Ask Slashdot: Is E-Learning a Viable Option? 349
An anonymous reader writes "My spouse, who is an elementary school science teacher, has had some experience in e-learning, since her school gave iPads to all the students. She found that students used these devices, not for school purposes like note taking, but for gaming, etc. It got to the point that she banned them from her classroom. Do technology aids help, or hinder, education? Is the idea that students can be home-schooled electronically realistic, or absurd?"
NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It also doesn't help that the discipline in schools is relaxing to an all-time low, and kids can wear hats and have cell phones and text and game all day and then tell their teachers to fuck off - and not a damn thing will happen to them once their parents threaten a lawsuit.
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Yes, indeed.
It also doesn't help that the discipline in schools is relaxing to an all-time low, and kids can wear hats and have cell phones and text and game all day and then tell their teachers to fuck off - and not a damn thing will happen to them once their parents threaten a lawsuit.
Where I work we expel them. Can't have the nasty buggers spoiling the greatest gift people will receive in their lifetimes, because their parents know fuck-all about raising them.
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Unfortunately there's a very quick end to that process, in the UK at least - if all but one of the schools in an area expel a child, the last school have to take them on and try and teach them, and will face extreme pressure not to expel them. You end up with dumping grounds for the pupils no-one else wants, or at least you did where and when I grew up (East Midlands of UK, at school in the 90s).
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The solution to that would be to ensure that every area has at least one Borstal. [wikipedia.org]
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That's why the technology is not the problem.
We could take this even further and imagine a complete MS Surface desk that allows full interactivity, test taking, etc. Something like out of Serenity.
The problem is the teachers. Without supervision a child is going to do what comes naturally to them, which is poor decision making. That's why they need supervision and guidance. Teachers walking around, giving a course lecture, asking questions, etc. is how real learning happens in a child's life. Real lear
Re:NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the parents are responsible for preparing the child to learn. The teacher is there to teach, not to motivate crappy kids from disinterested parents.... I will not hold that job to a teacher. Thats like expecting the police to be patient and guide punk brats to be good lawful kids... No. The cop is there to enforce the law, and if he goes out of his way to help guife in a lesson, thats a bonus.
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You're wrong, and being simplistic.
Raising and teaching a child is a cooperative effort on the part of the teachers and the parents. Teachers are there to motivate students, to inspire them, and to figure out where attention is needed. That is the mark of a great teacher.
Parents cannot teach as well because they don't have the time if they are working two jobs, and teaching is not so easy. A great teacher is not only educated themselves but understands *how* to teach a child.
Where parents fit in is disci
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Indeed.
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That's not "e-learning".
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elearning does nothing to fix this problem.
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No, no, no, no, NO.
When talking to a foe, you are supposed to start with: "So we meet again, Mr. Ethanol-fueled".
Re:NO. (Score:5, Informative)
If you mean recent studies on iPads, yes, but there was some successful use of computers in the classroom in the 80s. Of course, it also depends on what you care about. Using Logo increased procedural literacy [bogost.com], but whether Number Munchers increased mathematical literacy is more questionable. Iirc, the most positive effects generally came around long-term motivation rather than short-term imparting of facts; stuff like an oil-drilling simulation or Logo could help get kids interested in technology.
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And where is today's LOGO equivalent for young kids to get into elementary programming?
Here it is [squeakland.org], a complete pure object-oriented development environment where even the pixels are objects and can be introspected just by clicking on them and poking their properties.
Pick any language and look how much background knowledge you need to have to merely create a trivial program to put a pixel on a screen and draw a few lines
Nope, those are trivial tasks with Squeak. The one-hour demo lesson that VPRI does ends with the children drawing cars, writing programs to control them, and creating an event-driven object oriented system without realising that they're doing any more than playing.
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Only works when the student has the aptitude for it. There are students who do better in the classroom with interaction with the teacher. Can't expect same results for the whole population.
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Problem is, the book is rather
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How would you like to be refuted? Government or University research? Do you prefer research from public or private universities? US, Canda, or even Europe for fun?
