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Rather Use Palmtops?
(Score:1)
by Domini
(domini at e.co.za) on Friday April 14,
@09:34AM EST (#4)
(User
Info) http://e.co.za/~marius
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How about using a PalmPilot... or better yet, a
Psion?
There aren't many to choose from, and these are
basically the best choices. Perhaps get them to pre-load some stuff
onto it?
These aren't just organisers, after all.
--
Domini @ Slashdot. |
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Laptops? (Score:5,
Interesting)
by DeepDarkSky on Friday April 14, @09:37AM EST (#6)
(User
Info) |
| I dunno...I got a couple of problems with
laptops being used in schools. At the kind of laptop that most of us
think of.
The best thing to do is probably for them to have sub $200 web
pads that allows the students to save their notes and homework and
stuff like that on the Internet somewhere (say if a storage service
provider get a contract with an education system, etc.). I think if
you are spending more money than that, it's too much.
It's either cheap portable computing appliances (not
general-purpose devices like regular PCs) or ubiquitous computing,
where the students can have access from almost anywhere. Of course,
the trend right now looks like portable (wireless, mobile) is more
popular, but maybe in a few years, it will swing back the other way
again.
I think that for them to consider it at all, it's gotta be as
cheap if not cheaper than the game consoles. Or at least that's the
way I believe it should be (not necessarily the way I think it will
be though).
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Advertising in classrooms - the
pro's (Score:1)
by Domini (domini at e.co.za) on Friday April 14, @09:38AM
EST (#7)
(User
Info) http://e.co.za/~marius
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One good thing advertising in the classroom will
give: better spam-protection software in the future.
When
these kids grow up, you can bet that some of them will develop
excellent ways of avoiding The Media.
Can't wait.
-Domini rubs his hands...-
-- Domini @
Slashdot. |
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I can see both sides of this
argument. (Score:1, Troll)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday
April 14, @09:38AM EST (#8)
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| On the one hand, I can see the vast benefits
which access to computing equipment could have for educational
purposes. Tools like Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft FrontPage,
Microsoft Visual Basic and others are very educational, and an
experience of using these tools will prepare Americas young talent
for entering the workplace, which is after all, the reason they are
at school to begin with.
However, I have noticed a tendency (prevalent on this forum) for
the younger element of society to use computers for destructive
purposes. I can imagine kids not doing their homework because they
are too busy having a Quake3 deathmatch, dowloading pr0n, trading
illegal warez via slashdot's hidden
warez forum or attempting to install minority OS's like Linux
and Redhat.
So to conclude, it is a finely balanced argument, and I for one
could not commit to an opinion one way or another, until there is
more evidence available. I am very much sitting on the fence with
respect to this one, even though it is tempting to have a knee-jerk
reaction.
More information on laptops can be found at Dell's website which
is at http://www.dell.com/
thank you
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Down Under (Score:2,
Informative)
by laptop006 (laptop006@netexecutive.com) on Friday April 14,
@09:38AM EST (#9)
(User
Info) http://laptop006.8m.com/don't-go-here/very-crap-never-updated/
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Down here in Aus several schools give (forced
sell) laptops to students, and if it's done well laptops help with
things like research & writing reports (I think the last time I
handwrote anything was in 1994 before I got my first laptop...). But
even the public schools here are starting to give students laptops,
and there has even been a case where a student has been suspended
for NOT having a laptop.
And yes, for those of you who
wearn't wondering this message is being posted via a school
laptop.
333Mhz celeron 64Mb 6.4GB, great except for one thing, NO
FSKING CD OR FLOPPY DRIVES, but that's no problem for me due to a
strange thing called Linux, it runs on my old laptop, the one that
does have drives, and it lets me acsess anything that I need, really
advanced stuff, you people probably wouldn't get
it.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Laptop006
Melbourne,
Australia
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duh... (Score:1)
by romco (russ@rkproductions.spam.net) on Friday April 14,
@09:40AM EST (#11)
(User
Info) http://www.rkproductions.net/
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When I went to school the question was about
calculators.
A lot of the most inovative software has been
writtin by very young people. Their minds are more open.
Every kid needs a computer while in school. Some kids need
it to learn how to function in bussiness and some kids need it to
write the next generation of software that makes bussiness function.
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Laptops 4 me, Laptops 4
you (Score:1)
by deriliqed on Friday April 14, @09:42AM
EST (#12)
(User
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With the amount of information circulating
around schools they are probably a good idea. Think of it this
way...the paperless classroon...no more penmanship classes...that's
where my f's were.
On another note many graduate/professional
schools are requiring laptops as part of there curriculum, college
enrollment, on average, is going up, and freshmen in college still
can't figure out how to use a word processors without
help.
Good idea...YES, how the hell will it be
implemented...NO CLUE.
$0.02
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- Never!
by WolvesEatSheep (Score:3) Friday April 14, @09:53AM EST
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laptops? (Score:1)
by
I.AM.BLORT
(just.reply.to.the.post@slashdot.org (this is
fake)) on Friday April 14, @09:42AM EST (#13)
(User
Info) http://www.technofever.com/
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why not just provide the students with a desktop
unti both at the school and at the home with a larger than floppy
witable medi in both of them and then hav the students bring their
data woth them. I for one think that it would be more cost effective
in the long run to provide for 2 desktop machines of reasonable
power and zipdisks than to provide 1 laptop and replace it every 3
months due to excessive wear and theft. because in the neighborhood
where I grew up , it wouldn't matter if your laptop had big bird on
the case, it would get yanked out of your hands in the space between
heartbeats and then see a good old can of arylic spray paint to
cover up good old sesame street before it hit the market. desktop
machines would not be as accessable to sticky fingers and
repair/upgrade is just a touch easier on destop systems than a
laptop.
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The intellectual model is
broken. (Score:5, Insightful)
by Russ Nelson on Friday
April 14, @09:43AM EST (#14)
(User
Info) http://russnelson.com/
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The intellectual model being public schooling is
broken. It's presumption is that you can take ALL the children born
within one year of each other in a given geographic region, and
teach them the same subject at the same time at the same rate.
Won't work. Can't work. Why bother tweaking it with
computers? No amount of patching can remove the bugs from badly
designed code. No amount of tweaking (or school reform) can fix our
system of public education. Our nation's children would be better
off if we closed the schools tomorrow.
-russ
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Laptops are only a tool to aid
learning... (Score:4, Interesting)
by StormChaser (StormChaser@oceanfree.net) on Friday April 14,
@09:43AM EST (#15)
(User
Info) |
I think the idea of every kid having there only
laptop is great - I know I would have loved one and learnt a lot
from one when I was a kid - but I dont think having a laptop for
every child should be getting the kind of attention it seems to be
getting...
