information against which to compare. Setting kids loose on the internet and telling them, in essence, "you go figure out what's correct and what isn't", is sending them out completely unprepared.
That's not saying that everything taught in the schools is correct, but the percentage is much higher than what one finds using google.
... 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*
You are part of the problem.
Blame the teachers? They don't expect enough of the students, sure.
Who REALLY should be blamed?
The parents.
For not taking responsability for their children's actions and learning.
Require calculus from all students to get out of high school. Require REAL reading. A book in 2 months? Laughable. A book in 3 weeks.
Don't PUNISH teachers for FAILING the FAILURES. If a student fails, it should be the parents who are ashamed, not the schools.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
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! --
That's my way of communicating with my kid.
Interesting. I bought my first cell phone at the age of 22, and my parents got one shortly after. Yet strangely, my parents were able to communicate with me just fine for the first 22 years of my life...
Slackware
The trouble with basing teacher criteria on test results is that it results in teachers who instead of trying to teach a good understanding of the material, teach to the test instead to get the highest results; a case of the tail wagging the dog.
You've got to have qualitative measures as well as looking at the tests. Test results, while a good performance mesurement - in isolation paint a very incomplete picture, and you need a way to make sure that you don't just end up with a system that rewards teaching to the test because then the cure is worse than the disease.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Every single proposed solution at that time was passed except 1. 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. Yes I did propose and it has gone nation wide the testing of schools by testing the progression of the students! I am the one everyone likes to hate over this
You might know more about this then I do but wouldn't tying teacher's rate of pay to standardized testing encourage the teachers to teach just the exam and not how to learn and explore? It doesn't matter if the students learn as long as they do well in the test right? As long as the test scores are up they must be producing better students right?
I have to admit I never studied any of this so I have to defer to your intensive studies of this revolutionary plan.
Bet this
A note to the mods. This is the most on topic least troll and most informative listing you have ever read on this topic. If you can't see that write a criticism as a response or get a life. Otherwise this deserves every mod point you can give it. Slashdot shouldn't be a shout-down and heckle society.
Nor should it be a "here's why you should vote for me!" post society. That last paragraph was pretty lame.
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.
Good network admin ins only a small part on the problem. From what I have seen (mind you this is the LA area) the whole system is broken.
1. When you have damn near everything blocked by the firewall/router like Wikipedia the usefulness goes way down. I swear I think they are running a whitelist not a blacklist.
2. I donated a few old machines to a school here and installed them. Dropped a note to the admin to add their MAC's to the list and after a few weeks my friend (teacher there) started calling and memoing as well. After the school year ended and the next semester started and ended and still nothing. Not so much as a phone call from to admin at the district, much less Network access.
3. The teachers have no clue how to use them effectively. They seem to use them as a reward for doing something. "Get a passing grade on your next test and you can play with the computer" type of thinking
4. My old Jr. High spent money on removing all the lockers in the place to replace them with trophy cases. One might ask where do students put their books?.... Surprise? They got rid of books years ago. Yet they blew tons of money on a fancy new computer lab that sits mostly empty and unused and/or underused, blew money on removing lockers, blew money on installing a trophy case, and have not spent a dime on books in 5 years.
5. The students are aware of this B*llsh1t, are forced to go and have no respect (plenty of contempt) for the school (understandable) and treat the equipment like everything else
What can we expect from the people running our schools? Certainly not reason. And what is it we expect laptops to do at the schools under these conditions?
Curse them all
Actually, I slightly agree with you. There are a lot of incompetent teachers (and administrators) and this is a huge problem. The difficulty is not that you can't fire teachers (you can). Teachers should be accountable for their performance, and they way this is done is not more testing. Its management. Adminstrators don't spend time in the class room observing and managing the teachers.
The fact is there isn't much incentive for good people and good performance in teaching. Positions are hard to fill and teachers can't expect to make more than a blue coller salary. The standard political approach to this is always to act like accountability is the answer. All carrot and no stick for teachers. In your job do you do good work just to keep from getting fired? Teachers need to be paid for performance and they need to have a lot more opportunity to make a real salary.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
You must be a teacher, teachers think this way. An excellent teacher can make great leaps beyond what a bad parent can do. An excellent parent can make great leaps beyond what a bad teacher lacks.
