Wow... and it only took them a couple of million to figure that out.

Seriously, I never thought that full blown laptops would help students (I myself having just recently finished high school). What WOULD help is something tablet-like that stores all our books in electronic form, which we could pretty much WRITE one. Seriously, that way they wouldn't have to lug around 6-7 books and erase their notes from the books when done with the materials. Would have my made high school years easier.

"There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." -- Ed Crowley

Kids don't need technology, they need an education. I think they can be given an excellent education without ever involving a computer.

And I agree, when I was in a computer class I spent more time actively hacking (in both senses of the word) their system, than doing work. Bootlegged their PC DOS 6.3 installation. Used Word 6 for Windows instead of Works 3 for DOS. (Or used WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.) Et cetera. I obviously want to make the most of my time, but it was stuff I already knew. That's not the case for most kids, they need to be paying attention to the teacher, not their PCs, and you know kids have reverse midas touches and wreck everything...

-uso.

Kids rarely appreciate what is given to them. If they had made it a program that rewarded students with academic success and achievement their results would have been different. Blindly giving them to all students undoubtedly would fail. Most kids these days happily trash everything they encounter. It's why most intelligent parents don't give their kids a nice car as their first automobile. They get a POS that no one cares about and can easily be replaced. Then the kid earns their own nicer car (or earns the first one off the bat depnding on the financial status of the family etc).

We can argue all day about the educational benefits of these laptops but if the kids just trash them from the get go there are no educational benefits. I wouldn't trust kids today with a pen let alone a laptop.

Why would have anyone have thought that laptops would have helped schools in the first place?

Was there any studies done to show that it would augment learning, or was it just a matter of technology=cool?

And, if there were any studies done, were there any studies done not funded by industry groups wanting school districts to spend lots of money?

I think one of the biggest paradigm shifts that people are going to have to adjust to is the idea that information, like many other things, is now often causing a problems with too much, and not with too little.
Having constant access to information does not mean you are educated. Becoming educated is more than just having access to information. You can give a student a laptop, with built-in or internet access to a database of information on anything in the world, and that doesn't make them educated. A fully 3D, interactive CD-Rom showing the human anatomy isn't what is needed for someone to become a doctor. Its the understanding of the basic concepts, and the discipline to understands how information fits into the big picture that allows people to really be educated. Without out, information is just a distraction.

That would be a convenience, but wouldn't solve the problems of pornography, broken equipment, network costs, hacking, etc. Nor would switching tablets for laptops necessarily do anything to improve achievement. All it would do is reduce your backpack load, which I'm not sure is worth the cost of the tablets and all the associated problems.

Even in grad school, PhD students surf the web (looking at shoe stores, reading their email) on their laptops during class. Even in small seminar classes, not lectures, ostensibly built around discussion. I'm convinced that no matter what age or maturity level or intellect the students have, laptops are a productivity killer.

Indeed, it was Einstein who said,

Never memorize what you can look up.

Kids need to be taught to understand concepts, how to think critically, and how to engage in research. Having access to information and memorizing some of it is nearly worthless.

My parents didn't even give me my first car. I've had to pay for everything except the bare necessities, and everything else was always treated as a gift, and NEVER something that we deserved.

As much as it sucked then when my friends had nice cars and all their gas and insurance paid for and all the newest video games and such, I thank my parents for instilling that sense of value in me.

As someone who has a laptop and tends to sit with the group of students who would likely be called lazy and disruptive by teachers I'll say this about the laptops. It's not the laptops that are a productivity killer, it's the teachers who are extremely boring and review review review. I regularly surf the web in any class that I can, java, circuits, history etc. I also get A's in those classes. It's not the laptop's fault that kids aren't paying attention, all that's changed there is that they have a better way to waste their time, kids aren't going to pay attention until the subject is interesting and challenging to them, which the current education fails to do for 90% of students who are either not interested at all in subjects they're being taught (case in point biology is required for my PROGRAMMING degree...I hate biology, much rather would take physics...you know, that think I'm very likely to program for any game/simulation...) or simply over or under challenged by the course.

