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Digital Enhancements or Expensive Distractions? 211

Posted by timothy from the please-knock-still-investigating-vile-pornography dept.
markmcb writes "Berkeley and USC have teamed up to launch a $3.3 million study over 3 years that hopes to shed some light on how today's kids are interacting with technology and the effects that it is having on education. The study aims to determine if digital devices such as computers and cell phones are shaping the way that teenagers obtain and process information. But given the price tag and the goals of the project, how much can this project actually help education? Has anyone out there in the high school level education field seen digital systems improve the classroom to the point that students actually learn more, or do they just tend to be fascinating distractions that detract from the classroom?"
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Digital Enhancements or Expensive Distractions? More

Digital Enhancements or Expensive Distractions?

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  • More specific (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MHobbit ( 830388 ) <mhobbit09@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:41PM (#12257016)
    Instead of just seeing how kids interact with technology, why not just study where in the class, or even school, that they use technology, what types of it, and the percentage of students who actually use technology.
    • why restrict it to just schools tho? how many people out there learned to increase their hand-eye coordination by making mario jump and hit his head on a brick some 20 years ago? i find that to actually be edicational (at least on part of learning motor skills at an early age)

  • That is easy, they don't (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr. Arbusto ( 300950 ) <theprimechuck@NOSPAm.gmail.com> on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:41PM (#12257017) Journal
    Seriously, I'm all about technology (I read slashdot) but most technology in elementary and middle school levels is just all flash and no bang. Sure there are programs that help students (Word, Number Munchers) but having all the technology in the world isn't going to help if reading comprehention and memorized math skills are none.
    • Indeed. We don't want n00bs who can't even add 2 and 2 together to be worrying about technology just yet.

      That being said, however, technology can be used to teach students extremely well; especially with interactive lessons.

      Technology in our school isn't all flash and bang. Our school get AutoDesk Inventor, for example, and it's been a big hit, and has helped with a lot of things, including CAD and design process(es).
    • Word processors, spreadsheets and presentation-builders do not help high school students.

      As a result of using such tools, the students rely on them so greatly that they become crutches for students. Moreover, they teach students bad habits such as spending time thinking about format rather than content.

      I'm no Luddite, but I believe learning how to do things without computers (even if you are a CS student) helps you to improve your own abilities and lateral thinking. I don't have any statistics to back me
      • Yes, but having the ability to use computers is a skill that is required for interaction and employment in the modern world. If your family can't afford a computer, and you go through your education without interaction with computers, you're going to be computer illiterate when you graduate. I used to do temp work from time to time to cover my rent and expenses, and it was easy to get work simply because I am very capable with computers. I didn't need to be able to program a word processor from scratch,
        • That's what high school should be for - refining the basic skills students have for either higher education or the work force.

          Computer penetration into most households is pretty high, especially if they have kids. And anyway, most libraries have computers in my experience. If a kid is interested, s/he can find a computer.
        • Oh yes. I agree that people should be trained in using computers. However, stocking schools up with computers only makes it so that these kids use them for anything but training.

          Perhaps juniors and seniors should be trained in using PCs. However, kids younger than that should be trained in working and thinking, in real terms.

          The problem is that using computers to do things restricts you to that particular environment. I know of teachers, who after a few years of using computers, cannot teach without Power
        • Really?

          Just to clarify you believe the purpose of school directly is to make people employable with technical skills? I thought that is what technical schools were for?

          Word processors aren't the issue, language syntax and spelling are the problem. Knowing funamentals of somethings has more benefit than having specific technical knowledge. Have people use computers is all fine and dandy, but it can have a way of become TV in the classroom. Great tools for learning, but pretty much used as a crutch to n
        • The problem is that the ability to use computers *is* a skill that is required for employment and interaction in the modern world, but most schools do not teach the ability to use computers. They teach the ability to use Microsoft Office - at best.

          The problem, of course, is that the teachers don't know how to operate computers - just Microsoft Office. If they were asked to operate in a workplace that used a different word processor - they'd be lost. Furthermore, put them on a Mac or Linux machine? Even
      • how many students nowadays can write a paper by hand and proofread it themselves?

