Slashdot Mirror
Better Learning Through Expensive Software? One Principal Thinks Not
theodp writes "Instead of improving the instructional practices of teachers," laments Chicago public school Principal Michael Beyer, "we are throwing vast sums of money and time at software and digital solutions that are largely untested, unproven and highly questionable." Ed-Tech vendors' so-called "weapons of mass instruction," argues Beyer, may show "gains" on the high-stakes tests because they mimic the targeted test format, but the learning gains don't necessarily transfer to the real world, or last much longer than the end of the school year. But technology in the classroom is not going away, as one commenter notes. So, what to do? Well, since U.S. CTO Megan Smith is looking for bigger technological fish to fry than weaning the White House off floppy disks, why not give her a crack at Ed-Tech, including a healthy budget and some Lab Schools where she could have educators and technologists brainstorm-and-prototype to separate the Ed-Tech wheat from the chaff without undue vendor influence and short-term test score pressure?
Ed-Tech vendors' so-called "weapons of mass instruction," argues Beyer, may show "gains" on the high-stakes tests because they mimic the targeted test format, but the learning gains don't necessarily transfer to the real world, or last much longer than the end of the school year.
This has long been a problem with "standardized tests", schools teach only to the test because their jobs and budgets depend on high numbers. Thinking and teaching outside the test? Not allowed, hell, we already don't teach proper handwriting anymore.
We should absolutely be teaching technology in schools, starting with real actual math and reading comprehension, moving on to both software and hardware and other types of technology - I'm not a teacher, who knows... But like the house with an operating system, I think many of these new computer teaching tools are simply companies looking for ways to squeeze money out of people for things they don't really need, and if the government is paying for it, you know they paid a whole lot for it. Are we just fattening some venture capitalist's pocket with this stuff?
I'm on the fence about the textbooks themselves being on tablets, maybe that makes sense. But if we are going to hand off teaching to computers, why pay for anything more than a human babysitter - or is that what we are doing already?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Learning computer programs to solve math problems (for instance) can be empowering for the kids, unless they end up dependent on those proprietary programs. I think the best solution for that threat, along with some of the other issues raised in the OP is a tool set which gets kids developing software, even at really simple levels, early in their educational careers. That may sound crazy, but the world is changing, and many of the educational ideas we take for granted today sounded crazy in their times as well.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
After being a teacher in Joliet , Illinois system and seeing what passes for teaching and parental involvement in the Chicago land area I can quite firmly state that it isn't the money taxpayers spend, the technology that is invested in the area, nor the opportunities that students have that is the real issue.
The real issue is that there needs to be a clean out of lazy teachers and administration that refuses to interact with parents- a gallon of bleach dumped into the leach pool.
These children need people to intervene and make sure to involve the parents in all aspects of their education. Instead, we have more people involved on getting paid and protecting their pension.
It's quite sad.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Charlotte Iserbyt is calling it a probable Soviet KGB conspiracy... which tends to damage her credibility. See http://www.newswithviews.com/i...
Despite this, she's still accurate when saying that the education system is in decay, as it shouldn't be that expensive to teach basic reading, writing and computation.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I know about education; I'm in the field too.
The real problem in modern education in the USA is that the Republicans entered into the issue. I'm not saying their ideas are all horrible; but that the political fight was so much smaller so the teachers and schools were not in the middle of a political culture war. You see, what really started the mess was that public polling showed voters ranked education higher in priority than in the past and that turned it into a two party political football. The rest is a bunch of policies and ideas which have zero basis in reality and everything to do about sounding good, getting votes, and political BRANDING. SO BOTH PARTIES WORK TO DESTROY IT like everything else they touch these days. That has harmed the system greatly which only reflects the broken political system, just another thing that precedes the collapse of a once great democracy.
Furthermore, education is not a business. You can't turn education into an easy statistic like sales and students are NOT customers!! They are not supposed to be happy customers with a "your #1" sticker handed out to everybody and every parent is immune from criticism. The culture is all fucked up; used to be the student was to blame, now the special snowflakes are perfect and the teacher is always the problem.
Yes, technology needs to be PROVEN before it's allowed to be used. SCIENCE should decide everything. That means parents (voters) will be pleased. automated tests have yet to be intelligent. I can interview a student and assess them quicker and more accurately than any static test plus they can't ever fool me. But in the land of lawsuits somebody will be upset they didn't get their "your #1" sticker... while the multiple choice exam allows many times more to sneak bye or undeservedly fail.
SCIENCE:
We can't even adjust school hours to fit best with sleeping patterns of the children when that stuff has been known forever.
Science says that middle school kids shouldn't even be educated conventionally. They need emotional development training and stuff so out of the norm many people would revolt. Most education problems are psychologically based and their parents and environment are HUGE factors. If you apply developmental psychology instead of acting like it doesn't exist, you would turn poor performing students, future criminals, and fragile suicide kids into good students and functional adults. Naturally, parents would be upset because they'd have responsibilities, something which they avoid like everything today.
Parents want free daycare. Some need it too. Snow days not only cause parents to call in irate, but it also means some children DO NOT EAT.
There is so much wrong which has so much more impact-- but we only can discuss a FEW issues and wave some shiny new toy in the public's eye... like they were children.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The very highest priced software is able to offer their sales people the largest commissions and the largest marketing budgets. Thus they can do all kinds of scumbag things such as hire top educators for "consulting" contracts and whatnot. These same educators are then the ones who decide which software is "best" for their school system. Also with a sizeable commission the rewards for selling a fair sized school system on some pile of crap software system are massive. Almost set-for-life massive.
Thus opensource or extremely economical systems simply can't compete. There are no scumbag salesmen using bribery and other underhanded techniques to market these solutions and as we all experienced while in schools there is no real science or evidence used when they claim to be using evidence based teaching. Any time they use studies or evidence to choose one system over another it will be evidence supplied by a large vendor.
For instance, nearly every time I hear of a new solution being implemented in my children's schools somehow one of the top decision makers has a stake in the company. Either they (or a spouse) worked for the company, work for the company, or will end up working for the company. And somehow the government "ethics" watchdogs will approve this because the person filled out the correct forms.
If I were the head person for a large school system I would immediately eliminate all contact with salespeople from all vendors. Then I would have internal committees evaluate the various offerings (including open source and low cost vendors) equally. I would also publish all the findings so that other education systems could exploit the results. But most importantly I would tell the people who were evaluating the various systems that if they have any contact with a vendor that we would immediately eliminate that vendor from consideration. And if the contact somehow were to the benefit of the examiner that their job would be in jeopardy.
TFA is a dot on the trend line of parental and educational laziness, IMHO. Parents slough off responsibility for their kids' educations to schools of questionable quality. The schools in turn palm of their work to computers. It's sad, and the only effective remedy is parental re-involvement.
I knew the schools sucked when my son was reading 3 grade levels above his peers at age 6. Now he's a sophomore in High School, and further along (knowlege-wise) toward his BSEE than most e-school juniors because I take the time to not just nurture and encourage but actually teach him at whatever level he is ready for. He's 15, and has built his own Siemens S7 PLC lab project. His science classmates won't get Ohm's Law till next year. Pity them.
We can blab all day about how to fix teh skoolz, but when it comes to your own kids, give them your best. As a parent, you owe it to them. The schools aren't going to do it for you.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Comment removed based on user account deletion