Some Aussie High Schools Moving To Two Devices Per Child 152
sholto writes "One laptop per child is so last year. Private secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia are in discussions to upgrade their wireless networks so they can handle the strain of supporting a two-to-one ratio — a laptop and tablet for every student."
Public Funds (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How does this aid in education (Score:1, Interesting)
I suspect it means the primary (intended) devices will continue to work with all the iPhones cruising campus.
Re:How does this aid in education (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a kid. I'm not going to school. I won't be going to school. I haven't seen a classroom proper in 17 years.
But I was a kid once; an atypical kid like many here on Slashdot, but a kid nonetheless. I remember being a kid.
And as a kid, I had real problems in school. I hated duplication of effort. I was terrible and slow at writing. I used to be admonished by my teachers:
"You can't use a computer to do that work."
"But are my answers correct?"
"Well yes, they are. But you can't rely on a computer, because when there's a problem to solve, there won't always be a computer around to help you figure it out."
Which, of course, was bullshit. Not long after I gave up on school altogether, computers were crawling out of the woodwork. By the time I became an adult and started making real money doing real things for real people, they were ubiquitous.
Nowadays, I carry a computer in my pants pocket that does things which were unimaginable when I was a kid. I use it all the time. And I keep a laptop nearby. These are tools that I use to help me in my professional career, which involves solving real problems in the real world.
Keeping computers out of a classroom is the same as depriving a mechanic the use of a wrench while insisting that they figure out some more archaic fashion in which to adjust a bolt. It's a useful tool now, it will continue to be useful later, and kids might as well familiarize themselves with using the tools available to them to solve problems as early as possible.
make 4 kids share 1, and they teach themselves (Score:3, Interesting)
as proven by Sugata Mitra (of Hole in the Wall project fame), if you get rid of the teachers and provide one computer per 4 children, and let the kids collaborate, they teach one another
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html [ted.com]
The quote from Arthur C Clark is particularly telling: Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer should be replaced by a computer.
Re:How does this aid in education (Score:3, Interesting)
Children are typically intellectually lazy
On the contrary, kids are the biggest learners. They become intellectually lazy because how the schooling is organized - no education, but taming^H^H^H^H^H training (be good, fit in standards, otherwise will feed you with Ritalin... later, after being promoted with your batch, you'll be a great fool^H^H^H tool for the society).
There's somebody [wikipedia.org] else saying it better [rsablogs.org.uk] than me.
Re:How does this aid in education (Score:2, Interesting)
Some simple simulations can be fantastic aids. I remember when I was a kid writing a BASIC program on a BBC B to demonstrate longitudinal waves. A bunch of vertical lines, each moving horizontally as x_i = a * i + sin(t + b * i). The middle one was coloured differently to the rest. You could see the wave moving across the screen, and you could see that each "particle" stayed where it was. It showed what was going on much better than a Slinky.
Re:How does this aid in education (Score:3, Interesting)
Computers are a universal tool, keeping kids away from them makes as much sense as keeping kids away from crayons and paste.
Re:How does this aid in education (Score:1, Interesting)
Even calculators have don't have a place in maths classes, they are however very useful for physics, and maybe applied maths, where actual calculations are done. But most maths classes there is not even place for a calculator, as a lot of maths is not about numbers.
If by "most math classes" you mean "most math classes by your third year as a math major in college," then yes. Otherwise, no. And, honestly, when you're learning to do stuff like derivatives the long way (f'(x) = lim h->0 [(f(x+h)-f(x))/h]), among various other operations that contain numbers but can easily fill a page, having a four-function or scientific calculator is nice. That way, you're testing if the student understands the concept, not their ability to not make a single basic arithmetic mistake among hundreds of calculations, especially if you're throwing them curveballs. (My calc teacher had us doing derivatives with multiple terms in the numerator and denominator that looked like (132.4x^8-10.7x^1.6)^(1/3).)
I never said they should be kept away from computers, just that physics and maths classes are not the place to teach how to work with a computer, and computers do not really have a place there. That're classes where you have to learn how to do maths, and how to do physics, and the way to understand what that is, is not done inside of some physics or maths simulation software.
And that's the common misconception, and it's where tablet computers can come into play. You absolutely cannot type math equations into Word or whatever fast enough to take notes. But on a tablet that has a pen, you can certainly write fast enough. That's how I took the vast majority of my notes all through college as a math/mechanical engineering double major. It was fantastic. Outside of computers, I'm a very disorganized person. When I took notes in a notebook back in high school, inevitably, halfway through the class, the notebook would be in terrible condition, pages would be falling out, and I'd lose exactly the pages I'd need for whatever I was doing. With a computer? Not a problem.
