Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Why Aren't Schools Connected?
rtobyr writes "We use the Internet — E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to communicate with colleagues, friends, and family. When I was in Iraq with the Marine Corps, we used e-mail (secured with encryption and stuff, but e-mail nonetheless) to communicate the commanding officer's order that a combat mission should be carried out. My third grade daughter produces her own YouTube videos, and can create public servers for her games with virtual private network technology. Yet here I am trusting a third grade girl to deliver memos to me about her educational requirements in an age in which I can't remember the last time I used paper. Teachers could have distribution lists of the parents. The kids' homework is printed. Therefore, it must have started as a computer file (I hope they're not still using mimeograph machines). Teachers could e-mail a summary of what's going on, and attach the homework files along with other notices about field trips or conferences that parents should be aware of. Teachers could have an easy way to post all these files to the Internet on blogs. With RSS, parents could subscribe to receive everything that teachers put online. If teachers want to add to the blog their own personal comments about how the school year is going, then all the parents would see that also, and perhaps have the opportunity to comment on the blog. It seems to me that with the right processes, the cost and additional workload would be insignificant. For example, instead of developing a syllabus in MS Word, use Wordpress. Have schools simply not paid attention to the past decade of technology, or is there a reason that these things aren't in place?"
It seems odd that primary schools in at least the U.S. don't use technology to communicate with students much. My younger sister went to a private school that made reasonable use of Blackboard, but that seems to be the exception.
A computer capable of e-mail, web, and dialup access can be had second hand for $15. I think we ought to be able to contract with local e-waste recycling companies and give these away.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
And access would cost another $20/month in a world where (gasp!) many kids are going to school without breakfast and are relying on the school district to provide them with lunch, since their parents simply can't afford it.
Those people are, however, notoriously underrepresented on slashdot.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
A) You can't assume every child and parent has access to the internet or computers. I work in a fairly normal catchment area of the UK and I'd say there are around 10% of families that fit into this category.
B) Too many excuses. You set homework online or through dedicated software and the pupils come back with 1001 excuses - "broadband wasn't working", "I couldn't download it", "it was in the wrong format", "printer was out of paper", "I've got it on memory stick and it still needs printing" All easily check-able and solve-able individually but not if you have 30 students. Give a child a piece of paper with homework on it, and if they lose it it's their fault (they could have come and collected a new sheet before the lesson), and if its not done it's their fault. Much much simpler.
I understand that. I see it at my daughter's school, unfortunately. What really sucks, though, is that my daughter's education is drug down because of that. Equality is all fine and dandy, until you realize that your own child doesn't get what she needs, because she excels... and I don't have the money to move her to private. :-(
And access would cost another $20/month in a world where (gasp!) many kids are going to school without breakfast and are relying on the school district to provide them with lunch, since their parents simply can't afford it.
That is amost certainly the nail in the coffin of the electronic notifications to parents system. Imagine the "social stigma" if a teacher sent email notices to most parents, but had to give Billy and Marcia printed notices because their families are too poor to have the Internet and can't get email? Or if Roger is a bright kid and he tells the teacher that his parent's email address is a gmail address he controls?
That, and if it is a notice that requires a signature of a parent (field trip authorization, etc.) it will have to be paper anyway.
That is BS in general. There are certainly some teachers that this applies to but any parent can request an observation to see exactly what is being done in the classroom. If you to examine you can. A teachers job is to teach the kids, not show the parents what is being taught. If you want to know what they are doing, go and check it out or ask the teacher outright. I am not a teacher, but have always found the district my child attends to be open and helpful.
I think the problem may simply be that teachers perceive they will lack the time to answer questions / comments they receive from parents via email if they open this pandora's box. I know a similar feeling is present in much of the health care industry and other "social service" sectors. The more available one is via "always on" technology, the more time one will have to spend on addressing communications conveyed via this additional medium. Businesses see it all the time - think how much time each day the stereotypical Dilbert-like employee must spend on emails compared with time spent addressing paper memos and phone calls alone (which still exist today) prior to the advent of email. Teachers fear their already strenuous schedule will become even busier. It takes a lot more time for a parent to pick up a phone or write a letter to contact the teacher... and I think that's how a lot of teachers like it.
Which obviously ignores the fact that people were capable of getting excellent educations for thousands of years without any of this electronic gadgetry.
Perhaps you could fill the gaps? Shocking, I know...
Yes but they are the minority.
Special treatment can be made for the few who cannot access the internet off of school grounds.
I am sure there are a few armless children who go to school as well. Should we ban all school work that requires writing or typing because of this minority?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The nearest library to the house where I grew up is 10 miles away in another city. You assume the poor folks in the neighbourhood are going to just have to walk that each way every night because because there are no buses or other public transport in the country, and if they can't afford net access, they can't afford the extra 100 miles of gas a week either.