Basic computer skills are good for any kid to
have and the analytical skills built through programming are also
very valuable but before you can develop any of these skills you
need a good grounding in the basics - basic mathematics/literacy and
so on... I think every kid having a computer will add to the basic
learning process or distract from it - flashy graphics might help
kids learn certain things more easily but by that reasoning CNN
should be a much better news resource then any static web page, and
we all know thats not true, dont we?
StormChaser
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Why laptops? (Score:4,
Informative)
by Kaa
(freedomdotnet!kaa) on Friday April 14,
@09:43AM EST (#16)
(User
Info) |
I see some reason is supplying kids with
free/cheap/subsidized computers -- desktops which they'll have at
home. I don't see much use in giving them laptops to be used in
class. The problem is that effectively using laptops in class is
very complicated. Not only you need networking infrastructure, both
hardware and software (and no, 'wall' doesn't cut it), but you also
need teachers who understand all this. And most of all, you need a
teaching methodology that makes use of all that computing power. To
date I haven't heard of a single successful project (but some
unsuccessful ones) which intergrated laptops into classroom
teaching. Computers are good for doing homework, but not for the
classroom, at least not yet.
I have no objection to giving
technology to kids -- I am sure they'll discover many uses of it
(like playing network games during class and making the teacher's
computer crash). It's a good thing and will feed their brains.
However, the resources of our educational system are quite limited
and I am afraid that this is going to end up being a very expensive
white elefant. I am sure 95% of teachers won't know how to use it,
or have any clue what to do with it.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In
any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots. |
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Computers for all?
(Score:2, Interesting)
by toup on Friday April 14, @09:44AM EST
(#17)
(User
Info) |
Are they serious? Whatever happened to the idea
of having computer labs and just having computer classes for kids? I
think that would be just as effective, if not more, than giving
every kid a bare bones computer (which is what I am understanding to
happen here).
Shouldn't kids learn the basics first, such as
reading, writing, and arithmetic, before they starting trying to
have machines do it for them?
Maybe we should have that
'third half' work on the basics too...
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Good idea...in theory!
(Score:2, Insightful)
by artemis67 on Friday April 14, @09:44AM
EST (#18)
(User
Info) |
| Sure, we want our kids to be more
computer-literate, but laptops in grade school seems like a bad
idea, at least at the current price points. The two biggest problems
schools are going to face are going to be THEFT and ABUSE.
"Hey kid, here's an $800 laptop...don't drop it and don't lose
it!" Yeah, sure... ;-)
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Kidproof & cheap
(Score:1)
by -ParadoX- on Friday April 14, @09:44AM EST (#19)
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Kidproof, that's not to tough, we've been making
radio's that can withstand hurricanes for years. And don't whine
about data loss from dropping your HD, they're durable, we spiked
one off a concrete parking lot, then tossed it bout 20 feet up in
the air an it still ran fine, though ours was probably some fluke
super drive or something.
As for the actual concept, you
can't go wrong with computers. The mere plethora of tools available
for educational institutions are enormous and usually very cheap or
free. It would encourage kids to program at an earlier age, and
become familiar with basic concepts of operating a computer as well.
The only downside I can see is the mentioned "Pre-Censoring" of the
internet. No really acceptable means to do this has been discovered
so far that doesn't completely neuter the net as a whole.
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We have to have laptops in
school... (Score:5, Funny)
by gaudior (foad@deadbeef.net) on Friday April 14, @09:48AM
EST (#24)
(User
Info) |
| or how else is Ender gonna kill the giant, and
then find the Hive Queen?
Go Cubs Go! Whooo
hoooo!!!!!! |
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society just adapts?
(Score:1)
by edko on Friday April 14, @09:48AM EST (#26)
(User
Info) |
I seem to remember how our school system adopted
summer vacations to accomodate an agricultural society (kids needed
time off in the summertime
to help with the farm).
Now
it seems our school system is just adopting to a new "office"
society. Computers skills are needed so computer training in school
is emphasized. Laptops facilitate ease of use with their
portability.
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Open Source Education-related
software? (Score:1)
by DeepDarkSky on Friday April 14,
@09:49AM EST (#28)
(User
Info) |
| No, not educational software, but
education-related.
I was re-reading the article, and I thought, why can't we have
open-sourced software that will allow the students to do their
homeworks, say, type their papers on it, without having to shell out
money for it (yes, I know they are out there already, but I mean
something simple to use, geared to students and the educational
system). The schools can say, we will accept your homework in the
following formats, or something along that line. Tools for students
to use for taking notes, for doing homeworks, for reviewing, etc.
The teachers will have their software that can be used to check
the homeworks submitted by the students, can grade them, correct
them, return them, etc. The teachers can even keep a copy of the
student submitted works and later on use it to determine the grading
for the students.
The main point again is:
1. Cheap
2. Easy to use
3.
Accessible
I think that it would be really great if school systems can build
on top of an open-source education-oriented platform, (say, a linux
distribution) with a standard suite of software that the schools can
use right away. Heck, if the open source movement is already
volunteering time to write software, why not this?
I know there are some huge gaping holes in my idea, but isn't it
worth considering?
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eMate (Score:3,
Informative)
by charlesc on Friday April 14, @09:49AM EST (#30)
(User
Info) |
Wasn't this exactly what the Apple eMate was
going to accomplish a few years ago? Somehow it just never took off,
but it was quite a cool little device that seemed to have promise in
the educational hardware area.
"So many ways to skin a cat, and
still everyone uses a great big knife." |
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- Re:eMate
by imac.usr (Score:2) Friday
April 14, @10:16AM EST
- Re:eMate
by mr (Score:2) Friday April
14, @11:23AM EST
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Computers in school
(Score:3, Insightful)
by fialar on Friday April 14, @09:49AM EST
(#31)
(User
Info) |
We had Apple //g's in High School. At the time I
was there they were just being replaced by Mac Plus machines.
They were great to learn on, but kids like me and my friends
would hack them a lot. One of my friends brought in MacTools and we
changed one of the computers to read "Welcome to Fuckheads" (instead
of "Welcome to Macintosh") where the smiley computer comes on at
boot time.
Needless to say the teacher was not impressed. On
lunch hour we'd go into the Apple // room and play games, and most
of the time the teacher sitting in the room there had no clue what
we were doing.
I think computers in a school can be a
two-edged sword. They can be great time wasters (games) or great
tools in learning. We have to use them wisely.
Linux is
becoming more and more popular in schools, and let's face it, it has
better security so we can keep the hacking to a minimum.
I
often wish I had a laptop when I was in high school to take notes
on, but I didn't think they made laptops then. (If they did, they
were huge and properly bigger than my backpack!)
