Laptops In the Classroom Don't Increase Grades 511
blitzkrieg3 writes "Classrooms all around the country are being fitted with one to one laptop programs, networking hardware, digital projectors, and other technology in order to stay competitive in the 21st century. Kyrene school district spent $3 million modernizing their classrooms. The problem? The increase in spending doesn't lead to an increase in test scores. Policy makers calling for high tech classrooms, including former execs from HP, Apple, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, want to increase technology investment despite the results. Others are not so sure, or think it is an outright waste of money."
Well duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Are the tests testing for technological awareness and other abilities enhanced by using laptops?
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Luckily... (Score:4, Insightful)
The learning process is driven by the teachers
I'd argue the learning process is driven by interest in the subject. IMHO, giving each kid a laptop doesn't generate interest in any subject.
Re:Luckily... (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly the grading process is driven by grades. If everyone gets a A+ your grading way to easy. So ideally you should grade to a sliding scale, so that some get A+ and some fail. This is normal and to be expected just like 100 IQ being the average should also gain an average grade, those below needing to do more work to pass and those above tending to cruise or work harder and achieve higher grades.
Latops in classrooms should ideally replace textbooks and allow more to be taught in the area of socio-economics, law and political understanding. Simulations can also be used to provide greater understanding of complex interactions.
The never ending problem I have found with computers is the majority treat them like a magic box and just like a magic box it will do the work for them, learn for them and understand for them. Beware the magic box will not make learning anything else easier, it fact it will make it harder because you also have to learn how to use the magic box. Computer make information more accessible they do not make it easier to learn (a higher IQ does that).
Computers can of course be used to more effectively tailor the learning experience to the IQ of the children, providing challenges for those with higher IQ and providing more help for those with problems. They could be used to accelerate the smartest through the education process, allowing them to graduate early and move on.
Re: (Score:3)
The use of simulations and games to teach complex models is excellent, but it's real stretch from that to a laptop-on-every-desk all-the-time. Part of learning is learning the management of one's attention.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Also: Were the students graded on a curve?
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, teachers somehow got the idea in the last generation or so that they shouldn't have to follow rules or have their classrooms besoiled by outside influences like curricula.
Seriously, listen to teachers talk shop. They will bitch about parents, bitch about the "long" workday, bitch about having to meet standards, bitch about how to make the clas
Re: (Score:3)
Even if it is a bad curriculum, a professional teacher should be able to meet *some* standard.
Wrong: unless you are making up "some standard" to mean anything which would be contrary to what the word "standard" means.
they get new students every year, if the classroom was interesting last year, it will be interesting this year.
Wrong: if this were the case, then the same system that was used to teach 50 years ago would hold the same interest today. Each class, and each student are a little different and depend on their culture, what other schoo
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
As to grading, meaningful feedback is one of the keys to learning - the score doesn't matter, but showing what you did wrong so that you can correct it in the future is key to learning.
We used to call that "formative assessment". Unfortunately, the ridiculous point system we've come up with does not reward the students for learning, only the accumulation of points. They could give two-shits about WHY they got a question wrong, it's just n points that they can't get back.
Kids know that mindlessly filling out the daily homework worksheet and while failing the mid-term and final and the student can still "earn" them a passing grade. If that's not enough, lazy teachers offer "extra credit"
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Funny)
Curved laptops? Doesn't Apple have a patent on that?
Re: (Score:2)
Probably not. But if they aren't on the test, they're not important.
Re: (Score:3)
Work and study (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the only thing that contributes to increase student grades. Technology is just a tool, not a means.
Re:Work and study (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is something to be said for having the skill set you will use in the work place even at the expense of not knowing anything significant about the Battle of Jutland, or where in the world Jutland is. After all, with skill in using computers as tools, all of the other things you were supposed to learn in the 4th grade of the 4th year of college are available to you.
The tests used today are a legacy of the past where knowing details was the focus of education. I'd much rather employ someone who knew
Re:Work and study (Score:5, Insightful)
The tests used today are a legacy of the past where knowing details was the focus of education. I'd much rather employ someone who knew how do do computer assisted research or build a spread sheet to calculate unit costs than someone well versed in memorized facts that are obsolete as soon as you walk out of the test hall.
That's not what you get. They're not teaching statistics and why you might want to use a pivot table.
They're teaching Powerpoint.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They're teaching Powerpoint.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Oh I am. Because you can teach concepts, ideas and topic, but not programs. That's why you teach carpentry, and not hammer. Computers are not different: you can teach writing and graphics design, but not Word and PowerPoint. The later are (poor?) tools for the former, but you have to teach the concepts, not the implementation, or you will never get anywhere.
But the real problem is that teaching computers is cheaper. Someone (no doubt a high level school manager) must have thought that with PCs everywhe
Re:Work and study (Score:5, Insightful)
Learning how to think, being well rounded, and having a solid fundamental base (you know, doing things with a pencil and paper and calculating in one's head), makes learning a spreadsheet or computer research trivial. You're advocating tool use as a higher endeavor, and I don't think you meant to.