"Serving poor people is not an excuse for failing to upgrade your technology".
Yes it is an excuse when you fail to actually think about what you are talking about, and put a huge extra burden on the poor because of your rather stupid assumptions.
If said poor person lived in Comcast's footprint they can get 1.5Mbps for $10/month:
http://moneyland.time.com/2011/08/10/comcasts-internet-essentials-10-a-month-service-for-low-income-families/
There are some restrictions, like not having an active account for the past 90 days, so shut off the cable and wait a few months.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
"signature of a parent (field trip authorization, etc.) it will have to be paper anyway."
No, there are many ways to electronically sign things.
The point of a sig. is not that they can trace the ink back to your pen but that the design is not easy to copy.
How do you positively validate the identity of a parent in a household where the student is the most computer literate (and perhaps the only English speaker), thus responds to all of the parent's email? Give the parent a secureID dongle and hope they don't share the PIN with their much more computer savvy child?
Not just poor people.
Not everyone can use e-mail. My mother, who would get custody of my children if I had any and something happened to me can't manage e-mail. She can cook and clean and drive, and she doesn't have Alzheimers, and has a decent pension income, but computers and e-mail are simply too complicated for her. Programming her VCR is too complicated for her. When I lived in the same city as she did, she could sort of manage, if I came by every day or two to help her out, but now that I'm 4 hours away it's simply not realistic.
If anything in that situation it would be the kid running the computing in the house (as happened even when I was in high school). Neither my mother nor father got to the point of using e-mail at home, although my father used e-mail at work and picked it up in his retirement, my mother, not so much (divorced).
Computers are any or all of expensive, complicated and insecure. Poverty is certainly a major issue, on both ends, running reliable IT systems isn't cheap, and if your e-mail system is down for the day does that mean you're not 'effectively communicating with parents' or some other regulation? A lot of guardians for children lack the capabilities to effectively manage any sort of electronic communication, and by extension that may make the system insecure. Paper isn't secure either, but e-mails to parents is the sort of thing begging to be hacked by some industrious students.
In most cases education has used technology as a theater exercise. The only important part is taking a picture of a student using said technology with a attentive and concerned educator looking on. At best technology is used to replace existing tools on a one to one basis. Smart board for blackboard, tablet for textbook, laptop for notebook, etc.... The goal should be to do what every other company has done with technology and become more productive. Teachers should be able to use technology to teach 50-60 students at a time, all with individualized instruction.
>>> Equality is all fine and dandy, until you realize that your own child doesn't get what she needs, because she excels... and I don't have the money to move her to private. :-(
>>>
That's one of the reasons I support making school tax == 0% for those parents with children who "opt out" of government school (for that year). The money that you are allowed to keep could then be used to afford that private school.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
How many of those "poor" people, who allegedly can't afford a box of cereal for their kids, have a fridge full of beer, a couple packs of smokes on the table, Cable TV and buy lotto tickets every week?
Which obviously ignores the fact that people were capable of getting excellent educations for thousands of years without any of this electronic gadgetry.
Are you sure? There were no Albert Einsteins back then.
We could manufacture goods too, thousands of years before factories or machinery. That fact doesn't imply we did a good job at it or did it efficiently
It's not a question of what can be done. Schools could educate with zero technology, but it would be inefficient, and the outcome would be poor. Schools should be doing the best possible job at educating students as efficiently as possible, so that students can better themselves, and so, as a result, our country can better itself.
Technology and the ability to use technology is very important in our society and is becoming more important. A lot of innovative things can be done with technology that would be of great benefit to the public and of great benefit to students and all involved.
You cannot "learn technology" or "understand technology" solely by reading about its history, who invented it, how it works, or reading about how its used.
There comes a point where practical exercise is absolutely necessary to obtain even a basic level of of familiarity and skill. "Book smart" only goes so far. You can read all the books about writing and literatuire that you want, if you never write anything, not even an essay, you will not be a good writer.
Certain technologies are so important to the world that students should be immersed in it, be required to use it daily and extensively, so that they master the technology.
Pen and paper and Books used to be in that category. Nowadays I would say Laptop and Keyboard and World wide web fall in that category.
First off, let me say that in general I happen to agree with you - and I was one of those C students.
However, there are two things being measured here - timeliness, and mathematics. Those are being combined into a single letter grade. Its entirely possible tha the student in question has a solid understanding of maths and a poor understanding of time management. The official remediation will be to ... study more maths, but generally in a summer school environment where time management is not a consideration.
Whoops.
Still, it may be the most valid solution for the level of expediency it provides.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!