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  mhh5, 19 Dec 2000 @ 5:19pm

  
  

  stupid conclusions...

  I think the use of the internet in classrooms is far over-rated. It's the quality of the teachers -regardless of whether or not they use the web- that matters. Not many of my college classes "made" us use the internet and I think I turned out fine. (Mike may argue how I turned out, and he often wonders when/if I started using the web... but we went to the same school.) As was pointed out in our censorship debate earlier, critical thinking needs to be taught first before you can throw kids at vast quantities of information....

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    u2604ab, 19 Dec 2000 @ 6:16pm

    
    

    Re: stupid conclusions...

    For people who grow up with a computer in the home, computers in school may be moot; It's far better to teach, as mhh5 alludes, critical thinking skills. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a computer in the home, though, and without universal access to computers in schools, an unlucky citizen could have a large learning curve to struggle up later in life.
    
    Computers need have little role in teaching; Computers and by extension the internet belong in schools so that every child has access & exposure to one, like every child should have access to school lunch regardless of whether her parents can afford it.

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    Ryan, 20 Dec 2000 @ 6:28am

    
    

    Re: stupid conclusions...

    before you can throw kids at vast quantities of information...
    

    I can just imagine someone tossing kids at a huge pile of paper.

    Mike also makes a good point that teachers need to be familiar with the technology too. I've read a couple articles about how there are quite a few teachers who are simply giving up on computers because they break and the teachers are responsible for fixing them, or there is only one part time tech person for a whole school. Many education students I know know enough about a computer to turn it on, type a paper, surf the net, then turn it off properly. Get them to try and fix it after a kid has been playing around on it? Good luck. I don't have a solution, unfortunately, but I do know that something should be done so that schools are paying for a $1500 paperweight on the teacher's desk.

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  Scrooge, 20 Dec 2000 @ 3:11am

  
  

  Rubbish

  More nonsensical Internet boosterism.

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