On the other hand I'm against these "laptops for everyone!" programs as it tends to put technology in the hands of those who don't deserve it, those who can't treat it properly (oh look, I dropped my laptop for the third time this week...I should really put a hole in this screen and tie it to my backpack!) and those who tend to get good things ruined for the rest of us (there's an inverse relationship between the number of people on my campus who have a laptop and the number of classes that allow the thing, which is amusing as many of the laptops were bought through the school to help in classes that they're now banned in because some people aren't smart enough to alt-tab from /. to a blank or semi-filled word document when the teacher's near and only glace at other's laptops rather than stare at them and ignore the teacher noticing you)

I swear, most people don't have any ranks in Hide (Computer Use) at my school and far too many ranks in Illusion (I'm a leet hacker who'll never be caught)

But hey, what do I know. I'm one of the kids who doesn't pay attention in class so obviously you have to take what I say with a grain of salt...and a knowledge that I really don't like people who can't use technology right using it...and I'm currently in GM mode...

The real issue with laptops in schools is ... what is the problem that the laptops are supposed to solve?

Nothing I've read indicates that ANYONE looked at the problem. They decided that the students "needed" laptops to "prepare" the students for ... something.

Think about it. It's kind of like giving kids a TV. Or a game console. Yes, there may be very specific instances where such would be useful (learning TV repair?) but on the whole, it's a fucking stupid idea.

Add to that the fact that (as they discovered) laptops are FRAGILE and it just gets worse.

Instead of focusing on technology, I'd rather see the focus on finding better educational models. We've all heard stories of kids who go from illiterate to college because they moved to a non-traditional school. Why can't we spend a fraction of the tech money seeing if we can find better low-tech (and therefore, more reliable) methods of educating our kids?

The average laptop probably won't last 4 years in high school. A book can last 20 years.

The way I see it is that schools should not be providing laptops. They should be providing desktops or rather making sure that each student has home access to a basic possibly internet capable machine and perhaps a usb drive to carry their work to and from home and school. There is no need to have a computer in front of every student in every class. When a class needs students to be in front of computers they can a either use a lab or b have simple terminals that the teacher controls and passes out/takes back with each class. If you must have laptops tie them to the room not the student so that one room can quickly be converted to a computer lab and back for classes that sometimes could use computers but other times don't need them.

Otherwise instate a program to make sure that each student has access to a home computer so every student can do homework that requires a computer.

well, not new, just your run-of-the-mill lurker.
Anyway, I find TFA poorly researched and rather superficial, much like the whole school-issued-laptops program.
I've been a math teaching assistant at college for a few years, and have worked in IT most of my life. I feel somewhat qualified to have an opinion on this issue.
The problem is not the laptops. It is not the kids. It is not even the teachers. The problem is management (ie PHBs) not thinking stuff through, and lazy journalists. If I was a journalist I would try to get answers to these questions:
A) What was the plan of the program?
B) What did they expect to accomplish?
C) How was the actual implementation?
D) What analysis was done afterwards to correct the problem?
E) Why are the kids getting blamed?

I suspect the answers will be:
a)
1. Give laptops to kids
2. ?
3. Congratulate myself

b)
The more money I pour into laptops, the better kids grades will be. Just because.

c)
kids got laptops, and nobody (teachers and students) had any clue what to do with them, so they mostly fooled around. And the problems were with a. and b.

d)
Too busy blaming the kids for education management FUs.

e)
Because they are the weakest link.

Of course, other questions cross my mind:
- How many kids had used computers before?
- How many used them at home?
- How many parents got involved with the program?
- How many parents where computer-savvy?
- What budget did the teachers have available for computer courses for themselves?
and so on and so forth...