Jutland isn't the end-all point of the matter... providing a rounded portfolio of knowledge and the ability to think critically, analyze things and solve problems is. And no fact of history is ever obsolete. :)
Learning a spreadsheet in school is obsolete when the next version of Office comes out anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
Learning how to think, being well rounded, and having a solid fundamental base (you know, doing things with a pencil and paper and calculating in one's head), makes learning a spreadsheet or computer research trivial.
Not really. I know people who know how to think, are well-rounded, and are quite well educated compared to most. But they didn't grow up with computers, and it takes them forever to get tasks done, and malware is a hell of a lot more than a minor annoyance for them. They find the entire process frustrating and sometimes inaccessible.
You need to learn how to use computers, and to be an environment that has them--particularly if you're from a home that doesn't have them--but they're not the only thing you
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Those people you mention, those well-rounded, etc... etc... should have no problem sitting down with an expert and listen and understand the fundamental concepts so that malware stops being a problem. Being "well-rounded" includes having learned how to learn.
My mom would qualify as one of those well-rounded people and she never had an interest in computers whatsoever even though her husband and all her children were into computers (everyone of her kids on a different level. My brother is a gamer, my sist
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Work and study (Score:5, Insightful)
To quote from Takahata's "My Neighbors the Yamadas":
Mother and Father doing the month's budget.
Mother: We have to have 300 for the tutor for Noboru. (13 year old son)
Father: What??? Give me 200, and I tutor him myself!
Grandmonter: I'll to it for 150!
Noboru: Just give me 100, then I promise to study harder.
In general, yes. (Score:2)
The student needs to work to find out how he/she learns best for each subject and apply that/those technique(s).
Technology can help. When virtual reality is possible, the student can learn history by "being there". Or he/she could watch a movie about it today. But that requires that the content (movie) be available along with the technology to view it (the laptop). Handing out laptops without content only leads to games of minesweeper.
And this isn't even addressing whether the students have Internet access
Re: (Score:3)
The student needs to work to find out how he/she learns best for each subject and apply that/those technique(s).
Unfortunately, most middle-school students (the story uses an example of seventh-graders) aren't too good at resisting temptation or being sufficiently introspective. I think the real issue is that parents and teachers are trying to apply the (failed) "abandon children in front of television" parenting approach to education.
Re: (Score:2)
When virtual reality is possible, the student can learn history by "being there".
They can learn what an artist's version of history is. This can probably be done better than the standard textbooks, but it also makes rewriting history easier and more real than the truth written in some book.
Re: (Score:2)
What, you think the history written in textbooks isn't highly rewritten already? Ha.
Re:In general, yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
When virtual reality is possible, the student can learn history by "being there"
I have family members who lived through *major* historical events. Being there didn't tell them why they were there nor why it was so important nor what was happening a few miles away and how that impacted them. They didn't really understand the big picture until I shared some of that old fashioned college book learning with them.
History is not merely a record of what happened, it also considers the various things that influenced what happened. The real work and study is often in the later.
Re: (Score:3)
I have family members who lived through *major* historical events. Being there didn't tell them why they were there nor why it was so important nor what was happening a few miles away and how that impacted them.
+1 to your point but not sure how it invalidates the idea of "VR learning" as, personally, I think it would depend on the presentation. You're right, being able to put individual events in context is only possible by looking at the bigger picture, but "VR learning" could help put a human face on history. The post you're replying to is trying to make the general point that laptops alone are not enough, but that laptops + content = learning.
To second your "being there" comment though: During WW2, my grandm
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed, I'm not sure why laptops would increase grades on activities other than writing papers.
OTOH, document cameras and projectors do have a much more reasonable connection to academic performance and if you get good equipment you spend it once and the maintenance costs are pretty minimal. For some things showing a short animation is just that much better than trying to explain what's happening with a lever or trying to explain how a substitution reaction works out.
Re:Work and study (Score:4, Insightful)
The bigger problem is that the busywork doesn't stop once you have learned it. I got good grades through school, but only because my parents made me actually do the work. I don't think I got much at all out of most of the homework I did during K-12, with the exception of higher-level math in 8th-12th, French class, high school English (writing), and some of the high school science classes.
It was pure tedium. Half the time, I'd make simple math mistakes (get all the multiplication right, and screw up the simple addition at the end, or misread a minus as a plus or vice versa) because I was so bored out of my mind that I was concentrating on anything and everything but what I was doing. Increasing the amount of practice just made me more bored and more likely to make sloppy, basic mistakes. And there is absolutely no pedagogical technique more annoying then forcing students to "show their work" when they otherwise could have done the entire problem in their heads. Grr. I got more answers wrong over the years because of the long-form pedantry than I can count.
Busywork, by definition, is not useful. If it really is busywork, its purpose is to keep people busy. The worst part of it was the resentment it caused. The people who didn't care about grades were out playing and having fun while we were stuck inside because they gave us more homework than the other classes. The folks who didn't need the homework got more, while the people who needed the practice got less because it was assumed that they wouldn't bother to do it anyway. And this is why I've said for at least a decade that homework is completely and utterly useless in its current form, and should be abolished.
