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How Technology Changes Classrooms
Corrupt writes "Just ask 11-year-old Jemella Chambers. She is one of 650 students who receive an Apple Inc laptop each day at a state-funded school in Boston. From the second row of her classroom, she taps out math assignments on animated education software that she likens to a video game."
...at least rewrite the summary in your own words, rather than directly plagiarizing from the article. Besides, without the first paragraph of the article, the summary makes no sense. Just ask Jemella what?
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Its not like a computer can teach you to think critically, they also stifle real research skills. Why poor though references or bother to learn the proper way to annotate them if you can just google for a text string?
Kids don't learn Latin anymore but they are learning to 'use' computers at the age of 11, get real. As a tool they are useful but in order to be a tool the user must have some basic skills that becoming computer dependent at that age will seriously retard. I really think there is no call for kids to be using computers as part of the educational experience before high-school.
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
There is very little value in learning how to do things the old way when the new way is all that will ever be used.
Following your logic, we should all be hunting and gathering instead of shopping for food because now we can't feed ourselves, either.
Let us retard all progress in the name of tradition because... well, there is no good reason. But it would make you happy, I suppose.
IT in education is too young. I dont think the right models for education have been developed anyhow, much less good software that supports them.
The thing is that education is severely tied into media: from the greeks and their oral traditions, to the medieval cult of the books, to the discovery of print, education has been transformed by the media in which we store and confer information.
Today, that media is becoming a universally accessible cloud. I think current trends of education that favor the use of PowerPoint as a better tool than a blackboard are ok in terms of efficiency, and they might really convey information in a better way.
The question that I make myself is not about efficiency, but about the difference between information and knowledge. Yeah, sure, tech conveys info. it also MAY convey knowledge of SOME things that are encodable in our new tool (the net, for example).
But knowledge? Is viewwing a simulation of a physic phenomenon the same as taking the weighs in the labs and proving them yourself? Is it the same viewing a simulation of the parabolic shot, than actually going into the lab, meassuring force, launching a thingie, see how far it got and THEN using newtons tools to see if they still work.
In a word: can we ever substitute experience through tech?
Worse: do we WANT to do that?
NO SIG
I have a small issue with your argument. As tools become more complex, learning to use them becomes more complex. Reasoning and logical thinking are not harmed/hampered by having complex tools available. They are harmed by teachers who use complex tools to avoid doing the harder part, teaching kids to reason and think. Sure, a laptop or calculator makes fast work of math problems yet structuring a mathematical proof is something the calculator won't do. If kids want to copy someone else's work off the Internet, teachers need to ensure that testing requires the child to prove they know the material.
Did nailing guns make carpenters less skillful?
Did spreadsheets make accountants less skillful?
and so on....
You are blaming the problem on the tool instead of the teacher.
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For that matter, why bother learning how to spell properly and use correct grammar?
And following your logic we should not be teaching math at all just how to use a calculator.. See how silly following logic can be!
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
> "The dog ate my homework" is no excuse here. Sure, now it's...my hard drive melted or the server's down. Seriously? Kids are starting too young. I love how people are worried that people are too connected to their technology and that kids aren't getting out enough anymore, and yet, we're starting them with a need for technology at the age of 11. Has anyone else been at the supermarket when the computers go down? No one knows what the hell to do. It's a madhouse. Technology can be exceptionally helpful, but I don't think this is a move in the right direction.
-MelRom
most of the technology here goes to complete waste in normal classes because the students generally know more about the machines than teachers. Now, if they incorporated COMPUTING instead of computers, that would be sweet. Imagine using a geometry class and Object Orientation to simultaneously teach two things -- better? Students will KNOW those definitions because they will have taught them to the computer, and they will have some background in different methods of programming -- which is a useful tool no matter what field you go into.
When I was a design engineer, I was a better CAD draughtsman because I understood the underlying principles of geometry that you learn best when working with a pencil and compass. Similarly, if you want to be a better linguist in any one or combination of European languages, a grounding in Latin would greatly improve your chances. And if you want to be a better cook, you'll stand a much better chance if you go back to basics and learn how to cook something from the raw ingredients instead of putting a TV dinner in the microwave.
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Funny how kids used to do a lot better when schools didn't really care about kids' self-esteem and made them work diligently on paper.
