It seems that many others are noticing the ineffectiveness of computerized devices in education and this is from the New York Times,
Seeing No Progress, Schools Drop Laptops. And this,
Educating for Life, is the blog where I found the link. Thanks Lena.
The failure in Florida was not the technology. If you want someone to learn how to spell it's a bad idea to give them a spell checker. This was a failure of the folks that designed the program, and decided how the technology should be used without grasping what they were trying to do.
ReplyDeleteThere are high schools that certainly make good use of computerized devices. The first that popped into my mind was a high school that participated in the project of mapping the human genome. I'd like to see someone try that with a paper and pencil. :)
The point being there are certainly ways to effectively use computers in the classroom. The folks in Florida discovered trying to stick a laptop in every classroom isn't the solution. If a teacher's technical competence is limited to paper and pencil don't stick them in a classroom with students and a laptop. If you do that then the students will wind up surfing porn and playing games, or whatever else they want to do.