Changing grades isn't the issue. We have the ability to do that. But is it fair to force a student to give up the opportunity to attend an extracurricular event because the on-line gradebook says the student is failing when, in reality, the student is not? (This has already happened to a student of mine.) It's too easy to fall into the trap of believing student assessment is an up-to-the-minute, by-the-book process which has pinpoint accuracy as to the progress of a student at any given time.
You're correct that using an "upto the minute" gradebook can cause some students to be removed from activities where they should not be, but your solution isn't the only one. A better solution would be to allow teachers to decide whether to flag students apart from their grade. of course, the down side of this is that it is just another thing for the teacher to do, and so will occationally not get done.
Really though, the problem you describe can also take place in a mid-quarter reporting system. You have one bad test, or no test before the mid-quarter and you can be removed from activities. Of course, these things don't come up that often and can, in any system, be resolved individually.
Your sarcasm detector seems to be malfunctioning. Please return the unit to it's place of purchase and return it for a new one (if the current detector is still under warrenty) or (if it is no longer under warrenty) feel free to disassemble the detector yourself and look for any obvious problems.
Units over the age of 50 tend to suffer problems with their input devices. This does not necessarily indicate a problem with the sarcasm detector itself.
Also, certain units seem have problems with their spell checkers.
I've always thought that it would be interesting to watch the way that someone types in the password as well as what they type in. If your cadence isn't within your normal parameters, then you don't get in even if you have the right password.
It would have to be auto adjusting, or subtle changes in they way you type in general could throw it off, and heaven help you if you break your hand, but an interesting idea anyway.
There are other reasons why it would be problematic as well. You'd probably bet out of luck if you needed to log in on a keyboard that was different in some substantial way from your own.
From your posts I figured you'd had the same conversations with students. Mine just happens (to the whole class) three times a year (I teach 3 sections of 7th grade math) with the whole lot of them at once.
Your post is so filled with inaccurate statements, unsubstantiated opinion and irrelevancy that it would be ridiculous for me to try to write a reply that does not also make me look like an idiot. But, since this is slashdot, and I have the day off, here goes nothing... [for those of you keeping score at home, I'm in bold and he's in italics]
Clearly we are capable of doing both, and if you're going to function effectively in the real world, you'd better be able to do both. Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that your approach is wrong. I'm just saying that it is not a good way to educate people who will have to function in society.
Most people are not good at doing both(look at how many people fail math) however, also we have enough human calculators, the number crunching followers do not innovate, its the creative ones who understand how things work who make all the innovation. What good are you if you can do well on jepordy? you dont help society at all.
Most people can do both reasonably well. The number of people who fail math classes is small (less than 10% in my experience). But you go on with several other mistakes. First of all you maintain that teaching someone math facts in antithetical to teaching them mathematical reasoning this is not the case. These two aspects of a well rounded math education complement each other. Secondly, you incorrectly associate knowing math facts with being human calculators and number crunchers. People who know math facts may or may not be good at arriving at more complex arithmetic problems quickly, though they are usually capable of arriving at them accurately. Thirdly, you have associated knowing math facts with a lack of creativity without demonstrating that this is so. Perhaps it is characteristic of your own educational background, but I can assure you that it need not be the case.
I don't think anyone would argue that you can't teach multiplication as repeated additions, but --apart from a useful too to introduce the topic-- why would you want to do that? Here are a few reasons not to just teach concepts/formulas:
The goal is not to teach number crunching but to teach math I thought? Math is just formulas, numbers have nothing to do with math, numbers are like saying that programming is all about interger variables, its not, sure it uses variables but theres alot more to it.
You have here (as you will do repeatedly throughout your post) ignored the fact that I am advocating teach both basic math facts and mathematical reasoning. I am assuming here that what you mean by the formulas is similar to my mathematical reasoning, but when I was in school the phrase just learn the formulas had more of a rote memorization feel to it.