Oooh. I expect you'll be slammed with all sorts of accusations for that bit of political incorrectness. My own opinion is the same, though I'm suspicious that a good chunk of the funding available for schools is tied up in ancillary efforts (self-esteem programs consultants, and administrators, among others) and hence not much is available for textbooks and clean bathrooms. Or, for that matter, things like more teachers.
the average public school is literally just a tax-supported daycare center that provides some education.
What, you don't want them to succeed?
Indeed it is... IF you've got the multiplication tables memorized...
Learning is about making connections. Memorizing is about having the bits in place to connect. Education requires both.
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As a high school English teacher I only have one (sad thing) to contribute here. We're strongly discouraged from teaching grammar... since the administration "knows" it is boring and cannot hold student interest. If a subject or lesson cannot (or does not) keep every child in the classroom entertained, no matter how diverse the population, then the teacher is faulted.
On the other hand, be glad they've got laptops to keep them entertained. Yay!
Meh.
you would still have one to many Apple laptops.
That is, I think, one of the most eloquent and succinct comments I have seen about memorization, and its role in education. Do you mind if I use it in the future?
Rhapsody in Numbers
The tech approach to raise a generation of retards. These institutions rock !
Oh! But there IS something a "free computer" can teach you, and that's loyalty to the brand. That's probably the main thing I can think of right now.
"fundamental fields change slowly, a ten year old geometry or physics or art textbook will do quite well. And students can take them home, read them on the bus or under a tree, do homework anywhere"
Through high school, I really struggled with Calculus. When my teacher explained something to the class, I did great. However, when I was assigned a lesson from the book (which also had references to help material on the publisher's web site) I would find that I just couldn't understand what was going on until the following day when my teacher explained it. So I went to my grandfather (electrical engineer and former math teacher) for help. He gave me his old college calculus text*, which was about the size of a standard hard drive, compared to my math book which barely fit in my backpack. After using it, I found that I could understand the older book much better then the newer one. Why? I believe the reason is 'fluff.' Here is an approximate example because I don't have ether books anymore:
Old book: A limit can be used to find y when x1 approaches x2 at Y. This is useful for finding y when there is a hole in the graph. [Example problem or two, closely followed by 20 problems to be assigned]
New book: Do you remember the limits we learned in chapter 3.2? Did you know that they could be used to "solve" holes in a graph? [show example graph, but don't explain how to solve it] What we can do is take the limit of an equation and find the missing hole. Remember that with a limit you are not finding a true answer but a close approximation for it. [big picture of the approximation symbol] For example.........[and so on until the next page].......This is how we are lead to theorem 3.6: "A limit can be used to find y when x1 approaches x2 at Y." [two example problems followed by 100 problems to do on your own]
There was also a difference in the problems assigned too. The 20 from the old book were more in-depth and challenging, truly testing how well you had learned whereas the newer book's 100 problems were extremely repetitive and almost never challenging.
When I began to do much better on my assignments, my teacher asked me why. I showed him my grandfather's book, and he smiled and showed me his own copy of it. It turns out that he created his lessons from the old book because he felt that the teacher's edition of the new one was "worthless."
*This was so old that I found in it a love letter from my grandmother to my grandfather when they were still dating.
Yet, I question this as you all 95% of people do is memorize the steps. You memorize the steps on what buttons to press on your calculator. You memorize the steps on how to do long division. Neither gains you any insights into division as a concept.
Its true, that, when learning long division, all you do is "memorize the steps". However the steps are more generalizable. For example, if you know how to do long division with numbers, its a fairly simple jump to get long division with symbols. Yet, if you're doing division on your calculator, you'll have a much harder time figuring out how to divide with symbols, since you've never been exposed to the actual division algorithm (all your division took place inside of a black box).
In other words, learning to divide using a calculator would be fine if nothing else depended on long division. But we both know math doesn't work like that. Math is cumulative - advanced topics build off basic ones. If you don't have an adequate grasp of long division with numbers, you're going to have a hard time factoring equations using that method.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Yes - if you know how to do basic arithmetic. Almost all the arithmetic I do in real life, I do in my head -- usually just approximated to two significant figures.
I worry that kids who don't learn multiplication tables will become paralyzed by an everyday question like "which carpet is more expensive, $1.95/square foot or $39.99/square yard?"
Ultimately, the point of translating real life problems into mathematical equations is to get a solution. If someone can't at least get a ballpark solution on his own, I submit he's functionally innumerate.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.