Classrooms Need to Ditch PCs, Tablets

[spuwho]

Uber Columnist John Dvorak speaks out on the computer in classroom craze.

Per PCMag.com

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2459679,00.asp

    By John C. Dvorak
    June 18, 2014

Teachers teach and computers compute. Get gadgets out of the classrooms and watch things improve.

Tech firms are looking forward to selling more machines for the classroom, where student can struggle by themselves on what amounts to a "teaching machine" that essentially does not teach. Teaching machines have never worked in the past, and they will never work in the future.

Yes, in some situations with a certain kind of motivated student, the teaching machine can teach the student. But generally this is the same sort of student who can learn by his or herself using books and asking questions once in a while. The machine hinders the process.

Teaching machines have been around for some time and stemmed from the ideas of controversial behaviorist BF Skinner. He developed something called programmed learning, which quickly morphed into teaching machines that culminated in the Control Data PLATO computers, or Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations.

While it was invented by the University of Illinois and first appeared in 1960, PLATO was licensed by Control Data Corporation and implemented across the country. There were still useable PLATO terminals around until 2006.

I was lucky enough to take two courses using these devices. The user sat behind a big oblong green CRT, and the devices had a dedicated classroom that was near the mainframe, often in a basement. I cannot recall the courses I took, but there was some fun element to the devices. It was extremely crude by today's standards, but futuristic in the 1960s and 1970s.

Their effectiveness was questionable, although the things seemed miraculous. And I'm sure when computers first appeared in actual classrooms in the 1980s a similar awe was inspired.

When tech enters the classroom, the usual result is money squandered. This was obviously the case with PLATO and it is quite apparent today with daffy educators suckered into going all-in with PCs and tablets.

A recent initiative for education called Common Core (promoted heavily by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as some high-paid consultants, and a major textbook publisher) hopes to change the way teachers teach with an emphasis on computers.

Common Core has become quite controversial over the past year for all sorts of practical and political reasons, not the least of which is the abnegation of previous learning methodologies and the overt exclusion and discouragement of parental assistance. This is mostly because most parents do math differently than how Common Core proponents want to teach it.

I would advise readers to do their own research on Common Core. Suffice it to say that one element of Common Core seems to be adding more and more computers into the educational mix. Computerized studies. Computerized testing. Lots of computers.

This, to me, means a return to the inefficient and awkward teaching machine style of education. It is no wonder why test scores are not up to par.

I'll make this assertion once and only once. The only thing a computer does in the classroom is distract from studies. Of course, if you are studying how to use a computer or how to do a great Web search, then the computer is a perfect tool. But that should be where it ends. Teachers should be the focal point for teaching, not computers.

There is something weird and pathetic about a teacher who goes from student to student to help them individually on the computer. This is not teaching, this is IT support.

Computers are great, I agree. But teachers teach and computers compute. Get gadgets out of the classrooms and watch things improve.

[peestandingup]

Dvorak is considered a hack in tech writing. No one takes anything he says seriously.

[spuwho]

Dvorak is considered a hack in tech writing. No one takes anything he says seriously.

Meaning what he writes has no value or because you always disagree with him?

He is well published globally, someone must take him seriously.

[johnnyliar]

Using computers and tablets in the classroom prepares students for a changing world where using such devices is a requirement. It's time to prepare students for these kinds of emerging job markets, not keep them in the dark ages.

[marty904]

Ironically, I was just speaking with someone yesterday and the subject of being smart came up. I remarked that I have learned more from the internet, technology and my own research than I did in all my years of school. People are different, some people learn better by having someone else push knowledge to them and others (like me) learn much more by pulling information from various sources, in their own timing and choosing.

Think about the military job of "intelligence"... those men and women are utilizing technology and other resources to obtain information, and they go after it in many different ways. They don't just sit in a room and wait for someone else to come in and tell them everything they need to know. They are successful because they have a task of obtaining specific knowledge and they use many different methods to achieve those tasks.

Just my $0.02...

[peestandingup]

Dvorak is considered a hack in tech writing. No one takes anything he says seriously.

Meaning what he writes has no value or because you always disagree with him?

He is well published globally, someone must take him seriously.

No, because I'm smart enough to never read what he writes to agree/disagree with him either way. But I know enough about him through the years when other blogs pick up his ramblings, his outrageous "predictions" (which are NEVER right, he once said Apple should discontinue the iPhone FYI), and whatever else he feels like bitching about. He's like Andy Rooney & Nostradamus rolled into one.

And the National Enquirer is global. Should I take it serious too?

[spuwho]

Meaning if what he wrote had little value, publications wouldn't print him.

He expresses some of the misperceptions in the use of technology in everyday life. Some of them are rants, some are predictions, some are sarcastic. And yep that means he can be wrong sometimes.

I don't always agree with him (otherwise why read it?) But he does make you think every so often.

In this case he is asking about the appropriate use of tech in the classroom.

[IrvAdams]

Computers are no longer a luxury or a novelty, they are everyday basic science that is intimately intertwined in our daily lives. To not teach it, or at least offer it in abundance throughout all levels of schooling, would be a silly oversight that would certainly draw unending and deserved criticism.

Also, of course, no one is firing our teachers - teachers teach and computers compute. Teacher and machine should be willing partners in an effective educational system.

That being said, Common Core is another matter - I'm still trying to understand it. Maybe another thread for this one...

[Demosthenes]

What an asinine article. No, students should not be handed a laptop, and left alone. They need taught to be functional and knowledgeable with technology, removing them would only help to make the US educational system more of a joke.

[urbanlibertarian]

Human teachers will become less and less necessary, especially as students get older and can use technology to learn.

[Starbuck]

Common Core State Standards can be reviewed at www.corestandards.com but they do not require computers in the classroom.

See under "myths". There are not even data collection requirements.

[jaxlore]

What a crappy opinionated article "Common Core seems to be". Give us some cited facts if your are going to make a point.

The reality is school systems are archaic to say the least. States have floundered across the country to solve this. It is only in spite of ourselves that our creative nature has kept us afloat as a nation. But even there we are starting to fall behind. All of these folks who are anti-common core couldn't fix the problem 15 years ago so what makes them think they can fix it now.

[David]

I stopped reading after "teaching machines"

[IrvAdams]

I stopped reading after "teaching machines"

Haha. That term is kinda like "Artificial Intelligence". That one gets me. What?

[spuwho]

I don't think teaching should be done with the absence of computing available, I think computers should not be treated as a 100% teaching replacement. That is where I think he reaches the "teaching machine" comment.

I agree with others, I have learned much through the use of the internet than I would have in a textbook, but there are some things that are more difficult to teach merely through seeing it online.

There are nuances to the English language and context derived understandings that would be more difficult to educate through a computer than through a human. Much like how spell checkers can't handle slangs or certain conjugated verbs in sentences.

I am hearing a lot of feedback on Common Core, but I have not read the materials myself, so I can't comment there.