Some Schools Ending Laptop Programs 308
The New York Times reports that schools are abandoning their laptops-for-students programs. It turns out that the expense of providing laptops, expense of repairing laptops, difficulties of school network management, and discipline problems stemming from pornography, cheating, and cracking more than outweighed the educational benefits. Indeed, a number of schools have concluded that far from improving student achievement, laptops either had no effect or actively hindered academic performance. Apparently, politicians embracing technology as a quick fix for social problems doesn't always work out.
Gee, you think? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Gee, you think? (Score:5, Informative)
If they *had* to have it, this sort of thing is something you want to grow into, try a few smaller schools, let them come up with their own approach to technology, and see which approach works best and scale it up gradually.
What problem were the laptops supposed to solve? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing I've read indicates that ANYONE looked at the problem. They decided that the students "needed" laptops to "prepare" the students for
Think about it. It's kind of like giving kids a TV. Or a game console. Yes, there may be very specific instances where such would be useful (learning TV repair?) but on the whole, it's a fucking stupid idea.
Add to that the fact that (as they discovered) laptops are FRAGILE and it just gets worse.
Instead of focusing on technology, I'd rather see the focus on finding better educational models. We've all heard stories of kids who go from illiterate to college because they moved to a non-traditional school. Why can't we spend a fraction of the tech money seeing if we can find better low-tech (and therefore, more reliable) methods of educating our kids?
The average laptop probably won't last 4 years in high school. A book can last 20 years.
They did it to make money. (Score:5, Insightful)
what is the problem that the laptops are supposed to solve? Nothing I've read indicates that ANYONE looked at the problem. They decided that the students "needed" laptops to "prepare" the students for ... something.
As I recall, that "something" was "survival in the business world" and the solution was to tech kids how to use Word and Excel. Encarta and other "resources" were admitted to be inferior to those the school already had in the library. Of course that's a loser, but those pushing it made a lot of money selling licenses and hardware.
The irony of this is that free software has solved issues of fragility and also has created real resources for learning that are cheaper than conventional alternatives. KDE's educational package has math plotting, algebra manipulation, language studdies, flash card programs, star charts, periodic charts with chemical properties, isotopes and images, and more. Wikipedia is a vast resource that easily competes with printed encyclopedias. Google will help you dig it deeper. All of this is free, robust and actually gives students what schools want them to have.
The low price comes with a cost: finding people willing to push it. Parents, having been burnt, are now sceptical and anyone who would follow the frauds are going to be abused. The well has been poisoned by people who claimed that "computer literacy" was being able to work M$ Word and other now worthless non-free software.
Falling hardware prices may help turn things around, but the M$ laptop will always be expensive, fragile and barren of learning material.
Why not a computer lab? (Score:3, Insightful)
Great. But wouldn't it be far more cost effective to teach those apps (or equivalents) in a computer lab or such? Maybe even have a class on "modern business technology"?
...
Mandatory car analogy
We don't purchase a car for each student just because we know that they're probably going to need to know how to drive, do we? Instead, we have a "driver's education" class where they get to
Re:Why not a computer lab? (Score:4, Interesting)
Knowing how to drive on the other hand doesn't nearly determine your position in society the way your career does. Not having a car is an inconvenience you can manage. Not having a career has a much broader effect on your life and society as a whole.
Also, my public high school did have driver's ed.
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So we're training kids fo
Re:Why not a computer lab? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Why should I learn to read? I'm going to inherit the junkyard ain't I?"
"You gonna go broke, son".
"Why? I'll just hire a manager".
"Your manager can read and you can't? You gonna go broke, son".
Laptops teach communications skills. Laptops give you the opportunity to use what you learn that way, too.
IT is absolutely the wrong career for a lot of people, but if you even get a job selling cars and your boss can communicate but you can't, well, you're gonna go broke, son.
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Laptops are mere tools, they don't teach anything by themselves. Especially not communication.
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In the same vein, we spent 2 years of solid classes based around cisco with 6+ hours of lab per week. That will stick a lot longer than the 2 hours of lab in Linux that occurred for about a months time.
