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Some Schools Ending Laptop Programs
The New York Times reports that schools are abandoning their laptops-for-students programs. It turns out that the expense of providing laptops, expense of repairing laptops, difficulties of school network management, and discipline problems stemming from pornography, cheating, and cracking more than outweighed the educational benefits. Indeed, a number of schools have concluded that far from improving student achievement, laptops either had no effect or actively hindered academic performance. Apparently, politicians embracing technology as a quick fix for social problems doesn't always work out.
Wow... and it only took them a couple of million to figure that out.
Seriously, I never thought that full blown laptops would help students (I myself having just recently finished high school). What WOULD help is something tablet-like that stores all our books in electronic form, which we could pretty much WRITE one. Seriously, that way they wouldn't have to lug around 6-7 books and erase their notes from the books when done with the materials. Would have my made high school years easier.
"There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." -- Ed Crowley
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Kids don't need technology, they need an education. I think they can be given an excellent education without ever involving a computer.
And I agree, when I was in a computer class I spent more time actively hacking (in both senses of the word) their system, than doing work. Bootlegged their PC DOS 6.3 installation. Used Word 6 for Windows instead of Works 3 for DOS. (Or used WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.) Et cetera. I obviously want to make the most of my time, but it was stuff I already knew. That's not the case for most kids, they need to be paying attention to the teacher, not their PCs, and you know kids have reverse midas touches and wreck everything...
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Kids rarely appreciate what is given to them. If they had made it a program that rewarded students with academic success and achievement their results would have been different. Blindly giving them to all students undoubtedly would fail. Most kids these days happily trash everything they encounter. It's why most intelligent parents don't give their kids a nice car as their first automobile. They get a POS that no one cares about and can easily be replaced. Then the kid earns their own nicer car (or earns the first one off the bat depnding on the financial status of the family etc).
We can argue all day about the educational benefits of these laptops but if the kids just trash them from the get go there are no educational benefits. I wouldn't trust kids today with a pen let alone a laptop.
Why would have anyone have thought that laptops would have helped schools in the first place?
Was there any studies done to show that it would augment learning, or was it just a matter of technology=cool?
And, if there were any studies done, were there any studies done not funded by industry groups wanting school districts to spend lots of money?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I think one of the biggest paradigm shifts that people are going to have to adjust to is the idea that information, like many other things, is now often causing a problems with too much, and not with too little.
Having constant access to information does not mean you are educated. Becoming educated is more than just having access to information. You can give a student a laptop, with built-in or internet access to a database of information on anything in the world, and that doesn't make them educated. A fully 3D, interactive CD-Rom showing the human anatomy isn't what is needed for someone to become a doctor. Its the understanding of the basic concepts, and the discipline to understands how information fits into the big picture that allows people to really be educated. Without out, information is just a distraction.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
The real issue with laptops in schools is ... what is the problem that the laptops are supposed to solve?
... something.
Nothing I've read indicates that ANYONE looked at the problem. They decided that the students "needed" laptops to "prepare" the students for
Think about it. It's kind of like giving kids a TV. Or a game console. Yes, there may be very specific instances where such would be useful (learning TV repair?) but on the whole, it's a fucking stupid idea.
Add to that the fact that (as they discovered) laptops are FRAGILE and it just gets worse.
Instead of focusing on technology, I'd rather see the focus on finding better educational models. We've all heard stories of kids who go from illiterate to college because they moved to a non-traditional school. Why can't we spend a fraction of the tech money seeing if we can find better low-tech (and therefore, more reliable) methods of educating our kids?
The average laptop probably won't last 4 years in high school. A book can last 20 years.
what is the problem that the laptops are supposed to solve? Nothing I've read indicates that ANYONE looked at the problem. They decided that the students "needed" laptops to "prepare" the students for ... something.
As I recall, that "something" was "survival in the business world" and the solution was to tech kids how to use Word and Excel. Encarta and other "resources" were admitted to be inferior to those the school already had in the library. Of course that's a loser, but those pushing it made a lot of money selling licenses and hardware.
The irony of this is that free software has solved issues of fragility and also has created real resources for learning that are cheaper than conventional alternatives. KDE's educational package has math plotting, algebra manipulation, language studdies, flash card programs, star charts, periodic charts with chemical properties, isotopes and images, and more. Wikipedia is a vast resource that easily competes with printed encyclopedias. Google will help you dig it deeper. All of this is free, robust and actually gives students what schools want them to have.
The low price comes with a cost: finding people willing to push it. Parents, having been burnt, are now sceptical and anyone who would follow the frauds are going to be abused. The well has been poisoned by people who claimed that "computer literacy" was being able to work M$ Word and other now worthless non-free software.
Falling hardware prices may help turn things around, but the M$ laptop will always be expensive, fragile and barren of learning material.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Schools and politicians have this belief that money solves problems. Buying laptops is a high tech and expensive way to babysit kids. Since every kid spends oodles of time playing video games and surfing the web, politicians and teachers thought that buying laptops was the best way to get all kids to learn. Throwing money and technology at the problem wasn't the solution.
The real issue here is a poor educational system. Teachers need to be paid based on merit. Students with poor discipline need to flunk. Instead, educators think flunking a student is a sign of a bad school, or a bad teacher. Parents can't believe that they are responsible for their childrens' inability to learn. They coddle their children, blaming everyone but themselves or their children.
We've grown into an age where kids don't care. Teachers are not given the power to teach properly, nor are they incented to do so. They go through the motions, and whatever happens, happens.
The teachers unions have crippled the entire process. The unions protect the worst teachers. Unions also drive the best teachers out of the system, leaving us with a system that gradually deteriorates. Unions always blame lack of funding. They line up the poor kids, pointing at how little money is spent on kids' educations. Yet most of the funding increases don't go to teachers' salaries. It goes to administrative costs, new buildings, and golden parachutes for administrators.
What we need is for teachers to be held accountable. And for those students that refuse to do the work, disciplinary action. Flunk them. Put them into a trade school. Europe has a pretty good system. If a student doesn't show aptitude for higher learning, send them to a different type of high school... one that is geared towards learning a trade.
Instead, schools just try to keep students in their classrooms, because headcount means tax dollars. And tax dollars are the only things that school administrators care about. They have no interest in grades. They have no interest in test scores. They get their money no matter what grades or test scores happen.
Laptops were seen as an easy way to throw money at their educational woes. "We need to do this to stay competitive." The insuation was that America was losing ground to the students elsewhere in the world. A computer for every child HAD to be the solution. Ignore the work. Ignore the fact that they actually have to learn something. Let's just buy the technology, and the rest will just fall into place.
Balloney. After this spending fiasco, the rest of the tax payers should wake up and force the teachers unions and school districts to change their ways. Paying teachers regardless of performance is RIDICULOUS. Throwing money at problems is careless and irresponsible. It's downright sad. To think that money, and not real work, will solve our educational woes.