Now, did it distract me sometimes, with access to the internet and all of that? Yeah, it did. Would I have been paying attention if I had just a notebook in front of me? Probably not. I'd probably be doodling in the corners, turning words and such into silly math equations (dBatman/dx = Bruce Wayne), and planning for upcoming D&D sessions. But as far as helping me to stay organized and to still have easy access to all my notes by the end of the year, it was amazing.
And as one more point, people have different learning styles. Sure, for you and I, maybe the traditional model is fine. But I know several quite smart people who have a terrible time absorbing math/physics/whatever knowledge unless they understand what it's for. And computer simulations showing "See how we can use this differential equation to model flow through a pipe? Knowing how to work these equations is what allows engineers to design fluid systems to very tight specifications" can help them immensely. And as much as that can be done with a single, teacher/professor run computer, to be able to have that right in front of you to fiddle with on your own and explore that parts that you're curious about is an invaluable tool.
As a final thought, though, two computers per student is stupid and a waste of money. I have no idea what anyone could gain from that.
It depends on how you define "student achievement" (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea that student achievement can be defined by standardized tests that themselves test rote learning
not critical thinking is kinda silly. Giving a child 21st century technology to do 19th century work is pointless.
However if there is an integrated technology-oriented curriculum and testing to observe THOSE objectives
then the results might be very different.
Re:haha (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, as someone who went through K-12 in the NSW public school system, I believe that a parent should have the right to get the same amount of government funding to educate their child be it at a public or any other school that teaches an approved curriculum. The bulk of private schools are not exceedingly affluent, some have a smaller total funding per student than state schools. Some private schools have money to blow on oversized network infrastructure, but this is not a typical one.
During my education in the public school system, I saw 50% or more of the teachers being quite good. Most of the principals I saw were promoted far above their level of incompetence and the bureaucracy who control the money seem to be composed of exactly those people who know so little about teaching that they cannot survive in a classroom and thusly continue to invest in exactly the opposite things to what children need to learn. These people need less money, not more. All that is needed is for the teachers and students to be given more options as to where to go.
Tools (Score:2, Interesting)
I work in a public school district where every student has 24/7 access to a laptop, we are on the sixth year of this project. I have been in public education for 15 years now, six as a classroom teacher (high school math, business, and computer), and nine as a district technology director.
To those who feel there is no need for a computer outside one or two subjects, that's short-sighted. In music students compose their own songs, they record their practice sessions in mp3 files and email them to teachers for a critique, they find good prices on new and used instruments and parts, etc. In foreign language classes they have websites where they can work on one to one language skills, with the computer speakings words for them to help them learn them, they read websites in different languages, they record their practice vocabulary and phrases and email them to the teacher. In English, they create poetry, not only in words, but visually, through pictures, music, movies, and other media. Virtually every class has been transformed, not in what is taught, but how it is taught. It engages the students, it empowers them to take control of their education. Students in our school work harder than they ever did before on projects, enjoying the work, and taking pride in what they do. Not only do they get the "over-stressed" basics of reading, writing, science, math, and social studies, but they work on skills such as creativity, organization, problem-solving, collaboration, prioritizing, etc. Nearly every student is a better student because of the computers. Those that can't physically write well, can usually type much better. Those that are visual learners have tools at their disposal. Instead of forgetting a book at school, their books are always with them on the computer, at a weight of one laptop instead of a stack of six books. The students are better organized, using calendars, reminders, sticky notes, and other applications to help keep their busy lives lined out.
A computer is a very powerful and versatile tool, but it's just that it's a tool. If the current class doesn't require that the students use computers, the teacher asks them to put them away and they do the old fashioned pencil and paper work just like pre-one-to-one days. When the moment strikes that they are needed they are used, when not needed, not used. During school hours, the ONLY thing students can do on the computers are specific assignments for specific classes, or they get in trouble, just like if they mis-used a pencil and were writing notes in class. We use VNC apps to view the students perpetually, the first few weeks they quickly realize that we are "always watching" and setting that standard means the number of mis-uses are very infrequent. When schools come to visit, we proudly bring up every students screen and randomly click on them, watching students, chatting with students, and completely impressing the visiting schools with the quality of work and time on task our students have.
For those that claim it doesn't help with student achievement, that depends on what you measure. If the measure of a student is just math, reading, and science skills, the no, it won't make that black and white difference. If the measure of a student is being organized, creative, self-sufficient, engaged, motivated, excited, collaborative, self-discovering, and able to pursue individual areas of interest, then it is a black and white difference. In a district where 60% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch, we have a higher percentage of students attending and succeeding as college level classes and their high school classes, the average grade for all students is going up, the well-rounded education they are getting is better than ever before, and we have less discipline problems, better attendance, and lower drop-outs. We have also found that our math, reading, and science test scores are slightly better, but that was never the point of the computer, it's an essential tool for learning, a tool that is used in nearl