However, if now that I'm graduated, I don't get a Cisco or networking job, in a year or two, at best I'm going to have a passing familiarity with it, and my theories are go
No. They did it to as an attempt to throw money.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The real issue here is a poor educational system. Teachers need to be paid based on merit. Students with poor discipline need to flunk. Instead, educators think flunking a student is a sign of a bad school, or a bad teacher. Parents can't believe that they are responsible for their childrens' inability to learn. They coddle their children, blaming everyone but themselves or their children.
We've grown into an age where kids don't care. Teachers are not given the power to teach properly, nor are they incented to do so. They go through the motions, and whatever happens, happens.
The teachers unions have crippled the entire process. The unions protect the worst teachers. Unions also drive the best teachers out of the system, leaving us with a system that gradually deteriorates. Unions always blame lack of funding. They line up the poor kids, pointing at how little money is spent on kids' educations. Yet most of the funding increases don't go to teachers' salaries. It goes to administrative costs, new buildings, and golden parachutes for administrators.
What we need is for teachers to be held accountable. And for those students that refuse to do the work, disciplinary action. Flunk them. Put them into a trade school. Europe has a pretty good system. If a student doesn't show aptitude for higher learning, send them to a different type of high school... one that is geared towards learning a trade.
Instead, schools just try to keep students in their classrooms, because headcount means tax dollars. And tax dollars are the only things that school administrators care about. They have no interest in grades. They have no interest in test scores. They get their money no matter what grades or test scores happen.
Laptops were seen as an easy way to throw money at their educational woes. "We need to do this to stay competitive." The insuation was that America was losing ground to the students elsewhere in the world. A computer for every child HAD to be the solution. Ignore the work. Ignore the fact that they actually have to learn something. Let's just buy the technology, and the rest will just fall into place.
Balloney. After this spending fiasco, the rest of the tax payers should wake up and force the teachers unions and school districts to change their ways. Paying teachers regardless of performance is RIDICULOUS. Throwing money at problems is careless and irresponsible. It's downright sad. To think that money, and not real work, will solve our educational woes.
Re:No. They did it to as an attempt to throw money (Score:5, Interesting)
We've grown into an age where kids don't care. Teachers are not given the power to teach properly, nor are they incented to do so. They go through the motions, and whatever happens, happens.
There are many causes, not the least of which is parents who either don't care so if their kid is suspended he or she just sits at home playing video games for a few days; or who come screaming and blame the teacher when their precoius spawn is punished. Guess what, at some point teachers stop caring and don't waste their time on the losers - push them through and forget about them.
The teachers unions have crippled the entire process. The unions protect the worst teachers. Unions also drive the best teachers out of the system, leaving us with a system that gradually deteriorates.
It's a shame that local teacher's unions aren't as powerful as some believe; then maybe teachers could exert authority and maintain discipline instead of worrying that parents complaints will result in a bad review and not being rehired.
Good teachers leave because they are good - and can make a lot more money with a lot less hassle in another job.
Unions always blame lack of funding. They line up the poor kids, pointing at how little money is spent on kids' educations. Yet most of the funding increases don't go to teachers' salaries. It goes to administrative costs, new buildings, and golden parachutes for administrators.
That's because the unions don't have the power to control spending - in our district (rather well off one) I don't know a single teacher who wouldn't like to be able to direct spending so they wouldn't run out of copy paper 2 months before the end of the year or buying textbooks so each student has their own copy. (Real cases).
What we need is for teachers to be held accountable. And for those students that refuse to do the work, disciplinary action. Flunk them.
Accountability without authority is useless. Take away a kid's cellphone because they're texting during a test - Mom or Dad will come screaming at the administrator and teacher "How dare you do that to my little darling" instead of saying "Tough luck, child; you knew the rules and broke them"
There are a lot of great teachers, who care and whose main reward is to see some kid discover they can learn. Personally, that would not be enough for me to put up with all the other crap.
Don't even get started on "No Child Left Behind."