You can make lots of silly statements like numbers have nothing to do with math. On some level (once you reach a high enough understanding of the subject) these are true, but they don't really serve as useful a purpose when you're dealing with younger minds who are experiencing these ideas for the first time. Here are some more that are equally true and equally dubious in value when teaching:
Music has nothing to do with notes.
Carpentry has nothing to do with wood.
Art has nothing to do with what you see.
Automobile mechanics has nothing to do with fixing cars.
Poetry has nothing to do with words.
Interesting to think about how they might be true, but not all that useful when you are first introduced to a topic (except perhaps to get more involved students thinking in a new way).
1. It doesn't scale well. Fine. So you're teach multiplication as repeated additions. What are you going to do when you have to teach them exponents? It's easy for children who can multiply as an independent operation to extend their understanding to repeated multiplying, but I would not like to try to convince a classroom that learning that (3+3+3)+(3+3+3)+(3+3+3) is a particularely eligant or useful skill.
Um, that's not right. If 3+3+3 = A+A+A then your second line is not equal to A^3. This is, of course, clear to someone who know (presumably from memorizing, but possibly from using a calculator) that 3^3 = 27 and all those threes that you have on the other side of the equal sign do not.
The reason to teach them the formulas without teaching them the numbers is it teaches them what really matters.
The formula is simple.
This formula explains exactly what A squared is, this formula explains EXACTLY.
Maybe you meant to say explains exactly what A cubed is (which it also does not do). I believe it is better to explain exponents as a shorthand way of doing multiple additions (just like they learned that multiplication was a shorthand was to do multiple additions).
Your way of teaching would have kids using this formula without even knowing what the hell is going on. Dont tell me kids cant learn this, its alot easier than memorizing the times tables. Here I'll explain it all in one sentence if you cannot remember the formula.
A number which adds to itself by its own value then repeats the process 3 times is squared.
3+3+3 = 9, then add 3 nine times to get the answer.
You are spending way too much time on this one example, and getting the math wrong anyway. Why would you want to teach a student what cubed or squared was anyway (excepting as far as to say and perhaps have them memorize that we have special words for the two most common exponents)? Isn't it better to teach exponents as something like, the exponent tells you how many times to multiply by the other number (which we call the base)? You probably also advocate teaching basic addition via set theory.
It wastes too much time. Children who don't know basic math facts (memorized, not computed) are at a disadvantage when they are learning higher level math. I'm not talking about calculus here; they are at a disadvantage learning algebra. While other students are distributing, students who don't know math facts can't keep up with the arithmetic.
Thats why we invented the calculator. Einstien failed arithmetic.
Other people in other repies to other posts that you've made have adequately pointed out why it is useful to be able to do math when a calculator isn't present, but I'll add one more nail to the coffin. It is because I know math facts that I could tell that your example above was wrong. It allows me to quickly check to see if my answer (or your answer) is reasonable. That Einstein wasn't good at something does not mean that we should excise it from our set of worthwhile skills.
It's not helpful in life. When you're shopping after Christmas and need to figure out what something that is 30% off will cost, it's good to know that 30% is about 1/3 and how to divide by 3 in your head.
Not everyone is capable of doing this. Einstien couldnt do it. Sure its good to be a human calculator if you are gifted in that area but you cannot make everyone into a number cruncher, its not a natural ability for everyone just like not everyone has good handwriting, and no matter how much they practice they will never be able to do this stuff in their head.
I don't see how your argument is in any way meaningful. Just because some people can not do something is not a reasonable reason that we shouldn't teach it to people who can (and I believe most people can be reasonably proficient with math facts and mathematical reasoning).
The goal here is what? Give people a better understanding of math? Or filter out the number crunchers who are good at memorizing facts from the creative types who manipulate and innovate the facts to create new ones?
You are the only person in this argument who is suggesting that people be segregated in some way. I am suggesting that nearly everyone can and should be encouraged to learn basic math facts as part of a well rounded math education. In my experience it's usually a matter of convincing someone that they can memorize a few facts. These same kids who claim that they can not memorize things can routinely recite the lyrics to an entire album of music. It is truly rare to find someone who has honestly tried and can not learn the multiplication table.