Fialar
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Yeah right. (Score:2,
Insightful)
by Richy_T (slashdot@perihelion.demon.co.uk) on Friday April
14, @09:49AM EST (#32)
(User
Info) |
| When I was at school, I couldn't keep a
pencilcase for 5 minutes without losing it and in one particularly
boring lesson, a friend of mine ended up with his ruler cut into
millimeter slivers
Laptops? Hahah. Kids have no respect at all for their own
property and (literally*) less still for other peoples'
Rich
*Literally used in it's true sense and not the mistaken false
"literally" of "my schoolbag weighed literally tons"
Give a man a
fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll overfish,
cause famine in the next three regions and pollute the atmosphere
with his fish |
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No use without teachers who
understand computers (Score:5, Insightful)
by colinscott (cs@iinet.net.au) on Friday April 14, @09:49AM EST
(#33)
(User
Info) |
| It's of no use whatsoever giving every kid a
computer if the teacher doesn't understand computers. I'm not
expecting every teacher to be a programmer, but they need a decent
grasp of what computers are and are not, as well as what they can
and can't do if they want to use computers effectively in the
classroom.
Both my parents are teachers, my mother teaches year 2. Our
family system is runs Windows, and I end up explaining what seem to
me to be fundamental things over and over. I suspect I'd be a bad
teacher, because I get very frustrated over my mothers inability to
grasp what I feel to be obvious (it probably isn't to many people,
but it is to me), and her preference to get me to work things out
rather than mess with the system to work it out. Her instinctive
belief is that I understand computers, therefor I know every
application every written inside out. I don't know Microsoft
publisher, and I have no intention of wasting time learning it.
I believe my mother is a good teacher. I don't believe my mother
would be a good computer teacher, and I don't think she'd think that
either. And I think many teachers would be the same. Before a lot of
money is invested in these systems, what kind of checks will be done
to make sure that they'll ever even be used?
Of course, as an Australian taxpayer, what American taxes are
spent on isn't really one of my concerns :)
Colin Scott
If you build it, they will be
dumb...
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- Indeed,
ask the people teaching the teachers! by devphil (Score:2) Friday April 14, @10:29AM
EST
- Support,
anyone? by himself (Score:2) Friday April 14, @11:04AM EST
- Support,
anyone? by himself (Score:1) Friday April 14, @11:05AM EST
- Re:No
use without teachers who understand computer by DeepDarkSky
(Score:1) Friday April 14,
@11:23AM EST
- Putting
the Cart Before the Horse by el platano (Score:1) Friday April 14, @12:25PM
EST
- Re:No
use without teachers who understand computer by aapl jedi
(Score:1) Friday April 14,
@02:24PM EST
- Re:No
use without teachers who understand computer by Cognoscento
(Score:1) Friday April 14,
@02:47PM EST
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Would you stand for advertising to
your kids? (Score:4, Interesting)
by bluGill (hank@black-hole.com) on Friday April 14, @09:51AM
EST (#35)
(User
Info) http://www.black-hole.com/users/henrymiller/
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I know if I were a parent I'd refuse to let my kids use a
comptuer that is advertising. I refuse to allow a TV in my house
because I cannot stand the mindless stream of sex and violence. Kids
see some of that, and as a parent I have the right to censor what my
kids see. (Note that this is my kids, you can allow your kids to see
porn if you want)
Case in point: At a friends the other day, and he had the tv on.
He called me over to see a comercial on tv. They showed a lady in
her underware. To me that is porn, and I would not accept that in my
home. To others that is normal. The point is I don't trust
advertisers.
Now I'll agree that I cannot get away from advertisments. Nor can
I shelter my kids from all kinds of what I consider over the line
that others would not. That is not the point though.
Then we get into the issue of target. Advertisments are ment to
get you to spend money. Kids do not have the judgements of adults
(though some adults have poor judgemetn and some kids do well) Keep
your spend money propaganda out of my kids mind! (Keep it out of
mine too for that matter) When you require me to go through a portal
you are forcing it on me. Let me at least choose the portal - ideall
one with a privacy policy that I can agree with.
Please do not respond to the values of the above. I know many /.
readers disagree. While my leanings are in the direction of this
post I intentially went much farther then my beliefs to make a
point: parents have the right to make choices for their
kids.
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Excuses (Score:3,
Funny)
by Mojojojo
Monkey Inc. (jakecarlin@hotmail.spam)
on Friday April 14, @09:51AM EST (#36)
(User
Info) |
Hmm... I think now instead of kids saying "the
dog ate my homework" they can claim "the virus ate my
hard-drive".
-o moving forward not backward... upward not
downward... and always spinning spinning spinning toward freedom
o- |
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Let them time
(Score:1)
by Gog
(gogor@altavista.net) on Friday April 14,
@09:52AM EST (#38)
(User
Info) |
Don't buly the kids to use computers. Let them
have fun first. Let them learn to write first.
True, thay
need to learn how to these things early, but there is a difference
between a few courses and teachers using computers in every damn
class without a good reason just because they can.
Lets not
forget the basics of educations. Its usefull. Even if we have a hard
time convincing our kids of that.
Plus it's still an
expensive toy.
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in the future
(Score:1)
by Zarf (hartsock@ModZer0.cs.uaf.edu) on Friday April 14,
@09:52AM EST (#39)
(User
Info) http://i.am/hartsock
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unless we see amerikan schools take a proactive
stand on getting computors into the handz of youngstorz amerikan
society will be div (or mod) along the linez of techknowlogical
havez and havez-nots. This is because, not every parent is riche
enough to affraud a laptop for der kids who are
studnets.
Not only that, but some of uz had to gow to
public skool and didn't git a goot edukatshun. Many geeks are lost
every year too poor pooblic skoolz what don't teach goot engrish or
the maths skillz. I am a programming teachur and I see manie
studnets who I thinking would be goot geek programmer types who
aren't cuz them has poor maths. If only theyed got it in grade
school and didnet have to wat for secondary school to get the
maths.
- // Zarf //
Live to Code, Code to Live! |
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Laptops shouldn't be Maine's first
priority (Score:5, Insightful)
by BonzMan
(bonz at umit dot maine dot edu) on
Friday April 14, @09:52AM EST (#40)
(User
Info) |
The title says it all. Born and raised in Maine,
I took certain interest when I read about it in my campus newspaper.
Wow. Gov. King wants to give all the kids laptops. That's a lot of
money. Yeah, we've got a huge surplus here in Maine this year. And
Gov. King wants to make sure he goes down in infamy. But I don't
think it'll work. The plan the state legislature has proposed has
half the funds coming from the buget surplus, and half coming from
the educational department. Good idea, unless you've visited one of
Maine's many, many delapidated schools. Sure, we've all seen the
news specials on the inner-city New York schools which have no heat,
leaky roofs, small classrooms, etc. Now, put that school hundreds of
miles from a city of any sort. Share that school between a half
dozen townships and villages. Make some kids ride on a bus for an
hour to get there. Now put them in a broom closet for their day's
education.