You should really watch extremist statements. They bury your point (the question over scarce resources may be valid) under a pile of your own nonsense.
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And similarly, you should provide a couple of links otherwise it looks like you guys are just shooting bullshit canons at each other. My gut feeling based on your two points goes to the other guy; but gut feeling is all we have to go on since neither of you cites anything. However, whatever study you cite I think it behooves you to also find out who funded it. There are a lot of studies espousing the benefits of technology that we end up finding were funded by
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There is no single answer. Many things work well for some people and not for others. And as with many things in education, it is NOT the tool (laptop/iPad/smart board/fancy new books) but the teachers and the structure that makes the difference. Bad teachers = no learning. Good teachers, hamstrung by a bad system = no learning. I know some people who have done horribly with nontraditional education and some people who have thrived.
That said, this guy has had great successes with iPad deployments. [speirs.org]
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NO study has shown that students benefit
A good counterexample is software developed at MSU called LON-CAPA, which is used to help math and science students check their answers to homework problems. Here [lon-capa.org] is a list of publications about the system. For an example of a study that shows there is a benefit, try D. A. Kashy, G. Albertelli, E. Kashy and M. Thoennessen, Teaching with ALN Technology: Benefits and Costs, Journal of Engineering Education, 89, 499 (2001) [lon-capa.org].
Another example that I've heard about recently, although on a purely anecdotal basis, is
I'm not convinced (Score:2)
Others claim to see improved student engagement with technology, and my feeling is that with enough resources you can get an improved experiences. I lean towards the opinion that for now the technology is not good value for money in terms of projects running now. On the other hand, now is a good time to be running small pilot projects in expectation that costs will come down, and software will improve.
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You don't even need a lot of resources, you just need to utilize what you have effectively. Electronic aids are highly useful in most subjects, except for the most abstract ones, such as literature. Even in history, you can display a timeline of events, show tactical replays of battles, etc. When it comes to mathematics, the pros shine: projection allows the teacher to present a visual anchors for abstract concepts, such as functions and equations, so students can memorize methods much better.
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Okay, so I'm focusing here on the iPad example given in the story, which is fairly clearly making use of technology they had to buy in...
Also, where does all this content come from? Are there rapid development tools that are suitable for most teachers to make this content with (in which case, please do tell me where!)? If not, are you suggesting an in-house content creation team (not too uncommon), or buying in external content (which is fairly thin on the ground still)?
Home Schooling depends on parents (Score:4, Interesting)
I know 6 families that have home schooled with over half the kids now in college (other half still in high school). From my observations, electronics has very little impact or success or failure. Nearly all the success or failure is based on the parents: how serious they are about educating their kids, how connected they are with home school cooperatives, how much time their willing to invest. The complete failures that I've seen were easily predicable before the home schooling began (poorly educated parents, doing it for the wrong reasons, etc.)).
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I agree. However, like the classroom, electronics can aid any competent and motivated instructor.
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All success in schooling (public, private, or home schooled) depends primarily on the parents involvement. I think there was a chapter in the Freakonomics book concerning this.
We used to play boxes on the grid paper (Score:3, Insightful)
in our math class.
That didn't really say much about whether grid paper and pens were aiding or hindering our education.
It possibly does say something about the quality of the teacher...
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There are things you can't easily learn without graph paper, and it's dirt cheap. There's nothing that you can't learn without an iPad, and they're expensive.
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There's nothing that you can't learn without an iPad, and they're expensive.
The value of non-walled gardens, and how to program iPad apps.
Technically you could learn the latter, I suppose, but with no way of actually finding out if you're learning the right thing or misunderstood something.
YES it is, and here's proof (Score:3)
Re:YES it is, and here's proof (Score:4, Interesting)
Ohio has always been ahead of the game in terms of online charter schools. I was traditionally homeschooled for the better half of my academic career. My brother went through junior high and highschool using various online solutions. From my understanding, no one was a big fan of ECOT. They provided severely underpowered machines, which were in fact locked down too much. At the time, their bureaucratic setup was confusing and stifled learning. It may have gotten better in the years since, but I can't recommend it based on what I've seen.
