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That's the thing I never understood when I was in school. Why do you need quotes and sources on individual index cards? What does that give you that having them on a single sheet or single data file doesn't? It's one of the issues I've always had with schools -- the focus on form and style over substance and content.
Interestingly I'd consider math, at the school level, one of the subjects where computers bring the least at the individual level. There you have to learn and understand the structure of math, not just plug and chug.
Because computers are a tool and not the underlying problem. Fixing ghetto schools is a far bigger and broader problem than having a computer will fix.
Bravo on all counts.
Math "longhand" on paper just works. Similarly, until recently outside some fairly twitchy software and/or great user skill it's been really tough to use/learn/demonstrate macroeconomic 8, 10, 12 etc. quadrant graphing on a machine. The same is a snap on graph paper with a straight edge.
Cheap and easy software is available for multi-quadrant graphing now.........IMO it's way, way better to lean on graph-paper......probably faster for most as well.
That's the thing I never understood when I was in school. Why do you need quotes and sources on individual index cards? What does that give you that having them on a single sheet or single data file doesn't? It's one of the issues I've always had with schools -- the focus on form and style over substance and content.
Interestingly I'd consider math, at the school level, one of the subjects where computers bring the least at the individual level. There you have to learn and understand the structure of math, not just plug and chug.
Because computers are a tool and not the underlying problem. Fixing ghetto schools is a far bigger and broader problem than having a computer will fix.
I agree up to a point. It's more a "learning to organize" thing.
I don't know what happened in the interim, but I don't remember being taught "organizational skills" when I was in school 1960-72 (although we did do the index card thing).
When I finally stopped kicking around in various things (industry, Naval aviation) twelve years later and started teaching in a Middle School we had two days a week of double periods in both 7th and 8th Grade Social Studies where we had to teach organizational skills with a laid out sequence of skills (it wasn't called a curriculum).
That's the thing I never understood when I was in school. Why do you need quotes and sources on individual index cards? What does that give you that having them on a single sheet or single data file doesn't? It's one of the issues I've always had with schools -- the focus on form and style over substance and content.
Interestingly I'd consider math, at the school level, one of the subjects where computers bring the least at the individual level. There you have to learn and understand the structure of math, not just plug and chug.
Because computers are a tool and not the underlying problem. Fixing ghetto schools is a far bigger and broader problem than having a computer will fix.
It was more of the method and not the content.
Index cards can be rearranged where a list on a piece of paper can't.
Used in a different context it's very handy for arranging, rearranging and organizing.
What I saw while teaching was that computers/calculators became crutches to these students..not tools.
And the cellphone has also become a crutch to them...not a tool.
I have some personal familiarity with this subject, and I can only say that whatever the effects are, it's a very costly investment. I think the amount of money that public schools have spent on the products of Apple and their competitors would probably amaze many people, especially given that a lot of people are likely convinced that public education is 'underfunded'.
Math "longhand" on paper just works. Similarly, until recently outside some fairly twitchy software and/or great user skill it's been really tough to use/learn/demonstrate macroeconomic 8, 10, 12 etc. quadrant graphing on a machine. The same is a snap on graph paper with a straight edge.
Cheap and easy software is available for multi-quadrant graphing now.........IMO it's way, way better to lean on graph-paper......probably faster for most as well.
Somewhat funny sidebar. When my kids went through high school one of the math classes required a specific (I forget the model) top end graphing calculator. Cost a couple hundred dollars. That class spent a whole semester teaching how to use that type of calculator because "it's what you're going to need in college." Neither one ever used it again. Oldest still jokes about the fact she spent all the money and time learning a calculator that she never used in college because most of the math classes didn't even use number but were about deriving the general solution, not a specific number.
I very much agree that when first learning those functions, hand calculations and graphing gives a much better feel for what the equations are doing than plugging them in and getting an answer out. A lot of problems have mathematically correct but physically impossible solutions and many young engineers cannot tell the difference because it worked OK in MATLAB.
Quote:
Originally Posted by North Beach Person
I agree up to a point. It's more a "learning to organize" thing.
I don't know what happened in the interim, but I don't remember being taught "organizational skills" when I was in school 1960-72 (although we did do the index card thing).
When I finally stopped kicking around in various things (industry, Naval aviation) twelve years later and started teaching in a Middle School we had two days a week of double periods in both 7th and 8th Grade Social Studies where we had to teach organizational skills with a laid out sequence of skills (it wasn't called a curriculum).
I never felt it was teaching me to be organized. In fact, I always felt the opposite -- that it was a very disorganized way to go about it. Created clutter and confusion rather than structure.
Index cards can be rearranged where a list on a piece of paper can't.
Used in a different context it's very handy for arranging, rearranging and organizing.
Exactly what I was about to type!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TMSRetired
What I saw while teaching was that computers/calculators became crutches to these students..not tools.
And the cellphone has also become a crutch to them...not a tool.
It's just not that they become a crutch, it's that students are addicted to TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. My kids were raised before smart phones. It's a different world for the younger generation who have grown up with smart phones. Their screen time have rewiring their brains. The affect is the way these students deal school (and the world).
It's hard for teachers to compete social media! Students tend to ignore the lessons and fail to take part in class discussions while checking the number of their "likes". It's harder to facilitate classroom discussion when students recite wikipedia or other sources rather than reading the actual assignment materials. This doesn't even considering the AI cheating on research papers!
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The proliferation of screens — and their potential impact — has sparked concerns. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that kids under 18 months avoid screens altogether, apart from the occasional video chat. The group’s 2016 report on media use for children cites risks ranging from poor sleep to stunted language skills. Many Silicon Valley parents, including tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg, restrict their children’s screen time.
But even though screens may help children build social bonds, recent research shows they might also pose neurobiological risks to growing brains. In November, a study of preschoolers’ brains using MRI scans found that screen time changed the structure of the organ itself. Higher screen use was linked to lower amounts of white matter, the fibrous tissue that connects different parts of the brain. These connections support the development of emerging abilities like literacy and language skills.
I was last subbing at a well funded state/district, but the classroom IT, especially the network speed was about 15 years behind my minimalist home office. People used to talk about the two year cycle for various reasons; obsolescence, depreciation, and speed. A ten year old Mac with boot sector issues on its Winchester is about one twentieth as useful as a TracFone. Seen the eye doctors with state of the art Apple, but they are high earning medical professionals, not a child who can't count.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions from what I write.
Apple is one of the three main companies that have successfully monetized public education for themselves. Pearson Education developing tests (and selling textbooks tied to those tests) taken on Apple computers using Microsoft programs.
In the 90's when I was in Elementary School, almost all of the computers were Macintosh. LCII or Quadras or the like were older computers in the library. Then the Powermacs came out and it's really the first personal computing model name I remember. From there the iMac's were installed in the early 2000's in all the district's computer labs and whatnot.
All this time the Apple products seemed only to be seen in schools. I'm sure there were organizations that had a use for them (I'm told in creative fields,) but you really didn't see them widespread in the market. When I went to college in the mid 2000's there was only one or two kids on the floor of the dorm building that had Mac's.
Obviously, that has changed. But I'm sure there was a value proposition that made them lucrative to school districts for a long time; something that Dell or Gateway or HP or Compaq wasn't competitive or interested in. Maybe it was education software availability, maybe it was support provided to schools, hard to say.
From what people say there has been penetration from Chromebook and probably others into the schools. I don't know much about it.
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