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Computers in the classroom

ziggy on 2003-11-12T17:13:22

Do computers belong in the classroom? Should each child receive an iBook or a ThinkPad to "enhance" their studies?

News.com is running a series on computers and education. The first part deals with Universities and corporate sponsorship. The second part deals with computers in public schools. The third part deals with the results of tax breaks and incentives for technology donations.

Heavy use of computers in public schools is a highly contested issue, ever-so-wittily summarized in the conclusion of part two:

Education initiatives in many cases simply mean making school kids beta testers for Microsoft.

A good read.

grantm on 2003-11-12T18:01:12

Do computers belong in the classroom?

To anyone interested in this issue, I heartily recommend Clifford Stoll's High Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian. It explores some of the assumptions behind 'Computer Literacy' programs and is written in a very readable style (if a bit repetitive).

Mitigating lifetimes of RSA

TorgoX on 2003-11-12T23:21:58

Do computers belong in the classroom?

Only with Dvorak keyboards!

Yes and No

pudge on 2003-11-26T21:12:22

Sure, have computers in the classroom, but don't use them heavily. It's not that computers stink. It is that relying on them too much can hurt your ability to learn, and more importantly, they cost a lot more than mosre useful things.

For the price of an $800 computer for 25 students, you can get an enormous amount of textbooks for each child and give the teacher a damned big raise.

I was the acting chairman of my town's finance committee a few years ago, and the school put in for a capital expenditure: $125K for a mobile computer lab. The reasoning wasn't too bad: it had to be mobile because they didn't have an extra room to put the computers. They "needed" new computers because the old ones stunk.

But the library down the road has a lot of computers, and room for more, and it would be a lot cheaper and better for everyone in the town to spend half the money on computers for the library, and the other half on school books or teacher bonuses or somesuch. Or just not spend the extra money, and save it, as we all knew at the time that the economy was going downhill and we would need to dip into our town savings soon.

Either way, the kids who don't have computers at home can use the ones in the library just fine. They don't need to use computers during the day, they just need to use them occasionally so they are familiar, and have access to them if desired. Heck, having them in the library is better, because then you can use them whenever you want to. You don't have time to learn computers on your own when you're in a classroom learning how to use Office like a good little citizen.

But then an old man gets up at town meeting and says, "I don't know anything about computers, except this: they are the way everything is done these days, and our kids need to learn computers. Think of the children!" The measure passed quite easily.

It might be interesting to note that the only two town officials who voted against the expense were the only two computer professionals: me, and a C++ author/trainer.

Re:Yes and No

ziggy on 2003-11-26T21:29:51

I'm torn with the use the computers at the library solution.

On the one hand, it gets kids into the library. On the other hand, library computers are much less managed and much less integrated into the curriculum than computers in a lab would be.

The true problem is an overreliance on computers in the classroom (and overspending to create an inferior learning environment). I remember when going into a computer lab meant learning how to program in BASIC or Pascal, and that time was quite structured. Today, it's surely less structured and focuses more on using Office, Google, QWERTY keyboards and ReaderRabbit.

Somehow, I think schools can do a better job with one or two labs than relying on the lab at the library if the goal is to integrate computer literacy into the curriculum.

Re:Yes and No

pudge on 2003-11-26T22:28:22

These computers are as well-managed as the school ones would be, and if the teachers want to, they can integrate them into the curriculum. I don't really care about integrating computers into the curriculum, but if they want to, that's what web sites are for. Make a web page and anyone can access it from anywhere and get what they need.

Re:Yes and No

ziggy on 2003-11-26T22:41:39

I think we're in violent agreement here. ;-)

Bringing computers into the classroom offers the potential for curriculum integration and enhancement (with the most workable solution involving a computer lab, not an eMac on every desk). Shuffling everyone to the library doesn't really help matters much, since that integration is much more difficult if not impossible to achieve.