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Re:For example... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Simply put, if you don't know to use specific programs, the employer sees other candidates as more qualified than you (whether or not this is true) and you may not even get a chance at an interview.
From experience it doesn't much matter for most things and given how damn little I've seen people know about MS * despite getting hired I don't think there is any way knowing Open Office instead could make them less proficient at MS products (for many people). Most of them only learned a half dozen different things about the software and their ability to use it beyond that is below non-existent.
The exception to this would be in the tech field (ie network administration) where proficiency in Linux/Unix would be required.
Or any programmer who works with data, when someone can do something in 15 seconds with a *nix shell that takes
Re:What problem were the laptops supposed to solve (Score:2)
No surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) eBook readers have to be of good enough quality to be an acceptable replacement for paper.
(2) Text sellers have to actually sell their eBook versions for significantly less than their printed paper copies.
Part (1) is all about the quality of the resolution, and general display. Right now it sucks. ePaper, or eInk, or whatever they call it, shows real promise in this area, but it's still very new. Part (2) is actually the harder one. There's not too much point in this if a printed dead tree copy is as cheap as an eBook -- students can fork over the cash for the heavy version and scrawl in the textbookm themselves; it wouldn't be quite as good as the eBook option, but it would narrow the gap sufficiently. If, on the other hand, eBooks are signficantly cheaper (as we would reasonably expect them to be) then there's enough good economic sense behind moving to eBook reader devices to properly motivate it.
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A tablet now costs somewhere in between one to two years' worth of textbooks, so it's debatable whether it's really that much of a burden. Whether or not everyone is using laptops, it irks me that schools don't seem to care about reducing backpack load for students that would prefer soft copies. Incidentally, some of my courses have used notes that were written in-house, in LaTeX, it appears, and I'm satisfied with those. They're cheaper, much more portable, usually more understandable, since they closel
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As useless as they are for pleasure reading, I could imagine some mild utility in an educational setting. But as a previous poster suggested, it should be offered as an option rather than presented free to everyone.
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Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise instate a program to make sure that each student has access to a home computer so every student can do homework that requires a computer.
Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
This also leads to a few advantages like current text books. In high school, I had a french book printed in 1978 which is before I was born! It had water damage and was difficult to follow. The slang words weren't even close to current. History classes were often bad as well. I remember my text book talking about exciting "new" events in 1984 when it was 1992. That's not helpful either. Providing new books each year or on demand style books solves the outdated problem.
I used to work at an ISP. One school bought refurbished Macs and gave them to students for home use. These were desktop systems so they didn't need to worry about breaking. They also got a discount on internet access and students were provided desktops to use at school. This could solve some of the breaking problem. Plus the students were issued the computers as long as they were at the district. The school could buy a $300 dell or something and let the students use it at home for 6 years. (well ok maybe a brand that will last longer...) I'm not sold on the idea that computers automatically make students smarter. I would have played with them and not payed attention to homework at that age.
locking systems down does not work as there is a.. (Score:2)
A wise man once said (Score:5, Insightful)
Another wise man once said (Score:2)
All the rest of this stuff is fluff.
Better idea (Score:2)
No surprise really (Score:5, Insightful)
And I agree, when I was in a computer class I spent more time actively hacking (in both senses of the word) their system, than doing work. Bootlegged their PC DOS 6.3 installation. Used Word 6 for Windows instead of Works 3 for DOS. (Or used WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.) Et cetera. I obviously want to make the most of my time, but it was stuff I already knew. That's not the case for most kids, they need to be paying attention to the teacher, not their PCs, and you know kids have reverse midas touches and wreck everything...
-uso.
Re:No surprise really (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No surprise really (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand I'm against these "laptops for everyone!" programs as it tends to put technology in the hands of those who don't deserve it, those who can't treat it properly (oh look, I dropped my laptop for the third time this week...I should really put a hole in this screen and tie it to my backpack!) and those who tend to get good things ruined for the rest of us (there's an inverse relationship between the number of people on my campus who have a laptop and the number of classes that allow the thing, which is amusing as many of the laptops were bought through the school to help in classes that they're now banned in because some people aren't smart enough to alt-tab from
I swear, most people don't have any ranks in Hide (Computer Use) at my school and far too many ranks in Illusion (I'm a leet hacker who'll never be caught)
But hey, what do I know. I'm one of the kids who doesn't pay attention in class so obviously you have to take what I say with a grain of salt...and a knowledge that I really don't like people who can't use technology right using it...and I'm currently in GM mode...