        Spell checkers and grammar checkers don't do a good enough job. If someone wants to get a decent mark, they have to proofread it.

        While it's important to teach students to write by hand, making them write large documents that way is pointless. A document on a computer always looks neater and is much, much easier to correct. Writing long documents by hand is much like doing long division without a calculator - it's good to kno
        • I dunno, I've found that my papers generally turned out much better when I did a rough draft by hand. Actually, following the whole process of outlining, rough draft, correct, re-write, proofread, recorrect actually made the process of writing a good paper easier than just sitting down and typing. Granted it is possible to follow all of these steps on a word processor, but the temptation to just spell check and call it a day becomes too high. A properly designed and thought out paper seems to have a much

      • I'm no Luddite, but I believe learning how to do things without computers (even if you are a CS student) helps you to improve your own abilities and lateral thinking. I don't have any statistics to back me up, but ponder this: how many students nowadays can write a paper by hand and proofread it themselves?

        No kidding. Referencing another post ("Our school get AutoDesk Inventor, for example, and it's been a big hit, and has helped with a lot of things, including CAD and design process(es)."), how many st
        • how many students can make a comprehensible engineering sketch without the aid of a computer or software?

          You can easily spot which engineers were trained on paper and which were trained on CAD. If their handwriting is clear, legible, and precise, they learned on paper.

          • Paper-trained engineers. That sounds like a good idea (wouldn't want them uncontrollably peeing all over the carpet after all).

            Joking aside, even "draftsmen" (now called "CAD operators") today are probably challenged with making a sketch by hand. And these are the people who were originally half tech/half art-skilled and transformed big ideas and calculations into something that could be built via drawings.

            I think you might be misinformed about engineers' penmanship and drafting ability. The majority of
    • I see the same thing at the undergraduate level. Technology is obviously helpful: science students can't do their work without computers, word processors, spreadsheet programs, etc. And the internet is an amazing resource for getting extra information, watching lectures online, downloading class notes, etc.

      However, alot of money/effort goes into "multimedia education" and this stuff is mostly useless in its current form, IMHO. There are all sorts of CDs that come with science textbooks, that have interacti
    • Seriously, I'm all about technology (I read slashdot) but most technology in elementary and middle school levels is just all flash and no bang.

      Oh come on! I played The Oregon Trail for a half hour every other week in the Apple IIe lab. There was plenty of, as you say, "bang" as I shot the buffalo[sic]!
    • Reading comprehension and math skills are important, however the proper use of technology in the classroom can enhance the learning experience by providing quantitative tracking of student progress, reading and math exercises targeted to expose and eliminate weaknesses in individual students, and visualizations which help students appreciate the interconnected nature of concepts and ideas. The current primary school education system, at least here in the United States, is not particularly efficient at meeti

  • Cliff Stoll has something to say about this... (Score:5, Informative)

    by helixcode123 ( 514493 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:45PM (#12257029) Homepage Journal
    I happen to be, at this very time, reading High-tech Heretic [amazon.com] by Cliff Stoll. Much of the book gives a compelling case as to why computers in the class and libraries are sucking vital time, energy, and financial resources. Recommended reading.
    • How many research studies has Stoll conducted? How many in using technology in education?

      If you read his research, you'll learn a bit about astronomy, but find that what he is saying about computers in education is just his personal opinion.

      Stoll's claiming "computers don't belong in schools" should be taken with about the same weight as if Richard Mayer [elearning-reviews.org] claimed astronomy was better without telescopes.

  • schools? hell no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orufet ( 873172 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#12257049) Homepage
    I live in a very well off area in Vancouver, Canada. Technology in my high school is a waste of time. Classes exist so people can learn to use MS Word. We run on Windows 2000. The programming classes learn what a variable is. And the machines available for homework are used mostly for games. All the history/socials/humanities rooms in my high schol have gigantic television screens that are *never* used. And guess what? Somehow, we manage to be short 300 math textbooks because there isn't enough money to buy them. Wow. I'm a geek, but seriously, get the technology OUT of my damn school!