You can teach someone to draw by making them learn the facts but they will never truely be an artist. You can take an artist and try to teach them the proper way to draw but they will never be able to draw in any style but their own. When you take math and turn it into just pure number crunching what you are doing is telling people to be human calculators, sure this is useful to you, and sure it might even be useful for everyone, but some people can do this easily because their brain works this way and others just are never going to remember their multiplication tables, will NEVER be able to do math in their head and will ALWAYS need a calculator unless its simple addition/subtraction.
You start off well enough: sure this is useful to you, and sure it might even be useful for everyone. Then why on earth would you not try to teach it to everyone? It is really starting to sound to me like you aren't good at memorizing (or have never really tried) and so you're trying to convince yourself that you are just as well off as everyone who can. It's not true. In my case, I don't spell very well at all. This doesn't mean that teaching people to spell is bad. I have a rougher time than if I could spell better. People who don't know math facts have a rougher time than those who do.
This is why I say why should we bother focusing on number crunching and calculations when we have calculators to do this? The chance of someone growing up in this age without a calculator is slim, the value of being able to do math in your head becomes less as technology advances eventually calculations will cease to matter, computers will be everywhere and all that will matter are the formulas you feed into them.
This argument is attractive, but there is no end to it. We have calculators that can do arithmetic, so why learn it. But we also have computers that can do any sort of symbolic algebra too. Why learn algebra? Calculus is the same way. The truth is that we need an concrete understanding of the basics to truly grasp more advanced topics, and it's just wishful thinking to believe otherwise. The easiest way to grasp arithmetic concepts is to memorize enough that the slightly more advanced stuff (still arithmetic) can be played with in a concrete fashion.
Here's the way it plays out in my classroom 3 times a year:
S: Do we have to show our work?
T: yes, you have to show all three steps, each on a seperate line.
S: But I can just do it in my head.
T: Everyone in this room can just look at these and see the answer.
S: Then why do we have to write down the steps?
T: Because we're not learning that x+3=7. We're leaning how to solve equations and you won't always be working on simple ones. Can you do this in your head? [write on board:](2x+6)/2 = 14/2 [see note below]
S: But we can do THESE PROBLEMS in our head.
T: How many of you can play the piano?
S: [usually about 25% raise their hands]
T: I'm going to teach the rest of you to play the piano. Everyone raise your hand... Now make a fist... Now raise your index finger (not that one James)... Now do this [mime playing a scale with index finger]... Now you all know how to play a scale on the piano.
S: That's not how you play a scale on the piano.
T: What do you mean?
S: That's not the right way.
T: So what? It works for playing scales.
S: But it doesn't work for real music. It just works for scales.[sometimes you have to search for this one]
T: Exactly. And that's why you have to show all of your work in algebra. It's not the fastest way to do these simple little problems that no one cares much about, but it's the best way to learn to solve the more complex equations that you'll see later this year and next year.
At this point enough of the class "get it" that it's not a battle to show your work. Instead you work on the 1-2 hold outs and the person who was sick that day. Later in class, 1-2 students will point out the harder problem that you wrote on the board and say they figured it out in their head. Congratulate them and ask them how long it took. Maybe point them toward how it is related to the first easier problem.
Many thanks to TheWanderingHermit for the well written responces to the "I don't need to show my work" posts.
When you learn the formulas to math, you know that learning the multiplicaiton tables was an absolute complete waste of time, this is like using your brain as a number crunching calculator, when we have calculators which can do this, so why do the math in your head? Why waste years learning the multiplication tables when you can learn the formula for multiplication and then use addition to solve multiplication problems?
Addition is multiplication, Addition is also Subtraction, its all the same thing! You only need to teach ONE formula and it would teach all of these things instantly.