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The two aren't necessarily contradictory, but I absolutely agree that the education must come first. Schools must provide the knowledge and understanding required to move forward. This includes research and study skills, the basics in as many subjects as practical, enough transferable skills to not limit future growth, the understanding of how to reason and deduce effectively, and the specialist skills required to progress effectively in the chosen career
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Since I won't be implementing it for a few more months, I can still afford to make changes. Even then, I just need my required building design changes by that point. I have more time for the software planning.
1. All student-use computers are physically located in properly cooled closets next to the classrooms they serve. Monitor, keyboards and
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And what are the students going to say when they have to answer on a job application whether they are familiar with Microsoft Office? Like it or not, free software is not quite there yet.
4. Students only use free software products. Computers are for use as a tool, i.e. recording research results in DB/spreadsheet, writing papers, scheduling w/teachers, emails, doing research on white-listed sites through a proxy server (basically, a site must be listed by a teac
Heh (Score:4, Interesting)
Now imagine that LAN party comes with free hardware, you don't have to bring your own.
Now, imagine that LAN party has free Internet access, is open all day long, and you HAVE to go attend it each and every day.
So, how much work are you doing ? Yup, right, almost none at all.
Suddendly, schools realize that LAN party I describe above is on school grounds, with school hardware, and it goes on all schoolday long.
What a big surprise...
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Nah, I'm just rehashing some of the "they have a right to hack the school network" stuff I got in response to comments from the kid who got suspended article a few days ago. It is amazing how kids attempt to defend this behavior.
Kind of makes free software look good. (Score:2)
Sounds like that "business" software with accelerated graphics drivers, a word processor and spreadsheet did not work out very.
Now imagine instead you have free software that does not play FPS or Flash - intentionally. Instead it comes with internet access that does not install flipping monkeys and blinking banners and keyloggers. It also happens to come with good algebra, math function plotting, 2 and 3D drawing programs, periodic charts, star charts, language study, flash cards and a host of other so
High school kids not responsible? (Score:3, Funny)
Makes sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
We can argue all day about the educational benefits of these laptops but if the kids just trash them from the get go there are no educational benefits. I wouldn't trust kids today with a pen let alone a laptop.
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As much as it sucked then when my friends had nice cars and all their gas and insurance paid for and all the newest video games and such, I thank my parents for instilling that sense of value in me.
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Still, though, I think just having a "bang-on" machine (even something older and more accessible to sc
Why did they think that in the first place? (Score:5, Insightful)
Was there any studies done to show that it would augment learning, or was it just a matter of technology=cool?
And, if there were any studies done, were there any studies done not funded by industry groups wanting school districts to spend lots of money?
Duh!! (Score:4, Interesting)
music videos, and viruses/trojans/worms/spyware/spamware. No virus software or such. No patches were ever applied
( M$ machines). The school had no one to repair or troubleshoot stuff. This was all after a big push to get PCs in the
classroom. There were wiring parties and meetings to show off how great it was to get a PC in the classroom. Went nowhere.
A mad rush to bring our schools into the 21st century. Didnt work.
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Information access does not equal education (Score:5, Insightful)
Having constant access to information does not mean you are educated. Becoming educated is more than just having access to information. You can give a student a laptop, with built-in or internet access to a database of information on anything in the world, and that doesn't make them educated. A fully 3D, interactive CD-Rom showing the human anatomy isn't what is needed for someone to become a doctor. Its the understanding of the basic concepts, and the discipline to understands how information fits into the big picture that allows people to really be educated. Without out, information is just a distraction.
Re:Information access does not equal education (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, it was Einstein who said,
Kids need to be taught to understand concepts, how to think critically, and how to engage in research. Having access to information and memorizing some of it is nearly worthless.