    • Re:schools? hell no (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Manchot ( 847225 )
      Many schools (especially private ones) get money donated to them explicitly earmarked for technology. That is, the donor alumni makes the school sign an agreement stating that the money will be spent on anything else. While this sounds all well and good, some schools end up having more technology money than they know what to do with. So, to an outside observer, it might seem that they are blowing money on frivolous technologies, but in actuality, they can't really spend it on more important things (such as
      • Many schools (especially private ones) get money donated to them explicitly earmarked for technology

        What on Earth is a book if not a form of technology? OK, it's not what is generally meant by "technology" but look at it this way:
        • It solves a problem (how to communicate knowledge).
        • It's an efficient means of solving the problem.
        • It's something which is man-made and required development in order to exist in its current form. You don't go out to the woods to look for wild Applied Mathematics books.
        • Even
    • you need new textbooks every year because the textbook publishers rearrange the contents every year. Often they don't put much of anything new in, and often the new stuff is pointless fluff.

      But this means it is a nightmare for teachers to let students use old textbooks, because every year the chapter numbers and page numbers are different.

      PS, Dr. James Paul Gee [gamezone.com] makes a good (research based) case that you're doing a good deal of learning while playing games:-).

      My book covers 36 good learning principles

      • Textbooks are more of a scam at the college level. My high school would buy a batch of textbooks, usually more than they would need (they had the foresight to realize that some would be lost/destroyed). Then they would use those same textbooks for 10-15+ years until they were completely destroyed, then buy new ones. Since all the textbooks were bought at once, they avoided the whole "lets change the textbook every 18 months and make everyone buy new ones" scam.

  • Education (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hrrrg ( 565259 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#12257052)
    What we really need is for someone (Bill Gates - you listening?) to set up two identical schools close to one another. Students then get randomized to one school or the other. You could then use this as an experimental system to test which educational programs actually enhance learning. (Note that these are not medical experiments - no need to start getting upset about "experimenting with kids.") I don't think there is any other way we will be able to obtain real data with which improve our education system. If you made sure that these schools had plenty of resources (ie more so than the average surrounding school), then I am sure plenty of parents would agree to allow their kids to participate.

    • Re:Education (Score:2, Insightful)

      by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 )
      It wouldn't work.
      The parents of the kids would never willingly allow their kids to be brought up deprived of IT.
      They have been told for years now that IT is the future, and here are you telling them that "as an experiment" we shall see how well your kids do in the absence of IT.

      You are effectively playing games with the childrens' future, and no parent will allow it.

      The parents would prefer to send their kids to the best available school to give them a chance to grow into the best they can become.

      Share t
    • Regardless of what you do here, you are "experimenting with kids". My girlfriend works in this field and you have no idea of the number of regulations you have to go through to just get existing performance data on a kid. In many cases, getting data from on under 18 kids is so hard that they don't even pursue it. That is, as an example, if they give a 5-minute test in the classroom trying to see what students think of balls of different masses rolling down hills then they will not administer the test to und

  • Computers or Teachers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by idiotfromia ( 657688 ) <chadNO@SPAMchadbrandos.com> on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#12257053) Homepage

    Our school district is replacing over 400 computers next school year. This includes several elementary school labs, computers used for a few simple learning games, word processing, and internet browsing.

    Our school board now want to make cuts to the high school music program and eliminate seventh grade athletics. Education priorities need to get into order. We need more teachers over more computers.

    • Make that quality teachers. A bad teacher can do years of damage.
      • A bad teacher can do years of damage.

        Indeed. As my college Early U.S. history teacher once said, "How many of you learned history from 'Coach Whats-his-name?'"

        About 80% of the hands in the room went up.

        That's not to say that some Coach Whats-his-names didn't do a good job... it's just a matter of priorities set by districts.
    • Computers come out of capital improvement funds.
      Better to ask about the ratio of administrators to teachers.

  • Computer technology in schools (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Don Philip ( 840567 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:49PM (#12257063) Homepage
    This certainly isn't the first time that computer technology use in schools has been studied, so I'm a bit at a loss to see what the fuss is about. Certainly my research group (see www.ikit.org) has been researching just this for 25 years. In general, there are two types of software for education: computer assisted instruction (CAI) which has been found to not have lived up to the hype (yet); and what Jonassen calls thinking tools, software designed to augment human cognitive abilities. The latter have been working very well in the classroom, and students using such systems have shown good results. However, teachers can't just be thrown the system and told to go to work-they need to be trained as to how to use them, something that school boards have been reluctant to do as it costs money.
    • However, teachers can't just be thrown the system and told to go to work-they need to be trained as to how to use them, something that school boards have been reluctant to do as it costs money.

