RantRantRant
Dec. 6th, 2003 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primroseburrows[rant] Weekend Edition this morning has a story on a program which would give a laptop to every sixth-grade student in Michigan public schools. There's a part of a story that mentions how one teacher doesn't write her lessons on the board, she types them on her Palm Pilot and then beams them to several students who are also holding Palm Pilots, who in turn share the lessons with others.
I'm not denying that computers in the classroom can be a powerful teaching tool if used properly. I also think they can be abused, becoming a crutch for teachers who either don't know how or simply don't want to teach their classes--plug in a program, sit back, relax.
However, that's not my complaint about this Palm Pilot thing. I wonder, if classes like this one become the norm, if students will lose out. Not by lower test scores; studies seem to show that computers enhance test scored in many cases. No, these kids could suffer by actually losing the ability to write. If all you have to do is type on a keyboard or point with a stylus, where's the need to use a pen or pencil? I think it takes away from the teacher-student relationship, as well. With this kind of learning, everybody could stay at home and do their lessons online. It's the high-tech equivalent of phoning it in.
It seems that the laptop for every child program is suffering from lack of funding in Michigan, causing much woe and angst among the populace. Here's a solution; why not take some of this money, and instead of buying all this technology, use it for field trips to a marshland or a forest? Who needs a computer program about how an ecosystem works when you've got your hands wrist-deep in one?
Why not take a tour of the State House, whatever state you live in? In-your=face learning about our political system in action, right? How about a trip to Washington, DC when Congress/the Supreme Court is in session? How about performing/watching Shakespeare instead of just reading it? Want to learn about poverty for Social Studies? Take the kids and work in a soup kitchen. Math? Real Textbooks. Remember them? US History? Hmm. Museums are all over the place. How about learning to bake bread? What about, if instead of staring at a monitor most of the day, the students learn to build a computer? To teach the importance of books, maybe the kids could make one of their own? (My older son actually did this in second grade; it was v. cool).
Computers are wonderful things. They've enhanced life in countless, wonderful ways. They've helped in innovation, creativity, art, science, medicine forensics. They can be aids to kids who can't use pen and paper. But. They also have downsides, one of the biggest being the atrophy of skills that have been basic to humans for thousands of years, like putting pen to paper, or interrelating with others. It just ain't right, IMO. [/rant]
Bleh. Now I have to do Much Driving in the Snow. See y'all at midnight or so.
I'm not denying that computers in the classroom can be a powerful teaching tool if used properly. I also think they can be abused, becoming a crutch for teachers who either don't know how or simply don't want to teach their classes--plug in a program, sit back, relax.
However, that's not my complaint about this Palm Pilot thing. I wonder, if classes like this one become the norm, if students will lose out. Not by lower test scores; studies seem to show that computers enhance test scored in many cases. No, these kids could suffer by actually losing the ability to write. If all you have to do is type on a keyboard or point with a stylus, where's the need to use a pen or pencil? I think it takes away from the teacher-student relationship, as well. With this kind of learning, everybody could stay at home and do their lessons online. It's the high-tech equivalent of phoning it in.
It seems that the laptop for every child program is suffering from lack of funding in Michigan, causing much woe and angst among the populace. Here's a solution; why not take some of this money, and instead of buying all this technology, use it for field trips to a marshland or a forest? Who needs a computer program about how an ecosystem works when you've got your hands wrist-deep in one?
Why not take a tour of the State House, whatever state you live in? In-your=face learning about our political system in action, right? How about a trip to Washington, DC when Congress/the Supreme Court is in session? How about performing/watching Shakespeare instead of just reading it? Want to learn about poverty for Social Studies? Take the kids and work in a soup kitchen. Math? Real Textbooks. Remember them? US History? Hmm. Museums are all over the place. How about learning to bake bread? What about, if instead of staring at a monitor most of the day, the students learn to build a computer? To teach the importance of books, maybe the kids could make one of their own? (My older son actually did this in second grade; it was v. cool).
Computers are wonderful things. They've enhanced life in countless, wonderful ways. They've helped in innovation, creativity, art, science, medicine forensics. They can be aids to kids who can't use pen and paper. But. They also have downsides, one of the biggest being the atrophy of skills that have been basic to humans for thousands of years, like putting pen to paper, or interrelating with others. It just ain't right, IMO. [/rant]
Bleh. Now I have to do Much Driving in the Snow. See y'all at midnight or so.
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Date: 2003-12-06 12:57 pm (UTC)The only good thing that came out of my school losing 200,000 dollars yesterday was that we can hardly afford to go to school five days a week, much less give 60 or 70 kids Palm Pilots.