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All the school really needs is a few donated piece of shit desktop machines sitting in the back of the classroom running Ubuntu. The teacher helps with critical thinking and conceptual discussion during lecture time, and can ask students to look up supporting facts on the internet when needed. That way the student learns the concept, and how to effectively find the information when they it. The machines are cheap (if not free), have access to educational databases, the internet, and can be locked down t
In praise of rote memorization (Score:2)
With due respect to the man who said that, there's a lot to be said for caching. He probably had more memorized than he was fully aware of.
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Due to our mind's wiring, we usually find rote memorization more difficult and less effective than doing our jobs, looking things
Re:Information access does not equal education (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Einstein memorized more than he thinks, and in any case mathematical formulas which was his domain are very much a special branch. I find that this "memorization is pointless" is often being warped into "knowing WTF you're talking about is worthless". Let's say the assignment is "Explain the reasons for World War II". That involves a lot of critical thinking, it's not about memorizing dates or names or figures or whatever. Pick any of the below:
- Past history of wars
- Massive war damages to pay
- Heavy demilitarization
- Insane inflation, poverty
- Rise of glorifying nationalism
- Rise of xenophobia, racism
- Fear of Communism
From these (and more I'm sure) you can start to draw concepts and critical thoughts. But you wouldn't get anywhere without knowing that yes, there is a history of wars here and yes, there were economic problems and yes, there was racial ideologies and so on. Of course, at this point you're going to tell me that you could just look up that information here [wikipedia.org] but then you've put the cart before the horse. You're using other people's critical thinking, their logic and arguments and almost certainly arrive at the same conclusion they did with little critical thought of your own, unless you're doing a proper source analysis and inspection of their logic, counterarguments and so on.
Giving critical thought to a matter means in my opinion that you need to know more about the subject than mere memorization, which is usually only of some important events. By that I don't mean that you need to know them by heart, but you do need to keep them in mind at the same time as a working set. Critical thinking is figuring out which of these facts are relevant and arguing why. If you feel you see a factor that's been underrated or overrated, and can gather evidence and arguments for that then it is research, it shows understanding and critical thinking. Quoting others like a parrot is not, memorization of arguments and memorization of facts are just two sides of the same corn.
In short, if the information you're basing yourself on is crap, the conslusions will be crap even if the logic is excellent. You can reason yourself from knowledge to understanding, but you can't reason yourself from ignorance to knowledge, and so neither from ignorance to understanding. Memorization is not a goal, but it is a side effect. If you meet someone that can't quote you some facts about how WWII started, then he sure can't have any meaningful understanding of it either.
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I was going to make what would have been an admittedly minor joke about this. The premise was going to be that the lazy kid would just say, "I can just look that up online," and then I was going to crack wise about how the site would be called multiplication.com, and if anyone were smart, they would rush out and register that domain name, etc. This would have netted a laughter quotient of around 3 x 10 ^ -8 chuckles per reader.
I was going to do all that, and then I found this [multiplication.com].
Reality has far outrun eve
Re:Rote memorization does not equal education (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to Multiplication.com, your source for Multiplication! To start multiplying, enter the two numbers you wish to multiply, and click the "GO!" button: Register now (It's Free!) to multiply up to 4 numbers together* at one time, or purchase a Multiplication.com Gold Member account ($12.95/year) to multiply up to 24 numbers together at one time, as well as negatives!*.
* Resulting product for Standard Account Members may not exceed 65,535. Gold Members whose products exceed 2,147,483,647 will be charged an Overflow Fee of 10 cents for every further 1,000,000 of the product.
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Sad, that.
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Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
-- T.S. Eliot, Choruses from the Rock
Information is not the same as knowledge -- you need to piece the information together in a structured way for it to be meaningful. Knowledge is not the same as wisdom, or insight -- you need an understanding of how the knowledge connects together, and how it relates. Right now we have a glut of information. The job of a teacher, in this day and age, is to help
Is it the students' fault??? (Score:2)
Do school administrators actually use computers? (Score:2)
Contrary to what seems to be popular belief (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, this is a different situation than the one discussed in TFA; we were college students, not high schoolers, and although our computers were under warranty, they were bought with our tuition money and belonged to us, so there was incentive to keep them nice. We also seldom, if ever, used the machines in class, but when we did, there was a good reason.