      That's exactly why Higher Ed, the schools training the teachers has to step it up. I've taught sections of teacher ed classes before (based of ISTE's NETS-T standards), and it's amazing that kids today can reach college with no - and I mean no - technology skills.

      I've seen college sophomores who struggle with email
    • I disagree with the idea that computer assisted education has not lived up to the hype. I have a four year old and a two year old and I set them up with my old Compaq desktop still running Win98, and have found a number of games/educational software that they have learned a lot from. I would recommend Living Books titles to anyone with small children. It is amazing how quickly my kids have picked up using the mouse to control the software, and I have noticed that they use words from the stories in their
  • I should be doing my homework right now: reading Rabbit Proof Fence.

    Instead, I'm reading Slashdot.

    There you go, no study necessary.

    Now if you excuse me I need to go back to my work.

  • Clifford Stoll (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lord Byron II ( 671689 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:56PM (#12257099)
    Clifford Stoll is the Berkeley astrophysicist who caught a German hacker breaking into multiple government computer systems; "The Cuckoo's Egg" is his book detailing the fascinating tale of how he caught the hacker. Despite his knowledge and usage of computers on a daily basis, he is a strong advocate of keeping computers out of the classroom. I recommend "High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in Schools" to anyone; it's a thin book and actually won't take more than a couple of hours to breeze through. But, it will make you think.
    • Is it available in ebook format?
    • Cliff is an astronmer and a sysadmin, not an teacher or an educational researcher.

      Why would anyone think his opinion on a subject he has no training in and hasn't done any actual research on is worth a reading (or publishing?).

      Next up, teacher with 20 years experience says astronomers don't need telescopes, read all about it...

  • c0mpu73rs == 1337 (Score:3, Funny)

    by mboos ( 700155 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:57PM (#12257109) Homepage
    d00d, c0mpu73rs t33ch u 411 u n33d 2 kn0w! 411 teh sm4r73s7 h4x0rs use c0mpu73rs!!!!!

  • All falls back to the teacher (Score:3, Insightful)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:00PM (#12257128)
    In the right hands, with the right curriculum, a little extra tech can be great. In the wrong hands, it is worse than useless.

    Sadly, there are too few of those 'right hands'.

  • How technology affects students has more to do with how they use it, in my opinion anyway. I'm a high schooler with high grades, and I use technology a lot. I also know people who use technology, and have bad grades. The difference seems to be in what they use the technology for. I, for example, like to learn new things, and experiment (I installed Linux, and I'm still learning) while the people with worse grades just seem to use it for socialization. Not that that's a bad thing...
  • Remember how (for those of you who watched the movie) he began amusing his students, using examples they could see (like slashing an apple in half, with a butcher knife)...

    Also - if you have a computer scren and you talk about equations, and present them a 3D view of a graph, etc etc... the students can get curious and ask - what if we add a negative root in here?

    So instead of spending dozens of minutes trying to solve an equation, boring the classrom, and earning that kid a terrible reputation among his
  • But given the price tag and the goals of the project, how much can this project actually help education? Has anyone out there in the high school level education field seen digital systems improve the classroom to the point that students actually learn more, or do they just tend to be fascinating distractions that detract from the classroom?

    The second question answers the first one. Assuming the study is honest, if the answer to the last question is "the latter" then the study can potentially help educatio
    • if the study is honest and the answer is the former?

      Discovering and promoting ways in which technology can be used to help students to "actually learn more" surely would help education out even more than the latter.
  • The function of public education in the US is to enforce intellectual mediocrity and restrict the natural curiosity that children possess. Technology has a role in this process.

    Tech is can be used to liberate (students could use camera phones to get evidence of teacher's sexually abusing them, and open source software could help students learn to code), or it can be used to oppress (schools use security cameras to make sure students only abuse the drugs they are given: aderall and other amphetamine based
    • Drugs cause paranoia and inferiority anxiety. See the proof above you.

