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.

Comments

Definitely understandable

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Most computers now a days use LED screens which emit bright light. Using it a lot and staring at it for extended period of time will damage all parts of the eye, the cornea, the retina too, not merely the pupils. So it is understanda..

wait, you are not talking about these pupils, right?

Procrastinators dream

[Camel Pilot]

Computers enable procrastination always providing readily available diversionary escape. Learning is still hard work... no short cuts.

Common sense = none

[rtkluttz]

Its not computers, magnet schools, charter schools, teacher pay, higher taxes or any of those even when statistics sometimes hint at showing otherwise. The commonality is involved parents who help their kids when struggle, demand they toe the line when they get hardheaded, and have expectations for success. Its just not politically correct to say so because parent involvement lines up so closely with racial lines. Not exact, but close enough.

Re:Common sense = none

[Anonymous Coward]

Please have all the mod points.

I don't know how many times we have to debate this, but no shiny new toy ever makes anyone more willing to learn.

If you want to learn, you will. If not, nothing will help you.

And yes, the strong correlation with parental involvement is not fictional.

Re:Common sense = none

[Ayanami_R]

Live in ghetto, am minority, can confirm. We are pretty tough on our 14 year old and DEMAND good grades. His friends parents... not so much. They pretty much check out once their kids hit middle school.

Re:Common sense = none

[Mr D from 63]

You mean spending millions on Ipads doesn't mean we are progressing in education?

Re:Common sense = none

[ThatsNotPudding]

Its just not politically correct to say so because parent involvement lines up so closely with racial lines. Not exact, but close enough.

Indefensible xeonphobia.

Re:Common sense = none

[konohitowa]

Indefensible xeonphobia

Since when do we need to defend our fear of Intel processors? That's just well-honed survival instincts coming into play.

Re:Common sense = none

[AK Marc]

. Its just not politically correct to say so because parent involvement lines up so closely with racial lines. Not exact, but close enough.

Then you notice that hours worked to provide food for the children lines up on racial lines as well. The parents aren't involved. They are out working their second job so their children can eat. If you can solve poverty, you solve 90% of the "race issue" in the US, other than the bigots who assert it's about the lazy race, and not economics.

Re:Common sense = none

[istartedi]

Xeonphobia? I think parent might be more Intelligent than he lets on.

Re:Common sense = none

[OhPlz]

What do you want, more social nets? We're in a messed up situation where those that can afford to raise a family and are responsible enough to do a good job at it at the least likely to want to have offspring, meanwhile the government is doing everything possible to encourage those who are less responsible and have no means to support a family to have children anyway. I don't think poverty is the root of this issue. Poverty is a symptom of a bigger problem.

Re:Common sense = none

[ShanghaiBill]

I'm guessing you mean in the USA? This isn't generally true in the UK.

Yes it is, just in the opposite direction. In the UK, minorities in the cities are doing relatively well, and it is the white people in Northern England, and the Scottish Lowlands, that are failing.

Re: Common sense = none

[bondsbw]

There's no conflict. If you want to learn, parents can make a difference.

Also, parents can help convince you that you want to learn.

Re: Common sense = none

[CrimsonAvenger]

Also, parents can help convince you that you want to learn.

Note that the easiest ways parents can convince you to want to learn is to want to learn themselves.

Just as the best way to ensure your kid sees reading as anything other than a chore is for you to read for pleasure regularly (for which read: pretty much whenever opportunity allows).

Re: Common sense = none

[rtkluttz]

Parents provide the environment that facilitates learning. Nothing else does it. Nothing replaces that need and the level of influence of an involved parent more than overcomes all other learning aids combined by a large margin. Large enough that all the other stuff is nearly irrelevant.

Re: Common sense = none

[Jhon]

"Just as the best way to ensure your kid sees reading as anything other than a chore is for you to read for pleasure regularly (for which read: pretty much whenever opportunity allows)."

I don't know if it's the BEST way, but it is *A* way.

I read to my kids every night when they were young (now both teenagers). The way I got them interested in reading is to "A" read with emotion and character voices and "B" stop at cliff-hangers, not at chapter breaks. My son would go bonkers when I would say: "...then there was a BANG! -- Ok, that's it for tonight. If you'd like to pick up the book and read ahead, you've got 15 mins before 'lights out'".

My daughter took a bit more work but eventually got there. She's not the "word sponge" my son is, but she reads a good 2 or 3 books a month on her own.

Re:Common sense = none

[Mr D from 63]

But would you entertain the argument that it could depend A LOT on what the iPad is loaded with?

