Do Home Computers Help Or Hinder Education? 305
theodp writes "The NY Times reports on economists' efforts to measure a home computer's educational impact on schoolchildren in low-income households. Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts. Abroad, researchers found that children in Romanian households who won a $300 voucher to help them buy computers received significantly lower school grades in math, English and Romanian. Stateside, students in a North Carolina study posted significantly lower math test scores after the first broadband provider showed up in their neighborhood, and significantly lower reading scores as well when the number of broadband providers increased. And a Texas study found that 'there was no evidence linking technology immersion with student self-directed learning or their general satisfaction with schoolwork.'"
Dupe (Score:4, Informative)
This was posted [slashdot.org] last month.
Jury is still out (Score:2, Informative)
BBC coverage of one laptop per child [bbc.co.uk] in Uruguay
I think it has to do with the age of the child (NYTimes article describes research experience with teenagers in North Carolina, BBC covers internet give to primary school age children at the schools in Uruguay). The research NYTimes profiles also shows an apparent difference according to the race of the teenager who gets broadband. Could it be that test scores have anything to do with anything else other than computer access? They need a control group, e.g. a country the size of Uruguay where they distribute Nintendo's and "Grand Theft Auto" instead of computers. My theory: prepubescents who get their online access at a public school (Uruguay) spend time accessing different educational websites than teenagers given broadband access in their rooms (NC).
Re:A challenge to game designers (Score:5, Informative)
GCompris [gcompris.net] is in use by schools all over the world.
Re:Here's some money for a crappy computer... (Score:5, Informative)
I have the exact opposite experience. I have kids aged 7 and 8. They left kindergarten reading fairly well and started writing stories in first grade. My oldest kid just finished second grade and she had to learn the multiplication tables up to 12 x 12.
I was in kindergarten in 1975 and I think our goal was to learn the colors and the alphabet. We didn't get serious about reading until second and third grade. Didn't do multiplication until fourth grade. My kids have a little homework every night, I never had daily homework until high school.
They have covered things like global warming, but in a more abstract way. Conserve energy, don't pollute, observe bugs, etc... They also spent quite a bit of time on the space program including a 3 month project where they were able to choose one area of study and prepare a report and presentation (my daughter chose Saturn and the Cassini mission). I never had the opportunity to do anything even remotely like this when I was 8.
How old is your kid?
Re:They're like guns. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Here's some money for a crappy computer... (Score:3, Informative)
Preamble: This is mostly from a USA perspective. Your country may vary. Also, this is almost entirely off-topic.
People like to blame the parents.
People always want someone to blame, yep.
When I was a kid, I remember learning in school.
When I was a kid, I learned everywhere. Still do, actually. So do my kids.
Point of reference: It's summer break at the moment, but when school resumes in a few weeks, I'll have one in elementary school and two in college.
I do not get the impression from my child that the schools focus on anything that is not a social science. (The teacher flat out told us that no one teaches the multiplication table anymore nor phonetics.)
Foniks? Seereuslee?
Also, sounds like either a broken teacher, or a parent hearing something they were predisposed to hear. I won't presume to judge which, without better evidence.
(My kids have all learned phonetic methods to assist the learning of reading, and also multiplication tables, by the way -- and in school, at that.)
Kids can't read or do math, but they all know about global warning, the rape of the planet, BP and other evil corps, how this land was stolen from the natives, how we ALL used to have slaves... It is a disgrace. Then people wonder why people have no civic pride.
I could read and do some math before I ever entered a school. Likewise my kids - except one who struggled with reading until he was in the first grade, at which point something clicked and he began devouring novels. This stuff should be part of their lives from the beginning, not something to be force fed in an institution.
As for the social sciences, those are valuable parts of the body of human knowledge, and school is one place to learn about them. Understanding current theories of climatology (not a social science), ecology (multi-disciplinary), corporate governance and political theory (ok, pretty much social science), history... and a great number of other things... is important to function responsibly in society. Even more important is understanding that almost every person is speaking from a particular perspective, and understanding what that person's perspective might be, and how it influences both the content and the "spin" of their speech can help tremendously in judging how to incorporate what you learn from them into your own perspective. Also, learning to separate useful information from emotional salesmanship (for instance, phrases like "it's a disgrace") is a key skill. Every child should learn how to spot empty rhetoric.
As for civic pride... my children know that pride is a trap which leads you into foolishness. (They learned that from me, not in school.) I teach them to examine facts from reliable sources, to understand that in reality you have to make and act on theories based on incomplete evidence, but be ready to change course if and when new evidence arises, and that people who are angry or overly enthusiastic are usually either acting irrationally out of fear or trying to sell you something you don't need.
The guilt laid on our youth by our schools by focusing on only the bad in our history and current events is worse than any guilt I was taught by religion.
I've had a peep at my kids' textbooks. They are by and large still the same information I learned, plus some additional perspectives that were not taught when I was young. From what I can tell (and I *am* paying attention) the teachers are mostly balanced in their presentation of perspectives. There are still a few who approach reality from a tilted perspective, but those seem to come in all varieties, which tends to level the playing field. All of this in spite of the best efforts of those who wish to turn textbooks into instruments of propaganda.
When I was young, we were taught facts and analysis that were deemed important by the ruling folk who came almost