Quite often, I plan for tomorrow in the afternoon. I write notes of things that I have to do, double check appointments, etc, all on my Palm.
Also quite often in the summer, I take long lunches at the local pub. I doubt that I would be able to combine my affection for lengthy pub lunches and my habbit of doing most of my input on the Palm in the afternoon with that text system whirling by.
Release it under the GPL. You'll save yourself the headaches of registration, and by allowing people to have the source, you will end up with a way better product.
I think that clasically trained teachers do not currently have the skills required to teach technology in a classroom setting for the reason that you said. Computers are not viewed as a tool in education, but a suppliment or distraction.
Students must develop skills, you can't just magically show them a series of steps and expect them to comprehend and recreate them for their own work. Teaching and learning computing concepts in elementary and high school is important. Not just to teach concepts in word 2000, but to teach students how to use the core functions of any word processor (and other programs) in order to quickly progress their line of thought when learning more advanced topics.
Just because you no longer consider a word processor, or a database challenging, don't think that an elementary student doesn't consider these advanced topics.
Our education system expects students to have a core education in language, grammar, and math. Our education system also expects students to have a core education in technology, however we are just now beginning to properly teach it.
Education exists so that people can develop and learn, not just to get a job. Students need to develop and learn about technology.
"Since then, we've done some research, to find that children's psychological development reaches a real understanding of abstract concepts beginning at around age 12-14."
I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the research you did. I'd be very interested in any books, studies, or sites that have this sort of information.
I understand your point of view, and that your opinion matters just as much as mine, but you're speaking out of your ass.
I doubt that you have seriously contemplated, or researched what you think about this point.
I also graduated grade school learning about LOGO and BASIC on a TRS-80. And I thought (and still think) that it's a waste of time to teach that type of computing.
I don't think that you've thought about how much education has changed because of the information revolution. Students are required to hand in essays with references from computer encyclopaedias and typed with specific formatting. There are some pretty advanced computing concepts that come into play that must be taught.
I agree that a balance should be achieved and that students should be taught creative and interesting lessons away from the computer, but technology is real shit, kids have to learn it too.
I work for a private school as a computer teacher for children in grades 3 to 8. I have read, researched, and put a lot of thought into this topic.
Here's what I have concluded:
It's been my observation that most educators do not effectively teach computer use to elementary and lower high school grades. Computers are a tool. No matter how far computing progresses, they will always be used to help us complete a task. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
With the plethora of "educational software", and computer teaching aids, it is very easy for classically trained teachers to confuse educating children about computers, to educating children with computers.
There are so many "gizmos" and teaching supplements that blur the line between teaching children to use technology as a tool, and to use it to learn. Children (of any age) learn best in a classroom setting with support from a teacher and being rewarded with human interaction.
Children should be taught how to use and understand the logic of computers. My program teaches the fundamentals of hardware, core networking, and the features of word processors, spreadsheets, desktop publishers, and presentation programs.
Teaching children how to use and understand technology, as a tool is important. Teaching children the logic and core set of computer functions gives the student an understanding that will outlast any software package. To me these are the two most important parts of the necessity of preparing students for the future.
Wow, you must have had some crazy parties in college if your talking aboutIEBGENER'ing a car!
It's interesting that you put so much effort into learning and mastering mainframe but look back on it as if you'll never do it again.
Yup, that's right. They made me take it. And man, did it ever suck. I'm all for a well rounded education with courses that teach fundamentals, no matter how old they are, but common!
The first half of the year was very, very interesting. It taught us about old school mainframes; hardware like tape drives and dasd, but it seems like the course director ran out of ideas because half way thru, they made us learn JCL.
Being a telecom program, and having the luxury of hindsight, I think our time would have been better spent in other places. However, I don't work for a bank or for an airline, maybe those graduates are grateful for JCL. Me, I hate the stupid language and pity anyone who is still forced to use it.
Slashdot sure is going thru a dry spell in news stories. I love reading the stories that make it thru the harsh acceptance, but there hasn't been much that interests me in the past while.
For example, talking about the legality of thumbnail use isn't exactly what I call a good time. I wish that there was a system in place that let modarators pick which stories got posted and which didn't based on each moderators individual preference. That would be cool, and take a ton of work off of the admin's workload.
Just an idea though. I'm sure I'll get mod'ed down for this.
Re:Works great if you ... and here is maxtors que
on
Clear Hard Drive Mods
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That's a cool idea. I wish I were mod'ing messages right now; I would have given you one of my precious points.
Hard drive companies are fighting for advantages right now. Most of them are plainly making jargon up (like they do for basketball shoes), to differentiate themselves in the market.
Why not create a different looking drive for case mod'ers and people who simply (like me) leave their cases open all the time.
I think that glass would be a good idea, other then it could break quite easily. I'm sure that there is some kind of plexi out there that wouldn't react to the sealing compound, or carry a static charge.
I'd like both the bottom and the top of my drive to be clear, the sides should be metal so I could still screw it in tightly. Having a translucent metal mesh (like in my microwave) could keep the RF interference down. It would be cool to have a few blue laser LED's pointing at the drive while it spun to light it up and bounce off the heads as they looked for data.