Following up on that, my brother also did two years with OHDELA. They had their act together much better than ECOT, but again, issued terrible hardware. This time however, it was a crummy iMac locked down even tighter than the Compaq mini towers ECOT gave out. Furthermore, OHDELA relied far too much on trying to simulate a traditional classroom. Mandatory chatrooms and timed virtual blackboards just got in the way of the original promise of working at your own pace. It may have benefited those that needed the help, but making it compulsory did more to slow my brother's progress than anything.
His final time was spent with an organization called Buckeye Online. They provided a fairly decent laptop computer (completely open!) and relied more on bookwork. This was exactly what my brother had wanted all along. He wasn't chained to a desk or required to participate in some simulated blackboard environment. All he had to do was read the chapter in his text book and then submit the corresponding lesson electronically. He blew through the material and graduated one year earlier than he would have otherwise.
Now again, a lot has probably changed since I watched my family work with these different organizations. Some may be better or worse than they were. Some of the points of contention that my brother had may be the exact thing that your child would prefer. The point is to study up on them before just blindly signing up. Most of them do offer seminars leading up to the traditional start of the school year. Go and listen, ask questions, discuss your concerns. It has been my experience that you'll usually have the ear of some of the more important people within the organization.
So can students be home-schooled electronically? Absolutely. I would say that the benefits far outweigh any negatives. Most of the perceived problems that people have with homeschooling can be quickly and easily remedied if you're not a lazy parent. Having an online support system, as provided by these institutions, definitely makes things easier. It's still not something you can just throw and your child and expect to happen. It's a framework for the parents to work within, to help out, to expand upon, and to monitor. Of course, any parent who takes their job seriously would be doing that anyway, even if their child went to a physical school.
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Dreadful idea (Score:4, Insightful)
The kids who need help often have chaotic home environments. They need role models, not electronics. There is no technical fix.
Absurd (Score:2)
Judging by my kids, the idea of home learning is absurd. Or at least it will require one parent to constantly supervise the home learning. Kids lack discipline and tenacity, they only learn those after growing up. So, if we are going to teach them boring stuff while they are growing, they need an environment that helps them focus on the matter at hand. I-products do not.
I actually find it quite interesting how many different schools around the world try something like this. Wonder if any of these projects a
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Homework/learning is absurd, therefore I am planning on sending our older daughter to a private school with 3-6 "homework club". By the time me and my kids are both home and have eaten dinner, it's 7pm. They need to go to sleep at around 9. We all need a break from work/study and general time together for at least two frigging hours per day. I am not surprised that kids fail in the environment where teachers are not able to educate them during 9 hours of school and after care.
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It Can Work Well for Adult Education (Score:2)
My daughter has a master's degree in education. Her master's project studied distance learning for adults over the Internet. She found that Web-based courses can indeed be effective. HOWEVER, she also found that such courses are far more effective if the students and instructor meet face-to-face as a group about once each month.
Distance learning can be very important for adults. For example, in some areas, doctors are required to pursue ongoing education in order to retain their licenses. For a doctor
Well.. (Score:2)
The answer to your questions is yes it is a viable option in the classroom and for home schoolers. Your wife apparently is in need of in service training on classroom management. She is doing her students a disservice. They are all suffering because she does not have control of the class room.
Technology is an excellent tools in the hands of any competent teacher.
Implementation, implementation, implementation (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with many (maybe most?) attempts to put technology in schools and even home learning environments is that people don't think through the implementation. Technology is not magic. You cannot expect to get good results simply by dropping a chunk of technology into a classroom without spending a lot of time and energy rethinking how teaching and learning is going to work in that classroom. For example:
What, exactly, is the technology going to be used for? No hand-waving general answers allowed here (e.g., "enrich content with interactive multimedia presentations" is a useless answer).