      For the chemical example, I once had some classmates who found the recipe for some sort of nerve toxin, requiring relatively simple chemical ingredients. They got pretty close to possibly getting the thing done during lab, as I understand it, judging by the teacher's reaction.

      Thought without curiosity provides cultural death.
      Curiosity without thought provides Darwin Awards.
      Both must be equally guarded against.
      • If your gonna label, I'm more punk then hippy, although I am active in some ecological work. I don't abuse drugs. I have no problem with trying anything that won't perminently harm me, but I don't use anything more then a couple times. As for Darwin...I think we need more selective factors for natural selection to have some role in our species development. As it is the stupid and weak are the most likely to reproduce. Perhaps we need to give them an easy way to kill themselves before they weeken humani

  • All technology has good and bad uses. The important thing is if the good uses outnumber the bad ones. If they do, then we tend to use it.

    This applies to almost everything:

    • Internet can be used to spread child pornography
    • Cars can be used to kill/damage people

    And the list goes on. As those technologies enter shcool, we have to aim at the good uses, and not the bad ones. Like the Internet, which provides wealths of information, but also wealths of bad information.

    Especially in vocational skills, the

  • Real purpose of study (Score:5, Insightful)

    by deacon ( 40533 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:19PM (#12257245) Journal
    To spend 3.3 million.

    Grad students will do all the work. Profs will take all the credit and most of the money.

    The result will be whatever the bias of the profs is. A prof who believes that technology is overused will prove just that. A prof who feels that more tech is good will prove just that.

    If you doubt this, I suggest you get into grad school and work as a research assistant kissing your thesis advisors butt for 2 to 6 years, just so you can get your damn degree and get out.

    Oh, ya, I've been there and done that.

    "Research" Grants are a business and way of life like any other. You survive by getting big grants as often as neccesary, and you provide the answers your sponsers want to hear.

    Walmart is practically Mother Teresa by comparison.

  • In my Australian high school computers were taught very poorly. In year 7 we spent a bit of time learning to touch type QWERTY. That was fine, then after that an excursion to the computer room would occur so we could type our essays before submitting them. These were essays that had been drafted and written longhand, and we were simply typing the assignments that were neatly written out in front of us.

    Our library trips would sometimes include jumping on a library computer to see what the "Intermanet" ha

  • High school and college (Score:3, Funny)

    by lewiz ( 33370 ) <purple@lewizELIOT.net minus poet> on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:32PM (#12257319) Homepage
    I'm currently in my second year at university in England. Before this I attended senior school and a sixth form college.

    As I was completing my last year at college I saw the introduction of equipment like digital projectors in classrooms, more computers and those crazy digital whiteboards.

    I've never used a digital whiteboard myself but I understand that you can save "lessons" -- this is a truly brilliant feature but I doubt very much that my school/college would make these lessons available online. If this was done I can think of no better revision tool, especially if combined with an audio stream, which is in no way hard to do.

    Digital projectors linked up to computers are also good for demonstrating things in certain types of lessons. ICT (I hate that acronym) seems to be the best application -- explaining things like macros in Word/Excel are best learned through demonstration and practice. However, I seriously have to question just how useful a PC and projector would be in, say, an English or Math class.

    People might argue that some tailored math software is beneficial but I know very well that as a student a projector with some crazy software will be little more than a relaxing break, as opposed to learning the important things.

    My college had a number of computer clusters. One of these was a general-purpose humanities cluster that teachers could book for their lesson. The idea being that they could let the kids search for details specific to their courses or currect projects. In theory this is a good idea but in practice we looked forward to these lessons because it meant we could kick about and do what we might do on the Internet at home (well... some of the things we might do).

    We had another lab in the languages centre that were set up with headsets and microphones. Using these machines students could practice their [language] listening by playing pre-recorded scenes. Previously we had a lab where the teacher sat at the front and repeated certain sections when asked. That's not much good if you're a little slower than everybody else or have a specific problem with a given sentence. Using the lab these problems are overcome.

