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

Like teacher, like student

[Anonymous Coward]

Well from my experience with those electronic "white boards," they just distract the teacher as much as the students.

Re:Like teacher, like student

[cdrguru]

Popular culture in the 1950s showed very clearly the value of education - you got good grades, got a good job and were successful. In the late 1960s and 1970s the popular culture turned and hasn't turned back. Today the idea of getting good grades in school marks you as a "nerd" and a social outcast. The value of education today is far, far lower than it was 60 years ago and the estimation of that value is purely from popular culture.

It doesn't matter how much is spent on educating children if the children view the entire process as a waste of their time. They want to get out and play video games and chat on the Internet. You might think that textual communication would reinforce good grammer and spelling - but no, modern text communication eschews all grammer and spelling in favor of "new rules". The end result is that if they can string some words together it is good enough.

The other problem is that to a certain extent the children today are right. There are no high paying jobs waiting for them all if they get good grades. They have college to look forward to at either a massively overcrowded state school that is simply interested in processing them in and out or a private school where they (or their parents) will likely never pay off the massive loans. If they are accepted, which isn't a given. The state schools are still tossing out 25-35% of the student body during the first year because they can't function in a college environment. There is no sure guarantee of employment even if you are successful in college.

But the worse tragedy is the students that get suckered into the "knowledge economy" when they are mentally incapable of dealing with high levels of abstraction. You know that somewhere around 40-50% of people really do require something to hold in their hands, right? That for them trying to deal with abstract concepts is the same as most Westerners trying to learn Chinese. We used to have good paying factory jobs and skilled tradesmen. Today there are few factories and the idea of someone trying to learn to be a sheet metal worker, a plumber or an electrician is almost a cruel joke. Schools aren't set up to teach these people, even the US President thinks everyone should go to college and be a "knowledge worker", and where there were programs for leaning to be a skilled tradesman today there is ... nothing.

We have tried to remake society in an image that is a false reflection of where we want to be. Sorry, but people aren't wired that way. We are clearly headed for a major shift. Maybe everything will collapse in 2012 and we won't have to worry about it anymore.

Re:Like teacher, like student

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, any electronic device given to children will be used for things other than it's intended function.

Give a kid a calculator and time how long it takes them to write "Boobless" on it.
We got given TI-83's for our Higher Maths class (16-17 y/o) and myself and a couple of friends learned to programme for it, got a C for Maths, but got an easy A for Computer Studies.
With something like an iPad, which is designed purely to consume information, children won't learn anything from it unless it's locked down even further and disallow the installing of applications entirely.
If all you're doing is giving the child an iPad to take notes, then it certainly isn't E-Learning in any way shape or form.
E-Learning should actually be a piece of software or hardware that actually teaches something. Not just as a glorified notepad.

As someone who develops E-Learning software, we are rarely called to actually build something for children. I think in the 4 years I've worked here I've done two projects aimed at children and both were on the subject of Environmental Awareness and Renewable Energy (Although slightly more involved than just Solar Panels Good, Fossil Fuels bad), as opposed to any of the core subjects. It was incredibly difficult to make it engaging for them. There's been a few times when the clients who've commissioned these projects don't actually understand how boring their subject matter is. The project brief essentially consisted of vomitting walls of text at children in between mini-games. We had to explain to these people - those people who actually *teach* children - that Kids can't learn like that. We convinced them to turn their content into a free-form exploration game, where a) the content was simplified and all the complicated words were removed, b) kids got points for discovering things, c) kids could choose things for themselves, engaging them in the process.

These are the same people trumpeting iPads as the solution to all their problems. I was shocked at how disconnected some of these people are from the kids they're teaching.

I honestly believe that E-Learning-as-games work quite well if done right, especially for children.
I remember when I was a kid my mum bought some E-learning software for the Commodore 64, Fun School and I loved it. It was done really well and I enjoyed alot of the games in it.

Nowadays, since children grow up with games, and tend to see anything cheap, or graphically inferior as unworthy of their time, makes developing E-Learning software for kids harder. In some ways, the rise of Facebook games is bringing the expectation bar down for the next generation, so my job might actually get alot easier. Since teaching core-skills like Mathematics, English, Science, History etc to children takes alot more work and alot more thought than classroom teaching. Which also equates to alot more development time and thus, alot more money to pay. So if you want to come under budget, or to run on the archaic school hardware, the first thing to suffer is normally the graphical quality.

Home Schooling depends on parents

[Dragon Bait]

I know 6 families that have home schooled with over half the kids now in college (other half still in high school). From my observations, electronics has very little impact or success or failure. Nearly all the success or failure is based on the parents: how serious they are about educating their kids, how connected they are with home school cooperatives, how much time their willing to invest. The complete failures that I've seen were easily predicable before the home schooling began (poorly educated parents, doing it for the wrong reasons, etc.)).

Automatic notetaking is nice

[rsilvergun]

Especially since kids don't get textbooks anymore (thanks to Republican backed funding cuts). My kid often comes home with homework that I have no idea how to help with, because there's a particular answer / way of doing it they're using. More than once I've had my kid doing twice as much work solving a math problem because we did more than what the teacher wanted. With the white boards I started getting the teacher's notes, so I can see what the heck they actually want.

So yeah, in a properly funded school electronic whiteboards aren't needed. But in today's run down hell holes that we pass off as schools they're a life saver.

Re:YES it is, and here's proof

[morari]

Ohio has always been ahead of the game in terms of online charter schools. I was traditionally homeschooled for the better half of my academic career. My brother went through junior high and highschool using various online solutions. From my understanding, no one was a big fan of ECOT. They provided severely underpowered machines, which were in fact locked down too much. At the time, their bureaucratic setup was confusing and stifled learning. It may have gotten better in the years since, but I can't recommend it based on what I've seen.

Following up on that, my brother also did two years with OHDELA. They had their act together much better than ECOT, but again, issued terrible hardware. This time however, it was a crummy iMac locked down even tighter than the Compaq mini towers ECOT gave out. Furthermore, OHDELA relied far too much on trying to simulate a traditional classroom. Mandatory chatrooms and timed virtual blackboards just got in the way of the original promise of working at your own pace. It may have benefited those that needed the help, but making it compulsory did more to slow my brother's progress than anything.

His final time was spent with an organization called Buckeye Online. They provided a fairly decent laptop computer (completely open!) and relied more on bookwork. This was exactly what my brother had wanted all along. He wasn't chained to a desk or required to participate in some simulated blackboard environment. All he had to do was read the chapter in his text book and then submit the corresponding lesson electronically. He blew through the material and graduated one year earlier than he would have otherwise.

Now again, a lot has probably changed since I watched my family work with these different organizations. Some may be better or worse than they were. Some of the points of contention that my brother had may be the exact thing that your child would prefer. The point is to study up on them before just blindly signing up. Most of them do offer seminars leading up to the traditional start of the school year. Go and listen, ask questions, discuss your concerns. It has been my experience that you'll usually have the ear of some of the more important people within the organization.

So can students be home-schooled electronically? Absolutely. I would say that the benefits far outweigh any negatives. Most of the perceived problems that people have with homeschooling can be quickly and easily remedied if you're not a lazy parent. Having an online support system, as provided by these institutions, definitely makes things easier. It's still not something you can just throw and your child and expect to happen. It's a framework for the parents to work within, to help out, to expand upon, and to monitor. Of course, any parent who takes their job seriously would be doing that anyway, even if their child went to a physical school.

Re:Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the ridiculous redefining of "a middle class standard of living".
I make $16.50 an hour, and my wife stays home with our four children. We're not hurting financially.
We don't own any Apple products, but that's really not a problem.