In what specific tasks will the technology allow you to do something that would have been cumbersome or impossible without it (e.g., using graphing or numerical methods to approximate solutions to equations that are not amenable to the usual algebraic techniques)?
What more interesting or more engaging problems can you now attempt to solve (that address your learning goals) that you would not have been able to attempt without the technology?
Will you want to change or expand your set of learning goals now that you have this piece of technology? If so, how?
How much instructional time will be needed to get the teacher and students working comfortably with the technology? Is the potential benefit worth that amount of time?
How do you implement the technology in ways that do not detract from the learning you are trying to do (i.e., what are the unintended consequences)? How might you plan ahead for negative unintended uses?
Almost every case I've ever seen or read about where technology was just dropped into an educational setting without painstaking planning and thought about curriculum and implementation, not to mention extensive training of teachers and staff, resulted in mixed results at best, and failure and rejection at worst. To answer the original questions directly, technology aids can help or hinder education- it's all in the amount of time, thought, sweat and tears that get put into the implementation. I won't comment more on the home schooling part of the question, as I really have no experience there (aside from supplementing my own kids' educations).
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game-based learning (Score:2)
E-learning is still learning (Score:5, Insightful)
I am perplexed by equating "e-learning" with "give every kid an iPad". If you give a kid a screen and make it under their control they will find the games. If someone is unaware of this, they probably dont have kids. But this is not unique to electronics. If you give them a stack of text books and no supervision, they'll make paper airplanes. Education requires supervision at that age. Putting an e- in front of things doesn't change human nature.
Works but not yet a panacea (Score:3)
I am the creator of Learn French by LessonStudio (shameless self promotion) which is a singleminded app that teaches basic French vocabulary and Grammar;. It follows some pretty basic modern educational science and personally I believe works rather well. Handed out to a class of kids they could probably absorb some French pretty quickly as compared to an equivalent textbook. But again I wouldn't hand the app out to the kids and leave them to their own devices(ha ha).
At the same time I don't think that there is any complete end to end teaching system out there. Moodle is a mess for teaching. It does what it does well but it certainly is far far away from being some replacement for teachers. It is really only for administering a classroom. But great administration does nothing to improve the teacher. I pick on Moodle but all the systems that I have seen are aimed squarely at the bureaucrats that run the schools with only a nod to actual improvements in teaching. So based on the state of the art right now if I were a teacher I would not look for something where I could go home but a series of tools that enhance individual lessons.
Paperweights? (Score:2)
I'm related to a couple elementary school teachers and there are some universal problem with i-devices:
They come out of fed-grant or state-grant or capital budget to get the physical boxes. If you're extremely lucky you Might get grant / capital funds to buy tough cases and/or charging cradles. The kids will eventually destroy the charging cables by shoving them in upside down. Spend the money now, or later, your choice. The political types get more "points" by a press release that you have purchased 10
Great for distance learning ... mostly (Score:5, Informative)
I can only speak for myself, but I am enrolled on a distance-learning taught masters degree, which is taught solely over the Internet, and, on the whole, it has been a great experience.
Without physical classes, I've been able to study whenever I have wanted - the term has a structure, with deadlines to be met, but, around those, I can work during times which suit me. Lectures are delivered in the form of podcasts, in 30 minute slots. These I tend to listen to when I am driving or ironing - sufficient to get the gist of the topic. I avoid taking notes, since I just want to soak up what is being said.
The text book is delivered as a Word document, but quickly and easily converted to .pdf; other reading comes in whatever form in which it was originally provided (could be a link to a web page, or a .pdf download and so on) - again, all easily converted to pdf. These I read on my iPad (in iAnnotate) and mark them up accordingly; all synchronised back to my computers, to become searchable when it comes to thinking, and writing essays.
Essays are written - unsurprisingly - on a computer, and are submitted electronically; I tend to use .pdf, but I am not sure what others use. These are all run through TurnItIn software - I'm undecided whether I think that this is a good practice or not, but, since I have no say in the matter (short of quitting the course), I can live with it.