To this point, I've not seen anything to convince me there are apps that make much of a difference. I'm sure there are some clever ones, but I've not seen anything yet that is any sort of game changer. My kid uses chromebook in school, most of the time it is for report generation and researching stuff on the internet. Some convenient methods to submit finished items to the teacher are nice, and help productivity, but are nothing you can't do on the home computer as well.

Lots of stuff looks impressive when you first see it, then you realize it is more flash than substance.

Re: Common sense = none

[pr0fessor]

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.

Re: Common sense = none

[AthanasiusKircher]

"Just as the best way to ensure your kid sees reading as anything other than a chore is for you to read for pleasure regularly (for which read: pretty much whenever opportunity allows)."

I don't know if it's the BEST way, but it is *A* way.

Actually, it kinda *is* the BEST way.

There have been a lot of studies on this sort of thing. I remember in particular a study that looked at parental interventions vs. random aspects of home environment in their impacts on success in school and on standardized tests.

Things like "Parents make an effort to read to their kid every night" often don't make any statistically significant difference. But things like "Number of books in the home" have a high positive correlation with success for kids.

It's not that having huge number of books in your house magically transports that knowledge into kids' brains, of course. But homes with a lot of books are more likely to have parents who are curious people, read a lot, etc.

In other words -- your kids' success is mostly dependent on the kind of person you are, and much less so on active intervention parents take because they think some study said you should read to your kid every night.

Don't get me wrong: obviously you sound like you've done some great things with your kids, and that probably succeeded because you already are the kind of person with the creativity and thoughtfulness to make such an activity helpful. So keep doing what you're doing.

But when it comes to advising people IN GENERAL about the best thing they can do for their kids? Well, they should try to be the kind of person they want their kids to be, first and foremost. Before kids become teenagers, in particular, modeling is one of the most effective parental strategies.

Re: Common sense = none

[AthanasiusKircher]

Some research suggests it's only one parent - the mother - and her level of education that has an effect on future educational out comes.

If this "research" actually existed, you could have provided a link to it. Yet you didn't.

Don't be a jerk. In your previous post, you only provided a link to a random blog, which was reporting on a book that discussed a study, rather than an actual source. And the blog even disagreed with your conclusion!

Meanwhile, somebody replies and tries to add something, and you act like a complete jerk, with you scare quotes around "research" for no apparent reason.

Do a freakin' internet search, Bill. Top 20 hits on a search like "mother's education impact on child", I found at least 4 or 5 more reputable sources than your random blog that say that when you actually try to separate out the effects of parents' educational level, mother's education is generally MUCH more significant in child success.

Now, I have no doubt there are probably some studies out there which disagree, since this is a hard thing to measure. But it took me all of 5 seconds in a search engine to come up with half a dozen articles for the "research" you tried to imply doesn't exist.

Thank you

[TWX]

"The organization warns that classroom technology can be a distraction if implemented unwisely..."

I've been saying this for a decade. If the computer that the student uses is a general-purpose computer and can do 10,000 things, of which only one thing is that which the student should be doing, the student is going to be overwhelmingly tempted to do one of the rest of those 9,999 things instead, especially if that other thing is more fun.

Software for teaching computers needs to be developed. It needs to limit the available options to the lessons and only a few diversions, like how computers were before they were networked in schools.

Re:Thank you

[F34nor]

Give em a command line, a compliler, and a programming language. If they want multi purpose make em make it.

Re:Thank you

[Drethon]

This student got a 4.0 in a CS Master's degree while mining in Eve Online during most each class. If I try to take notes on paper and focus on what the professor is saying I'll end up with most going in one ear and out the other while my mind wanders and when I try to focus I only get meaningless words. If I play a game that takes limited focus I was less distracted and able to think about the concepts rather than the words. I tried MxO at one point also but active participation games did not work well for me.

Re:Thank you

[Mr D from 63]

That I think is more like what you see in the studies that show doodling helps concentration. Its just enough extra work to keep the mind from truly drifting. I don't think its necessarily related to the technology you are using. I believe the doodling thing, I used to do it a lot during classes and meetings.

http://content.time.com/time/h...

I actually RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Parents suck too

[grub]

How many of these parents work with their kids when at home? How many let the kids to go their room and play on the iPad or xbox and only see them at dinner? Or are too busy driving them to useless and expensive team sports events?

Education requires major input from the parents but many of them treat the schools like babysitters and get mad at the teachers when their kids can barely read.

Re:Parents suck too

[thegarbz]

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.

Recess helps, lunch helps, teachers help

[WillAffleckUW]

Computers rarely help. Ever.

