Laptops Considered "Educationally Empty"
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According to a recent New York Times article some schools around the US are abandoning a notebook per student requirement. They claim that they do more harm than good. Liverpool High, NY, is one of the schools beginning to phase out laptop requirements. School board president Mark Lawson believes that “After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none.”
School officials felt that laptops had been abused by students, did not fit into lesson plans, and showed little, if any, measurable effect on grades and test scores at a time of increased pressure to meet state standards.
Everett A. Rea Elementary School in Costa Mesa, Calif found that more effort was being expended on repairing the laptops than on training teachers to teach with them.
Obviously all of these examples are of laptop use in k-12 education where it is truly debatable whether any good could come of a student having a laptop. This abandoning of projects that were once considered quick fixes to support the upcoming tech savvy era of students
The NYT article sums up the effect well, “Such disappointments are the latest example of how technology is often embraced by philanthropists and political leaders as a quick fix, only to leave teachers flummoxed about how best to integrate the new gadgets into curriculums.” This effect can be seen every day, the South Australian Department of Education has just spent a considerable sum installing digital whiteboards into schools around the state while teachers (I know because I am tutoring one) have trouble adapting their curriculum to include the new technology.
Please leave your opinion in the comments, I’m interested in hearing what people think about laptops and even tablets in highschools.
No related posts.
This doesn’t mean that there is no place in the world for tablet pcs in fact, I’m sure that they would have been a much more useful tool in the classroom than standard laptops however even if we gave every a tablet, the majority of teachers would never utilize them to a fraction of their abilities.
Laptops and tablets are much more useful to university students and businesses who have a constant requirements of a computer.
May 7th, 2007 at 5:05 amIf I get hold of using a tablet pc in my high school, I will definitely find a thousand way to do something fun instead of studying. Remember using your TI86 or 89 to help your calculus course? All the students all own them find some miracical way to play Mario! Just imagine what you can do with the tablet pc
May 7th, 2007 at 5:45 amRestraint, restraint, restraint!
Simply have two user accounts on your laptop/tablet named ‘work’ and ‘play’ and set times when both can be used (eg, ‘work’ for the first 8 hours of the day).
May 7th, 2007 at 7:45 amI wonder how much support the computers were given. Did administrators simply give out laptops and expect teachers to come up with their own way to incorporate them into lessons or did teachers and administrators genuinely attempt to make laptops work?
As for what Willy says, there are plenty of ways to check to see if one is not playing games while in class or even while at school. However, I do believe Willy hit upon a major issue. Are the students mature enough to be able to effectively use a computer for the purpose of learning?
I believe that with the proper oversight and with a curriculum designed from the beginning to incorporate computers that schools could and would see improvements. Simply giving a kid a laptop will not magically make them better students, however.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:46 amSeriously even as a college student I have found I pay less attention when I take notes on my tablet pc then when I do on paper. I first thought it was maybe cause I played to much with onenote or gobinder. But I still found that even with Journal I still didn’t find much of an improvement on my studying or grade for the matter. Though I love my Toshiba M4 dearly and boy would I love to be productive with OneNote, but I find paper and pen works best. Maybe instead of tech revolution at schools we should be moving back to paper.
May 7th, 2007 at 10:19 amFor K-12 students, I am not so sure myself how useful a laptop and/or tablet would be; however, I think it is a self-evident that it is useful for university students if I simply look to how much I use my tablet at work.
Before we start saying every university student must have a laptop/table though, I think we should consider teaching some best practices on using a tablet/laptop.
A big step for me in university was reading a book on “how to learn” and “how to study”. This changed how I went about my daily activities and really increased my GPA. Simple changes to my habits made a HUGE difference.
Students need a course on “best practices” on using a tablet at university.