[sniped examples]
Why should you bother memorizing the answers to repeated addition problems? Why not just teach them that its repeated addition and let them use what they already know to solve multiplication problems on paper?
I think the mistake you've made here is thinking that you can/should only do one of these two things:
Memorize facts
Understand relationships
Clearly we are capable of doing both, and if you're going to function effectively in the real world, you'd better be able to do both. Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that your approach is "wrong". I'm just saying that it is not a good way to educate people who will have to function in society.
I don't think anyone would argue that you can't teach multiplication as repeated additions, but --apart from a useful too to introduce the topic-- why would you want to do that? Here are a few reasons not to "just teach concepts/formulas":
It doesn't scale well. Fine. So you're teach multiplication as repeated additions. What are you going to do when you have to teach them exponents? It's easy for children who can multiply as an independent operation to extend their understanding to repeated multiplying, but I would not like to try to convince a classroom that learning that (3+3+3)+(3+3+3)+(3+3+3) is a particularely eligant or useful skill.
It wastes too much time. Children who don't know basic math facts (memorized, not computed) are at a disadvantage when they are learning higher level math. I'm not talking about calculus here; they are at a disadvantage learning algebra. While other students are distributing, students who don't know math facts can't keep up with the arithmetic. Kids that might be much better at understanding concepts take much longer to solve the same problems because they didn't take a few weeks to memorize a few facts.
It's not helpful in life. When you're shopping after Christmas and need to figure out what something that is 30% off will cost, it's good to know that 30% is about 1/3 and how to divide by 3 in your head. Someone who didn't know these facts could still come up with the answer (maybe even a better answer), but not without some time consuming mental games. I suppose you could say that people should always carry calculators to do these things, but we don't. Sometimes we even do math in the car "how many more hours to get home?" If you know some math facts it's safer than using a calculator or relying on formulas and your addition skills.
Please keep in mind that I am not advocating just teaching children facts. Teach them facts and how to use them.
Instead of putting a fixed nameplate on the door to the server room at the high school where I work, we mounted the kind that you can slide plates in and out of. The plan is to accumulate different plates over time and rotate between them.
Here are the ones that we've used so far (It's only been a few months):
Authorized Personel Only
Inner Sanctum
Pumpkin Patch
Santa's Workshop
Other suggestions are welcome (I plan to steal liberally from those already posted).
It also seemed like a good idea at the time to inscribe, "Hey! Put that back" on the front (covered) side of the faceplate holder.
Just a point of information, In Maine and Nebraska it is not winner take all. Someone probably already pointed this out somewhere, but I'm reading with my head in the clouds tonight (+5)
Ask their classmates for help? What do you think happens when there only happens to be one or two technically savvy pupils in the class, as in my situation? Do you really think the experienced kids will help the less experienced? Nuh-uh. They'll take the Dilbert route out and give bad advice, and that doesn't really help people to learn.
"Uh...how can I put this picture in the middle?"
"Oh, that's easy. Just hold down F4...now press Alt."
I obviously can't speak for your situation, but that hasn't been a problem so far. There are a number of things that I believe contribute to this:
This isn't their first computer class, so everyone already know the basics.
There's an instructor in the class, so it isn't likely that something like that would happen more than once.
The technically savvy students like the the positive recognition and they are way ahead of everyone, so they have time to help.
I see a lower ratio of jerks to normal people than you seem to experience.
I'm not saying the problem that you describe is impossible. But I haven't experienced it, and there seem to be things that can be done to minimize it.
I teach a high school "computer applications" course. In addition to larger projects where we go over how to do specific things in specific applications, we also do some "pop-quiz" type work.
Students are given a program that they probably have not used before and an example of a document (letter, movie, presentation...) that was made with that program. They have from one to three days to figure out how to use the program and produce whatever the assignment for that program is.
Three days isn't a lot of time at 50 minutes a day, and they started out REALLY hating this. But they have discovered that they can figure out new programs on their own, and have started to enjoy it.