I could have told you that giving high school kids laptop computers to use in school would only make matters worse. I oft-times wonder where the common sense is in the administrative bodies that cook up these hair-brained ideas.

You see, here's the problem... High school is to kids, essentially, a place where they are forced to perform menial tasks and busy work for 8 hours a day with no reward and the only motivation is to avoid punishment (if they are indeed punished for bad grades/failure/dropping out). The incentive to excel academically is nigh nonexistent for the majority of high school kids. Introducing laptop computers to the mix does nothing but give the students a tool they can use to pay less attention to class with. After all, most of these kids aren't interested in doing much more than passing their courses... playing some solitaire or looking at some titties is much more entertaining than staring at the clock for 5 hours a day, waiting to be freed.

At university, however, laptop programs are far more beneficial. My university (Winona State) issues tablet computers to all students. Indeed there are still plenty of instances of students who decide to play solitaire rather than pay attention, their grades reflect it and (for the most part) their behavior changes accordingly. Personally, I take all of my notes on my tablet (I can type far faster than I can write by hand, and the professors can certainly talk faster than I can write!), and it is hellof convenient to be able to draw diagrams right into my notes digitally with the stylus. You can begin to imagine some of the benefits... like pressing Ctrl+F instead of flipping through pages upon pages of notes to find a definition. There's a whole boatload of advantages to the system and I'm sure most of you slashdotters can think of them yourselves.

My point is, the real driver behind the effectiveness of laptop programs is the students' motivation to excel in academically. High school doesn't give the motivation, so laptops will only help students actively perform poorly. In a university setting, however, there is motivation. Be it the fact that the student is paying for an education out of his/her own pocket (like me!), or that the student is seeking a degree in order to make money hand over fist, or that the student is studying something he or she is actually interested in and doing it of his/her own free will. Because of that motivation, students will utilize computers effectively.

what is the problem that the laptops are supposed to solve? Nothing I've read indicates that ANYONE looked at the problem. They decided that the students "needed" laptops to "prepare" the students for ... something.

As I recall, that "something" was "survival in the business world" and the solution was to tech kids how to use Word and Excel. Encarta and other "resources" were admitted to be inferior to those the school already had in the library. Of course that's a loser, but those pushing it made a lot of money selling licenses and hardware.

The irony of this is that free software has solved issues of fragility and also has created real resources for learning that are cheaper than conventional alternatives. KDE's educational package has math plotting, algebra manipulation, language studdies, flash card programs, star charts, periodic charts with chemical properties, isotopes and images, and more. Wikipedia is a vast resource that easily competes with printed encyclopedias. Google will help you dig it deeper. All of this is free, robust and actually gives students what schools want them to have.

The low price comes with a cost: finding people willing to push it. Parents, having been burnt, are now sceptical and anyone who would follow the frauds are going to be abused. The well has been poisoned by people who claimed that "computer literacy" was being able to work M$ Word and other now worthless non-free software.

Falling hardware prices may help turn things around, but the M$ laptop will always be expensive, fragile and barren of learning material.

As I recall, that "something" was "survival in the business world" and the solution was to tech kids how to use Word and Excel.

Great. But wouldn't it be far more cost effective to teach those apps (or equivalents) in a computer lab or such? Maybe even have a class on "modern business technology"?

Mandatory car analogy ...

We don't purchase a car for each student just because we know that they're probably going to need to know how to drive, do we? Instead, we have a "driver's education" class where they get to practice with a few school owned and maintained vehicles.

