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Report: Computers 'Do Not Improve' Pupil Results
An anonymous reader writes:
A report issued by the UK's Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has evaluated how technology in classrooms affects test results, and found that the availability of computers provides "no noticeable improvement" to students' test scores. According to the report, "Students who use computers very frequently at school get worse results." Also, "high achieving school systems such as South Korea and Shanghai in China have lower levels of computer use in school." The organization warns that classroom technology can be a distraction if implemented unwisely, and it also opens the door to easy ways of cheating.
but I still think it was a dumb conclusion because it is simply treating correlation as causation. The raw data does not show anything about what the computers were used for or what teaching methods were employed. If they were just digital babysitters then naturally the effect would be nil. You could probably come up with the similar statistics for "books" or relative desk area or minutes spent in class.
Or are too busy driving them to useless and expensive team sports events?
Was with you right up until this point. Team sports and sports in general are neither useless nor expensive. Maybe a small minority of them are disproportionately so but people learn a lot from team sports and fitness improves cognitive ability to boot.
I work in schools.
I work IT in schools.
I work exclusively in schools.
I've only ever worked in schools.
I've worked in private and state, primary, secondary, further education, and after-school tuition centres.
Computers are a tool. Like a pen, a textbook, a folder, a table, a desk, or anything else.
Use them properly and they can help make things more efficient. That includes teaching. Use them improperly, buy them "for show", or think they'll work some magic on their own and you'll be disappointed.
In the same way that signing in 30 kids every morning and again in the afternoon takes ten minutes with pen and paper and lots of shuffling paper and people involved, but electronic registers take seconds and everyone who needs to can see the results instantly. It's a tool. Use it properly and it works.
What it does NOT do is teach kids. That's what teachers do (or at least are supposed to do). A teacher with an electronic timetable, who knows how to use it, is more productive and gets more time to teach than those who are shuffling bits of paper around multiple room. A teacher who can share his document with the kids and get a collaborative result, even as part of homework without themselves being present, can work wonders.
But what makes it work is the teacher. Not the tool. Give a carpenter or wood craftsman a cheap chisel and he can still produce a work of art. Give him the right tools and they'll be more refined and better quality and take less time. But give a chisel to a monkey and you won't get a mahogany table out of it. Computers are no different - a tool for professionals.
The misconception is that somehow computers on their own magically transform the most mediocre of teachers into teaching geniuses with wonderfully attentive students. It's not true.
I work in IT in schools, it's all I know and all I've ever done. Remove the IT and good teachers will still thrive and bad teachers still fail. Remove the teachers and the IT is next to fucking useless. Bear in mind that I spend vast portions of my working life at opposition to these people, that many schools have a large "teacher/non-teacher" divide that rarely gets crossed, socially or otherwise. That these people are the bane of my life.
But still, it's the teachers that make the difference, and the way they teach. And if we can get all the crap and paperwork and tracking and other shit out of their way as much as possible, they will have more time to teach kids. It's literally an admin task. Bringing tech into the classroom "just because" is dangerous and stupid.
The right teacher with the right tool can work wonders. But it's not the tool that's doing it. It's not the chisel that's so wonderful that it's making works of art. It's the way it's put to use.
In the UK, schools have been expected to get in computers to meet official ratios (X computers per Y pupils). That's fucking ludicrous. They have been expected to make use of things "just because" they are there. They have been expected to fully kit out every classroom no matter the subject or how little used. We have parents who are able to use their kids school iPads as a status symbol amongst over parents in other schools. We have teachers performing death-by-powerpoint thinking it improves their teaching. It does not.
But computers still have a place. They are merely an automation tool. A machine. That removes the repetitive burden of filling out a thousand school reports in twenty subjects. That allows the kids to manipulate 3D objects that I couldn't even get my computer to DRAW on the screen when I was a kid.
The problem is that people think that every app on the appstores, every website they are sold, every resource available must be used for every god-damn thing. Teachers BUY lesson plans, in big books, on what apps to use and what services to sign up to, and what looks cool to senior management. And so some of them have actually stopped teaching.
I've been fortunate enough
I have five sons the oldest never had a cell phone, the Internet was dial-up, and had limited access to Internet and technology most of his high school years. The youngest is still in high school has a 5.5 in cell phone with more features than a computer of the early 90s and unlimited Internet access. All of my sons are different but the oldest and youngest are like night and day and it has everything to do with the distraction of technology and a society built on the ideals of instant information and instant gratification. He has trouble studying unless you take away his cell phone.
FYI the youngest thinks weblogs are somehow accurate...I'll take a Chilton's manual over Joe Blows weblog any day.