They are not totally out in the cold. They have the help files and they can ask their classmates for help. Those are the things they are likely to have in real life when the boss comes in and tells them that they have to give a presentation at the meeting tomorrow
Realistically, there's no program that we can teach in high school that is going to be the same as the programs they are going to be using in the workforce in 5 years, so working on figuring out new programs seems like a good choice.
Re:What did they need to do?
on
Mac OS in a Lab
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· Score: 1
Accurate, but it doesn't shed any light on this particular question.
I run a lab using FoolProof, and I'm wondering what types of things you wanted students to be able to do that they couldn't do?
I'm probably missing something, but I can't see what people want to let students do that they aren't able to do. Lots of phrases like "crippled" and "lack of functionality" are floating around without alot of definition.
Inhibit away...
on
Mac OS in a Lab
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I administer a high school mac lab with Foolproof, and I don't see anything wrong with locking them up fairly tight.
They have access to all the tools they need for classes and research, but most other things are locked. And everything that could make life miserable for the next person to use that machine is locked. Storage is available for each student on the server.
We occationally do games after school, and I unlock those programs at that time.
I inherited the FoolProof solution, and can't say anything about it's overall security, but we haven't had any troubles with it. I do think it's important to recruite any students that are showing enough interest in doing things that make your life tougher (might as well just put them to work).
It's also important for the students to know what type of things will get their computer access terminated.
Amen to that. I read at 3, and I was really suprised when I didn't see funny after the rating. I'm not saying that they were bad printers, but what sort of things would you use it for? A resume? It's hard enough reading them for a simple letter.
I've thrown 5 of them away this year (well, given away when I can find a sap to take them (I mean someone who can use them).
Could someone with knowledge of Hypercard and HyperStudio comment on how these two projects relate to each other? I've been out of the Apple loop for a few years, and the school where I work has HyperStudio.
I assumed that someother company bought the rights to HyperCard and changed the name. But I guess that's not the case. What's the difference between them?
Even if this doesn't make it to the interview, I need to know the answer from somebody.
When Alton boils something in salted water, he says, "I believe that the amount of salt should be a function of the water. Put in enough to make it taste like sea water." Well, I live in Nebraska and don't have any idea what sea water tastes like. Can anyone tell me how much to put in a cup of water to get an idea?
I find this hard to believe. I put windows 2000 on a 200 mHz (I can never remember which of those letters to capitalize) Dell machine with 64meg of memory and it was nearly unuseable. Programs would take minutes to launch and switching between applications was almost as bad. Upping the memory to 128 meg helped some, but it only made it "painfully slow" instead of unuseable.
Maybe you had an old NT disk that someone Sharpied 2000 onto as a prank.
If an elevator says "20 People Max" it really means 30 or 40.
I was always under the impression that elevators were designated this way to account for... um... caloricly challenged people. I would feel much better about getting on an elevator with 20 super models than getting on one with 20 people leaving an overeaters anonymous meeting (ignoring the obvious issue of overlap between these two groups).
That's not what I said. And that's where you're missing the difference. Lots of people (you, me, Dell) can build computers what run Windows. There is only one company that can make computers that run the Macintosh OS.
When you are talking about that distinction, then it is the right word to use (providing you can spell it correctly). If I was comparing Apple to Microsoft, then I would fully agree with you. But I am not, and more importanly, the originaly poster who started this whole thing was not either.
It's not my argument that's flawed, it's your limited understanding of what the word Monoply means. Look it up. We'll wait.
There are many companies that produce computers on which you can run Windows. There is no monoply on these. Yes, there is product differentiation here.
There is only one company that produces computers on which you can run the Macintosh OS. Now listen carefully to this, because I'm not saying anything more or less, "Apple computer has a monoploy on producing computers that can run the Macintosh OS." That has not always been the case in the past, but it certainly is now.
Slashdot Mirror
Really though, the problem you describe can also take place in a mid-quarter reporting system. You have one bad test, or no test before the mid-quarter and you can be removed from activities. Of course, these things don't come up that often and can, in any system, be resolved individually.