As a high school teacher, I can see a lot of benefits to having students with laptops. You could save a LOT of paper (it's amazing how much paper and toner is used on making handouts in our school every day), textbooks wouldn't have to be lugged around, assignments could be turned in electronically (no more "the teacher lost my assignment"), tests could be automatically corrected and students would have instant feedback., along with a lot of other benefits. The reality is, I rarely even go to the computer lab for anything class related because it's a waste of time. A lot of the websites with any interactivity are either blocked by the network, the computers don't have the right plug-ins (which students can't download and install themselves), or there is some other problem. Also, there are always a couple students in class that can't get on the network for some reason. This results in me wasting time emailing the tech department so they can reset his or her account. In the mean time, my student who can't get on the network has wasted a class period. The fact that the student was kicked off the network for downloading games in a different class is beside the point. With all the problems of just visiting a computer lab in an average high school in Middle America (and dealing with the "technology guy" who seems to invariably be a prick", I think it will be a while before we are ready for eSchool. Slowing the process even more is the teachers. My 50 year old coworkers usually need help loading a new program on their computer. They aren't going to be much help to students with a email issue, let alone be able to develop an electronic curriculum. It doesn't mean that they aren't good teachers (they do a much better job than me); it just means that they would need a couple years of training to get up to speed. Nobody has the time, money, or interest to do that. I think and hope schools will work toward the concept of every student having a laptop. I don't think it will work, however, until computers are as commonplace as pencils and paper and books, so students don't think of them as a novelty, but as a tool for getting their homework points.

Kids need to be taught to understand concepts, how to think critically, and how to engage in research. Having access to information and memorizing some of it is nearly worthless.

I think Einstein memorized more than he thinks, and in any case mathematical formulas which was his domain are very much a special branch. I find that this "memorization is pointless" is often being warped into "knowing WTF you're talking about is worthless". Let's say the assignment is "Explain the reasons for World War II". That involves a lot of critical thinking, it's not about memorizing dates or names or figures or whatever. Pick any of the below:

- Past history of wars
- Massive war damages to pay
- Heavy demilitarization
- Insane inflation, poverty
- Rise of glorifying nationalism
- Rise of xenophobia, racism
- Fear of Communism

From these (and more I'm sure) you can start to draw concepts and critical thoughts. But you wouldn't get anywhere without knowing that yes, there is a history of wars here and yes, there were economic problems and yes, there was racial ideologies and so on. Of course, at this point you're going to tell me that you could just look up that information here [wikipedia.org] but then you've put the cart before the horse. You're using other people's critical thinking, their logic and arguments and almost certainly arrive at the same conclusion they did with little critical thought of your own, unless you're doing a proper source analysis and inspection of their logic, counterarguments and so on.

Giving critical thought to a matter means in my opinion that you need to know more about the subject than mere memorization, which is usually only of some important events. By that I don't mean that you need to know them by heart, but you do need to keep them in mind at the same time as a working set. Critical thinking is figuring out which of these facts are relevant and arguing why. If you feel you see a factor that's been underrated or overrated, and can gather evidence and arguments for that then it is research, it shows understanding and critical thinking. Quoting others like a parrot is not, memorization of arguments and memorization of facts are just two sides of the same corn.

In short, if the information you're basing yourself on is crap, the conslusions will be crap even if the logic is excellent. You can reason yourself from knowledge to understanding, but you can't reason yourself from ignorance to knowledge, and so neither from ignorance to understanding. Memorization is not a goal, but it is a side effect. If you meet someone that can't quote you some facts about how WWII started, then he sure can't have any meaningful understanding of it either.

You're correct in that the human brain often does its own caching, but there's a great difference between caching and rote memorization. Caching involves temporarily remembering recently-used information relevant to the task at hand, like an equation or a recently-accessed disk block. Rote memorization involves committing arbitrary information to memory outside of its use-case.

Due to our mind's wiring, we usually find rote memorization more difficult and less effective than doing our jobs, looking things up as necessary, and letting our mind cache the looked-up information we actually use.

Uh, a book costs maybe $2 to print if it's hardcover and maybe $0.50 if it's softcover. The $100-$150 you would pay for the textbook goes to the publisher. Electronic textbooks cost about the same as printed ones, and publishers love to sell them on a subscription basis (as in, the book evaporates after the semester is done). Not to mention, trying to read books on a display fucking blows.