On reading some of Tracy’s articles on this webstie, I recommend her
May 7th, 2007 at 10:32 amMy High School was moving toward a larger technology program my senior year and as an honors student I was part of the group which helped teachers evaluate if that was something they wanted to incorporate. Most teachers determined that the old way was fine, but in the sciences in particular laptops were wanted (and subsequently purchased) to provide students more face time with programs that have a learning curve to them, such as excel. By the time I got to college our professors basically have the attitude that ‘if you don’t know it learn it fast’, and many employers have this attitude as well so I’m very glad that high school taught me the basics.. it has saved me headaches that I see non computer users run into all of the time.
As far as using the tablet at school versus paper.. I think this has a lot to do with personal discipline. No matter what, if you aren’t trying to learn, you aren’t going to succeed. Certainly the tablet opens up ways of goofing off, but if you are that type of student you will also play games on a cell phone or doodle all hour or play a game of dots with the kid next to you. For instance today there was some confusion in one of my classes about what order presentations were going in (mixed undergrad/graduate level). One girl said “Well I hope its not me because I left all of my stuff at home since I thought that I’m going on Wednesday and I wouldn’t need anything for class.” I would never have to make a statement like this because in 2.2lbs I have everything I need all the time so I simply carry it all the time, I don’t have to pick and choose my study aids.
In another class my closer acquaintances have come to realize that if they can’t remember a tidbit from a few weeks ago it is much easier to ask me (at which point I run a query in OneNote) than search through the four or five pages of handwritten notes that we routinely create per lecture. I also have realized another thing. If you find yourself struggling with the notes and not taking good notes try this: take notes for someone else. What I mean by that is that in one of my classes I was taking notes for a girl who had broken her primary arm early in the semester. I found that because I didn’t want her to be confused or lost in reading my notes I improved my handwriting and made notes more complete and overall just flow better, incorporating more of what was said than just what was written on the board. When she got her cast off and took notes for herself again my notes reverted and my comprehension (and grade) dropped. Once I realized the difference, which was spending the 10 minutes after class reading the notes and cleaning them up (something which is not simple to do with paper notes BTW). I started doing it in all of my classes and now things are going smoothly.
May 7th, 2007 at 1:25 pmI used a laptop my senior year of high school, it helped me,but i could see how it would be a distraction for others.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:11 pm“The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the Web for others to follow (which they did).”
I don’t understand the problem. These guys are clearly learning all sorts of things about computer network security. They could work at Unisys and make big bucks. Or they could build their own social network and sell it for a billion dollars. And whoever wrote those instructions has potential as a technical writer. The administration sees emptiness; I see marketable skills.
Reminds me of a kid I used to tutor. He would sync different video clips to music on his laptop. Some of his work was really good. Very well edited. I couldn’t help but think that he could charge more to teach his video editing skills than what his parents were paying for Algebra tutoring. Seemed almost a shame to divert his time away from what could grow into a career in video editing and production.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:43 pm1) An optional “How to study in college” course would be a great addition to any university
2) Computers in the classroom are simply ways for people to pinpoint distraction, not the source of distraction. The amount of day-dreaming/doodling/dozing a student is doing is hard to judge at first glance, but seeing students surfing facebook during class is a dead giveaway. I zone off just as much when I take notes with paper, except I’m just staring into space instead of my mailbox.
3) There are computers in the work place. That should be a good enough argument on that one, but we all know schools are drifting away from preparing kids for “real life” and instead preparing for “school life.” They want kids to succeed in school but they’re on their own in their career.
4) Sumocat has a good point.
5) I really don’t think individual laptops are the solution for k-12, but individual classes at that level are ideal cadidates, like science classes, language classes, programming, etc.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:35 pmcomputers for highschool kids? definitely. Laptops? not so much. Apart from issues with battery life and just destroying them inside school bags, kids can get mugged. I wish I had a laptop/tabletpc during my undergrad studies tho - maybe they just gave kids laptops without any tools/software that would help with their school work? Any normal person knows that won’t help.
May 8th, 2007 at 7:14 amActually the biggest issue I see is that most teachers aren’t of the age where they can see they intangible benefits of using tech.