Not my idea of a good time.
I was lucky,
I grew up in Bangor, a bustling metropolis of 33,000 (The 3rd
largest city in the state...please don't laugh) My school was one of
the largest in the state, about 1400 people by the time I graduated.
But the building was designed only to hold about 1000. What
happened? They converted some of the labs into classrooms. Electical
lab? Buh-bye. Woodshop? Now a lecture hall. It's not that the
classes weren't being used, it's that they found "better" uses for
them. Study halls had a higher priority then learning the difference
beween ohms and hertz. But I had it good as far as most of the state
goes.
Gov. King should be thinking about spending the money
to improve the standard of Education of Maine. Repair some of these
run-down schools. Give some low-interest loans to school districts
to build new buildings. Give the teachers of the state a frickin'
raise. We have some of the lowest-paid educators in the country.
Ooh, now let's give them the extra burden of having to teach with
laptops now, too. Maybe buy some books for the
students...$500/student could go a long way as far as books could
go. I remember using a book printed in 1979 as my US History book in
7th grade...Well, it missed everything in MY lifetime.
Gov.
King's plan is quite lofty, and it sure has put him on the map as
far as news goes. Ooh, look at the great Independent Govenor of
Maine. Look at his great plans.
One thing his plan DOESN'T
cover is the extra training the teachers will have to recieve in
order to effectively use these computers to actually teach.
Otherwise, I think King is setting himself up for a very expensive
free round of solitaire machines to buy for all the 7th graders of
Maine.
Oh well. Maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't get a
laptop as a 7th grader...
Bonz..
"A crust of bread is
better than nothing. Nothing is better than love. Therefore, by the
transitive property, a crust of bread is better than love." |
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PDAs, Laptops in Public
Education (Score:1)
by Cannonball (tom_bridge@mac.com) on Friday April 14, @09:53AM
EST (#41)
(User
Info) |
Sure, let's give them laptops so they can play
solitaire during class. Maybe we could port a dumbed down version of
Quake or Doom or Half-Life to these laptops for wireless LAN play
during class. I can just hear the fragging waiting to happen. Face
it, where there is a computer, there is a geek who will bypass the
security, overclock the damn thing, and run a wireless Pr0n server
from his jr. high school desk. Granted he'll run our lives after
graduation, but I'd prefer he learned some history first. Oh, and by
the way, thanks to the guy who wrote Solitaire for my eMate so I
could goof off in my international studies class last year...
So
there I was, naked in the refrigerator, smoking a cigarette with a
pot roast on my knees. That's when things got REALLY weird. |
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Until we can have the...
(Score:1)
by Goon Number 1
(not@themoment.com) on Friday April 14,
@09:53AM EST (#42)
(User
Info) |
... books from the Diamond Age, with the
Librarian program from Snow Crash running in the background as the
cast, we're going to have to settle for something less. As far as
the power demands go, it seems this would be a prime platform for
the Transmeta processor. Actually, the web tablet they were
developing would be just about perfect, as kids could master their
handwriting on it, do research, follow a TV like story that still
forced them to read, and allow for them to learn at their own rate
as a form of progressive schooling... Now I'm just dreaming.
sigh
sputnik 2 |
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Reminds me Apple's eMate
(Score:1)
by Eponymous Coward
(stevecanfield@my-Dejadotcom) on Friday
April 14, @09:54AM EST (#44)
(User
Info) |
I think Apple was close to getting it right with
their discontinued eMate. Small, extremely low power consumption,
durable, and relatively cheap. It also ran the very cool Newton
OS.
At one point I even heard rumours of Texas (I
think) assigning one to every kid. I guess that program was
cancelled when Apple killed the Newton division.
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Pork and advertising
(Score:1)
by wunderhorn1 on Friday April 14, @09:55AM EST (#47)
(User
Info) |
What's the best way to keep deals like this
from turning into boondoggles and pork-barrel projects?
What's
the best way to keep kids from being bombarded with Nike
advertisements during algebra class?
The solution to pork
is not to contract the manufacturing of computers through any one
company, but rather have the students buy directly from the market.
Perhaps have a variety of companies in the portal vying for the
students' $$$.
There's already a great precedence for using
advertising revenue to pay for goods in school: Channel 1 TV. There
is a corporation that gives schools a TV and VCR for each classroom,
installs them, and lets the school use them for any purpose, so long
as the students watch a 15 minute news program which is broadcast
once a day. The "Channel 1 News" is filled with advertisements, and
presumably it is this revenue that pays for the project. The system
must be working, as it exists in hundreds of schools across the
country.
However, as TVs do not become obsolete as fast as
PCs (at least not until HDTV...), Channel 1 had a good deal of time
to recoup the intial expense of buying thousands of TV/VCRs, and
continue making a profit. How much would such a program have to
charge for advertising to pay for a $2000 laptop in 2-3
years?
All this coming from a recent high school
graduate.
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Good, but flawed (Score:3,
Insightful)
by stut on Friday April 14, @09:59AM EST (#51)
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I reckon it's fairly undisputed that kids need to learn at least
a bare minimum of computer literacy at school, that being how to use
a basic GUI, word processor, spreadsheet, etc., as they'll be unable
to do a job without it.
The biggest problem in my mind is that kids are being taught to
be computer *users* (set aside the obvious 'it will be M$ software'
here), and nothing more. We grew up with minimalist computers: ZX
Spectrums, BBC Micros, and the like, and learned your basic
programming from them. Which means that we have a generation of good
programmers at graduate level.
But now kids are learning how to use a couple of apps, and...
that's it. Schools, which are very often underfunded, are spending
tens, hundreds of thousands of pounds investing in glorified
typewriters. Surely that's not a good use of limited resources?
Of course, there's internet access. Pre-censored, but I could
happily argue both sides of that. Lovely, useful, but if all you're
learning to do is type stuff into Yahoo and click on hyperlinks,
again, you're not learning massive amounts.
There'll always be a need for kids at school to learn whatever
communication skills are relevant at the time. Whether that's chalk
and slate or Word 97 (painful as that may be). And they need that
skill for when they leave. But not exclusively. You still need to be
able to write, read and count. But maybe all those handwriting
classes can be chucked out the window, and word-processing can
replace it. And as you get older, learn some HTML, perl, VB, what
have you. And get people into the right mindset to actually build
new computer stuff, not just use it.
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Why laptops in high schools wont
work.. (Score:1)
by Shut (shut@hormeAlfoodproductTT.net) on Friday April
14, @09:59AM EST (#53)
(User
Info) http://users.bergen.org/~johsca
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Here, at the Bergen Academies, ready
access to computers institutes one major problem: not using them
correctly. They plan to give these kids laptops (which , by the way,
are very valuable and are a penchant for stealing) to use for
educational purposes, when, most likely, they will be used to
download pornography or games or warez or sign on to AOL(*shudder*,
especially on an ATM connection), or just do general internet
surfing not pertaining to your class (like I am right now :)
.)