A laptop is a tool, just like any other. Tools can be misused, but they can also be instruments of success when applied correctly. Don't be so quick to shun the idea of school-issued laptops. When done right with the right age group, it can really work.
In other news... (Score:2)
The laptops are reportedly being sent to India and China, where labour is so cheap that low productivity doesn't exist.
That's the theory, in any case.
Shorter conclusion... (Score:2)
Wait.... they downloaded porn? (Score:2)
They downloaded porn on their free laptops?
You mean.... if you give a bunch of middle schoolers free computers with ubiquitous Internet access and instructions on connecting to the Internet..... they might download porn?
But I thought children were sexless, innocent cherubs.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Stew
Make the rugrats use Linux (Score:2)
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No, this is not a troll/flame/MS bash. I'm just pointing out that there's no single large company that stands to make a large profit by having millions of Linux computers distributed to schools - which MS has certainly done with Windows/Office.
Technology, Schools, and Political Solutions (Score:2)
Laptop Worked Fine For Me... (Score:3, Interesting)
So... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Can I say impartial reporting? (Score:2)
And apparently the people who submit stories to /. sometimes betray their biases.
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OS? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am new here, so I actually RTFA. (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, I find TFA poorly researched and rather superficial, much like the whole school-issued-laptops program.
I've been a math teaching assistant at college for a few years, and have worked in IT most of my life. I feel somewhat qualified to have an opinion on this issue.
The problem is not the laptops. It is not the kids. It is not even the teachers. The problem is management (ie PHBs) not thinking stuff through, and lazy journalists. If I was a journalist I would try to get answers to these questions:
A) What was the plan of the program?
B) What did they expect to accomplish?
C) How was the actual implementation?
D) What analysis was done afterwards to correct the problem?
E) Why are the kids getting blamed?
I suspect the answers will be:
a)
1. Give laptops to kids
2. ?
3. Congratulate myself
b)
The more money I pour into laptops, the better kids grades will be. Just because.
c)
kids got laptops, and nobody (teachers and students) had any clue what to do with them, so they mostly fooled around. And the problems were with a. and b.
d)
Too busy blaming the kids for education management FUs.
e)
Because they are the weakest link.
Of course, other questions cross my mind:
- How many kids had used computers before?
- How many used them at home?
- How many parents got involved with the program?
- How many parents where computer-savvy?
- What budget did the teachers have available for computer courses for themselves?
and so on and so forth...
O Rly? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could have told you that giving high school kids laptop computers to use in school would only make matters worse. I oft-times wonder where the common sense is in the administrative bodies that cook up these hair-brained ideas.
You see, here's the problem... High school is to kids, essentially, a place where they are forced to perform menial tasks and busy work for 8 hours a day with no reward and the only motivation is to avoid punishment (if they are indeed punished for bad grades/failure/dropping out). The incentive to excel academically is nigh nonexistent for the majority of high school kids. Introducing laptop computers to the mix does nothing but give the students a tool they can use to pay less attention to class with. After all, most of these kids aren't interested in doing much more than passing their courses... playing some solitaire or looking at some titties is much more entertaining than staring at the clock for 5 hours a day, waiting to be freed.
At university, however, laptop programs are far more beneficial. My university (Winona State) issues tablet computers to all students. Indeed there are still plenty of instances of students who decide to play solitaire rather than pay attention, their grades reflect it and (for the most part) their behavior changes accordingly. Personally, I take all of my notes on my tablet (I can type far faster than I can write by hand, and the professors can certainly talk faster than I can write!), and it is hellof convenient to be able to draw diagrams right into my notes digitally with the stylus. You can begin to imagine some of the benefits... like pressing Ctrl+F instead of flipping through pages upon pages of notes to find a definition. There's a whole boatload of advantages to the system and I'm sure most of you slashdotters can think of them yourselves.