Now watch as those whose salaries are paid by pushing more computers and testing post lies that aren't backed by peer reviewed scientific studies, to feather their nests.

"the More you Know"

Re:Recess helps, lunch helps, teachers help

[konohitowa]

Computers rarely help. Ever.

Citation? Or are those only required for

those whose salaries are paid by pushing more computers and testing post[ing] lies that aren't backed by peer reviewed scientific studies

?

Re:Recess helps, lunch helps, teachers help

[ledow]

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

Re:Recess helps, lunch helps, teachers help

[konohitowa]

Googling "computers rarely help ever" turned up no relevant hits in support of your statement. Now do you get my point? If not, here is my point: You made a sweeping, generalized statement. You also stated that anyone countering your statement is obviously someone with a vested interest in making money off of lies not backed up by scientific evidence. And yet your statement is not backed up by scientific evidence (basically, because it can't be - it's too general).

Re:They need to update the tests.

[TWX]

Many scholastic benchmarks are already computer-based.

Your argument is about as strong as saying kids do badly on tests because they don't use bubble-sheets for learning.

However, in special ed, they do keep them engaged

[zerofoo]

We've moved away from very expensive smartboards and higher-end computers in favor of cheap projectors, whiteboards, and chromebooks.

The chromebooks are strictly for web-research, writing, spreadsheets, and presentations.

The projectors help a teacher share content with a class during a lesson.

We have some iPads, but we only use them to run some special-ed specific reading apps. They do help the kids read material that would otherwise be very difficult for some.

The past few years have been filled with schools blindly deploying smartboards, iPads, and high end windows/apple laptops. Unfortunately many of these districts didn't put in enough support systems or integrate the technology into the curriculum. We are only deploying tech where we see tangible benefits to classroom activities.

No, but they really help the Superintendent out

[NotDrWho]

So you'll give me a free vacation and all I have to do is sell my district on buying a shitload of your iPads?

I'm a believer!

Re:However, in special ed, they do keep them engag

[thegarbz]

The past few years have been filled with schools blindly deploying smartboards, iPads, and high end windows/apple laptops. Unfortunately many of these districts didn't put in enough support systems or integrate the technology into the curriculum.

This right here! A lot of districts are deploying technology based on sales presentations by iMarketing folk. My girlfriend is a teacher at a school where this has failed spectacularly. Next semester they start a 2 year program to phase out the iPads and replace them with something that doesn't make students cry and teachers put their firsts through the wall when doing such incredibly complicated feats such as adding a greek letter to a word document in a science assignment.

A lot of these places were oversold on the hardware capabilities and absolutely had no idea how if at all software would support student learning.

Absolutely not shocked

[ErichTheRed]

When I was in elementary school, eons ago, the most advanced computers we had were Apple ][e machines. High school gave us Macintosh SEs and IBM PS/2 model 30s. I think the difference then vs now is that we had to learn to do something useful (i.e. programming) on them to make them fun. There was LOGO, Oregon Trail and AppleWorks, but they were pretty primitive. Especially today, computers can be "consumer-only" devices and just another screen to stare blankly into.

One thing that isn't different is that the best predictor of student success is good teachers, a good school and a decent home life with caring parents. Adding computers into the classroom without a clear purpose or reason is just a waste of money. Not because it's some kind of Luddite fantasy, but because students need to learn fundamentals before they are put in front of the computer.

Take me for example -- I'm reasonably successful but have a serious math handicap that I developed in elementary school. Exactly how would a computer, especially a locked down one-way device like an iPad have helped me? I struggled though math all the way to a degree in chemistry, probably for the simple reason that I had crappy early math teachers that couldn't pound the basics into my thick skull. Good instruction is the key to good performance, especially in a subject like math where everything is cumulative. I have no idea how people are taught math in a way that makes it all make sense, but it would be interesting to see what's being tried now. I guess I'll find out soon since I have 2 kids about to enter elementary school!

Most educators know this

[XxtraLarGe]

Technology should be used to augment classroom instruction, not replace it. Sadly, too many administrators & politicians seem to fall into the "This Will Revolutionize Education" mentality. Even when I was studying computer science, none of my courses was in an actual computer room. We had 3 hours of lecture for theory and then a 2 hour lab for application, plus extra hours outside of class time for homework. I almost loathe having to teach in a computer classroom, because some students are busy screwing around with "social media" instead of paying attention.

hype from Apple was just hype

[AndyKron]

So people are finally figuring out that all the hype from Apple was just hype. I want my money back!

Re:Depends what they are tested on

[serviscope_minor]

I like how you assume that dumping a bunch of computers into a classroom with no though, cirriculum or teacher training will magically improve those things.