Slashdot Mirror
Home Computers Equal Lower Test Scores
An anonymous reader writes "Politicians and education activists have long sought to eliminate the 'digital divide' by guaranteeing universal access to home computers, and in some cases to high-speed Internet service. But a Duke University study finds these efforts would actually widen the achievement gap in math and reading scores. Students in grades five through eight, particularly those from disadvantaged families, tend to post lower scores once these technologies arrive in their homes."
Without a computer you have to learn how to think.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
our obsession with school test scores is not such a hot idea.
I wish the luddities would stop trying to blame the technology. It's here to stay. Get over it. If you're seriously telling me a 16 year old without exposure to computers is better off in the modern world, I'll ask you to please dispose of the drugs.
If you have a 10-14 year old who suddenly gets access to a computer and all the distractions that come with it - games, (and shock horror porn if they can get to it0 etc. - you can expect a dip while the child adjusts. If the same kid had grown up with these things it'd be no big deal. I don't doubt that cable TV would have the same effect. All these things require some supervision in their use. But then so does a soccer or basket ball. Kids can find that distracting too.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Young children are thirsty for knnowledge. Anyone who has had any exposure to a 6-8 year old in the "why daddy" stage knows this. The problem is this is not fostered in many kids. If, at this stage, children are taught how to answer their own questions, using the tools available to them, then it will foster a lifetime of learning.
This is what my parents did with me, although in my day it was "why don't you go get the encyclopedia and we will look it up together?". Nowadays it should be "why don't we go look at the computer together". Guided by a parent, from a YOUNG AGE, this helps in several ways
- It teaches kids that, if they have questions, the materials are available to help them. They don't have to sit in ignorance just because they don't know the answer.
- It teaches kids how to find information when they need it
- It teaches kids how to think critically about that information, and discard the good from the bad.
It's not the computer that's at fault but the people who are responsible for the idea.
The "activists" contribute their moral outrage but don't much care if the kids actually get an education. It's the opportunity to display moral outrage that's the pay off for the activists. If the kids don't learn anything that's another opportunity to display moral outrage.
The politicians want to look like they're doing something and preferably with other people's money - getting something for nothing, even something useless, is politically worthwhile. Does it matter if the kids learn? Obviously not.
There's really only one group that has an unquestionable claim to be concerned primarily with education and that's the parents. They're not consulted because they might ask uncomfortable questions like "Will the computer do anything worthwhile?" Neither the activists nor the politicians are interested in having to answer questions like that.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
We somehow take technology, and expect miracles from it, far beyond what the users are capable of doing. Computers are tools, and they are only going to produce what the users are willing to invest in them of their time and effort. Disadvantaged kids need to learn how to study and investigate, before they will be able to use a computer to its potential as a learning aid. If they don't read or investigate now, computers aren't going to produce some sort of overnight change.
Here is the problem.
A child, that is not supervised to do anything that even closely resembles some sort of work on a computer will spend it on whatever this child finds to be the most interesting thing.
There will be many slashdotters here, who will say: "but I grew up with a computer in the house, maybe with more than one computer, and I learned on it."
These people are correct. It is possible to learn with a computer. However their circumstances, like my own, were limited to a small number of things that we could do. I didn't have access to a real computer until about 12, but I was interested in them by reading about them and learning how to do things with them on paper. I made programs and my first programs were some games, I made them on paper and later was able to transfer those into a real machine.
The kids who grew up into /. readers are in their very late twenties to their very late thirties, these had computers in the house in eighties - nineties, we had computers that ran much simpler operating systems and there was not such a clear abundance of actually very user friendly and easy stuff to do, except for pretty good 2D games actually. These kids were obviously from a bit more affluent backgrounds, many saw their parents use computers for work, but this is not necessary.
So these kids, who became interested in the machines, found the most interesting thing to do with their computers was to try and create stuff, to produce things with computer. Sure they plaid games with them, but they also tried writing their own games. They wrote tools, text editors, calculators, drawing programs, they built stuff with computers, added their own extension boards, it was interesting, it was something that could be shown off to the peers, at least to those who cared, so this was also a way to achieve some status among peers.