Warning...
Your sarcasm detector seems to be malfunctioning. Please return the unit to it's place of purchase and return it for a new one (if the current detector is still under warrenty) or (if it is no longer under warrenty) feel free to disassemble the detector yourself and look for any obvious problems.
Units over the age of 50 tend to suffer problems with their input devices. This does not necessarily indicate a problem with the sarcasm detector itself.
Also, certain units seem have problems with their spell checkers.
I've always thought that it would be interesting to watch the way that someone types in the password as well as what they type in. If your cadence isn't within your normal parameters, then you don't get in even if you have the right password.
It would have to be auto adjusting, or subtle changes in they way you type in general could throw it off, and heaven help you if you break your hand, but an interesting idea anyway.
There are other reasons why it would be problematic as well. You'd probably bet out of luck if you needed to log in on a keyboard that was different in some substantial way from your own.
Anyone know if anything like this has been done?
I got it.
From your posts I figured you'd had the same conversations with students. Mine just happens (to the whole class) three times a year (I teach 3 sections of 7th grade math) with the whole lot of them at once.
You know what dealing with the hold-outs is like.
Fist time I noticed your handle. Too funny.
Your post is so filled with inaccurate statements, unsubstantiated opinion and irrelevancy that it would be ridiculous for me to try to write a reply that does not also make me look like an idiot. But, since this is slashdot, and I have the day off, here goes nothing... [for those of you keeping score at home, I'm in bold and he's in italics]
Most people can do both reasonably well. The number of people who fail math classes is small (less than 10% in my experience). But you go on with several other mistakes. First of all you maintain that teaching someone math facts in antithetical to teaching them mathematical reasoning this is not the case. These two aspects of a well rounded math education complement each other. Secondly, you incorrectly associate knowing math facts with being human calculators and number crunchers. People who know math facts may or may not be good at arriving at more complex arithmetic problems quickly, though they are usually capable of arriving at them accurately. Thirdly, you have associated knowing math facts with a lack of creativity without demonstrating that this is so. Perhaps it is characteristic of your own educational background, but I can assure you that it need not be the case.
You have here (as you will do repeatedly throughout your post) ignored the fact that I am advocating teach both basic math facts and mathematical reasoning. I am assuming here that what you mean by the formulas is similar to my mathematical reasoning, but when I was in school the phrase just learn the formulas had more of a rote memorization feel to it.
You can make lots of silly statements like numbers have nothing to do with math. On some level (once you reach a high enough understanding of the subject) these are true, but they don't really serve as useful a purpose when you're dealing with younger minds who are experiencing these ideas for the first time. Here are some more that are equally true and equally dubious in value when teaching:
- Music has nothing to do with notes.
- Carpentry has nothing to do with wood.
- Art has nothing to do with what you see.
- Automobile mechanics has nothing to do with fixing cars.
- Poetry has nothing to do with words.
Interesting to think about how they might be true, but not all that useful when you are first introduced to a topic (except perhaps to get more involved students thinking in a new way).Um, that's not right. If 3+3+3 = A+A+A then your second line is not equal to A^3. This is, of course, clear to someone who know (presumably from memorizing, but possibly from using a calculator) that 3^3 = 27 and all those threes that you have on the other side of the equal sign do not.
Maybe you meant to say explains exactly what A cubed is (which it also does not do). I believe it is better to explain exponents as a shorthand way of doing multiple additions (just like they learned that multiplication was a shorthand was to do multiple additions).
You are spending way too much time on this one example, and getting the math wrong anyway. Why would you want to teach a student what cubed or squared was anyway (excepting as far as to say and perhaps have them memorize that we have special words for the two most common exponents)? Isn't it better to teach exponents as something like, the exponent tells you how many times to multiply by the other number (which we call the base)? You probably also advocate teaching basic addition via set theory.