Problem people cause problems. Live with it, and stop sending kids to special ed who have 'behavioral problems' because you keep yelling to 'pay attention' to your dry ass LECTURE that's just regurgitated from the text they have to read anyways, until they snap back at your hypocritical statements. (Ok pardon, not truly directed at you, just bad teachers in general.)
In reality it's a student's environment that reinforces their drive to learn. If there is no requirement to learn to do well in life (see: showbiz, drug dealers etc) because your role models can barely speak english coherently obviously there's not going to be much drive to do well in Language Arts.
If there are positive role models surrounding a student that student will more than likely do well. If they are surrounded by negative role models, they're more than likely to turn out in societies view as negative.
Also, do away with the C. Students should know or not, average is bullshit, our president is a C student... case and point.
If a teacher is constantly failing students, and there is no forward progress and a small percentage of students (who always do well) are doing well in their classes but all other students don't, fire their ass. It's ridiculous how much teachers get away with not doing.
The worst teachers have their TA's do their homework grading, their attendance (illegal btw) and even generate their multiple choice tests (all computerized, and provided by the textbook vendor.) There used to be a day when teachers cared about teaching, and you could find them in their classes hours after school was out grading papers, now the teacher parking lot is empty at 3:30pm.
the things that kids are doing with laptops are similar to what they were doing before the laptops. Ok, so they sent notes instead of Instant Messaging. Ok, so they brought skin magazines to school instead of browsing the sites online. The Myspace thing... ok, that's new.
However, several school have already changed over from textbooks to computers and ebooks. It seems that it is actually cheaper for the ebooks AND the computers AND the extended warranties AND the tech support, than it is for the textbooks.
As far as everything you brought up, all of those problems have solutions that have nothing to do with the computers or the kids using them. They have to do with teachers being properly educated and brought up to speed in the newest technologies. Getting teachers to stay updated within their own fields was always a problem. Proper administration is also the key. Just like some students can actually be trusted with responsibility, maybe some students should be brought in on the network administration end. Same with the network hardware management.
So the schools are definately to blame for not being prepared. The concept of laptops instead of textbooks is NOT to blame.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
> 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?
You are totally full of shit. Behavioural problems are due to boring lectures? Total nonsense. There are students out there who act up, even with the most interesting and supportive classes and teachers. Some are raised that way. Some learn it from their peers. Still other have actual medical or mental problems.
But not in your world, where everybody is born and raised a perfect being, only to be led astray by boring lectures!
... and then they built the supercollider.
In any effective education system (there aren't many of them) the teachers don't see the exams until after the students. The teachers and the QA staff have access to the same curriculum - one group creates lesson plans based on the curriculum and the other group creates exams. This division of labour prevents "teaching to the test" because the teachers don't know what's going to be on any given test (everything in the curriculum is fair game), but more importantly it takes away the ability of teachers to "test only what they taught" if they fail to complete the curriculum. That hopefully eliminates the stereotyped "worst case" where a student is promoted all the way through high school without learning to read or do math.
I find it odd that your post listing a nice assortment of critical thinking is attached to a post describing how we should limit a child's choice in material.
Kids can get drugs, and yet we think that they should not be allowed to surf. It's shocking that they don't love those restrictive environments as much as I did! Twelve years of Catholic school kept me from sex, drugs, and rock n roll until at least 3:00 pm.
Isn't the problem that we don't allow the real world to mix with education even more? As a youth, I was raised in a blue collar family, and naturally gravitated towards such trades. I loved the fact that I could work along side adults, often gaining insight and a dose of reality. This pushed me towards engineering rather than simply machinery.
We work on computers all day long, socialize on computers, shop on computers, are entertained by computers, but don't want kids to have access. As with talking to kids about drugs (I have a son in college and have), one cannot pretend that we never heard of pot for example. It's hollow and not authentic, two things kids will never respect.
"but wouldn't tying teacher's rate of pay to standardized testing encourage the teachers to teach just the exam and not how to learn and explore? It doesn't matter if the students learn as long as they do well in the test right?"
If the standardized test is designed to test what the students are supposed to be learning, then what's the problem? People like to go on about the dangers of "teaching to the test," but if the test measures the student's ability to read, write, and do math then wouldn't "teaching to the test" simply mean "teaching the kids to read, write, and do math"?
If you have a problem with teachers only "teaching for the test," it implies that your test isn't designed properly. Just design the test to measure whether or not students are learning what you want them to learn, so that the teacher can't teach them to pass the test without actually teaching them whatever the curriculum is supposed to be.