On the whole, a very positive experience indeed - I've studied on trains, planes as well as sitting at home, and have written essays in four different countries. The flexibility is great.
There are some downsides, though - particularly around student camaraderie and discussion. Despite there being some great tools available, I don't feel that we've quite cracked the discussion / debate side of things yet. I've chatted with some of the students around the world via Skype, which has been very interesting, but, having encouraged mailing lists, real-time text chat, and now blog posts / responses and (*shudder*) a Facebook wall, nothing seems to have attracted critical mass which, for me, is a real shame - I value the ability to discuss and debate very highly, and I don't feel we've got this quite right yet.
(It may, of course, be that few of the students actually want to discuss, and the distance-learning nature means that people can studying without feeling a pressure to discuss - if this is the case, the course is probably suiting them very well, and I could indeed see the value of this form of study for those who do not want to be in a classroom environment, or required to make conversation. Personally, I think that discussing and critiquing of ideas amongst peers is very valuable, but I appreciate that others may think differently.)
On the whole, though, it works very well for me - I find it easy to be motivated to study something I enjoy, in an environment which suits me.
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You're an adult, doing the course because you want to. TFA is about kids, most of whom would be rather doing something else.
The Cold, Hard Truth (Score:2)
Well, here is the cold, hard truth: Learning is HARD. Period.
Some kids, for one reason or another, are more interested and motivated in learning than others, but they are a small minority. (Nerds are among them, but that's another story.) Even so, they are mostly only interested in learning a subset of the subjects offered as the general education. Most other kids couldn't care less and are in school only because they have to.
Electronic gadgets are not going to help much. Short of the invention of a kn
As a parent with a kind who got a school laptop: (Score:2)
Amusing how many oppose technology for education (Score:2)
this is slashdot... a good 99.3% of you were geeks as kids and it got you to where you were. chances are you learned complex technology despite the fact most people around you sucked at it (sometimes even teachers) and often tried to distract you or discourage you from these endeavours... willpower kicks ass when you are motivated and technology is a knowledge enablers.
Technology can be helpful but you have to teach the children boundaries and focus them - and this is as much a responsability of the teacher
Elementary School? (Score:2)
No different than computers at work. (Score:2)
People at places I've work think of their work computers like their home computers and spend a lot of time on personal email, surfing net, chatting and other non-work computing. Some places I've worked address this restricting what can be loaded and content monitoring. That helps but people find way to waste time on non-work (and bitch they have to stay late to get work done.)
Then I've been places and gone toe-to-toe with management over all the non-work activity and typically non-work software installed
Fear, Distractions and Instant Gratification (Score:2)
People are simple organisms. They react to immediate threats to their lives, after that they prioritise their next meal, their next dose of "fun" and whatever bodilly functions cause them discomfort.
Now, try to persuade those people to stop doing things they like doing and address some abstract concepts that may, but almost certainly won't, become important to them at some distant point in their futures. That's what education tries to do. it only succeeds because the teacher (for want of a better term) is
Yeah, right (Score:2)
Is E-Learning a Viable Option?
In a word, no.
Maybe such antics... (Score:2)
... wouldn't be a problem is teachers were still allowed to fail students.
Sure, little Johnny can play Skyrim all day - but wait till Mommy and Daddy discover he's flunked the seventh grade....
It works, just not the way you think (Score:2)
Children learn all the time and, for those with inclination, having access to boundless information pays off. They might start from gaming, but will eventually progress to wikipedia and so on. The rest are just hopeless no matter what you do. However, as a teacher you are obviously responsible for giving direction.
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Sounds good.
My wife also works for one of these school systems that recently issued iPads to students and teachers (P.G. County, MD). I was surprised that they actually did a good job of it... they actually budgeted for teacher training and for some course materials to be loaded onto it. The student iPads are locked down, so they can't install games and crap, but her iPad is relatively open (but probably somewhat monitored).