My point is, the real driver behind the effectiveness of laptop programs is the students' motivation to excel in academically. High school doesn't give the motivation, so laptops will only help students actively perform poorly. In a university setting, however, there is motivation. Be it the fact that the student is paying for an education out of his/her own pocket (like me!), or that the student is seeking a degree in order to make money hand over fist, or that the student is studying something he or she is actually interested in and doing it of his/her own free will. Because of that motivation, students will utilize computers effectively.
No wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
-Many of the teachers are opposed to this foreign technology overtaking their classrooms. Right there, 25% of classes will not have laptop usage. Furthermore, even more of the teachers don't even know how to use a laptop.
-There is no educational software provided. I know that there are some really good educational titles out there that would be a tremendous help in classrooms, but nobody is taking the initiative to install/support them.
-The laptops were aimed to lessen the use of textbooks. Oddly enough, they just add to the ever-growing pile of virtually useless school-provided materials.
-The security system is flawed as well. They are heavily restricted - that is, until you quit a certain task in the task manager - after that, visiting porn sites couldn't be easier!
-The aforementioned hardware problems.
What needs to happen is for the school districts to implement a laptop education program of some sort. One that will ease teachers' fears of computers/help them to better assist their students, and one that will teach kids the basics of computing (no, how to use Word doesn't count). This should have been done from the start. What needs to happen for this
OLPC? (Score:2)
Integration, Planning, and Infrastructure (Score:3, Interesting)
i used to teach in a district w/ a laptop program (Score:4, Interesting)
We were always told in meetings to have students use the laptops as much as possible (I imagine to justify the expense in supplying students with them). It didn't matter what we did, so long as we were using technology in the classroom. The other big push was the state achievement test (thank you very much Bush). We were never told of a definite way that we could use these computers to help improve test scores.
Of course, any chance that students have to goof off, they will, and any time my students got to use their laptop, they would be using it for IM, games, or just generally surfing the web. i tired to keep an eye on all of them, but when you have classes of 30+ students, it's difficult to make sure they are all on task with traditional kinds of instruction and assignments.
The most successful I ever was in that district was when I was teaching summer school. I think a large part of that was because the students didn't keep the laptops over the summer. I brought in a classroom set of laptops in for a day so they could type a paper. Before I brought them in, I unplugged the wireless router in the drop ceiling.
Long ways to go (Score:3, Insightful)
Laptops - For What???? (Score:2)
It would seem to me to be more reasonable to pay for a $9.95 dial up connection to a local ISP for each family with
This is time (Score:3, Insightful)
This is time for the big, collective "D'uh!" we've been holding about this for a while.
As technologists I think we know better than the bureaucrats who propose these "nuggets of wisdom" that technology does not fix the fundamental problems in education.
Wrong approach (Score:3, Interesting)
Technology was not used to that incredible extent at my high school, but we did have laptop carts available to supplement the library and computer lab(s). When a class needed to do a computer-oriented project, the IT people would roll in two or three carts (with 16 laptops apiece, I think) and let students check them out. Each cart had chargers built in, as well as a wireless access point, so the cart would be plugged into ethernet to create instant wireless access in that classroom.
We would do the task at hand, and the laptops would all be returned at the end of class. People didn't mess with them because of the futility in doing so. The systems were locked down, and anything you did manage to change would be wiped off at the end of the day anyway.
Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
-ccm
Laptops work with lower income students (Score:4, Insightful)
Every new techology becomes a silver bullet (Score:3, Insightful)
When movies came along students sat through all sorts of educational movies as a way educating them and engaging them.
Students were subjected to film strips.
I was a professor when TV came along. The university had a new building devoted to TV lectures. I had to film a few lectures. They were terrible! All except the most telegenic faculty had the same experience. Very soon the building devolved to a lecture hall with an unused TV system.
Computers were hailed as a magic solution. We see where that is going.