While the term “millennials” is being bantered around a lot its got some merit, in the US especially. I’m currently a grad student but as with all grad programs its not always “traditional” students in the program. Its quite frankly quite amazing the ranges of technological savy with those who graduate HS in 2000 or later having an slight advantage.
But this advantage has nothing to do with school as much as the exposure overall. The internet didn’t boom for your joe blow consumer till about 1996. Thus most people, including kids, have had an “equal” exposure to this technology but since most teachers and especially administrators have had only a fraction of the life ratio experience that kids have they don’t see that things like power point one note etc offer alot more than pen and paper.
But if they think laptops are too much then they could always go to UMPCs
May 8th, 2007 at 7:49 amMaturity, folks. How can anyone possibly assume that your average Sophmore is mature enough to treat PUBLIC laptops with care? Hence, their relatively short life span. More importantly, how can anyone assume that these kids will use them properly?
In my high school library, half the time people are surfing you tube or playing games on the computers…and they’re desktops. They get kicked off if someone needs to use the computers for work.
Laptops? Every one of them? To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t even trust your average Junior or Senior to be productive with such technological freedom.
Tablet pc’s in high school? Maybe. Certainly better than laptops…
But the point is, the maturity for your average student doesn’t really kick in till they get bashed over by their profs in their first round of midterms.
It’s not the fault of technology.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:50 pmMy counselor once told me a monthly expense of a student in my high school was about $18. My school was not the best but certainly not the worst. So how could school afford each student a tablet pc or a notebook?
May 8th, 2007 at 5:02 pmThey can’t they usually get grants from the government to get computers and equipment. But mostly the schools that have the one computer per student are private where Mommy and Daddy can afford expensive tuition like at one of the private school in our area Preschool is 10k per year. And I doubt the 4 year olds are really using all that money. Just my two cents.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:44 pmHowever,regarding using tablet pc in my college, I find myself much organized. For example, in my industrial economics, I can easily email my works from my tablet pc to my professor. When I prepare for my finals, I know exactly where my notes and study materials are thx to onenote and journal. Best of all my industrial engineering department adopt tablet pc technology where most faculties use tablet pc in class and post handwritten on the internet. See tablet pc is perfect for unviversity, not. Unfortunately, I don’t see the point of high school offering tablet pc. Michelle is right. Only the private school could offer something like that. But recently I just taught my brother and two of my cousins how to use a tablet pc in their high school. I hope they can test their tablet pc during their summer school
May 9th, 2007 at 6:19 am[...] New York Times article linked to by Techdirt was also cited on The Student Tablet PC and Engadget. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can [...]
May 9th, 2007 at 7:00 amYou’re right about the private school thing.
What I meant was public schools that buy these computers to lend to students. For example, the highschool up on the mountain above mine is a new school that was built with technology in mind. They have a huge laptop program.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:16 pm[...] On the surface, the article looks like a gloomy take on one-to-one computing, but I think a closer examination shows the avoidable (with significant work) pitfalls anyone with or planning for a one-to-one computing program needs to carefully consider [...]
May 11th, 2007 at 12:28 amit would be interesting to know if/how the school helped students and teachers learn how/when/where educational technology can help them with teaching and learning. the way it sounds, the school handed out the machines and expected it to be the silver bullet and all students will be more successful. for example, why didn’t they think about the fact that all students are in study hall and would likely be using the web? so what’s surprising about having slow response and unsatisfactory experiences. i don’t think this is the fault of the laptop — maybe those in charge might have some responsibility here. was there any training/educationing of the students about the rights and responsbilities of having a laptop in the classroom? hardware/software will not solve the problem of teaching and learning — only teachers and students can do this with technology helping make this easier/better. NOT the other way around.
May 13th, 2007 at 8:06 pmiam am from LIVERPOOL HIGH SCHOOL and these laptops SUX they dont work and the school puts so many blocks that it takes abought half ur hard drive space. so you cant play games unless u no ways round them like me.
GO POOL N GO CUSE
August 7th, 2007 at 9:06 pm