She's much more technically savvy than most teachers, and she's been able to put t
eLearning and the iPad - what I use (Score:2)
(I'm not claiming that the iPad is the only, or even best, tablet for eLearning. But it is the one that I have, having moved to an iPad from a Sony eReader (and a COOL-ER eReader before that), and I've had a good experience of using it for eLearning, hence my comments here.)
iAnnotate PDF: an outstanding application for reading and marking up PDFs. I make a point of converting all my materials to PDF (primarily so that everything opens in one application on my Mac, rather than whatever is assigned to the
feedback (Score:2)
There's a lesson from NLP: There's no failure, only feedback.
If the pupils use the iPads for gaming during class, that is a very strong feedback that the games are more interesting than school.
Maybe that is the root cause, not the technology? If they don't have iPads, they'll go back to playing games on paper, like pretty much every generation of school children since the invention of the pencil.
It is a tool not a solution (Score:2)
Having a chalk board in a rrom does not cause education to take place, but if it is well used it can be helpful to the process.
Giving a kid a computer is only slightly better than giving them a chalk board. If you provide tools and guidence and use the tool well then you have a chance an real learning.
Proven to work in the 60's (Score:2)
Programmed instruction, computer aided instruction and the like were very successful in the 60's and 70's, but most educational environments couldn't afford it.
One of the most successful was the PLATO project sponsored by CDC. Using touch screen technology and programmed instruction, students were able to learn advanced mathematics and other subjects like chemistry in a client-server environment.
Texas Instruments had a "Talking Typewriter" that taught 3- to 6-year-olds how to touch type. (The keys were diff
It depends (Score:2)
Damn Printing Press, Too Many Comic Books (Score:2)
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It's not exactly hard to have some fun with school IT nowadays.
During my niece's graduation year their classroom was upgraded with modern computers. Wanna guess how long it took for them to discover that the classroom's web filter didn't apply to systems with an IP above 255 in the respective subnet?
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Correction: above 200
I really shouldn't be configuring routers while I'm posting on /.
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How come every I.T. manager turns into a fascist?
Its just a reflection of our fascist culture. It shows up well in policies for control of electronic devices; more so than, say, a pool lifeguard or a bartender, but its in there, if it could only break thru its shelf and get out like it does for IT managers.
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Pain avoidance. It's challenging to be constantly faced with self-inflicted problems on the part of the users, and not want to restrict them until they can't do any damage.
(We dealt with this by auditing everything, and all "Delete" buttons actually just hide the entity in question :) )
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Because they can? Absolute power (root / Domain Admin) corrupts absolutely.
On a more sensible note, amateur users cause problems with their computers, and IT aren't given enough resources to deal with that, so they turn into lockdown nazis. Unfortunately, this nullifies the main advantage that a computer has - that it's a tremendous general-purpose tool that can be reconfigured to work in the way that's most efficient and helpful for each user.
The root of the problem is that people don't know enough to get
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For the same reason we're pessimists - professional experience.
Let a group of kids (especially once they've discovered hormones) get their hands on an iPad, and see how often you're re-imaging those machines. Let them get their hands on a laptop, and see how often you're looking for pieces of keys, or epoxying the case back together.
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Agreed on all but the dogs who bark at squirrels. Anyone who has spent time interviewing such dogs about their political ideologies will have discovered the truth of that.
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Dogs that bark at squirrels are fascists!
It starts with barking, but the next thing you know the dogs will have the squirrels in death camps and then you won't look so clever...
Automatic notetaking is nice (Score:2, Interesting)
So yeah, in a properly funded sch
Re:Automatic notetaking is nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, one could make a case that public education started its downward spiral as a result of the Women's Liberation movement. Not blaming, just saying that the system was built on bright capable women working at low wages in a field where their participation was acceptable. When the best and brightest noticed the greener pastures, and the system did not compensate by offering competitive wages and status, well, you see what we got.
Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's the ridiculous redefining of "a middle class standard of living".