Education consists of an engaging teacher and engaged students. Without those, all the newest gadgets are useless. With them the gadgets are superfluous.
textbooks, projectors, and white boards? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think better textbooks would help tremendously, i.e., course material that isn't designed by someone trying to do a social experiment. It actually amazes me that the same quality management criteria used in business can't be applied to the generation of these books. That is, the text books should improve gradually over time, not radically to try some math teaching method of the month club.
Re: (Score:2)
You didn't bother to look spellings and definitions up before, now the computer does it for you..
Maybe that is good, and maybe you learned from your mistakes as the computer caught them. Or maybe you could just be lazy and the computer just did most of your assignment for you. 99% of the value of learning in writing a paper is in correcting your work, not in the content itself.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:School students and pornography a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what? It's just too ludicrous. You've got to have fundamentals before a laptop and the ensuing internet access is of any use, and even then, they won't help with anything they'd be teaching in any sort of school where you're not expected to buy your own laptop if you need one.
Re:School students and pornography a problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here I was, thinking that giving someone with a Grade 3 reading level, a Grade 2 writing level, and an ego regarding their abilities which can only be attained by someone who has learned nothing of substance in the past 5 or so years, a laptop which requires excellent reading ability and desire to learn from, and excellent writing ability and desire to communicate with the outside world with...
You know what? It's just too ludicrous. You've got to have fundamentals before a laptop and the ensuing internet access is of any use, and even then, they won't help with anything they'd be teaching in any sort of school where you're not expected to buy your own laptop if you need one.
We started a one-to-one laptop program at a pilot middle school for our 7th graders. The biggest problem is the driving force(s) behind the program are only focused on the laptops. These people are not educators or technicians, they are politicians of one stripe or another. They don't realize that the price of the laptop itself is the *least* expensive item.
The teachers that were thrown into the program were like "Cool, I get a new laptop...", and that's about where it ended. They were worse than clueless when it came to using computers for even the simplest things, let alone how to properly integrate a laptop into their teaching environment and curriculum. Of course, they "budgeted" training into the project, but it amounted to about 3 hours of general computer familiarization. This is just enough time to make the computers the "focus" of the classroom (a distraction from learning) instead of an integrated learning tool. Giving every student a computer makes sense only when you change your teaching methods at a fundamental level. This requires a deep understanding of many facets of computers and computing; something today's teachers just don't have and colleges don't teach yet.
This is still ignoring the infrastructure aspect. There are the obvious things like having enough wireless access points to handle 100 computers within a close cluster of 3-4 classrooms (non-trivial - especially when the plan calls for "two airport extremes to provide wireless coverage" - yeah, what are you going to do with the other 80 laptops?). Then there are the racks of spare batteries and battery chargers that will be needed. Students will *not* show up to class with their laptops charged and you *cannot* have power cables stretching across the aisles. These high-speed chargers are expensive and so are the batteries.
Students now *require* their computers for every class - not just for "computer lab". This means that they *have to have* a computer with *their* data on it. If something breaks or gets corrupted they can't wait for several weeks to have their computer repaired (we have a 1,000-to-1 computer to technician ratio). This means that OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) work orders get priority and everything must be dropped to get a replacement to them (with their data on it). Expecting students to properly back up their data is a lot to ask. Making this a priority part of the educational process is apparently impossible (since the teachers don't even really understand it). Making sure that all the important data, settings, etc. are backed up in such a way so that transferring them to the stand-in replacement is quick and seamless is not impossible. It just becomes difficult deciding what to backup. How important are the 10 Gigabytes of iMovie projects? What about the 20 Gig of MP3s in iTunes or the Garageband projects? Assuming that some of these are legitimate and must be backed up, how do you do that over (totally saturated) wireless? Then where do you put that data? You can't put it in an accessible part of the file server - kids will be messing up their backups... Now you pretty much need a dedicated backup server with a huge amount of storage (which also needs to be backed up) to constantly be online.
Now we have to deal with damage and loss. It gets up to -70F in t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Is our children learning?" If you look at the national average the answer is a resounding NO!
Teach them how to read, from a book. Teach them math, without a calculator. Teach them history, and quit being PC about it. Teach them about computers, but in a seperate class from the rest.