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.
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.
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.
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.
"Thiss iz mi Powhour pont prezentation four Engish clas".
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.
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.
We sound just like our parents!!
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.
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"?
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."
>> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
... 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*
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
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.
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.