[Edu-sig] laptop backlash

[Winston Wolff]

It's a good article.  The problem is that if teachers teach the  
traditional stuff in the traditional ways, then the traditional tools  
work very well, with low overhead and cost.  But if you want to  
change the curriculum and add a lot of problem solving, project based  
work, some computer programming, and so forth, then laptops can be a  
help.  But most traditional teachers are not trying to teach this stuff.

-Winston


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On May 7, 2007, at 11:56 AM, Michael Tobis wrote:

> The NY Times had an article last week about schools backing off the
> idea of laptops for students.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html
>
> a snippet:
>
> ==>
> So the Liverpool Central School District, just outside Syracuse, has
> decided to phase out laptops starting this fall, joining a handful of
> other schools around the country that adopted one-to-one computing
> programs and are now abandoning them as educationally empty — and
> worse.
>
> Many of these districts had sought to prepare their students for a
> technology-driven world and close the so-called digital divide between
> students who had computers at home and those who did not.
>
> "After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact
> on student achievement — none," said Mark Lawson, the school board
> president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York
> State to experiment with putting technology directly into students'
> hands. "The teachers were telling us when there's a one-to-one
> relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the
> way. It's a distraction to the educational process."
> <==
>
> It's not surprising, really, but the timing is not good. Hoping the
> OLPC folks are at least aware of this trend.
>
> mt
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