Other people in other repies to other posts that you've made have adequately pointed out why it is useful to be able to do math when a calculator isn't present, but I'll add one more nail to the coffin. It is because I know math facts that I could tell that your example above was wrong. It allows me to quickly check to see if my answer (or your answer) is reasonable. That Einstein wasn't good at something does not mean that we should excise it from our set of worthwhile skills.
I don't see how your argument is in any way meaningful. Just because some people can not do something is not a reasonable reason that we shouldn't teach it to people who can (and I believe most people can be reasonably proficient with math facts and mathematical reasoning).
You are the only person in this argument who is suggesting that people be segregated in some way. I am suggesting that nearly everyone can and should be encouraged to learn basic math facts as part of a well rounded math education. In my experience it's usually a matter of convincing someone that they can memorize a few facts. These same kids who claim that they can not memorize things can routinely recite the lyrics to an entire album of music. It is truly rare to find someone who has honestly tried and can not learn the multiplication table.
You start off well enough: sure this is useful to you, and sure it might even be useful for everyone. Then why on earth would you not try to teach it to everyone? It is really starting to sound to me like you aren't good at memorizing (or have never really tried) and so you're trying to convince yourself that you are just as well off as everyone who can. It's not true. In my case, I don't spell very well at all. This doesn't mean that teaching people to spell is bad. I have a rougher time than if I could spell better. People who don't know math facts have a rougher time than those who do.
This argument is attractive, but there is no end to it. We have calculators that can do arithmetic, so why learn it. But we also have computers that can do any sort of symbolic algebra too. Why learn algebra? Calculus is the same way. The truth is that we need an concrete understanding of the basics to truly grasp more advanced topics, and it's just wishful thinking to believe otherwise. The easiest way to grasp arithmetic concepts is to memorize enough that the slightly more advanced stuff (still arithmetic) can be played with in a concrete fashion.
Here's the way it plays out in my classroom 3 times a year:
I think the mistake you've made here is thinking that you can/should only do one of these two things:
- Memorize facts
- Understand relationships
Clearly we are capable of doing both, and if you're going to function effectively in the real world, you'd better be able to do both. Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that your approach is "wrong". I'm just saying that it is not a good way to educate people who will have to function in society.I don't think anyone would argue that you can't teach multiplication as repeated additions, but --apart from a useful too to introduce the topic-- why would you want to do that? Here are a few reasons not to "just teach concepts/formulas":
Please keep in mind that I am not advocating just teaching children facts. Teach them facts and how to use them.
Instead of putting a fixed nameplate on the door to the server room at the high school where I work, we mounted the kind that you can slide plates in and out of. The plan is to accumulate different plates over time and rotate between them.
Here are the ones that we've used so far (It's only been a few months):
Other suggestions are welcome (I plan to steal liberally from those already posted).
It also seemed like a good idea at the time to inscribe, "Hey! Put that back" on the front (covered) side of the faceplate holder.
Just a point of information, In Maine and Nebraska it is not winner take all. Someone probably already pointed this out somewhere, but I'm reading with my head in the clouds tonight (+5)
Ask their classmates for help? What do you think happens when there only happens to be one or two technically savvy pupils in the class, as in my situation? Do you really think the experienced kids will help the less experienced? Nuh-uh. They'll take the Dilbert route out and give bad advice, and that doesn't really help people to learn.
"Uh...how can I put this picture in the middle?"
"Oh, that's easy. Just hold down F4...now press Alt."
I obviously can't speak for your situation, but that hasn't been a problem so far. There are a number of things that I believe contribute to this:
I'm not saying the problem that you describe is impossible. But I haven't experienced it, and there seem to be things that can be done to minimize it.
I teach a high school "computer applications" course. In addition to larger projects where we go over how to do specific things in specific applications, we also do some "pop-quiz" type work.
Students are given a program that they probably have not used before and an example of a document (letter, movie, presentation...) that was made with that program. They have from one to three days to figure out how to use the program and produce whatever the assignment for that program is.
