more on Computing technology in our schools

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Metivier-Carreiro, Karen" <karen.metivier-carreiro () nreca coop>
Date: July 3, 2006 11:23:31 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Computing technology in our schools

*\APPLAUSE/*

As a parent that has spent two years assessing/evaluating private and
public school options for my rising-Kindergartener, I strongly agree
with Mr. Fairlie's post, at least for computer technology in lower
grades (K-3).  What I've seen happen are "donations" of computer
software for the classroom, which requires the purchase of "upgraded"
computing platforms for the classroom, which in turn requires
replacement input/output devices, which in turn requires more software
purchases, and then personnel to support the configurations.

But there's no look at how much gain there was from the initial software
"donation" in the first place.

But -- I would counter Mr. Fairlie's post in that there is not an even
distribution of "technology-aware" parents.  Yes, my son and daughter
are blessed (or perhaps it's cursed?) with a mom that bought her first
PC in 1982 (complete with two half-height 5 1/4" floppy drives and later
replaced one of the half-height floppies with a whopping 20MB hard drive
all on her own).  But in our inside-the-Beltway neighborhood in one of
the best school districts in the country, our "computing proficiency" is
very much the anomaly.  Both my daughter (almost 5) and my son (age 2.5
years) use a computer regularly.  My children already knows how to use a
mouse for opening a closing computer programs, dialog boxes, etc.  My
daughter already knows how to "check her email" (and gets frustrated by
the amount of "junk mail" in her inbox).  So she'll have a leg up on her
fellow Kindergarteners in the fall.  But I'm fairly confident that her
peers will catch up quickly thanks to computing technology in the
classroom, even if her peers do not have technology-aware parents and/or
access to a computer at home.

And to share an anecdote:  when I was in college, my physics professor
required us to use a slide rule for our Physics 101 class.  It was quite
easy for me to locate a store that sold scientific calculators at that
time -- but not the case for slide rules!

Karen
==========
Karen A. Metivier-Carreiro
Senior Policy Analyst
Government Relations
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
phone: 703.907.5779
fax: 703.907.5516
email: karen.metivier-carreiro () nreca coop



-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 11:01 AM
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] Computing technology in our schools



Begin forwarded message:

From: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie () frontiernet net>
Date: July 3, 2006 10:28:04 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Computing technology in our schools

Hi Dave,
[Long post, sorry]

There's a very important issue that I'm concerned about and I'm hoping
that perhaps you or some of the IP'ers can weigh in with their opinion.

The problem I have is with the use of computer technology in primary and
secondary schools. First, though, is what I love about it: teachers can
now post grades online and reply to questions via email. These two
developments make a parent's job much easier in many ways.

However, I take issue with the fact that computer technology seems to
have been sold to school districts with the promise that it would either
revolutionize teaching or at least help today's student to avoid missing
out on a good career. The problem, as far as I can see, is that the
computerization of our nation's schools has instead crippled them.

First of all, the quality of the teachers themselves does not appear to
have increased at all over the past 20 years. In fact, I have seen many
useful teaching methods (e.g., diagramming
sentences) dumped over this same period because they were deemed
"inappropriate" in some way (too hard?). Few teachers are savvy
technologists and most have little understanding of what computers can
do in the first place, let alone leverage them effectively in the
classroom. At best, the quality of teachers is a wash.

Next, we have the increased reliance on computers. For example, my
daughter's high school actually *required* that every parent purchase a
$100+ graphing calculator. I hate to sound like a fuddy duddy, but I
checked out her assignments regularly and never once saw any hint of
linear analysis or anything that would even remotely require such
horsepower. Classrooms that use computers regularly -- most likely
7-12th grade --put little emphasis on writing, printing, drawing, or any
other manual skill. Composition is still being stressed, but most
computers now catch spelling and grammatical mistakes so effortlessly,
that the lesson is mostly lost on the student.

Anecdote: When I was in college, my Composition 101 teacher required us
to type out our papers on mimeograph paper and he wouldn't accept any
errors whatsoever. That meant many long nights with a razor blade,
scraping the ink off of the stencil. In retrospect, a very good way to
be a careful speller and typist.

Anyhow, the last problem I have is with the cost. While class sizes go
up and up (a friend of mine had her daughter in a kindergarten class
that was just shy of 30 kids), the schools make more and more budget
room for their IT department.
School districts are cutting art and music classes everywhere, while
they dedicate funds toward CPU upgrades and network support staff.

I am an engineer by trade and the computerization of schools seemed, to
me, like a no-brainer 20 years ago. I also used to agree that teaching
basic computer skills is a career-enabler.
However, the more I think about this the more I believe that we, as a
country, have fallen into a typical capitalist trap-- i.e., that we've
taken the advice of the IT industry (who is selling a product) rather
than our teachers.

I know there's a lot of anecdotes out there about how savvy the current
generation of kids is about technology. However, I believe that this is
almost entirely a function of their personal life (home PC, cell phone,
etc.) rather than their education.
I can safely say that the engineering graduates I've worked with since
the 1980s to the present aren't getting any brighter.
Recent graduates that I've talked to in other fields (business, liberal
arts) seem to confirm this; they didn't care much about the technical
side of their education and learned most of what they need on their own
by using email, building websites, installing Linux on the family's old
PC, etc.

In the end, I think that we, as a nation, have been sold a bill of goods
by the PC and networking industries. Our school districts have probably
spent over a billion dollars upgrading their institutions with computing
technology that is probably 10-100x more than what they need, and
probably half as useful as what they want. Now, taxpayers are starting
to vote down important referenda that might reduce class size or pay
teachers more because they can't afford to. Very sad, when you consider
the money that *could* have been applied here if they didn't instead
need more PCs just to email around notes for our kids' Friday take-home
folders.

Please, I'd love to hear others' thoughts.

Tom Fairlie

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