It would most likely detract from their learning
experience, especially if wireless networking and internet access is
deployed, due to these facts. A better alternative would to give the
students a little email server with dumb terminals hooked into
printers, so they can email themselves their homework to a home
address, and research with NS or IE, and print to a local printer.
Or you can post all major assignments to a BBS or calendar hosted by
your school (Like
This), or by a gratutitous company.
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Crusoe? (Score:1)
by
schmofo on Friday April 14, @10:01AM EST (#54)
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Info) |
Isn't this the sort of application that the
Crusoe is perfect for? A webpad seems too minimal for the task at
hand, but a laptop could act far too much as a distraction.
There has to be a middle-ground, a webpad with the added
abilities of word processing and Palm Pilot-esque features (ie, a
planner, calendar, datebook.) The Crusoe is perfect for this.
Coupled with a school wide wireless LAN, the learning curve for
using the device would be very small while the portability would be
very high.
And of course, it could all run on linux. For
very cheap.
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Technology Saves the Day!
(Score:4, Insightful)
by sterno (sterno@bigbrother.net) on Friday April 14,
@10:02AM EST (#57)
(User
Info) http://www.bigbrother.net/
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That's right folks, the school system can be
saved by simply giving every kid a laptop. You know why? Because:
1) Laptops are technology and as we all know, technology
solves all problems
2) Its spending money and as we all know,
spending money solves all problems
Say, I've got a wacky
idea! Why don't we pay teachers good salaries? Why don't we invest
some of that money set aside for the laptops into funding teachers
who know how to make use of them.
Technology is an ethically
and practically neutral thing. You can use it for good or bad. You
can use it to be productive or waste time. You can use it to learn
or you can use it to play Quake in class. Just simply dumping into a
classroom without taking the effort to train teachers to use this
stuff (and perhaps make it financially rewarding even) then this is
all money flushed down the gaping toilet of rapid obsolescense!
I'll be really amused (in a grim depressed kind of way) when
a few years down the road, the economy is in the toilet, the schools
are out of neat-o computers, and the schools are still in the same
sad shape they are now.
---
Protest the MPAA! Boycott Mission Impossible 2! More
details here. |
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No! No! NO!!! (Score:5,
Insightful)
by d-man (d-man@look-ma-no-spam.dreamt.org) on Friday April
14, @10:04AM EST (#60)
(User
Info) http://www.dreamt.org/d-man
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My aunt, before she passed away last year, was a
principal in a grammar school. I will never forget the day she told
me that kids in kindergarten (kindergarten!) were using
calculators. What possible good could come from kids that young
using machines to do simple math?
Seems to me that the basic problem is this: People have come to
look upon the computer (in any of its forms) as a panacea for all
the ills suffered by the educational system. "This technology is
great! Let's get it to the kids!" Very few people seem to have given
any forethought to *what* kids will be using computers for, though.
As stated countless times, a computer is a tool. Just as a
screwdriver is useless if you don't understand how a screw works, a
computer is useless if you don't know basic grammar or arithmetic.
I see no reason at all for kids that aren't yet in high school to
have computers. People must first learn basics, and then learn
how to learn, before being presented with fancy tools to get the
job done. Imagine learning calculus before algebra.
Unix:
Where /sbin/init is still Job 1. |
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Laptop Program at OU
(Score:2, Informative)
by Capt_Troy (tdaley@ou.NO-SPAM.edu) on Friday April 14,
@10:06AM EST (#62)
(User
Info) |
I worked at the University of Oklahoma for 3
years for the organization in charge of maintaining the wireless
network for the laptop program we have there. Basically, all
incoming students to the college of engineering must buy a laptop to
meet that year's standards. Personally, I have a problem with the
program...
Many students end up dropping out of the COE and
are stuck with a $4000.00 laptop they won't use. Also, many of the
professors are having trouble trying to figure out what to do with
the laptops in a classroom enviroment. They have to lecture so the
students will learn the concepts, so why do they need to bring their
computers? Most of them end up typing email and surfing the net
durring class. And it also presents a support nightmare... Students
came in all the time after trying to install Linux or Solaris onto
their laptops... Some spilt pop on them, some got viruses, etc...
You can hardly blame them for the first one, it's their computer.
But it becomes very hard to keep a standard, and it becomes even
harder to support all the variations of problems that come up.
I think it's a good idea who's time hasn't come yet. Bring
the books to class, and leave the computer at home!
-capt.
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Keep computers out of high
school (Score:3, Interesting)
by Dionysus (thales74@yahoo.com) on Friday April 14, @10:06AM
EST (#63)
(User
Info) |
Clifford Stoll has a very interesting book on
the subject: "High Tech Heretic - Why Computers *Don't* Belong in
the Classroom and Other Reflections by a COmputer Contrarian".
Excepts from the back of his book:
############
On
Computer Literacy:
* I don't think our suffers from a fear of
technology. If anything, our problems are rooted in a love affair
with gizmos.
* Sure, kids love computers. I met an eigth
grader who told me he'd spent his summer vacations logged onto the
Internet for seven hours a day. Every day of the summer. A
thirteen-year-old girl looked at me with a fresh face and asked, How
can I meet boys if I'm not on-line?
On Computers in the
Classroom
* Whenever I point out the dubious value of computers
in the schools. I hear, 'Look, computers are everywhere, so we have
to bring them into the classroom.' Well, automobiles are everywhere,
too. They play a damned important part in our society, and it's hard
to get a job if you can't drive. In fact, cars count for more of our
economy than do computers. But we don't teach automotive literacy.
***********
I think he's right in one important aspect.
Most people who are really into computers will learn it sooner or
later. Why force it on everybody else? I didn't have computers in
grammar school. It was more important to learn to read, write, do
math, and learn to interact, to communicate with other people. Why
learn to read, when you can have the computer read back the book for
you? Why learn to write, when the computer can correct your
spelling, and your grammar? Why learn to think when you can just
have the computer spit back the homework answers for you?
And no, not everybody has an interest in learning everything
there is to know about the computer. Heck, most people shouldn't
have to. Technology should work, and otherwise keep the hell out of
the way. I don't know how the radio captures radiowaves and send out
the sound. Not my point of interest. All i know is,it is works.
And is it really useful for classrooms to receive old
computers? Sure, it might run Windows 2000 today with Office 2000,
but how will that help if it won't run the next version? Doesn't it
cost more to keep upgrading all the time? And if you don't want them
to upgrade, wasn't the point of the exercise to give the students
proficiency in today's technology? Of will that help if they are 3-5
years behind? Again, not everybody wants or needs to know how the
compiler works. How useful is it to teach them the UNIX command
prompt, if in college they need to learn the Mac interface and at
work they need to learn the newest GUI "innovation" by M$?