Agreed. And this is what happens when you have AP classes whose primary goal is to teach to a test. Instead of making history come alive, it becomes rote memorization of specific details that you'll need to be able to regurgitate when it comes test time.
It isn't important to know history; it is important to understand history—to know the lessons that it teaches us so that we don't make the same mistakes twice. Does anybody need to know the exact date when the Civil War ended? No. Heck, unless you're tying it to the social issues of the time period, it's not even that important to know what century it occurred in. It suffices to know that it was some time between the American Revolution and the first World War. What is important is how it changed our country, what the issues were, what people at the time claimed the issues were, and so on. If all you know are names and dates, then you've completely missed the boat.
Distractions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Recall yesterday's thread about typing (too lazy to link it). From many of the comments, I got the distinct impression that this particular skill was the most useful single aspect of high school for many Slashdotters. Admittedly this is a small and very skewed (twisted might be a better description) sample of humanity but maybe all one needs after basic reading and writing is a keyboard, a mouse, Wolfram Alpha and possibly 4-Chan.
Re: (Score:2)
When they introduced white boards instead of the old chalk blackboards did that increase grades? When they introduced calculators instead of doing everything in long division did that increase grades? No, and they SHOULDN'T.
Any new teaching tool is just that... a new teaching tool. It creates new things that can be taught. When a child has a laptop in their classroom they should be taught new things that a child
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, I must disagree.
What learning tech early does, is teach the kid "it's okay to use tech". Simple, and as scary, as that.
Teachers desperately cling to Grades because they have no other metrics.
In the modern business world, you have tons of older workers who "know stuff" but can't extract a file off an email. It's at least worth a try to let the kid spend some time playing with tech, because tech is the wave of the future.
Put a little facetiously, we don't need to know factoids anymore because you can
Re: (Score:2)
Precisely, and I'm curious as to why people think that laptops for students is the answer. I get that lower income children probably don't have their own computers, but even that does not necessitate computers in the classroom.
When I was a kid we had a lab full of Apple ][ computers which we played with in elementary school. Later on we had more powerful machines, but we'd go for a small amount of time every week and that was more than enough.
Introducing them into the class seems like an excellent way of ma
Re:Distractions (Score:5, Insightful)
In the modern business world, you have tons of younger workers who can barely compose an email using correct English, but can extract a file off [sic] an email.
As an employer, do you think it's be easier to work around people who might have technology questions, or those who don't have a good grasp on basic math and English skills?
Re: (Score:3)
... the question still stands:
Your question is a false dilemma. Go back and read the summary. The students with the laptops got the same grades. So they are learning tech skills while doing just as well in math and English. There is no tradeoff.
It's just a tool. (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers by themselves are not magic teachers. They wont replace quality teachers but they can with proper application assist in education. I think most of the problem with computers in school is that people have the wrong expectations. It's just a tool. Like any tool you have to know how to use it properly and what it can and can not do.
Re:It's just a tool. (Score:4, Insightful)
As a public school teacher who teaches students to certify in IT, I can point to some problems:
1) Teachers don't know how to properly use the technology.
2) The technology distracts students from classroom content.
3) Schools generally fail to filter out distracting content. Most students know how to use Ultrasurf, and proxies to bypass lame block lists.
4) There is little engaging educational content available for the technology. The major exceptions are Cisco Academy and Khan Academy.
5) Most of what we teach to students is useless crap. We need to step back analyze educational content for real world usability.
Technology is not the problem. The educational paradigm needs to be challenged.
No, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who would have thought giving kids an even bigger distraction would not increase grades? Kids today can barely sit still and concentrate on one task at a time let alone sit in front of a laptop and be expected to only take notes. What kids really need now is someone to tell them to sit down, shut up, and listen. If a disruptive student doesn't want to be there then they should be able to leave. Forcing them to be there is not helping them or anyone else who is trying to learn.
Re:No, really? (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a teacher in high school who'd simply send you out of the classroom if you disrupted the lesson. You needn't be here, you can as well be someone else, get the fuck out of my class. I'm your teacher, not your nanny, and I don't give half a shit where and how you learn what's up for the next test. You can learn it here, or you can try it on your own, you needn't listen.
His lessons were also by some margin the most productive ones. He didn't spend half the hour trying to calm down the class.
Re: (Score:3)
What kids really need now is someone to tell them to sit down, shut up, and listen. If a disruptive student doesn't want to be there then they should be able to leave.
Depends on what age you're talking, but when you say "kids" I would think that's probably not so good an idea. First off you're not thinking much about the future as a kid, it's all about the here and now. Secondly you'll have much more social pressure to skip class. Finally you'll have plenty premature optimization like "I want to be a firefighter so I don't need all those other subjects, I'll just run around outside and pretend to be a firefighter." And if there's anything work life doesn't need it's more
what test scores? (Score:2)
What sort of valid conclusions can one draw from tracking test scores over time? And why is the immediate reaction "blame the tool"?