    I think if I were to give advice to the teachers/those in charge it would be to lock the machines down. As much as I hate to say that I think it really is the only way to get people to work. Sure, trust is a nice thing but when you're dealing with kids between the ages of 12 and 18 it only takes one person to goof around before everybody joins in.

    Well, those are my thoughts. Thinking about the article/question I don't know if it really all that relevant. I've not said yes or no but said yes, in moderation, which I think was fairly obvious from the outset.

  • a modest investment (Score:2, Insightful)

    by janneH ( 720747 )
    The implication that this is a lot of money is just way off base.

    A brief Google search suggests that the US spends on the order of 500 billion dollars per year on education (http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/economic/ed u cationlibraryspending.htm). It would not be unreasonable to spend a percent or two of that amount on research directed at understanding and improving the process - which would mean five to ten thousand projects of this magnitude (the annual cost for this project being about 1 million)
  • Does it matter? Having done my time, I walked away with the impression that after basic math and reading skills, a public education was largely about indoctrinating the masses to sit quietly in straight rows and do what they are told. All my TPS reports do come with the new cover sheet, but I'm still waiting for a client or boss to ask me about the significance of the Council of Trent.
  • Let's look at the use of 10-key calculators in schools in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Most teachers didn't let kids use them until late elementary school or Jr. High. Why? Because the kids were STILL LEARNING to do the things the calculator could do.

    Once they mastered basic arithmetic, teachers TAUGHT them to use calculators and EXPECTED them to use them.

    WHY?

    1) it's an important life skill
    2) it makes learning algebra, higher math, science, and other classes that use numbers so much more efficient, since stu
  • ...in the nation (Don't read the book School of Dreams -- it's woefully inadequate to describe our school), SmartBoards have been very useful -- my Geography class last year was essentially a bunch of PowerPoint slides (It's not Linux/OO.org, but don't mod me down :P), and my physics teacher makes very, very good use out of diagramming circuits, undo-ing, re-diagramming, etc. On the other hand, some classes use it when they don't need to (and other classes don't need it and so don't use it at all). Computer
  • The problem with education is that skilled High School technology teachers are very rare. It takes 4-6 years to get a bachelors followed by a teaching degree. This causes would-be teachers to rack-up a lot of debt for a job that will pay them $30,000/yr. to start if they are lucky. Try buying a house, driving a car, paying for insurance, getting married, and paying off a crushing college loan on $30,000 yr. I've seen lot's of people try and then leave teaching for industry just do they could afford to ge
  • I am the PC/LAN Manager for a large urban school district in Massachusetts. We have 28 schools, and have about 4,000 computers. The schools system has a very large percentage of minorities and immigrants, as well as a fairly high poverty rate. Thousands of our students do not have access to computers at home.

    At every high school there are classes on basic office-type computer use. They learn Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Given the need for these basic skills in the workplace, this type of computing is vita

  • Distractions... (Score:2, Informative)

    by schleyfox ( 826198 )
    I go to a technology magnet high school where we have 1.6 computers to users. Do we ever use them, fuck no thank you kindly. Sure we whip them out when business scouts come around our town, but other than that hardly. When we do use them, we use word and powerpoint, nothing else. Nothing new or inventive is done, you have a spiral notebook emulator and a flashcard like system which 90% of the students horribly abuse (I swear if I have to fucking watch another slideshow with paragraphs of font one shade

    • Re:Distractions... (Score:3, Informative)

      by bob_calder ( 673103 )
      I teach at in a technology magnet department in a high school in Fort Lauderdale. We have three labs running Win 2k (apps, electronics, robotics), one running Fedora (programming), and three running OSX (apps, graphics, multimedia.) All classrooms using the machines to deliver instruction, complete projects, and run testing. Our school district has outreach to people from industry who want to go into teaching, so they have a huge support system for pedagogy.

      BTW, Firefox is not an alternative browser. It is
  • There is a good deal that technology can offer when used with appropriate pedagogy. A few things from esearch and anectdotes:

    students who feel 'out of place' in a class due to their religious or political beleifs tend to interact more via email or discussion boards.

    discussion boards can enable more thoughtful responses than time pressured in-class discussions, and allow teachers to see just who has been participating and directly evaluate a student's quantity and quality of participation.

    students in

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