Ask Slashdot: Is E-Learning a Viable Option?

An anonymous reader writes "My spouse, who is an elementary school science teacher, has had some experience in e-learning, since her school gave iPads to all the students. She found that students used these devices, not for school purposes like note taking, but for gaming, etc. It got to the point that she banned them from her classroom. Do technology aids help, or hinder, education? Is the idea that students can be home-schooled electronically realistic, or absurd?"

Comments

NO.

[tomhudson]

This question has been answered MANY times. NO study has shown that students benefit - and many have shown that the diversion of resources hurts them. It's a dead horse. Stop flogging it and move on.

Re:NO.

[Ethanol-fueled]

Yes, indeed.

It also doesn't help that the discipline in schools is relaxing to an all-time low, and kids can wear hats and have cell phones and text and game all day and then tell their teachers to fuck off - and not a damn thing will happen to them once their parents threaten a lawsuit.

Re:NO.

[Praedon]

You missed the entire point of ECOT all together, you didn't read how the vast majority of the time, the student is all on their own following the curriculum. Those with learning disabilities spend a little more time obviously with a teacher.

Re:NO.

[joocemann]

Actually, the parents are responsible for preparing the child to learn. The teacher is there to teach, not to motivate crappy kids from disinterested parents.... I will not hold that job to a teacher. Thats like expecting the police to be patient and guide punk brats to be good lawful kids... No. The cop is there to enforce the law, and if he goes out of his way to help guife in a lesson, thats a bonus.

Re:NO.

[Praedon]

I think I remember now, why I marked you as a foe a long time ago. You have nothing insightful to say about anything. Nor do you have anything intelligent or constructive to add to any conversation. If you would of read my post, you would realize it's about electronic home-schooling and not "swishy gadgets" in the school system. Self-modded down for troll and fail.

Re:NO.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the parents are responsible for preparing the child to learn. The teacher is there to teach, not to motivate crappy kids from disinterested parents.... I will not hold that job to a teacher. Thats like expecting the police to be patient and guide punk brats to be good lawful kids... No. The cop is there to enforce the law, and if he goes out of his way to help guife in a lesson, thats a bonus.

Your statements are so ignorant and Right Wing that I will be surprised if you don't get Moderated Insightful (based on the current trends of the agenda-based moderation system).

I will give you a clue: most parents will not have a degree in psychology, education, marketing, or anything else. It is the teachers who are there to teach. And yes teaching means motivating and making sure that children understand the instructions. Teaching means having the training and resources to, for example, understand that some children may need to have more attention because of attention deficit disorders, dyslexia, etc. Parents unfortunately don't usually have the training or resources to realize that their schools will not help their children learn, but rather that the parents are responsible.

You're statement and attitude do provide evidence why e-learning is important, because the human element in teaching will always be the weakest link: whether it be parents, teachers, or the ignorant public that help decide policy.

If the parents are responsible then who is going to teach the parents how to teach and motivate their children? How can parents motivate their children when they are at work and their children are at school? This is the type of irrational, right wing logic that is causing children to fail.

So yes, intelligent people may not be popular and we may not have Karma, but at least we can spot Bullshit when we see it.

We used to play boxes on the grid paper

[nedlohs]

in our math class.

That didn't really say much about whether grid paper and pens were aiding or hindering our education.

It possibly does say something about the quality of the teacher...

Dreadful idea

[cohomology]

The kids who need help often have chaotic home environments. They need role models, not electronics. There is no technical fix.

Re:Control the devices

[ScentCone]

How come every I.T. manager turns into a fascist?

How come everyone who's never been responsible for the consequences of not having a handle on those issues is so unable to use the word "fascist" correctly? Red lights in traffic are fascist! Banks that won't cash your checks when you have nothing in your account are fascist! Dogs that bark at squirrels are fascists! Government agencies that provide books to students for their education, but then discipline the students for tearing out the pages in order to make paper airplanes are fascists! Teachers that expect their students to pay attention in class: total fascists!

Implementation, implementation, implementation

[The Stranger]

The problem with many (maybe most?) attempts to put technology in schools and even home learning environments is that people don't think through the implementation. Technology is not magic. You cannot expect to get good results simply by dropping a chunk of technology into a classroom without spending a lot of time and energy rethinking how teaching and learning is going to work in that classroom. For example:

What, exactly, is the technology going to be used for? No hand-waving general answers allowed here (e.g., "enrich content with interactive multimedia presentations" is a useless answer).
In what specific tasks will the technology allow you to do something that would have been cumbersome or impossible without it (e.g., using graphing or numerical methods to approximate solutions to equations that are not amenable to the usual algebraic techniques)?
What more interesting or more engaging problems can you now attempt to solve (that address your learning goals) that you would not have been able to attempt without the technology?
Will you want to change or expand your set of learning goals now that you have this piece of technology? If so, how?
How much instructional time will be needed to get the teacher and students working comfortably with the technology? Is the potential benefit worth that amount of time?
How do you implement the technology in ways that do not detract from the learning you are trying to do (i.e., what are the unintended consequences)? How might you plan ahead for negative unintended uses?