Re:what test scores? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the immediate reaction is "stop wasting money." For some reason we can afford to buy kids laptops, but can't afford to make teaching a high-paying job. And yet we expect excellent results. The only way laptops can help students to learn is if they help teachers to teach more effectively. I.e., the laptop in the students' hands is a tool for the teacher, not the student. But that's not how laptops are being used.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, this is merely a symptom of an emerging mindset in which problems can be automatically solved by adding more technology to the mix rather than slowing down to contemplace a given problem and think critically about it. Most people don't come to this sort of discipline on their own; it has to be taught and practiced in a way that allows students to discover the joy of it. Critical thinking is the motive force, discipline the lever. Technology is, sometimes, the pivot.
I also endor
Re: (Score:2)
Because they're expensive and divert money that could be spent on things that we know increase test scores. Things like tutoring at risk students and evaluating curriculum to find materials that best assist the students in learning.
Laptops themselves are of limited value, the only times I've ever needed one is for getting help and for doing papers, neither of which is an optimal use of time.
I remember the same arguments about Calculators. (Score:3, Insightful)
The end result was that rather than having people solve very simplistic problems that they could actually pull off in a 4x4-inch section of paper, students were to solve far more complex problems that actually test their understanding of what they are attempting to do instead of their grasp over carrying a 1.
Bottom line is that as long as we have people who say "I'm computer illiterate" and then laugh, then there is still work to be done to enable people to be successful in the world.
Re:I remember the same arguments about Calculators (Score:5, Insightful)
But to use a calculator, you need the foundational skills and understanding that underlie the problems they help solve. Computers are essentially media devices now: just like you don't need to know how TVs work to watch TV, you need understand nothing about computers to use them. And they are very distracting.
I think they have a role in the classroom. But I think that role is overemphasized and a lot of "I'm a hammer-expert, and that's a nail" thinking from people in the tech sector is wasting a lot of resources in education that could be spent much better.
Computers are not distracting (Score:3)
Computers are essentially media devices now: just like you don't need to know how TVs work to watch TV, you need understand nothing about computers to use them. And they are very distracting.
Computers are not distracting. Computers are tools. If distracting software or content is allowed on the computers, then yes they are a distraction... school computers, during class, should probably not be connected to the internet (or at least not allow browsing).
Computers are a fantastic tool and there's no reason t
Re: (Score:2)
And now ... we have large swaths of people who can't do column arithmetic in their heads. Have you been in a retail store lately and paid cash for anything? Dig that quarter out of your pocket so you don't get back $4.97 from your $20 after they've hit the magic "total" button on the terminal and watch the train wreck that ensues.
So while yes, the people *who already could do simple problems on paper* benefited from the calculator, I'm going to go out on a limb that many didn't.
And that's ignoring the part
Re: (Score:2)
The end result was that rather than having people solve very simplistic problems that they could actually pull off in a 4x4-inch section of paper, students were to solve far more complex problems that actually test their understanding of what they are attempting to do instead of their grasp over carrying a 1.
Not in my experience.
Calculators were strictly forbidden at every math exam I've had at university. They tested my knowledge and understanding far better than any other exam I had. All I needed was to know the multiplication table (up to 12 helps), how to multiply larger numbers and how to divide numbers.
With calculators you may learn how to solve certain problems by rote, and thus score slightly higher on tests. That doesn't mean you have any understanding of the math involved. Tests where calculators are
Tech is wasted in current schools (Score:3)
Schools should not be wasting time and money on tech until they can get reading writing and basic math right. Without those none of the rest matter.
And I have yet to be convinced that handing out Macs (and it is ALWAYS Apple who wins these school contracts) does one damned thing to improve education, other than twitter and facebook skills of course.... future employers are going to be hungering for that.... NOT.
I think it is possible to use tech to make a better education process, but that the American education system is wholly unsuited to making the fundamental change in mindset required. So quit wasting money until we are ready to blow it up and start over. In case nobody has noticed the country is broke.
Re: (Score:2)
It is fascinating to me that the executive VP in charge of Apple's efforts to get Macs into schools sends her children to a Waldorf School: http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/tech-gets-a-time-out [sanfranmag.com]
Re: (Score:2)
My school went for IBM, actually. The entire school was outfitted with IBMs, back when they still made laptops. The desktops were IBM too.
It probably had a lot to do with the incredible warranty they'd offer; even a pencil sticking through the screen was covered. Sitting on the laptop until it cracked down was covered. Spilling juice then throwing it down the third floor onto electrified spikes lubricated with gas was covered. I've never heard of a laptop that did not get replaced. Apple would never do that
Re:Tech is wasted in current schools (Score:4, Interesting)
> Define what you consider to be getting those three items right.