Wouldn't the money spent on computers be better off hiring
more teachers, increasing the salary so that more quality people
will be interested in becoming teachers?
Finally, isn't it
more useful to learn a new language rather than learning of the
latest software package (which will be useless by the time they
graduate anyways) works?
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mixed feelings...
(Score:2, Insightful)
by M-G on Friday April 14, @10:07AM EST (#64)
(User
Info) |
I kind of sit on the fence on this issue. Some
of my thoughts:
- Many tout computers as the magic pill that will cure all ills
of the public schools. Some of these (such as IBM and Toshiba, as
mentioned) have a strong financial incentive to promote this idea.
But if we have difficulty finding enough teachers that are even
competent to teach the "basics", imagine how hard it will be to
find and retain people who can actually generate useful
computer-based instruction. Remember all the teachers you had who
had to have a student get the VCR working? A wholesale revamping
of the educational system would be required.
- What about support people? It appears to be a rarity among
school districts that they actually have enough and/or competent
technical people on staff. The tech staff would have to be beefed
up greatly to deal with this. From that standpoint, it would be
best to have the systems locked down as much as possible to
prevent the student hosing the system.
- What is the appropriate age level for this? Grade schoolers
should probably be content to play with LOGO on an Apple II, and
maybe some interactive educational games. Even all the way up to
high school, I'm hesistant to endorse the personal laptop even all
the way through high school. Remember that through high school,
the kids are forced to be there. Those kids who don't care in the
first place aren't going to suddenly become interested in school
because they're provided a laptop. Once you're in college, I think
the laptop becomes useful.
Realize I'm not trying to be a
Luddite here. I certainly think that kids should be exposed to
technology. I simply feel that it should be age-appropriate, that
the people "teaching" the technology have a clue, and that the
students are also properly grounded in "traditional"
studies...putting together a multimedia report with information you
found on the web is fine, but you still need to know how to produce
a written paper and use other information resources.
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Welcome to Consumerism 101
(Score:5, Insightful)
by BlackDouglas (scott@coyotegulch.com) on Friday April 14,
@10:09AM EST (#67)
(User
Info) http://www.coyotegulch.com/
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Ask any educators (and I've asked several) what,
precisely, having a computer will accomplish for primary school
students.
They don't know.
They just know that
technology is hot, and so they want to look proactive by getting
"computers" into the hands of kids.
Certain basic skills
need to be learned before a student can even use a computer; a child
who can't read won't gain from having a computer.
And what
about people like my wife, who can't coexist with machines? She's a
brilliant lady with a Master's degree in Geography, but computers
and technology simply go bad in her presence. Don't write such off
to inexperience or ineptitude; some people simply aren't "machine
compatible."
Schools have been buying computers for years --
a time when educational quality has declined substantially. See,
it's easy to slap some computers into the classroom; it is, however,
*very* hard to deal with real problems, like hostile school
environments, broken homes, and a society filled with commercials
and irresponsible images.
That's just what these kids need:
More advertising, to aid in their development as little consumer
cogs. It started with the Coke machines in the hall and billboards
on school buses. I'm waiting for for school stores to start "giving
away" Coke & Nike t-shirts and bumper stickers...
Most
(but not all) school administrators don't want to think, they just
"want to do what's best for the kids." Of course, they haven't
defined "best", and you can't really blame school officials for
being part of a society that prefers greed and banal entertainment
over constructive consideration.
In a way, this goes back to
Jon Katz's concerns about surveillance and security in schools.
Rather than address the serious social problems in our society, the
schools (and people in general) would rather take the easy road of
spying and blaming.
I don't object to computers in the
classroom, per se -- I simply want schools to address more important
issues first.
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Course management software more
dangerous (Score:1)
by limako on Friday April 14,
@10:11AM EST (#71)
(User
Info) http://www.bio.umass.edu/bcrc/sb.html
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| I might point out where you can read one of
several talks I've given on the implementation
of technology in support of education. I've long argued that
teaching with technology is still just teaching and the same rules
of good pedagogy apply. If you want to know what your students are
learning, look at what they're actually doing.
Now you can have them do some really neat stuff with technology.
One project we've been having our intro students do (I think) is
quite interesting. We have students aggregate
scientific data across multiple sections. This allows us to
have: (1) a good rationale for using technology to analyze data (you
have 600 records, after all); (2) each group of students do
something novel that is worth presenting about; and (3) students
address fairly complex problems with subtle effects (that you need a
large n to observe). I will argue to anyone that this is an
excellent use of technology in education: this mirrors what these
students will really do in the 'real world' if they go on to become
scientists.
We also have students work with 'practice test' software. I was
reluctant to write such software, but at least I did it on my own
terms. We have worked very hard to avoid 'drill and kill'
software, which so many course management systems are eager to
promulgate.
I think the larger and scarier issue is that the course
management software producers are entering into agreements with
publishers that will result in huge pressure on faculty to pick-up
and use these systems which greatly limit and 'dumb down' the web
publishing opportunities. They are mostly proprietary too (although
the IMSproject gives some
hope for open standards and there are some interesting open source
alternatives like learnloop)
and may convince administrators that all that is needed for an
introductory course is a 'techie' and a course management system. (I
personally believe the introductory level is where you need the most
help and support -- not the least).
The biggest danger is this: faculty are being convinced by these
companies that they need to produce web materials that 'look' as
good as published materials. For the information revolution to be
democratic, educators need to be encouraged to continue to learn to
author simple materials by themselves. We didn't feel self-concious
to produce a course pack of photocopies and dittos. Do it yourself!
Don't let them lock it up in a proprietary, password-protected
course management system! Keep it open!
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Nothing wrong with pencil and
paper (Score:1, Interesting)
by Kismet on Friday April
14, @10:11AM EST (#72)
(User
Info) http://www.xmission.com/~pmccombs
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Who coined the phrase "the dog ate my homework?"
It's one of a few lousy excuses for being lazy. A portable
computer opens the door to many more excuses. The Internet is down.
The computer won't boot. The homework got erased. The battery went
dead.
The problem is, half the time it might be true.
I think a computer is a wonderful auxiliary to learning. But
I don't think it should be required unless the learning is about
computers.
My first exposure to computers in education was
when I was in the 4th grade, in 1984. Mr. Hill thought it would be
neat to let the students, 4th grade and up, try their hand at BASIC
on the old Ataris. It was strictly an extra-curricular activity. It
fed the minds of those students that were interested and educated
many others about simple computer skills.
In the 6th grade
we first had computer labs, with Commodore 64 computers. We learned
LOGO programming. The class was only once a week.