Cool idea. Everyone's becoming geekier these days and catching up to us. I'm sure that a HD company could sell quite a few of these just on the cool factor alone.
I might be less intelligent then you give me credit for, but tell me how creating a log file of people who view my resume is any different then people who visit slashdot.
Now, I'm not putting up a warning saying "beware I know that you are now reading my resume" or anything, but I'm certainly not keeping it a secret either.
I think that this is a feature of my resume rather then a hinderence. I put more effort into the application process if I know that my resume has been read.
Thank you for your posts to my comment. I appreciate your point of view.
I think that our differing oppinions lie in what we define spyware as.
I see your point of view. Creating a script that sends data without the users knowledge is spyware, and the script that I've created does this. So your right.
My point of view says that my script logs useage, just like many software packages do. We don't give netscape, or apache hell for creating detailed (user traceable) logs and cookies. So I'm right.
So you've made me realize that there is another way to look at my methods. However, they are justified and I'm not doing anything wrong. If you can't see that, then you're as lame as my fucking script. There, that comment should make us both happy!
I'd have to agree with the moderator who overated this comment.
Although not a bad point, those are totally different situations. Of course I think that DDoS attacks are wrong, and you can't subpoena someone via e-mail (yet I hope).
My point is, that there is nothing wrong with sending a couple of hundred e-mail cover letters and resumes out to people who I think might be looking for someone with my qualifications.
It looks just like a cover letter and a resume that I am sending to you.
I've had more success seding it to individuals inside of a company (ie: the department manager in charge of what I am qualified for), rather then the HR department.
I want to know if MY resume was read by the person I sent it too, and if they shared it with anyone. It's MY resume and I want to know if it's being used. No different than the data Netscape or IE transmit each time I visit a website "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98), 192.168.1.2". My log looks almost identical to this.
This is far from lame, or spyware. Read reciepts couldn't be phrazed into a logfile like I have.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite often, I plan for tomorrow in the afternoon. I write notes of things that I have to do, double check appointments, etc, all on my Palm. Also quite often in the summer, I take long lunches at the local pub. I doubt that I would be able to combine my affection for lengthy pub lunches and my habbit of doing most of my input on the Palm in the afternoon with that text system whirling by.
Release it under the GPL. You'll save yourself the headaches of registration, and by allowing people to have the source, you will end up with a way better product.
Actually, it is. Once someone from the all-mighty canadian CRTC is told about this it'll become a new campain.
I'm going to sell "Ebay fraud secrets" on e-bay.
/. and call it even.
Print out a nice laser copy of the url to this
Honestly, I like e-bay a lot. For hard to find and specialty computer hardware, it's hard to beat.
We have an almost identical view on this subject. Have a look at my origional post in this slash
I think that clasically trained teachers do not currently have the skills required to teach technology in a classroom setting for the reason that you said. Computers are not viewed as a tool in education, but a suppliment or distraction.
"Education is a way to help students learn about topics that they are weak in, and excel in what they are already good at"
Obviously you have some talent when it comes to technology. Some people don't; Picasso was good with paint and never took an art class in his life.
Thanks for the link and the point to Jean Piaget. Does anyone else have any more places / people / books to look at?
Students must develop skills, you can't just magically show them a series of steps and expect them to comprehend and recreate them for their own work. Teaching and learning computing concepts in elementary and high school is important. Not just to teach concepts in word 2000, but to teach students how to use the core functions of any word processor (and other programs) in order to quickly progress their line of thought when learning more advanced topics.
Just because you no longer consider a word processor, or a database challenging, don't think that an elementary student doesn't consider these advanced topics.
Our education system expects students to have a core education in language, grammar, and math. Our education system also expects students to have a core education in technology, however we are just now beginning to properly teach it.
Education exists so that people can develop and learn, not just to get a job. Students need to develop and learn about technology.
Here's an interesting book I read that explores why computers don't belong in the classroom: High-Tech Heretic by Clifford Stoll
I'm interested in your points.
"Since then, we've done some research, to find that children's psychological development reaches a real understanding of abstract concepts beginning at around age 12-14."
I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the research you did. I'd be very interested in any books, studies, or sites that have this sort of information.
I understand your point of view, and that your opinion matters just as much as mine, but you're speaking out of your ass.
I doubt that you have seriously contemplated, or researched what you think about this point.
I also graduated grade school learning about LOGO and BASIC on a TRS-80. And I thought (and still think) that it's a waste of time to teach that type of computing.
I don't think that you've thought about how much education has changed because of the information revolution. Students are required to hand in essays with references from computer encyclopaedias and typed with specific formatting. There are some pretty advanced computing concepts that come into play that must be taught.
I agree that a balance should be achieved and that students should be taught creative and interesting lessons away from the computer, but technology is real shit, kids have to learn it too.
I work for a private school as a computer teacher for children in grades 3 to 8. I have read, researched, and put a lot of thought into this topic.