We know what 'right' looks like. A hundred years ago students knew a lot more than a student does now at any grade level. If you haven't seen it go find and watch Ken Burn's documentary on the "Civil War". Besides being a good program on the subject observe his use of letters from the soldiers. Not just officers from the landed gentry class but enlisted men writing letters home to their wives and sweethearts. Observe the literacy, the firm command of grammar and well developed vocabularies without spell checkers or even pocket dictionaries. Observe the advanced grasp of philosophical, religious and political theory. Observe their ability to reference and quote at length from the core works of the western literary tradition, again without aid of reference works or Google.
They were a people worthy of receiving the blessings of liberty. We lost both, there is a lesson here.
> I'll leave aside the problems of getting reading, writing, and math without technology to you simply not
> realizing the full impact of what you were saying.
You need no more technology than the printing press, pencil and blackboard to teach reading, writing and math in a K-12 environment. Do I think it possible to use technology to actually improve on the achievements of our forebearers? Yes, but not with the current school system in the grip of the educrats, politically correct dogmists and unions. So barring the political will to rip and replace a failed system I say at least waste no additional resources on a failure.
> The poor get disproportionately less benefits than the rich do.
The poor are also disproportionally less productive than the rich. Amazing how that works. Sitting on yer illiterate ass waiting for the mailman is a losing game. Who would have figured that. However there are NO poor in America. Look in the third world sometime, those people are poor. Our poor are obese. Seriously, obesity is the number one health problem for the 'poor' in America according to your beloved government's statistics. Sorry, but if you have a smart phone you are not poor. If you have cable TV you aren't poor. If you have multiple flat screen TVs in your house you aren't poor. This scam of defining a fixed percentage of the US population as 'poor' has to stop. We fought a "War on Poverty" and won. Too bad we destroyed the country in the process and now almost everyone is likely to soon be poor because of it.
Despite the governments' attempts to make America 'just another country' it is still possible for anyone who really wants to put in the effort to succeed. Being in the bottom of the wealth distribution isn't something you are born into and must accept until death. Stay in school, even if they are crappy, read the whole textbook including the parts the teacher never gets around to, keep yer genitals in your pants until you find someone of the moral fiber to marry and stay married to, get a job, any job and start clawing. Do those things and the odds are achieving at least the middle class are very good.
> Also, the country is not broke.
Spoke like a true product of the American education system. We are indeed broke. Our government is spending far more than it could possibly ever raise through taxes. Any attempt to even try would destroy what economic activity remains and result in less revenue than is coming in now. The problem isn't a lack of tax revenue, it is vastly increased spending compared too historical trends. And worse we have made commitments in social security/medicare, state pensions, etc. that can't possibly be kept. We can't just keep borrowing from China either because a) they won't keep loaning forever without a price we won't pay and b) they are boned too and won't be able to loan us much more even if they wanted to.
Re: (Score:3)
Increased grades? (Score:2)
Simply using computers in class would change the lesson plan, which in turn would change the grading standard.
Is it surprising that kids would still stick to the same approximate bell curve after the lesson plan changes to include computers?
Computers take time to adapt to - and the grading system in grade school is all about adaptation to new knowledge. Kids who don't have the time in their lives to adapt, or the skill to adapt will not have an easier time with computers than without. Kids who adapt quick
Re: (Score:2)
And grades aren't a good measuring scale to judge something that changes the grading system.
TFA mentions standardized tests [wikipedia.org] which (I assume) allows the measurement of achievement over time (same criteria in 1980 as 2010) as well as controlling for other factors. So this isn't about grades on some curve as much as it is about whether kids actually learned the material. And until someone can claim that their little Lord Fauntleroy no longer knows how to operate a #2 pencil for the SAT, the shiny new laptop isn't going to buy their precious little sprog one bit of advantage.
This is important to know! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is very important research because test scores are the only measure of a child's success! Experience with real life tools are irrelevant. Keeping students engaged isn't important.
Putting my tongue-in-cheek assessment aside, not every investment immediately yields an increase in test scores: nor should we only invest in things that do. Test scores are important, but they are not the only measure of a student's success. In 10 years no one will look back and say that adding laptops to schools was a bad idea any more than they will tell us that adding light bulbs or bathrooms was a bad idea. Technology moves forward, and schools should keep up or risk their test scores going down. It won't be too long before every 4-year-old has a portable computer of some kind.
Re: (Score:2)
Keeping the student engaged has nothing to do with the presence of electronics in the class and everything to do with the talent of the teacher.
Go onto Youtube and play back one of Feynman's lectures and you will understand very quickly.
To paraphrase President Garfield, the ideal college is a log with the student on one end and Socrates on the other. I assure you to add electronics to that situation would only be a detriment.
Re: (Score:3)
Experience with real life tools are irrelevant.
Three things are provided in school
1) Experience
2) Training
3) Education
For experience, these computers are useless. I got some awesome "Bank Street Writer" experience on a commodore 64 back in kindergarten. 12 years later when I graduated, no one cared. About 18 years later when I got "a real job" where word processing skills were required, it was even less useful. Computers are not unchanging inanimate objects like hammers in carpentry class.