Because
our exposure to computers was limited and novel, they had a greater
power to captivate us so that we were motivated to learn about them.
It is that way with most elective type classes.
If I had
grown up with a computer at my side day and night, I would have been
less interested in learning about how it worked. Maybe I would have
become computer literate on that machine. But I doubt I would have
gained any aptitute for computers, or curiosity about them. They
would be just another piece of day-to-day life.
Admittedly,
this is increasingly common. Computers have also grown up quite a
bit since then. I was lucky enough to grow up with them in a way. It
was fairly simple for me to start up GWBASIC and write a little
program when I was a child. How easily can a kid use Visual Basic to
make a program that would hold his interest? Perhaps a few forms and
controls are easy enough to build, but what about sprites and sounds
and colors (and actually writing code)?
For me, getting
homework from the web would be convenient now. Is it convenient for
a kid who knows no other way? Sure, anyone can learn a lot from a
computer. But if we want them to learn about computers, I think the
computers need to move from the realm of the ordinary, to the realm
of the extraordinary. I think kids still learn best the conventional
way.
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My Ideal primary or secondary
school environment (Score:1)
by Error Spelling (weidmans@mbnet.mb.ca) on Friday April 14,
@10:11AM EST (#73)
(User
Info) http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/~weidmans/
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Ideal World:
- School system is overfunded to the same degree that the
high-tech equity market is today.
- Schools have no commercial influences whatsoever. They are
free from consumerist messages.
- Students learn for the sake of learning.
- The guiding principle of curriculum design is student
curiosity.
Under these circumstances, laptops would be
out of the question as an educational desiderratum. Laptops are
tools, but they are tools that determine the curriculum to a large
extent. This is not the case with pencils and paper. Laptops would
determine the curriculum because students must learn to use the
"school approved" operating system. The students would have to be
taught how to use the "official" productivity packages. Also,
corporate influence would play a large part in determining what
content was available online. The students' attention would be
directed toward a narrow set of pre-defined options.
Real World:
- Schools have been gradually starved of cash in as a result of
fiscal austerity programs.
- Students need to learn in order to get jobs, not just for the
sake of learning.
- Teachers are struggling to keep up with a steadily growing
workload.
- The guiding principle of curriculum design is ease
(efficiency) of delivery.
Given the real world
picture, it is probably unavoidable that commercial interest will
direct the educational agenda. How else will schools be funded? And
once the decision has been made to allow corporate "sponsorships"
the school boards are relieved of their responsibility to find
unencumbered financial support for their schools. That will make the
corporate penetration of the school system even easier and more
complete.
But if that is the situation we've gotten ourselves into, then we
may as well make the best of it. If IBM wants to give students a
good deal on laptops then I suppose we have no choice but to accept.
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NetFuture has written about this
topic extensively (Score:1)
by dewey (drew at oldmedia dot com) on Friday April 14,
@10:11AM EST (#74)
(User
Info) http://www.craytech.com/drew/dspace
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| Check out NetFuture.
Many of 1999's newsletters dealt with issues of technology in
education. The essays are intelligently written and well-crafted. I
can't do them justice by summarizing them here, but let me just
point out two of NF's recurring themes.
Do we have any evidence that pushing kids to learn big concepts
(reading, calculus, computer programming) helps them learn?
Computers, plus the support and training they require, are pretty
expensive. Are we getting a big benefit from this big investment?
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I can't speak for colleges,
but... (Score:5, Interesting)
by MrHat (/dev/zero) on Friday April 14, @10:12AM EST (#76)
(User
Info) |
I attend a public high school in Columbus, Ohio
(well, for about a month more). In the winter of 1999, our school
system (the Columbus Public Schools) allocated some $2.5 million out
of the system's budget in a deal with Dell to provide each school
with one machine for every seven to ten kids. For our school, this
means roughly 70 Dell Optiplex GX machines w/ 500mHz PIIIs and 128MB
of RAM. I'm unclear exactly how much of the money for this endeavor
came from public or private grants, but I've heard that at least $2
million was paid out of pocket.
We have a Physics teacher
(who I respect a great deal) who flat-out refused to have anything
to do with the program, turning over his allocation of 5-7 machines
to someone else. Why? Here goes:
- The machines came with Windows 98 installed, as well as
DOS-based add-on "security" software that essentially renders the
Windows shell useless. You can't even write files to the hard
drive, for God's sake.
- The internet connection is provided through what must be a
shared dial-up line on some big quad-Xeon box in the office. I've
seen faster 14.4K dial-up lines.
- Students and teachers are forced to sign a "terms of service"
agreement to use the computers, including a clause that holds a
person who finds a security hole responsible. The terms warn to
"not look for security flaws". You don't have to look:
they're everywhere.
- Along with the computers came a print network of about 25
printers. The last time any of them worked was three weeks
ago. They have never all worked at the same time.
- Not one shred of educational (calculus, physics, math,
history) software has been allowed on any of the machines. To
install any software, apply to the board, wait 6-8 weeks.
What's really ironic is that on the same day that the
machines were brought in, I counted three major roof leaks in our
building, some of which soaked students as they were eating lunch.
I've had bad experiences with "technology in the (secondary)
schools", but it could work - if teachers had some say in the
application of the technology. Our physics stuff could be modeled
easily on a Linux-based 386: assuming we and the teachers had
control of it.
43rd Law of Computing: Anything that
can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core
dumped |
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- Re:I
can't speak for colleges, but... by gonzocanuck (Score:2) Friday April 14, @12:58PM
EST
- Re:I
can't speak for colleges, but... by tuxpenguin (Score:3) Friday April 14, @01:15PM
EST
- Re:I
can't speak for colleges, but... by IslesFan (Score:1) Friday April 14, @02:08PM
EST
- Re:I
can't speak for colleges, but... by DGregory (Score:3) Friday April 14, @03:14PM
EST
- Re:I
can't speak for colleges, but... by Petethelate (Score:1) Friday April 14, @05:09PM
EST
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Add "Money" to the
equation (Score:1)
by morpheus_ on Friday April 14,
@10:14AM EST (#83)
(User
Info) |
I work for a company that provides tech
solutions for a small country (Ecuador) in Latin America (ie, we're
kinda poor). We're currently working on 2 projects, one for a local
college and one for a high school, both of which are about
installing a wireless network via Wavelan Access Points, and giving
students the freedom to bring their laptops to school and use the
local network for e-mails, papers, internet access and all. The
hardest part of the project so far has been finding a cheap, durable
laptop for the students to buy through some kind of financial aid
program. So far, I think some of the new sony VAIOs look nifty, but
$1300 for a celeron 333 laptop is still a bit expensive. Still, it's
one of the best bang/buck offers I've found. The heads of both
institutes are interested on full fledged computers, as opposed to
palmpilots and such, since they consider them far more useful. It's
too bad that the computer makers haven't identified this as a
possible market niche, and haven't designed products that could fill
it. (Those "school computers" mentioned in the article look
outrageously expensive, btw...)
