[ale] Planned obsolescence / Computers for Schools

[Jeff Hubbs]

  On 7/24/10 10:44 AM, Chris Fowler wrote:
> I'm going to throw out some flamebait here
Sure, I'll bite the bait! :)
> but I don't understand the
> purpose of putting computers in school in large numbers.  Maybe there is
> motivation but is the US seeing results?
Who knows?  There's nowhere near enough TC penetration or look-back time 
to be able to tell.  But it's like any number of things - it's not the 
computers; it's the software, the access, the availability, the 
connectivity (human and machine), and...the Internet.  Finally, it's the 
educators with the vision to use the stuff effectively and design 
curricula that takes advantage of it.
> When I was in HS we had one computer lab.  I took CS for 3 years and use
> that lab.  The only people that used that lab were the CS students and
> the French students came along after I wrote a program to quiz them on
> French ->  English.
At risk of belaboring the obvious, things have changed since you and I 
were in high school.  If a kid's aim in life is little more than to be a 
plumber, all there is to know about plumbing is Internet-reachable, even 
down to first principles.
> I don't see why kids can't write essays with pencils.  I think there
> should be a lab for CS students and science studies where they could use
> tools like Matlab.  I'm not sure I understand the reason to progress
> outside of the lab.
>
> Even TC's seem to be a huge drain on resources
Nowhere near as much as full-desktop and <shudder> laptop 
destruction^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Histribution programs.
> and I'm not sure the US
> is seeing results.  It also seems the eduction in the US is going
> backwards in results.  Seems the computers that are there are not
> helping.
<shrug> So?  Does this mean that educators who can get the tools and 
have an effective vision for their use shouldn't have them?
> I will admit that in my job I would be lost without Google.  Wikipedia
> is great for looking up anything I want to look up.  Kids need to learn
> how to use the Internet to lean anything they want to learn.  Even in CS
> we had slackers that would play Leisure Suite Larry instead of writing
> their programs.
You've made my point for me, thanks.  We were putting TCs in front of 
kids with no Internet at home and really no hope of having Internet at 
home.  Some of those kids, we need to help if they'll take to learning 
and doing what they lean.
>
>
>
>
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