DailyDirt: Teachers, Pay Attention

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Great teachers aren't exactly a plentiful resource, but the market for teachers hasn't quite minted many millionaires from the scarcity. But maybe that will change soon. There are a bunch of projects that are aiming to create innovative educational tools, and some of these efforts could be hugely profitable in the future. Perhaps those who can, will teach. By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.
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Filed Under: education, edutainment, essays, games, peter diamandis, teaching, x prize
Companies: hewlett foundation, kaggle


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 May 2012 @ 5:27pm

    Actually, these three developments all appear to involve non-teachers working on educational products. Which may (or may not) produce great results, but is unlikely to better reward "great teachers" -- whatever their scarcity.
    A really high-quality automated essay-grading application, for example, would be very useful. But it's main economic effect would be to compete with the $10/hour grading-mills you find in Midwestern university towns.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    fb39ca4, 3 May 2012 @ 7:06pm

    Next up: The Hewlett foundation announces a contest to create an automatic judging system for their previous contest.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Brendy, 3 May 2012 @ 7:39pm

    Good teachers are EXTREMELY rare

    I probably had one or two truly good teachers in 16 years of schooling. It seemed that the harder the course material got, the worse the teachers were. Some of my best teachers where in my AP classes during high school.

    I went to UCI for college and got a degree in Computer Science. I could never quite pay attention in class at UCI because the teachers moved at a slow pace and resorted to just reading slides. Also, they never cared about any of the undergraduate students and considered us more of a nuisance to them because they were required to lecture undergrads in between their research work. Even worse, more than 60% of the teachers I had in computer science seemed to have English as a second language, which made learning extremely complicated material very difficult. I spent most of my time just learning the material from Google or reading the slides themselves. Class was a waste of time.

    It's truly a pity that at such a reputable school for Computer Science we were given teachers that couldn't teach for shit. We mostly had to deal with the teacher's assistants rather than getting answers from the teacher's themselves. Seriously, there needs to be some sort grading for how well teachers teach, and for god's sake, can we get some teachers that can actually speak English? Also, their primary goal should be teaching students so we can actually learn something rather than tossing us aside in lieu of their research.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Txknight (profile), 3 May 2012 @ 9:00pm

    they gonna make one called "Washing your Wii"?? or "The big adventure out of the basement"??

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    CJ (profile), 3 May 2012 @ 9:27pm

    lets teach!

    Half of the 505 K-8 teachers surveyed said they use digital games with their students two or more days a week, and 18 percent use them daily.

    Nearly 70 percent said that “lower-performing students engage more with subject content with use of digital games.”
    Three-fifths reported “increased attention to specific tasks and improved collaborations among all students.”
    Sixty percent said using digital games “helps personalize instruction and better assess student knowledge and learning.”
    Though most use Apple or PC computers, 25 percent said their students use iPads or tablet computers, and less than 10 percent use other mobile devices or video game consoles.
    62% said games make it easier to level lessons and effectively teach the range of learners in their class.

    So judging by the survey games are what teachers will be seeking for students. They will have to work on several platforms, and be for all ages/grades

    From what I have seen many games produced and available tend to favor children in the lower grades. Generally locked down game pilot programs for the older ones.

    I want to see better tools for teachers and students, and games for middle and high school. Less talk is what we need for now, many claim to be making this stuff so where is it?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rekrul, 3 May 2012 @ 11:32pm

    Edutainment could be the way to get more students engaged in learning... as long as the games are actually fun.

    Back in the 90s, I was helping out my neighbors with their computer and their young son put in a request for the game The Oregon Trail. He told his mother about how they played it in school and how it was educational. I got them a copy of it, took it over, installed it, and the son started showing his mother how it worked. Within a minute or two of starting the game, he was on the hunting screen shooting at animals. The entire time I was there, that's all he did with the game, shoot at the animals.

    Yup, educational...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      CJ (profile), 4 May 2012 @ 1:38pm

      Re:

      Wow so the only thing educational about the game was the fact he learned that animals are fair game if you have a gun.

      wonderful. :/

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Rekrul, 4 May 2012 @ 5:48pm

        Re: Re:

        More like the only part of the game he truly enjoyed playing was the shooting gallery mini-game, which is (as far as I know) the only part of the game that was like a traditional video game

        The game is supposed to teach things like planning and resource management, but he was only interested in the part that required mostly mindless clicking.

        Don't get me wrong, I loved fast action video games too, but the point is that the game wasn't hooking the kids like the designers intended. Sure, some probably liked it, but many just saw it as computerized schoolwork.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Claude, 5 May 2012 @ 3:20pm

    Teachers, Pay Attention

    Teachers are less educated than their students, why not teach students to teach pick subjects early i.e. as soon as you start and see the developments in all fields.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      CJ (profile), 5 May 2012 @ 3:51pm

      Re: Teachers, Pay Attention

      Sort of like how in the old days parents taught their children their trade? If so that may work, but at what age? You could start a program to get parents to start teaching their children young, and then when they reach a certain age they decide. But I am not sure how this will work in this day and age because of labor laws etc. But in the classroom that would be too much because of the number of fields. Now they say to teach a child according to STEM Science Technology Engineering and Math. Teach the students this, and they will fit into any type of trade you throw at them. I am not sure how well this is going because of the downsizing going on.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    blackops2 (profile), 7 May 2012 @ 8:32pm

    the future of teachers

    i like this little tid bit. the school district i work in pays starting teachers 27,000/year. yet, we require teachers to have a bachelors degree (conservatively $50,000/4 years), have special certificates, and have student teaching experience.

    why? we rag on our teachers, but we aren't exactly making it easy for the most highly capable to enter the profession. I remember when the valedictorian of my class decided to go to school for elementary education. everyone was up in arms. why would this smart person use their intelligence for such a painfully low salary? sad, but true.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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