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Priorities (Score:1)
by
pyrogerg (moc.oohay@gregoryp) on Friday April 14, @10:15AM
EST (#85)
(User
Info) http://gregoryp.home.texas.net/
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Kids do need to be proficient
<i>end-users</i> with computers. To this end, they do
need to have computers made easily available to them. Does this
justify the expense of providing them with laptops or putting
desktop pcs in their homes?
We could stand to spend a lot
more money on our educational system. Not least of all, teacher
salaries have to be substantially increased before the incentive
(monetary and status) to become a teacher begins to attract our best
and brightest.
I don't have specific figures, but I now that
education majors in colleges right now tend to have the lowest
academic qualifications (standardized test scores, et cetera). That
indicates that we are attracting the opposite of what we desire in
our teachers.
Computers are tools which can facilitate
learning. The most essential and basic computing skills are not
difficult to learn, especially for young people, and especially at
the level of proficiency they need.
Let's be careful to put
our resources where they are needed.
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Why should schools change that
much? (Score:1)
by rmstar on Friday April 14, @10:16AM
EST (#88)
(User
Info) |
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I do not believe that, given the volatility of the market, it is
a good idea to give computers to kids. It would be much
better to sell a subsidized & afordable stationary PC to those
who can not afford a computer otherwise. And then let them do what
they think is best with them. Complement this with _decent_ labs in
school where they learn some programming and then you have a great
thing. But it should not be on their desks when seeing biology
class.
What I would fear with an approach as described is that a LOT of
time and money would be wasted in systems that will basically suck
and be worthless after some time. And kids would have yet another
source of distraction.
Mathematicians still use paper, and I do not see how you could
really improve an algebra class through the use of computers. Paper
is incredibly convenient when writing symbols, and beside some
slides and animations, the teacher is better of writing on the
blackbord.
Publish information on the web. Ask them to write assinments on a
word-prossesor and then print it. let them write email to the
teachers and among them. A computer is a tool.
... the other half thinks schools should concentrate on
reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and reducing class sizes.
Obviously, without reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, you won't get
far.
rmstar.
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Or do they just get in the
way? (Score:2)
by bluGill (hank@black-hole.com) on Friday April 14, @10:16AM
EST (#89)
(User
Info) http://www.black-hole.com/users/henrymiller/
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I remember a promotional video for work, one shot of the "future"
was a class room, about 4th grade. Each kid had a desktop comptuer
on their desk. And I remember clearly this girl who had to stand up
and shift a foot to the side (of her desk) and raise her arm - the
comptuer was in the way, and she had no hope of seeing the
blackboard or of the teacher accually seeing her.
A laptop is smaller, but I think the point is clear: comptuers
can be a tool, but they cannot get in the way of teaching.
I remember in school we went to the computer lab to type up an
english assignment. We spend two days every couple months in the
lab. The rest of the time was in class and we didn't need or use the
comptuer.
My aunt teachers kindergarden in Texas. She has no idea why she
has a comptuer in her classroom - kids in her class aren't expected
to read. Some of the kids play a game in freetime. The rest ignore
it. She keeps asking what is the point, and comes up with (whichever
governer, I don't track their politics) won some brownie points with
the voters when he could say every classroom had a comptuer. If that
had been done right, every school would ahve had a comptuer lab.
Through 7th grade there is no point in having a computer. Even
though I cannot read my own writing (as my teachers obserbed, when I
try my hardest I'm still worse then other kids at their sloppiest -
some physcal thing that they cannot explain) I need to know how to
write. Today when I have an idea, paper is much easier to use they
any comptuer to work it out - even if I then write a program to do
that. Likewise, I do all my calculations with a calculator, but I
need to know how to do it in my head. I cannot spell (as you
probably have noticed), and I depend on my spell checker (where I
can use one) - but I still think everyone should be thought to
spell. Once you know the hard way let someone use the easy one.
after (about) 7th grade things change. I know you can multiply,
so why would I make you multiply pi (to 2 decimal places) by 7.60
(or whatever the diameter of that circle measured to be) - I don't
care that you can do the math, I care that you can find (in this
case the circumfrence though you can find many other examples)
Likewise my english teacher assumes that I can write (by hand). She
cared about my report on Hamlet, not if I could correctly form my
letters.
Despite all the hype about the paperless office, the old way will
never go completely away.
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Clifford Stoll's "Silicon Snake
Oil" and "Heretic" (Score:2)
by Pseudonymus Bosch on
Friday April 14, @10:17AM EST (#90)
(User
Info) http://www.dmoz.org/
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Clifford Stoll, the hacker and astronomer that
wrote "The Cuckoo's Nest" on his adventures chasing crackers, also
wrote "Silicon
Snake Oil" (1996) and "High
Tech Heretic" (1999) on this very subject of "who needs
computers". He makes interesting points, that probably you won't
share.
(The links are to Amazon, if that's not kosher to
you, find better links, I couldn't.)
(To non-+1ers: you can
win karma by linking to that Mexican project to bring Linux into
schools. You are welcome.)
__
"Free" as
in "free 'undred quid". |
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The tech push in schools is mostly
marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward on
Friday April 14, @10:17AM EST (#91)
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I'll agree that it's useful and important for
kids to learn about technology before they enter the workplace. Very
important. But I think that most proposals like these that I've
heard are less designed to help students and more for marketing --
either marketing hardware/software or marketing the schools
themselves. I think it's pretty much patently obvious at this point
that the US spends far too little of its resources on education. And
we're not just talking laptops here. We're talking roofs that don't
leak, we're talking hiring extra teachers so there aren't 50
students in a classroom. Considering that money is so scarce in
public education (unless you're one of those anti-DOE nuts who
thinks money is being wasted feeding public schoolkids caviar),
money spent on one area inevitably means money NOT spent in another
area. Public schools don't have the privilege of choosing "all of
the above" when they decide what they need to fund. If you buy a
$500 piece of equipment for a kid so they can learn about
technology, that's great. If you're buying it so that that kid wants
to use that brand of equipment when they grow up, you are the worst
kind of capitalist (why don't you sell them crack while you're at
it?). If you're buying it so that it looks like your district cares
about the students who cram 50+ into their classrooms, you are
selling out kids for PR. Personally, I think the money spent on
computers in K-12 classrooms can usually be better spent on hiring
teachers, counselors, buying textbooks that were published this
century, and things like that. Even bulletproof vests would be a
better investment IMHO. When schoolkids have their basic education
needs met, then we can buy them computers. I would gladly pay double
my current income tax so that they could have both.
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Posted by michael on Friday April 14,
@09:28AM
Laptops
In Education