Here I was, thinking that giving someone with a Grade 3 reading level, a Grade 2 writing level, and an ego regarding their abilities which can only be attained by someone who has learned nothing of substance in the past 5 or so years, a laptop which requires excellent reading ability and desire to learn from, and excellent writing ability and desire to communicate with the outside world with...

You know what? It's just too ludicrous. You've got to have fundamentals before a laptop and the ensuing internet access is of any use, and even then, they won't help with anything they'd be teaching in any sort of school where you're not expected to buy your own laptop if you need one.

This is time for the big, collective "D'uh!" we've been holding about this for a while.

As technologists I think we know better than the bureaucrats who propose these "nuggets of wisdom" that technology does not fix the fundamental problems in education.

I think that the problem with computers in the classroom as it stands now is that no one quite knows what to do with them. In the late 90's there was a whole plan to "wire" all the schools for internet access. Lacking from this plan was any idea how to use that access. The government wasted millions of dollars. I suppose that the idea may have been to use it as a reference, since we all know that if it is on the internet it must be true! My mom taught high school and has all sorts of stories about what happened with computers and internet access in classrooms.

Yes, how obvious! If they didn't have those filters, the schools would never have those problems with pornography, cheating, and cracking. Clearly, the filters made the them do it.

All for the better. Good books, pencils, paper and a desk are all that is necessary and sufficient for elementary education. Computers just waste time and get in the way. And I say that as someone who owns a dozen computers and used to earn my living as a programmer.

-ccm

For a student all of that is worthless, especially when schools consider knowing the software more important than knowing the concepts. Worse much of the software you listed is a niche market which the majority of students will never use again nor be able to justify the price of. R can be used instead of SAS/Stat/Matlab for anything a high school or even college student could ever need. *nix is a lot more useful to learn than windows if you do data analysis or teach a class that does it. GIMP can be used instead of photoshop, again the missing features don't matter. I'm sure there is a free AutoCAD clone, god knows anything would be better than the dos version of AutoCAD I was forced to use in High School (only 6 years ago, no one gave a rats ass about the CAD class or it's equipment despite me being in a very good school. I got an A for keeping enough system running for the class to do it's work, the network admin simply didn't care). No idea about Mathematica but its probably only a matter of time.

Schools and politicians have this belief that money solves problems. Buying laptops is a high tech and expensive way to babysit kids. Since every kid spends oodles of time playing video games and surfing the web, politicians and teachers thought that buying laptops was the best way to get all kids to learn. Throwing money and technology at the problem wasn't the solution.

The real issue here is a poor educational system. Teachers need to be paid based on merit. Students with poor discipline need to flunk. Instead, educators think flunking a student is a sign of a bad school, or a bad teacher. Parents can't believe that they are responsible for their childrens' inability to learn. They coddle their children, blaming everyone but themselves or their children.

We've grown into an age where kids don't care. Teachers are not given the power to teach properly, nor are they incented to do so. They go through the motions, and whatever happens, happens.
 
The teachers unions have crippled the entire process. The unions protect the worst teachers. Unions also drive the best teachers out of the system, leaving us with a system that gradually deteriorates. Unions always blame lack of funding. They line up the poor kids, pointing at how little money is spent on kids' educations. Yet most of the funding increases don't go to teachers' salaries. It goes to administrative costs, new buildings, and golden parachutes for administrators.

What we need is for teachers to be held accountable. And for those students that refuse to do the work, disciplinary action. Flunk them. Put them into a trade school. Europe has a pretty good system. If a student doesn't show aptitude for higher learning, send them to a different type of high school... one that is geared towards learning a trade.

Instead, schools just try to keep students in their classrooms, because headcount means tax dollars. And tax dollars are the only things that school administrators care about. They have no interest in grades. They have no interest in test scores. They get their money no matter what grades or test scores happen.
 