Almost every case I've ever seen or read about where technology was just dropped into an educational setting without painstaking planning and thought about curriculum and implementation, not to mention extensive training of teachers and staff, resulted in mixed results at best, and failure and rejection at worst. To answer the original questions directly, technology aids can help or hinder education- it's all in the amount of time, thought, sweat and tears that get put into the implementation. I won't comment more on the home schooling part of the question, as I really have no experience there (aside from supplementing my own kids' educations).

E-learning is still learning

[rbowen]

I am perplexed by equating "e-learning" with "give every kid an iPad". If you give a kid a screen and make it under their control they will find the games. If someone is unaware of this, they probably dont have kids. But this is not unique to electronics. If you give them a stack of text books and no supervision, they'll make paper airplanes. Education requires supervision at that age. Putting an e- in front of things doesn't change human nature.

Re:Like teacher, like student

[daem0n1x]

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

We seem to have done a pretty good job educating people in the last century or two. In most developed countries, most people are educated to the limits of human capacity.

All the innovative devices may have a role in education, but they should be considered carefully. Education systems are under attack right now. They're being pressured by the neoliberal shitheads to sharply lower costs and by corporations (usually the same guys) that want to make big money selling expensive toys to governments.

Blackboard and textbooks have worked for long, why such a rush to replace them? IMHO, the ability of a country to educate its population depends more in factors outside the school. like:

1. how families value education
2. how families stimulate critical thinking in kids
3. if kids are well fed, safe, happy
4. etc.

If a kid wants to learn and has a competent teacher, blackboard and textbook is more than enough.

Re:Automatic notetaking is nice

[NEDHead]

Actually, one could make a case that public education started its downward spiral as a result of the Women's Liberation movement. Not blaming, just saying that the system was built on bright capable women working at low wages in a field where their participation was acceptable. When the best and brightest noticed the greener pastures, and the system did not compensate by offering competitive wages and status, well, you see what we got.

Interesting...

[rsilvergun]

taking that a step further, you can argue that the decline in middle class wages is a bigger part of that. Women can't afford to work for low wages as school teachers because their husbands no longer bring home enough money to maintain a middle class standard of living.

Re:Interesting...

[rsilvergun]

Moreover, I would ask:

How much do you save every month for retirement?
How much do you save every month for your 4 children's college fund?
What would you do if your car was wrecked by someone with no insurance and no ability to pay?
What would you do if you were out of work for 6 months due to an injury?

Being middle class isn't about where you are right now, it's about how secure you are in that position. This is the point most people miss. For the record, studies show you need about $65,000/yr average in America to be secure in your middle class standard of living.

Re:Like teacher, like student

[jrminter]

I could not agree more with the importance of the "other factors" you listed. I think they are more important than technology. Technology is simply a tool - and like any tool it can be used well or abused. Consider the work of Salman Kahn of Kahn Academy. He started tutoring his cousins in math. Because he was doing this long distance, he started making you-tube videos. He reports that his cousins preferred the videos to "live sessions" because they could pause them and fit them into their own schedule. His work has grown into Kahn Academy that many schools are using effectively. At a higher level, I would point to the on-line machine Leaning class by Prof. Andrew Ng of Stanford. This uses technology very effectively but requires a self-directed and self-disciplined student. These same tools are abused by those who make poor choices.

At the elementary and secondary level, I view education like a three leg stool - where the parents, teachers, and administration are the three legs supporting the student (the seat.) If any part fails to perform, the whole system suffers. Parents must value education and require respectful, disciplined behavior from their children at all times; teachers must use all the tools at their disposal to create instruction plans that effectively communicate the material to the student. Technology is only one of many tools. The administration must make sure that teachers have the needed tools and help enforce discipline. When rowdy, disrespectful, and non-performing students are kept in the classroom, it ruins the environment for everyone. if the state must educate these problem students, they need to be segregated to a boot-camp like school that deals with their special needs. At some point, you cut your losses. It is a question of return on investment. The ultimate objective is to turn the student into a self-directed, life-long learner who takes responsibility for their own education. We now have unprecedented access to information - more than at any other time in history. Ignorance is the result of a string of bad choices and the individual bears significant responsibility.

Re:Like teacher, like student

[vtcodger]

I worked for a number of years in a K-8 school. My opinion. Computers aren't useless, but for the current state of things, there are plenty of things for which they are not an answer. First of all, the teachers need computers as do the administrators. As a practical matter, teachers are tied to their classrooms for much of the day. They need a networked computer and a printer.

Students? Computers are somewhat of a challenge to kids who do not know their alphabet and can not read. OTOH computers can be very useful in 2nd-4th grade. There are a gazillion little programs (Many of which are MSDOS or Windows 3 based and will not run on "Modern Computer Hardware" without an incredible amount of tinkering) that teach basic stuff like arithmetic, English grammar, some basic science, some history. Allowing students to spend part of their day exploring this stuff at their own pace is probably a good idea.

Older students? With rare exceptions, the only thing computers provide is word processing, spell checking, and a refuge from reality. Nothing wrong with any of that -- within limits.

And for the one student in 10 or 20 with exceptional skills/interest in some specific area -- computers, chemistry, physics, art, literature ... anything but playground skills -- computers can be (but often aren't) a gateway to knowledge. That's especially true I think in schools systems with large class sizes and limited resources. I don't think this is being adequately explored.

But handing everyone an ipad or kindle or whatever and expecting technology to work miracles. That's ludicrous.