I make $16.50 an hour, and my wife stays home with our four children. We're not hurting financially.
We don't own any Apple products, but that's really not a problem.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
How much do you save every month for retirement?
How much do you save every month for your 4 children's college fund?
What would you do if your car was wrecked by someone with no insurance and no ability to pay?
What would you do if you were out of work for 6 months due to an injury?
Being middle class isn't about where you are right now, it's about how secure you are in that position. This is the point most people miss. For the record, studies show you need about $65,000/yr average in America to be secure in your middle class standard of living.
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What would you do if your car was wrecked by someone with no insurance and no ability to pay?
Uninsured/underinsured driver coverage is a standard part of most people's auto insurance, and is very inexpensive - so this is only an issue if you, yourself, are not adequately insured.
I have no issue with your other points, though.
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This is a problem of expectations, not economics.
Nobody needs a new car every 3 years, nobody needs 1/4 acre and nobody needs 4 bedrooms unless you have about 12 children, which no one on LI has.
Adjust your expectations and I suspect you could live well on 65k, even on LI.
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is that a joke?
Huge government investment in education in the 50's and 60's is what gave us the high achievement we experienced at that point in time.
Re:Like teacher, like student (Score:5, Insightful)
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
We seem to have done a pretty good job educating people in the last century or two. In most developed countries, most people are educated to the limits of human capacity.
All the innovative devices may have a role in education, but they should be considered carefully. Education systems are under attack right now. They're being pressured by the neoliberal shitheads to sharply lower costs and by corporations (usually the same guys) that want to make big money selling expensive toys to governments.
Blackboard and textbooks have worked for long, why such a rush to replace them? IMHO, the ability of a country to educate its population depends more in factors outside the school. like:
If a kid wants to learn and has a competent teacher, blackboard and textbook is more than enough.
Re:Like teacher, like student (Score:5, Insightful)
I could not agree more with the importance of the "other factors" you listed. I think they are more important than technology. Technology is simply a tool - and like any tool it can be used well or abused. Consider the work of Salman Kahn of Kahn Academy. He started tutoring his cousins in math. Because he was doing this long distance, he started making you-tube videos. He reports that his cousins preferred the videos to "live sessions" because they could pause them and fit them into their own schedule. His work has grown into Kahn Academy that many schools are using effectively. At a higher level, I would point to the on-line machine Leaning class by Prof. Andrew Ng of Stanford. This uses technology very effectively but requires a self-directed and self-disciplined student. These same tools are abused by those who make poor choices.
At the elementary and secondary level, I view education like a three leg stool - where the parents, teachers, and administration are the three legs supporting the student (the seat.) If any part fails to perform, the whole system suffers. Parents must value education and require respectful, disciplined behavior from their children at all times; teachers must use all the tools at their disposal to create instruction plans that effectively communicate the material to the student. Technology is only one of many tools. The administration must make sure that teachers have the needed tools and help enforce discipline. When rowdy, disrespectful, and non-performing students are kept in the classroom, it ruins the environment for everyone. if the state must educate these problem students, they need to be segregated to a boot-camp like school that deals with their special needs. At some point, you cut your losses. It is a question of return on investment. The ultimate objective is to turn the student into a self-directed, life-long learner who takes responsibility for their own education. We now have unprecedented access to information - more than at any other time in history. Ignorance is the result of a string of bad choices and the individual bears significant responsibility.
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Today in inner-city schools in the US the majority of the students would be moved to a boot-camp like school in your view. That is unrealistic.
Out in the suburbs it is almost as bad with many of the students not being distruptive or violent but just not caring about what is going on. They are going through the motions, pretending to be involved. End result is they are going to go nowhere but their expectation is that they would go nowhere anyway.
We have created a culture that views education as a waste o
Re:Like teacher, like student (Score:4, Insightful)
I worked for a number of years in a K-8 school. My opinion. Computers aren't useless, but for the current state of things, there are plenty of things for which they are not an answer. First of all, the teachers need computers as do the administrators. As a practical matter, teachers are tied to their classrooms for much of the day. They need a networked computer and a printer.