Laptops were seen as an easy way to throw money at their educational woes. "We need to do this to stay competitive." The insuation was that America was losing ground to the students elsewhere in the world. A computer for every child HAD to be the solution. Ignore the work. Ignore the fact that they actually have to learn something. Let's just buy the technology, and the rest will just fall into place.

Balloney. After this spending fiasco, the rest of the tax payers should wake up and force the teachers unions and school districts to change their ways. Paying teachers regardless of performance is RIDICULOUS. Throwing money at problems is careless and irresponsible. It's downright sad. To think that money, and not real work, will solve our educational woes.

Studies show they work in lower income schools with students who have no access to computers or the internet. If the kids already have that at home then they will use it as a toy rather than a tool

Actually when I was at school I took classes in word processing, spreadsheets and DTP (amongst other things).

The skills I learnt then (on a BBC micro) have carried through till today, sure the formatting codes and function names have changed but the basic principles remain the same.

I have skills which are usable on a wide variety of programs and systems and there wasn't even the possibility of a personal laptop anywhere.

Old Sanford & Son skit had (Redd Foxx) talking to his son, who couldn't read.

"Why should I learn to read? I'm going to inherit the junkyard ain't I?"

"You gonna go broke, son".

"Why? I'll just hire a manager".

"Your manager can read and you can't? You gonna go broke, son".

Laptops teach communications skills. Laptops give you the opportunity to use what you learn that way, too.

IT is absolutely the wrong career for a lot of people, but if you even get a job selling cars and your boss can communicate but you can't, well, you're gonna go broke, son.

Every time a new technology comes along, the education establishment embraces it as a silver bullet that will deliver knowledge while keeping the students' interest.

When movies came along students sat through all sorts of educational movies as a way educating them and engaging them.

Students were subjected to film strips.

I was a professor when TV came along. The university had a new building devoted to TV lectures. I had to film a few lectures. They were terrible! All except the most telegenic faculty had the same experience. Very soon the building devolved to a lecture hall with an unused TV system.

Computers were hailed as a magic solution. We see where that is going.

Education consists of an engaging teacher and engaged students. Without those, all the newest gadgets are useless. With them the gadgets are superfluous.

yet thousands of /.ers also berated those who said it wouldnt work. Schools need to quit relying on gimmicks and go back to the basics.

"Is our children learning?" If you look at the national average the answer is a resounding NO!

Teach them how to read, from a book. Teach them math, without a calculator. Teach them history, and quit being PC about it. Teach them about computers, but in a seperate class from the rest.

From experience it doesn't much matter for most things and given how damn little I've seen people know about MS * despite getting hired I don't think there is any way knowing Open Office instead could make them less proficient at MS products (for many people). Most of them only learned a half dozen different things about the software and their ability to use it beyond that is below non-existent.

Or any programmer who works with data, when someone can do something in 15 seconds with a *nix shell that takes you 2 minutes to do by writing a program guess who isn't getting hired.

Not that I'm supporting it, but the argument here would be that your basic skill set determines your class in life and the types of jobs you can hold. If "office worker" isn't in that skill set, there's a whole job sector cut off from you. Also, if we're to believe the hype behind modernization and globalization, we're losing blue-collar jobs to other countries, but gaining white-collar jobs in exchange, so the students need to be trained or risk not have a place in the workforce.

So we're training kids for the lowest end of the office workers... secretaries? Of course it is good to know how to use a computer in a office, but very few careers (and I say career here instead of just "job") actually make it a primary requirement. A college education is so much more important than just computer skills. And lets face it, if you've been through college there is a pretty good chance you have a pretty good grasp on basic computer skills.

A much more overall effective goal is just to get kids to move on to college after high school. Forget about laptops for each kid. That is worthless. You can teach kids just fine in computer labs. Make them do all their written homework on a computer (they can use lab computers if they have to). The main goal should be to get kids to learn the CAREER skills. Or even better, just make them well educated, free thinking individuals and their careers will more or less just fall into place. A smart person would seek out cmputer training if they thought that was holding them back.

-matthew