Is education or owning a computer more important?
on
Kids and Computers
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· Score: 1
Let us assume that every kid in America had internet access and computer of their own. Do you suppose that the outcome would be some sort of miracle in education? I for one sure don't. In fact the report suggests nothing of the kind. It states that computers have a "mildly positive" effect. I find it absolutely incredible that anyone would believe that give a computer, a kid would immediately and eagerly apply themselves to their education. What would actually happen is that they would instantly start playing games! Of course there are many people who delude themselves into thinking that because they are at least using a computer in some fashion they are learning about them. This is complete and utter bullshit. Double clicking icons and inserting CDs teaches as much about computers as stepping on a gas pedal teaches about internal combustion engines! There was a time when playing computer games did teach you about computers though. Anyone remember how much of a pain it was to get games running in MS-DOS? Now this is not to say that playing games on MS-DOS is THAT educational but having to rewrite the config.sys and autoexec.bat every time I wanted to play a game was certainly a start.
It is really hard to bear someone saying that this is some kind of moral issue. Why should we fight for these kids to have computers when they cannot even read? Better teachers, better books, smaller classes and 100% literacy is what kids REALLY need too better their education. What is certain is that more ways to play games are NOT.
One issue Jon completely fails to realize is the danger of becoming too dependant on the use of computers. I cant think of a better example than my high school AP calculus courses. People who became dependent on their nifty little TI-89s and such just couldn't hack it. I guess we should just buy all those computers and let the youth of today become dependent on the dumbed down video heavy info-tainment?
I cant wait for an article on the cell phone divide or some such drivle....
Ok I've ranted too much now.
Check out the report here.
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Let us assume that every kid in America had internet access and computer of their own. Do you suppose that the outcome would be some sort of miracle in education? I for one sure don't. In fact the report suggests nothing of the kind. It states that computers have a "mildly positive" effect. I find it absolutely incredible that anyone would believe that give a computer, a kid would immediately and eagerly apply themselves to their education. What would actually happen is that they would instantly start playing games! Of course there are many people who delude themselves into thinking that because they are at least using a computer in some fashion they are learning about them. This is complete and utter bullshit. Double clicking icons and inserting CDs teaches as much about computers as stepping on a gas pedal teaches about internal combustion engines! There was a time when playing computer games did teach you about computers though. Anyone remember how much of a pain it was to get games running in MS-DOS? Now this is not to say that playing games on MS-DOS is THAT educational but having to rewrite the config.sys and autoexec.bat every time I wanted to play a game was certainly a start. It is really hard to bear someone saying that this is some kind of moral issue. Why should we fight for these kids to have computers when they cannot even read? Better teachers, better books, smaller classes and 100% literacy is what kids REALLY need too better their education. What is certain is that more ways to play games are NOT. One issue Jon completely fails to realize is the danger of becoming too dependant on the use of computers. I cant think of a better example than my high school AP calculus courses. People who became dependent on their nifty little TI-89s and such just couldn't hack it. I guess we should just buy all those computers and let the youth of today become dependent on the dumbed down video heavy info-tainment? I cant wait for an article on the cell phone divide or some such drivle.... Ok I've ranted too much now. Check out the report here.
What makes this XP stuff so good? It cant possibly be the first technique to advocate rigorous testing. Or is it? That would be really scary...