Three days isn't a lot of time at 50 minutes a day, and they started out REALLY hating this. But they have discovered that they can figure out new programs on their own, and have started to enjoy it.
They are not totally out in the cold. They have the help files and they can ask their classmates for help. Those are the things they are likely to have in real life when the boss comes in and tells them that they have to give a presentation at the meeting tomorrow
Realistically, there's no program that we can teach in high school that is going to be the same as the programs they are going to be using in the workforce in 5 years, so working on figuring out new programs seems like a good choice.
Accurate, but it doesn't shed any light on this particular question.
I run a lab using FoolProof, and I'm wondering what types of things you wanted students to be able to do that they couldn't do?
I'm probably missing something, but I can't see what people want to let students do that they aren't able to do. Lots of phrases like "crippled" and "lack of functionality" are floating around without alot of definition.
I administer a high school mac lab with Foolproof, and I don't see anything wrong with locking them up fairly tight.
They have access to all the tools they need for classes and research, but most other things are locked. And everything that could make life miserable for the next person to use that machine is locked. Storage is available for each student on the server.
We occationally do games after school, and I unlock those programs at that time.
I inherited the FoolProof solution, and can't say anything about it's overall security, but we haven't had any troubles with it. I do think it's important to recruite any students that are showing enough interest in doing things that make your life tougher (might as well just put them to work).
It's also important for the students to know what type of things will get their computer access terminated.
Amen to that. I read at 3, and I was really suprised when I didn't see funny after the rating. I'm not saying that they were bad printers, but what sort of things would you use it for? A resume? It's hard enough reading them for a simple letter.
I've thrown 5 of them away this year (well, given away when I can find a sap to take them (I mean someone who can use them).
I'm missing something here. Why would using Word Perfect keep them from printing in your labs?
Could someone with knowledge of Hypercard and HyperStudio comment on how these two projects relate to each other? I've been out of the Apple loop for a few years, and the school where I work has HyperStudio.
I assumed that someother company bought the rights to HyperCard and changed the name. But I guess that's not the case. What's the difference between them?
Even if this doesn't make it to the interview, I need to know the answer from somebody.
When Alton boils something in salted water, he says, "I believe that the amount of salt should be a function of the water. Put in enough to make it taste like sea water." Well, I live in Nebraska and don't have any idea what sea water tastes like. Can anyone tell me how much to put in a cup of water to get an idea?
Thanks!
Why wasn't it in 1970 with 30 year morgages?
I find this hard to believe. I put windows 2000 on a 200 mHz (I can never remember which of those letters to capitalize) Dell machine with 64meg of memory and it was nearly unuseable. Programs would take minutes to launch and switching between applications was almost as bad. Upping the memory to 128 meg helped some, but it only made it "painfully slow" instead of unuseable.
Maybe you had an old NT disk that someone Sharpied 2000 onto as a prank.
I was always under the impression that elevators were designated this way to account for... um... caloricly challenged people. I would feel much better about getting on an elevator with 20 super models than getting on one with 20 people leaving an overeaters anonymous meeting (ignoring the obvious issue of overlap between these two groups).
Everyone's position is supported by the market. That's how they got in that position.
That's not what I said. And that's where you're missing the difference. Lots of people (you, me, Dell) can build computers what run Windows. There is only one company that can make computers that run the Macintosh OS.
When you are talking about that distinction, then it is the right word to use (providing you can spell it correctly). If I was comparing Apple to Microsoft, then I would fully agree with you. But I am not, and more importanly, the originaly poster who started this whole thing was not either.
It's not my argument that's flawed, it's your limited understanding of what the word Monoply means. Look it up. We'll wait.
There are many companies that produce computers on which you can run Windows. There is no monoply on these. Yes, there is product differentiation here.
There is only one company that produces computers on which you can run the Macintosh OS. Now listen carefully to this, because I'm not saying anything more or less, "Apple computer has a monoploy on producing computers that can run the Macintosh OS." That has not always been the case in the past, but it certainly is now.