For training, see above. I had to sit thru MS Excel classes
Technology is useless... (Score:5, Interesting)
...when you keep teaching the same boring crap in the most boring way. Yes, even with laptops, iPads, projectors and all the bells and whistles.
Actually, I do know what I am talking about: I teach/research functional programming and game development, and guess what? I use the latter when teaching the former, to make it more entertaining. More than one student, after one such lesson, approached me to tell me that he was quite surprised to find that functional programming could actually be "fun" (pun intended).
The problem is that students are surprised when something is shown in a fun and entertaining fashion, and they accept it when stale notions are pushed down their throats. I'd start by fixing this...
Re: (Score:2)
More generally: theory without application is usually boring.
If only most teachers/professors understood this.
Re: (Score:2)
They do understand that, and I don't know any who would love to also have hands on.
However, when you only get to pick one, theory is the cheapest and most comprehensive.
The good news is, for a vast majority of things, you can get hands on outside the class room on your own.
Re: (Score:2)
More Distractions (Score:5, Interesting)
Now in my labs, yes, computers come into play quite a bit, MatLab, Fortran, C++, etc. for modelling large systems, of course they make massive calculation sets easier, but for a fundamental understanding of Minkowski space-time, Hilbert Spaces, etc, just having a web-connected machine in front of you during the lecture is not going to make the class that much easier. Having an innate desire to understand the fundamentals is key. Naturally having many open doors available for obtaining the information is helpful, but for the classic situation in which you have a quality professor spewing content, its usually easier (for me at least, YMMV) to leave the laptop at the house.
Sounds like another 'lets throw enough money into the technology and hope the problem goes away'. As far as K12 education goes in the states, well, I have to speculate that 90% of the students would love a laptop in the classroom, just not for the learning part. One man's opinion.
Re: (Score:3)
The reason the vast majority of math and science students use pen and paper is that many of the symbols used in math and science classes are nontrivial to type. As a math student, it took me two years of learning LaTeX before I felt confident enough to bring my laptop to class.
Pen and paper is not inherently better, just easier.
If for nothing but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
"...doesn't lead to an increase in test scores." (Score:2)
And of what possible use is anything that does not lead to an increase in test scores?
Test them on computer use (Score:2)
I'll bet they are not tested on how to use the computers or the software they are supposed to be using. If they do that the test scores will go up, especially if they include IM, chat, YouTube, and Facebook. :-)
An teacher's opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
I learned how to use DOS at the same time I learned how to read. In fact, some of my earliest memories include a luggage-sized computer with a three-inch monochrome monitor. Today, I spend the vast majority of my free time at my computer desk. I can program in several computer languages. My desktop dual-boots 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.4, and I am even typing this essay on an ergonomic keyboard that I brought from home. I am, to use a term coined a decade ago, a digital native. So, when I look at the state instructional technology today, I am both impressed at the technological progress over the course of my lifetime and utterly disgusted by the shortcomings of its implementation in our society.
Foremost among my concerns is the mind-boggling disparity in access to technology, particularly across socio-economic status. I can point to you on a map two schools within mere miles of each other where one has SMART boards in every classroom and the other did not even have a classroom set of calculators available to me as a math teacher. That is only just digital technology. On a far more fundamental level, I can point to a different set of two nearby schools where one has automatic-flush toilets and the other had such frequent plumbing problems to a point that drinking from the water fountain was risky business. I simply do not feel that I can ethically spend time researching Facebook or the iPad as instructional technologies when not every student in the public education system has access to comfortable and healthy analog technologies like air conditioning.
Another issue that gives me significant pause is Mooreâ(TM)s Law. Technology is advancing at a prodigiously exponential rate, to the point that futurists predict an upcoming event dubbed the Singularity at which technology will progress faster than society can cope with its evolution. I am particularly fond of a TED talk given by Ray Kurzweil on the topic of the integration of technology with the body, particularly the part on an already-possible synthetic red blood cell which would, to paraphrase Kurzweil, allow the average teenager to regularly outperform todayâ(TM)s Olympic athletes. Even the advent of internet-enabled phones has caused notable distress among teachers. I can not even imagine the discord when the technology is implantable and can not be turned off or confiscated. On the other hand, the standardized management paradigm behind the OGT and the SAT would finally collapse, so it would not be all bad. I digress.
Looking only at today, I question why the research on technology on Second Life as an educational venue is only in its infancy when that particular medium has begun to be replaced by other, newer alternatives like Free Realms. Similarly, Facebook is being replaced by Twitter and Diaspora just as Facebook replaced MySpace replaced Livejournal replaced Xanga replaced Geocities. Honestly, Facebook is so passé that even governmental agencies have investigated its use. I forget which one, but just a few months ago around ten red balloons were placed at random locations across the continental United States. All of them were found within about eight hours. My point is that research that focuses on a specific technology in response to a cultural fad is doomed to failure from the start. By the time anything practical made its way to teachers, students would already be offended by the outdatedness of it.
