Teachers Union: Computers Can Negatively Impact Children's Ability To Learn

Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "A teacher's union in Northern Ireland is asserting that children spending too much time on computers are impairing their ability to learn. The asserted excessive computer use is being blamed for an inability to concentrate or socialize. As one teacher puts it, '... these gadgets are really destroying their ability to learn.'" This has been a topic of debate for as long as kids have had computers.

Comments

Re:Really?

[cyn1c77]

No.

A good teacher beats babysitware any day.

The trouble is that teachers have been trying to replace themselves for years. You know how many "teacher prep" periods the average US teacher gets now? The vast majority of teachers don't "prep" shit during thier several breaks of PE, music, art, computer lab, library time, and various feedings. In these time blocks, "paraprofessionals" (read: everyone caring for and teaching kids who get paid half as much) take over another chunk of the day and the teacher can chill out for some much needed "prep" time.

Ask anyone who has done IT or technical work in a school district. Technology is the coolest buzzword for driving a pedagogy of student idea synthesis or somesuch fucking bullshit. The real deal is all the grant money is in tech, and teachers LOVE another break. So plug the kids in, and tune the teachers out.

People learn best from people. Computers are tools. But the trend is to drop 30 kids off for some babysitware time.

What is this "prep" time?

You are teaching high school students. You have a Masters degree. You should be able to walk in the room, pick the fake chalk up, and start going.

If you put your lesson plan together the night before, or at least looked over it, you'd be good to go. (You did put your lesson plan together, right? You only need to do it once, the first year you teach the course.)

And don't whine at me about working nights or summers. My parents were teachers... Back before "prep time" and days off for parent/teacher conferences.

You're all geeks

[reboot246]

Everybody is saying exactly what one would expect them to say about this subject. Slashdot is not representative of the general public by a long shot.

Just to make a point to be on topic, the bad grammar and misspelled words I see here all too frequently are evidence that computers DID negatively impact your learning ability. Thank God I was out of school before computers became commonplace in schools!

Re:Really?

[Totenglocke]

In other professions, you're expected to put in as much time as necessary to get the job done. Teachers do seven hours a day with usually 1 hour a day to "prep" and 30 minutes to an hour for lunch, so 5 to 5.5 hours per day of teaching, not to mention that they work 9 months out of the year. Factor in that an experienced teacher can re-use the majority of their materials from previous years and there's very little truth to the "teachers are overworked" claims.