The Ready, Fire, Aim Approach To Laptops In Schools
from the try-that-again dept
Over the years, we've heard a number of mixed results from various attempts to give students laptops in the classroom. However, one thing seems pretty clear: if you give all the students laptops, but don't have teachers who are trained how to make use of them, the program is likely to fail. That seems to explain the problems one district faced, after many students barely used the laptops at all. It wasn't that the idea of laptops in schools was bad, but that there simply were few teachers who had any idea what they were supposed to be doing with them. This scenario has been repeated in many different schools, and it's still surprising that no one seems to think about the fact that maybe they ought to help teachers understand why laptops are useful before dumping a bunch of them on students.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Wow...
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Re:
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Technology is a tool that can fail is not used properly. My old math teacher would have learned to use Mathematica if fancy graphs if it meant more kids would learn, and he even eventually learned to use graphing calculators and implemented them into his curriculum. But just to give him technology without training and then claiming technology failed does not make sense.
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Good point...
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Teachers
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Re: Teachers
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Have IQ's dropped around here?
Reading! Writing! Math!
Master the BOOK, the Pen and the BRAIN first!
Then you'll be better prepared for the next set of tools.
They are portable, random access memory, people powered, good for the environment if recycled paper is used. Accessible from any public library by the thousands.
Really inexpensive.
-DML337ira
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Math
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Re: Math
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Technology will get you a career.
It's time we updated our educational priorities to recognize it's not just the 3 Rs anymore. We need to start with the teachers.
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Re:
No I do believe that we should teach students how to think and reason. Stop teaching them that the easier softer way is best as long as you get to the desired end. But what would I know ... I never graduated from anything since elementary school
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Re: R R R
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The school gave them admin rights since they didn't want students installing their own copy of pirate XP to give themselves admin rights.
After that, he was on AIM all the time, doing anything but studying. Thats one reason I dont want a laptop for my college classes
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Bottom Line
On the other side, those places that actually trained their teachers and administrators in the authentic use of technology to advance and accelerate learning ought to be applauded and given all of the extra technology from the places that don't know how to use it.
A good teacher can teach the binary system to any student by just drawing in the dirt. No laptop needed. Still, think how far that same teacher could go if equipped with advanced technology. A simple lesson in the binary system could quickly and easily be extended to octal and hexidecimal notation - still the basis of current computer technology.
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i must say...
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the bugs
and it works great other then they need to improve on wi-fi strength and area of coverage. i love having little or all most no paper. it makes life os much eaiser and faster.. but i am worried because if we build out education system around technology to much it could lead in the long run to people not writhing all together because every thing is on computers . So how far do we go with this tool?
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Re: the bugs
spelling
it makes SO much easier
build OUR eduction
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Tech is not the answer
The overreliance on computers, wifi and the internet to have an answer to everything has quickly resulted in a high tech learning resulting in low quality learning and teaching. Honestly, how many teachers have even mastered how to give powerpoint presentations where a student can actually learn when in fact they are just being bombarded with information at a pace that very very few people can withstand? Teachers are slowly coming to understand that more information does not mean better, but how the information is sorted can lead to better assimilation of the points made.
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Has anyone ever demonstrated benefit?
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Re: Has anyone ever demonstrated benefit?
Of course (in school) most problems are primarily worked out on paper and a computer is used to solve or check what we've done. I understand that this issue is primarilly about high schools, but the same logic can be applied if the laptops are used to teach networking, programing, or to extend math and science problems beyond what is reasonably possible witout a computer, then it makes sense. Throwing computers at kids only so they can take notes is simply foolish.
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Re: Has anyone ever demonstrated benefit?
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"Distraction" or "Spinning your wheels"
Even if it does distract them-- they'll fail and get to do it again next year until they learn self-control and how to prioritzie.
I, personally, feel we should stop giving them computers and start giving them fountain pens. :-/
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Re: "Distraction" or "Spinning your wheels"
A large part of the problem seems to be that students no longer have any reason to learn anything. It used to be that good grades got them positive reinforcement - in school and at home (because even in high school, most kids aren't real worried about the workplace yet) - and bad grades got negative results from teachers AND PARENTS. But many parents nowadays, if they even pay attention to their kids, want to be friends instead of parents (you know, be the "cool" mom that you always wished you had but never considered what you would turn out like if you did have her), and when that doesn't work, they'll blame anything but their child to avoid looking like they're not parenting.
Wow, that was a long sentence.
Anyway, back on topic: Until students have a reason to buckle down and actually do work on a laptop, they'll use it for other things. And unfortunately, although teachers are the ones who know best if their classes will properly use the technology, they aren't the ones who sign the purchase orders.
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Re:
But even back when I was in high school, the curriculum and teaching styles gave me the distinct impression that Americans are bad people with an inferior culture and that I should be sorry to everyone for having been born here. "Mindlessly patriotic", indeed.
Or perhaps that depends entirely on where you went to school?
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My school too
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My school too
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non-school use
Good luck locking them down, since the computers would have to be set to only boot from the HDD, and have some specialised program to allow access to the network, just to stop someone booting up under Linux, installing WINE, and enjoying themselves.
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Privacy Concerns
Vote NO on that next education bond referendum!
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