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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.
>> 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.
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
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.