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?
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.
Distractions (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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:Well duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Also: Were the students graded on a curve?
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:Work and study (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
If for nothing but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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.
Wasted technology in the classroom (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:Work and study (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 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.
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.
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.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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: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: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:Work and study (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 sister a power user and I'm a computer scientist). Only when she discovered digital photography and email, she wanted to learn it and she grasped the concepts pretty quickly. She was in her early fifties then. Malware never was a problem, because I explained (duh!) basic Internet behaviour and risks to her. She's been migrated to Linux later, and the adaptation was no big deal.
The key factors here are "wanting to learn" and "having access to someone who can explain".
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:Distractions (Score:2, Insightful)
Look out, it's a CEO! Let's get him before he activates his golden parachute and escapes.
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.
Re:Well duh (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 classroom interesting year in and year out. There's a clue right there: they get new students every year, if the classroom was interesting last year, it will be interesting this year. But that's the problem- teachers are valuing their own entertainment and egos over actually doing the hard work of teaching.
What to be a bad teacher? Blow your wad grading papers all night that you didn't need to assign in the first place, and then be tired and resentful all day. The best teachers I ever had all had one thing in common: they were lazy. They made a curriculum (or had one made for them) and used that every single year. Maybe with a tweak here and there to account for new developments. They arrived 5 minutes before the students, left 5 minutes after, and gave their all when it counted: in the classroom, teaching. They didn't waste their time with fucking computers, because they were a distraction. (Except in science classes, where the computers were testing and measuring instruments.) They didn't bitch about "teaching to the test" because that is what they are supposed to be doing. If a kid can pass the test, the kid has learned. Job done.
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.