If at the time the computers were what they are today: very powerful tools with very advanced user interfaces that provided tens of thousands if not millions of different ways to work with the machines plus the ability to socialize in hundreds of ways on line, ability to download music/movies/games within minutes or hours of appearance of new titles, ability to interface with computers through phones and have it all synchronize, if at that time the games looked like they were built by multi-million dollar Hollywood studios, it would have created the perception (maybe partially correct perception) that one person's ability to try and manipulate these complex networked nodes with 3D graphics engines was no longer accessible to a kid.
The operating systems of today go beyond simple DOS so much, that a kid could not do much with those directly because it takes a million of human lives to learn them.
Beside that, there are calculators, wikipedia, sites that offer to do your homework, p2p, where answers can be probably found and downloaded and shared further, there is facebook/myspace/whatever, there are all these tools that can do work for you and there is no TIME for anything between all of the tweets and twats on line. Though we did have chatrooms, BBSs and IRCs.
I think the Ender's game had an idea that made sense, I am sure it's not the only book that had that idea of a network that is created on purpose for education only.
The kids, who have nobody to guide them about how to use the machines they are given for learning at least should be put into position where learning is what they are pushed to through the kind of a computer/network system that they would be allowed to use.
The computers for kids that are expected to learn something, should be different from the 'normal' today's machines, they should be simpler in terms of software/hardware interaction, at least there should be a way to switch between a full crazy modern OS and a simple OS for learning about how the computers work. The network should be designed for learning. There should be things to do in it that would not give out answers but that would pro
You can't handle the truth.
What's more important in life? Computer skills or getting high test scores?
The reason that 'the best' are not going into teaching is because it rewards poorly as a career.
The money sucks, you have to deal with people's undisciplined brats, you get blamed for kids' failures (instead of the kids and parents getting their fair share of the blame)....
About the only benefits are job security (which is evaporating slowly) and 3 months off during summer--(which is also evaporating as schools go 'year round').
Not only that, as a teacher you have to endure the meddling and mandates of everyone who wants to 'fix' the educational system, until you are a powerless mouthpiece for the official doctrine, and must also deliver the dogma-of-the-week in a specified manner.
We get bad teachers in this country (USA) because we have made it a TERRIBLE job.
If you make it HARDER for people to enter the career, as you are proposing (without offering ANY incentive), you won't have ANY TEACHERS AT ALL, NOT EVEN BAD ONES.
--PM
Educators need to stop thinking that some how another computer or faster connection is going to some how be a panacea for their problems teaching. The computer is just a tool and nothing more, it might help when properly employed but its not going to do anything but harm in the hands of someone who does not know how to use it. Primary school is a case where the computer and Internet are simply not needed, possibly useful but NOT needed.
The basics of mathematics, English, physical science, and history are all easily contained and since they don't often change maintained in books. Over the course of the better part of two centuries many in this country have successfully gained a good liberal studies background using only books, face time with instructors, and where appropriate hands on experience. The reasons for the achievement gap, at least at the primary school level, don't have much to do with access to technology. Learning is a discipline. It takes work to learn, even for those who don't need as much drill an practice they still have to be willing to invest the mental energy in thinking about the subject they are studying in a critical way and attempting to relate that information to what they are learning in other subjects.
The problem is the underprivileged class in our society is largely surrounded by a culture which does not value discipline, work, or even simply curiosity. In many cases it glorifies failure and dependence. Its no surprise to me that technology makes scores worse in such an environment. There is little you can wrong with a book on mathematics except fail to read it, and maybe if these kids get bored enough they give a problem or two a try, get a sense of some achievement if they have any success. The computer on the other had provides an infinite amount of distraction and virtual assures they never give algebra a second look.
If we want to plow tax dollars into education than we should focus properly. We should get these kids some good text books. We should attack the culture of failure and dependence. We need to be politically incorrect enough to tell these kids its bad to be on the dole because you are not in control of your life someone else is and if you have any dreams at all you need to be self reliant. Lets read Ralph Waldo Emerson in the second grade rather than high school even if we have to read it to them. Lets get some teachers hired who are paid well enough to spend some serious time with a small enough number of kids that they can use the Socratic method and are proficient in the subjects they teach. Lets stop advancing kids to the next grade when they have not mastered the material. That is how you fix primary education, high school yes kids need to learn to use tools at that point but they first have to understand what the tools are for and that is where we have been failing.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html