Here's what I have concluded:
It's been my observation that most educators do not effectively teach computer use to elementary and lower high school grades. Computers are a tool. No matter how far computing progresses, they will always be used to help us complete a task. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
With the plethora of "educational software", and computer teaching aids, it is very easy for classically trained teachers to confuse educating children about computers, to educating children with computers.
There are so many "gizmos" and teaching supplements that blur the line between teaching children to use technology as a tool, and to use it to learn. Children (of any age) learn best in a classroom setting with support from a teacher and being rewarded with human interaction.
Children should be taught how to use and understand the logic of computers. My program teaches the fundamentals of hardware, core networking, and the features of word processors, spreadsheets, desktop publishers, and presentation programs.
Teaching children how to use and understand technology, as a tool is important. Teaching children the logic and core set of computer functions gives the student an understanding that will outlast any software package. To me these are the two most important parts of the necessity of preparing students for the future.
Wow, you must have had some crazy parties in college if your talking aboutIEBGENER'ing a car! It's interesting that you put so much effort into learning and mastering mainframe but look back on it as if you'll never do it again.
Oh yah, I had a full course in COBOL too!
Anyone hiring a recent grad with somewhat outdated skills and holding a lot of contempt for a college that took all my money?
Yup, that's right. They made me take it. And man, did it ever suck. I'm all for a well rounded education with courses that teach fundamentals, no matter how old they are, but common!
The first half of the year was very, very interesting. It taught us about old school mainframes; hardware like tape drives and dasd, but it seems like the course director ran out of ideas because half way thru, they made us learn JCL.
Being a telecom program, and having the luxury of hindsight, I think our time would have been better spent in other places. However, I don't work for a bank or for an airline, maybe those graduates are grateful for JCL. Me, I hate the stupid language and pity anyone who is still forced to use it.
Slashdot sure is going thru a dry spell in news stories. I love reading the stories that make it thru the harsh acceptance, but there hasn't been much that interests me in the past while.
For example, talking about the legality of thumbnail use isn't exactly what I call a good time. I wish that there was a system in place that let modarators pick which stories got posted and which didn't based on each moderators individual preference. That would be cool, and take a ton of work off of the admin's workload.
Just an idea though. I'm sure I'll get mod'ed down for this.
That's a cool idea. I wish I were mod'ing messages right now; I would have given you one of my precious points.
Hard drive companies are fighting for advantages right now. Most of them are plainly making jargon up (like they do for basketball shoes), to differentiate themselves in the market.
Why not create a different looking drive for case mod'ers and people who simply (like me) leave their cases open all the time.
I think that glass would be a good idea, other then it could break quite easily. I'm sure that there is some kind of plexi out there that wouldn't react to the sealing compound, or carry a static charge.
I'd like both the bottom and the top of my drive to be clear, the sides should be metal so I could still screw it in tightly. Having a translucent metal mesh (like in my microwave) could keep the RF interference down. It would be cool to have a few blue laser LED's pointing at the drive while it spun to light it up and bounce off the heads as they looked for data.
Cool idea. Everyone's becoming geekier these days and catching up to us. I'm sure that a HD company could sell quite a few of these just on the cool factor alone.
Maybe they could put apache on a couple of these and not have to deny web traffic when they get slashdotted.
Only a thought.
Did you have a point in there somewhere, or are you just proving your idiocity?
So you mean that you don't see my point at all?
I might be less intelligent then you give me credit for, but tell me how creating a log file of people who view my resume is any different then people who visit slashdot.
I'm not doing anything in "secret"
Now, I'm not putting up a warning saying "beware I know that you are now reading my resume" or anything, but I'm certainly not keeping it a secret either.
I think that this is a feature of my resume rather then a hinderence. I put more effort into the application process if I know that my resume has been read.
Thank you for your posts to my comment. I appreciate your point of view.
I think that our differing oppinions lie in what we define spyware as.
I see your point of view. Creating a script that sends data without the users knowledge is spyware, and the script that I've created does this. So your right.
My point of view says that my script logs useage, just like many software packages do. We don't give netscape, or apache hell for creating detailed (user traceable) logs and cookies. So I'm right.
So you've made me realize that there is another way to look at my methods. However, they are justified and I'm not doing anything wrong. If you can't see that, then you're as lame as my fucking script. There, that comment should make us both happy!
I'd have to agree with the moderator who overated this comment.
Although not a bad point, those are totally different situations. Of course I think that DDoS attacks are wrong, and you can't subpoena someone via e-mail (yet I hope).
My point is, that there is nothing wrong with sending a couple of hundred e-mail cover letters and resumes out to people who I think might be looking for someone with my qualifications.
It's not all that bad.
It looks just like a cover letter and a resume that I am sending to you.
I've had more success seding it to individuals inside of a company (ie: the department manager in charge of what I am qualified for), rather then the HR department.
Here are my reasons for the vbScript:
I want to know if MY resume was read by the person I sent it too, and if they shared it with anyone. It's MY resume and I want to know if it's being used. No different than the data Netscape or IE transmit each time I visit a website "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98), 192.168.1.2". My log looks almost identical to this.
This is far from lame, or spyware. Read reciepts couldn't be phrazed into a logfile like I have.