[Edu-sig] computers and schools

[Christian Mascher]

Hi Kirby,

> I think many students would be better served if the emphasis were on
> creating for them a safe personal workspace, with plenty of bandwidth
> to the outside world, with opportunities for 2-way interactions (so
> not just receiving broadcast television, as in the "mindless consumer
> couch potato" model of the late 1900s).
>

I know that many if not most of our students have exactly this
environment at their home. But they don't use it much for learning. The
average 14-year-old won't do much education-wise outside of some fields
of special interest, if there isn't any pressure in form of exams and
tests etc. Just talking about real students...

> In a comfortable middle class household, Johnny already has a heated
> bedroom with a desk, books, and computer, but has to leave this
> workspace to rub shoulders with peers in a daycare setting we call
> "school".

I know quite a lot would rather stay at home and play the same computer
games all day. Still waiting to see the masses who want to learn two
foreign languages plus maths and sciences all on their own...

(I know there always are some exceptions. I always wanted to learn more 
than what I learned at school, but even I did go to school nevertheless 
and probably would never have learnt Maths or French all on my own.)




>
> Said school may censor Youtube and/or otherwise block access to
> information, so for many school-goers the experience of school is of
> burning an expensive fuel to frequent a less information-rich
> environment than their own comfortable bedrooms.
>

Well I get to see lots of real students, but when they open youtube in a
computer lab at school, they never look at those wonderful educational
videos. I encourage them to do so at home (maths is explained pretty
much like at school, but with a pause and rewind button!), but many
prefer to use their own time otherwise.

>

> Better that Sally should stay home and watch instructional Youtubes
> about > math + programming approach to STEM. She just won't find that
> at her  local day care center.  Why waste Sally's time?

I haven't met many of Sally' s kind.

Also: In many countries in Europe (in Germany for instance)
homeschooling is actually forbidden for a variety of reasons.

But apart from that: I do question the main assumption that not using a
computer for a couple of hours each day is in any way damaging to the
education. On the contrary I think it is higly unlikely that a large
proportion of the youth in Germany would still learn English, Maths,
some bits about Science and History at the same levels as today when
they would be left to their own (computer) devices.

Already in the present system the advantaged students are those who have
educated parents, not those with the biggest computer racks at home.
That problem would be amplified to the extreme, when education would be
privatized in this way. My guess is: Only the very best 1-3% students
would learn more or less about as much as now, because some kind of
coach would be around.

To paraprase Churchhill: Schools are lousy ecosystems for learning but
we haven't found any practical better systems yet.

How successful has the OLPC-project actually been? Any evidence beyond
quotes and ideas from SciFi "The diamond age" ;-) ?

Cheers

Christian