[ale] Planned obsolescence / Computers for Schools

[m-aaron-r]

What Jeff said... or to frame it in the global realities:

In this 21st century world an individual's success in most
endeavors of education and employment and citizenship,
as well as their access to the information and channels
of social interaction that can most affect or enhance their
daily lives,  have become increasingly reliant on the
availability and use of free and open connectivity to
computer and internet resources.

For good or for bad, this is the complex world in which
we are expecting our young people to pursue life, liberty
and happiness.  Providing them with effective tools to
access the universe of information found on the Internet
and teaching them the skills they need to explore and
interact with that information using discernment, discretion
and intelligence is not really a choice any more. Like
teaching a child to read, humanity has made the ability
to access and utilize information technologies a requisite
for survival and success in our society.

peace
aaron




On 2010/07/24, at 11:29 , Jeff Hubbs wrote:

>  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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