The third problem that I have with instructional technology is that there is far to much emphasis on innovation and far too little on revision. Take the TI-nspire. Look, it now includes a computer algebra system but has a terrible user interface, and just as math teachers were starting to get comfortable with the idea of allowing graphing calculators in the classroom, we have made the technology even more powerful â" re-emphasizing the original concerns about the calculators doing all the work. Similarly, take all these new educational iPad apps on top of the virtual man
Re: (Score:2)
Basically, what you are saying is that money talks. (And Kurzweill is Batshit nuts).
Yes, when you're not sweltering in 99 degree heat and you're not worried about being knifed by the clown sitting next to you, you just might learn more.
We know that....
Wasted technology in the classroom (Score:3, Insightful)
but the administrators budgets (Score:2)
go through the fucking roof. the higher your budget as an administrator, the more power you have in the bureaucracy. if there was some bunch of think-tank eggheads writing papers about how faberge eggs were important historical educational tools, and the government granted the money, then administratosr would buy faberge eggs so that their budgets would continue to go up.
Re: (Score:2)
Sell your stuff on Ebay and hire some more teachers.....
Who woulda thunk? (Score:2)
The increase in spending doesn't lead to an increase in test scores.
WTF thought that it would? The tests (assuming they are properly designed) presumably measure certain aspects of acquired knowledge. Unless the curriculum teaches the kids how to increase their knowledge, the tests will show zilch. Teaching the kids how to use Word and Excel (for example) won't add anything to their store of knowledge in areas other than Word or Excel.
Kyrene school district spent $3 million modernizing their classrooms.
Whoopee for them. And how much did they spend on books (e or otherwise)? How much on lab equipment? Art supplies? Foreign-language teachers?
T
As someone who worked IT in one of these schools (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, schools are looking for a "silver bullet" for their scores. Buy this thing, scores improve. Nothing like that actually exists in reality, though. Schools are full of expensive technology that doesn't get used because the teachers can't be bothered to use it, or because the IT department is behind and hasn't got it functioning yet, or because it is difficult/inconvenient to use because of limited access or overly restrictive security measures.
If you DO want to implement some fancy new program, here's what you need:
First and foremost, you have to have teachers on board. If the teachers are resisting the new technology, it isn't going to be worth your time to try to force it on them. Get rid of the teachers, abandon the technology, but don't foist a bunch of tech on teachers that don't want it. It will be a waste of everyone's time.
Also, you have to think through your actions. Get the students on your side, and get them to buy in to the program. The tech department that I was working at tried to lock down the computers to a pretty extreme level. Time restrictions, draconian internet filtering (even at home), and random screen watching during the day. The end result was that the students felt like the laptops were worthless, and simultaneously had a big incentive to work around the blocks in place. People act like you expect them to act, and we essentially told the students that we viewed them as semi-criminal, irresponsible delinquents. Plus, anybody who has used a Live CD knows that it takes about 30 seconds to bypass even the most bulletproof software restrictions, as long as you have physical access. You can imagine how that turned out.
Finally, you have to have something to DO with the laptops. You can't just drop them in classrooms and wait. You need to essentially build your entire curriculum around the laptops to make them appreciably better than the normal, boring computer lab. Have a research based, directed, cohesive plan for how and why the laptops are being used, and they might actually be worth your while.
It's kind of sad, because a well-funded technology plan could be an amazing tool. In properly implemented programs, they've shown that laptops CAN have a big, positive impact, especially for gifted and talented kids who can all of a sudden direct their own learning to a greater extent. However, throwing money at a problem almost never fixes it. You need good people, good strategy, and the resources to support them.
school is about the teachers, not the children (Score:2)
If you're looking for a logical reason for any change to schooling methods, standards or practices ask whether it makes the teachers' day any easier. If it does, that's almost certainly the reason it was introduced - irrespective of the effect on the childrens' education. If it doesn't make the work easier or the teaching skills level more basic or the schooling system cheaper (leaving out salary costs) then it was probably a mistake or someone wanting to make a political point.
Any effect on the childrens
Value-Added Teacher Analysis (Score:2)
It would be much cheaper and more effective to find better ways of evaluating teachers, weeding out the dead wood and attracting better talent. Value-added analysis [latimes.com] achieves this in a way that corrects for factors outside the teacher's control (broken household, poor section of town, etc.).
Consider two teachers. The first teacher's class tests at the 30th percentile at the beginning of the year and at the 40th percentile at the end of the year. The second teacher's class tests at the 70th percentile at the
Re: (Score:2)
VAA doesn't work. A simple change in policy could result in the higher up kids getting lower scores and the lower scoring kids getting higher scores in the same school
What if the class is advanced calculation compared to basic math?
Re: (Score:2)
It would be much cheaper and more effective (in the long run) to actually pay teachers a decent wage. And stop with the techno nonsense. Reasonable classroom sizes, decent teachers and a stable school environment are going to pay larger dividends than the latest gadget.
Of course, having a stable family and society is even more important but we can't solve all of the world's problems at once. After all, this is just Slashdot.
Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools (Score:2)
On the difference between learning "just in case" in schools and "learning just in time" using laptops and the internet:
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html [sourceforge.net]
Content creation (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't become a great artist by looking at great paintings. You get there by painting all the time. You don't become a mathematician by watching the instructor. You get there by doing the homework. You don't become a famous author by reading Jane Austin and Mark Twain. You get there by writing.
In every case, the thing you must do is create content. However, that's almost impossible on tablets (no keyboard), hard on laptops (small keyboard, no real mouse), and even slightly challenging on desktops (ever try typing out a complex mathematical equation in Latex?).
Today's latest and greatest systems (I'm looking at you, iPad) are really geared toward content consumption, not creation. We should focus more on making it easy for kids to express themselves and then give them the tools that do that.
PCs do not increase intelligence or motivation (Score:2)
Teaching and learning are almost purely dependent on the people doing it. Technology can play a small role, in particular when teaching technology, but otherwise it is quite irrelevant.
This is again an instance of those in charge not wanting do deal with people (gah!) or individuals and looking for generic recipes instead. Here is something every good teacher knows: There are no generic approaches to teaching. Get the best people for the job, make sure the kids are reasonably free of other troubles like not
Why we never invest in people. (Score:2)
We won't invest in teachers' training and pay, because educational material and educational technology companies lobby hard to get contracts. We won't invest in training TSA agents training and pay, because contractors would rather sell the government security technology that doesn't work. Investing in the people - which DOES work, isn't on the table. And privatization? The pre-9/11 privatized security worked SO well. And, hey, doesn't Edison Schools have a great terrific record?
Their cronies and paid polit
Umm... that surprises anyone? (Score:2)
Was that really the intention? To improve grades? Now, how should computers accomplish that?
Well, they COULD do that. First, just test facts and second, allow computers and internet. Wikipedia replaces crib sheet and presto, instant grade improvement. But aside of that... how should computers improve grades?
You can't even say "better tools don't make better users". For what subject is a computer a better tool? English? If you can't write an essay on paper, do you expect the student to somehow magically turn
Misses the point (Score:3)
I guarantee (Score:3)
That their test scores for computer literacy are higher in classrooms where they're actually using computers, rather than cardboard boxes with keyboards drawn on them.
Re: (Score:2)
Too many people get so hung up on the mantra of "Test score, test scores, test scores" that they forget that tests are only so close to reality.
Tests take reality, and reshape it in their own image.
Re:Teachers don't use technology properly (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure that there are exceptions who actually have the economic views you assert(and I've definitely met exceptions who simply know fuck-all about technology and really don't want to start now; but the latter group is, in the face of retirement and replacement by 20-somethings who've been using laptops for at least their entire undergrand, a self-solving problem); but my experience during the times I've worked in educational IT is that teachers are either very enthusiastic about technology, or simple technophobes without some sinister union plot motive.
There exists automated drilling and assessment software for, among other things, elementary mathematics instruction. The math department came to us asking for an implementation, and we can't keep up with the demand for in-classroom computers to support the stuff. The music department, for their part, has enthusiastically adopted a rather neat automated system that can analyze the deviations of a student playing an instrument from the desired waveforms for a piece. Art? We haven't been able to afford Wacoms for the lab; but they voluntarily branched out into digital raster-image editing...
There are some perverse elements of educational union politicking; but my work with the IT department never once ran into opposition on teacher-economic grounds.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, another use of technology is assessing reading comprehension. Doing it by hand is tedious and takes a lot of time, but a computer can estimate the students reading level much more efficiently. It might still mean that the materials aren't quite right, but there's quicky methods that will help with that.
Being able to know that somebody's reading at about a 5th grade level makes selection of interesting reading material much more efficient.
But there's other things like setting up partners in class is
Re: (Score:2)
I am actually kind of surprised that Linux laptops aren't being used in the classroom more often with the increasingly wide variety of OS educational software being developed these days.
Everything in education is all about the kickbacks and the corruption. With respect to linux in the classroom, who buys the district super the season tickets, not Debian... How does the prof get a kickback on each sale of a required "octave" or "R" installation?
exactly. microsoft doesnt bribe (Score:2)
professors to show people how to use open office, and oracle doesnt pay kickbacks to administrators to choose mysql based solutions for the bureaucracy.
of course, we wonder why this educational system produces corrupt government officials and corrupt corporate executives.
Re: (Score:2)
A major problem in our schools is teachers who don't know the technology that they are trying to teach to the students. ...
Perhaps if some of the money that is spent on technology was instead used to hire more talented teachers then the problem would go away.
The system is corrupt and at the K-12 level is oriented around only hiring education majors. As a CS grad I am not legally allowed to teach kids. There are waiver programs if I got a high school teaching job in a poor area, if I worked toward a bachelors in ed. I am a little fuzzy on the NCLB requirements, a failing school might or might not have masters of ed requirements.
The point is, if you demand "more talented teachers" the system is going to provide you with a slightly higher corner of the ed majo