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After 15 Years, Maine's Laptops-in-Schools Initiative Fails To Raise Test Scores (npr.org)
For years Maine has been offering laptops to high school students -- but is it doing more harm than good? An anonymous reader writes:
One high school student says "We hardly ever use paper," while another student "says he couldn't imagine social studies class without his laptop and Internet connection. 'I don't think I could do it, honestly... I don't want to look at a newspaper. I don't even know where to get a newspaper!'" But then the reporter visits a political science teacher who "learned what a lot of teachers, researchers and policymakers in Maine have come to realize over the past 15 years: You can't just put a computer in a kid's hand and expect it to change learning."
"Research has shown that 'one-to-one' programs, meaning one student one computer, implemented the right way, increase student learning in subjects like writing, math and science. Those results have prompted other states, like Utah and Nevada, to look at implementing their own one-to-one programs in recent years. Yet, after a decade and a half, and at a cost of about $12 million annually (around one percent of the state's education budget), Maine has yet to see any measurable increases on statewide standardized test scores."
The article notes that Maine de-emphasized teacher training which could've produced better results. One education policy researcher "says this has created a new kind of divide in Maine. Students in larger schools, with more resources, have learned how to use their laptops in more creative ways. But in Maine's higher poverty and more rural schools, many students are still just using programs like PowerPoint and Microsoft Word."
"Research has shown that 'one-to-one' programs, meaning one student one computer, implemented the right way, increase student learning in subjects like writing, math and science. Those results have prompted other states, like Utah and Nevada, to look at implementing their own one-to-one programs in recent years. Yet, after a decade and a half, and at a cost of about $12 million annually (around one percent of the state's education budget), Maine has yet to see any measurable increases on statewide standardized test scores."
The article notes that Maine de-emphasized teacher training which could've produced better results. One education policy researcher "says this has created a new kind of divide in Maine. Students in larger schools, with more resources, have learned how to use their laptops in more creative ways. But in Maine's higher poverty and more rural schools, many students are still just using programs like PowerPoint and Microsoft Word."
I was in high school in the 1980s and they wanted to put Commodore PETs everywhere, then they wanted Apples, then the provincial government decided it would be IBM PCs in the computer classes. Looking back, I can imagine that the salesmen were salivating at all that juicy education money.
TI still sells overpriced calculators to universities today! Education is as much a racket as anything else these days.
Mostly random stuff.
You mean just giving computers to kids doesn't make them smarter? You actually still have to teach them and get them engaged in learning?
Well I'll be...
Studies seem to show that attentive listening and HAND-WRITTEN notes have the highest retention
Here is a study that supports this: The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard ... and an article about the study in SciAm: Don't take notes with a laptop
I wonder why.
It isn't clear, but the researchers hypothesize that laptop users tend to transcribe the lecture verbatim, while pen & paper users rephrase into their own words, which requires thinking about what is being said.
Imagine that you give a TV to a teenager. This TV has 100 channels. Two of those channels are educational. 98 channels are sex, drugs, rock n roll. What is your teenager going to watch?
No question about it. My dorky nerd son is going to watch the science channels ... while explaining all the inaccuracies, like ignoring friction, or failing to account for relativity.
Some fathers worry that their kid isn't really theirs. Not me.
Around here they're doing iPads, not laptops. The yearly repair budget alone is killing most of the schools.
I told her to go look at the job offers on Craigslist, and compare the number of jobs requiring knowledge about pancreases to the number requiring knowledge of Word and Powerpoint.
That's because those jobs are called "doctor" and aren't generally advertised by Craigslist.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
They're also not taught in a preparatory fashion by primary or high school.
At least not conceptually: you improve the curriculum and the teachers, and then student performance rises. That's what the evidence shows: better instructors using better curricula get better results. That should be pretty intuitive, but better than that it's what the data tells us.
So why don't more places try improving teaching and curricula?
I think it's because people don't want schools to be very different from what they experienced, even when (or *especially* when) they have nothing but contempt for the schools they went to. So instead they tinker with superficial quick fixes. Many of these, like increased student testing, or computer in the classroom, would have value in a school that is already on the right track. In a school that is not making progress betting in a big way on computers alone is like putting a giant wing on your Honda Civic to make it go faster.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Stop seeing male teachers as potential child molesters.
And start seeing them as potential child abusers, beating them with canes?
Oh, I see you left another comment in this vein right at the same time, you're just trolling. Seems the education system failed you, if you can't imagine a better hobby. They must have beaten you too many times, it affected your imagination.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yet, after a decade and a half, and at a cost of about $12 million annually (around one percent of the state's education budget), Maine has yet to see any measurable increases on statewide standardized test scores.
So what you're saying is we've managed to move children from paper to using laptops, which will actually prepare them for the future as adults, without any negative impact to learning? Sounds like a massive success to me.
The education system must have been working pretty well in late 1800's and early 1900s. It managed to give us things like the industrial revolution, ubiquitous power, large scale agriculture, space exploration, medical advancements, etc...
So if the education system back then was able to provide us with the people that delivered all those kinds of outcomes... why are we trying to re-invent it completely?
Follow the money. Those who benefit financially from the re-inventions are the ones advocating for them. Back then, there weren't multi-billion dollar industries in chalk, paper, and slide rules, and a whole industry created to try and determine the efficacy of them.
Who said that the goal of using them was to raise test scores? Why is that even a meaningful metric?
The benefit of putting laptops in schools is that kids learn how to use laptops. They learn about the networks and the internet, they learn how to use a mouse and how to type, they learn about digital data, they learn responsible use of those laptops. They have fun. They see how the world really works.
No matter what the result, if a headline has the word "test scores" in it everyone will go insane. If the scores didn't go up, it means schools aren't working. If the scores did go up, it's because they are teaching the test. Test scores measure certain things well, and other things not at all. In this case, you might as well say that introducing laptops failed to change the price of milk. It would be just as relevant.