Students? Computers are somewhat of a challenge to kids who do not know their alphabet and can not read. OTOH computers can be very useful in 2nd-4th grade. There are a gazillion little programs (Many of which are MSDOS or Windows 3 based and will not run on "Modern Computer Hardware" without an incredible amount of tinkering) that teach basic stuff like arithmetic, English grammar, some basic science, some history. Allowing students to spend part of their day exploring this stuff at their own pace is probably a good idea.
Older students? With rare exceptions, the only thing computers provide is word processing, spell checking, and a refuge from reality. Nothing wrong with any of that -- within limits.
And for the one student in 10 or 20 with exceptional skills/interest in some specific area -- computers, chemistry, physics, art, literature ... anything but playground skills -- computers can be (but often aren't) a gateway to knowledge. That's especially true I think in schools systems with large class sizes and limited resources. I don't think this is being adequately explored.
But handing everyone an ipad or kindle or whatever and expecting technology to work miracles. That's ludicrous.
Re:Like teacher, like student (Score:4, Interesting)
Popular culture in the 1950s showed very clearly the value of education - you got good grades, got a good job and were successful. In the late 1960s and 1970s the popular culture turned and hasn't turned back. Today the idea of getting good grades in school marks you as a "nerd" and a social outcast. The value of education today is far, far lower than it was 60 years ago and the estimation of that value is purely from popular culture.
It doesn't matter how much is spent on educating children if the children view the entire process as a waste of their time. They want to get out and play video games and chat on the Internet. You might think that textual communication would reinforce good grammer and spelling - but no, modern text communication eschews all grammer and spelling in favor of "new rules". The end result is that if they can string some words together it is good enough.
The other problem is that to a certain extent the children today are right. There are no high paying jobs waiting for them all if they get good grades. They have college to look forward to at either a massively overcrowded state school that is simply interested in processing them in and out or a private school where they (or their parents) will likely never pay off the massive loans. If they are accepted, which isn't a given. The state schools are still tossing out 25-35% of the student body during the first year because they can't function in a college environment. There is no sure guarantee of employment even if you are successful in college.
But the worse tragedy is the students that get suckered into the "knowledge economy" when they are mentally incapable of dealing with high levels of abstraction. You know that somewhere around 40-50% of people really do require something to hold in their hands, right? That for them trying to deal with abstract concepts is the same as most Westerners trying to learn Chinese. We used to have good paying factory jobs and skilled tradesmen. Today there are few factories and the idea of someone trying to learn to be a sheet metal worker, a plumber or an electrician is almost a cruel joke. Schools aren't set up to teach these people, even the US President thinks everyone should go to college and be a "knowledge worker", and where there were programs for leaning to be a skilled tradesman today there is ... nothing.
We have tried to remake society in an image that is a false reflection of where we want to be. Sorry, but people aren't wired that way. We are clearly headed for a major shift. Maybe everything will collapse in 2012 and we won't have to worry about it anymore.
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Frankly, any electronic device given to children will be used for things other than it's intended function.
Give a kid a calculator and time how long it takes them to write "Boobless" on it.
We got given TI-83's for our Higher Maths class (16-17 y/o) and myself and a couple of friends learned to programme for it, got a C for Maths, but got an easy A for Computer Studies.
With something like an iPad, which is designed purely to consume information, children won't learn anything from it unless it's locked down e
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Technology breaks concentration because it offers a variety of distractions in one small, portable package. There is not much else you can do with paper, pencil, and a Maths textbook than study.
Currently in the second year of a distance-learning, Internet-centric, course, I agree entirely about the minimisation of distractions - this is absolutely critical (for me, at least). I don't agree that there's nothing one can do with a paper and pen but study, though - doodling, writing something else, making
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There is not much else you can do with paper, pencil, and a Maths textbook than study.
Seriously? If you think that, then I can only assume that you never went to school...
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