Can Apple “Rescue” US Education?
By Barry Ritholtz - January 23rd, 2012, 2:30PM
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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
39 Responses to “Can Apple “Rescue” US Education?”
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January 23rd, 2012 at 3:18 pm
If you believe that lack of access is the problem, then Apple might help. If lack of motivation or a culture of hopelessness and negativism is the problem, Apple can do nothing.
Except help entertain, of course.
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:22 pm
iPad or more generally good tablets could make an even much bigger contribution by implementing something in the line of what Salman Khan is trying to do.
For those who never heard of this concept, a pretty good talk at TED last year (yeah, I know, “gee whiz hoopla boom, technology is gonna save us” but it’s pretty good) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy
http://www.khanacademy.org/
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:34 pm
This is all well and good, but what happens when all of the 30 other developed countries around the world that we are “competing” against get their own Ipads, won’t we just go back down to the bottom of the list?
Seems to me that we should learn why we are at the bottom of this list . . . is it a change from how we used to do things? Are we getting dumber (most of my college educated facebook friends have three to eight year olds, while my more numberous non-college educated facebook friends have high schoolers)? Is the way that we teach, and have been teaching, not very successful?
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:50 pm
If 70% of 8th graders are not reading at a certain level, how can we call it the “Eighth Grade level”?
Sounds like the reverse Lake Wobegon effect.
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Not a new idea – daughter has already had a laptop (Windows based) for a couple years. Math / science has no textbooks, except on the computer. Dumb kids are still dumb, even with the computer, BTW.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:05 pm
Coincidentally, my wife and I were on this topic last night.
The excuse for $150 college text books and $75 high school text books used to be that the lower-volume print runs were too high cost.
New editions were needed every year because material (even for subjects like ancient philosophy) changed too fast.
One would think that e-books would solve both issues with zero printing cost and ultra-low barriers to revised editions.
How could I possibly think that academic publishing will be DEAD LAST in adopting this new technology that eliminates the most basic problems of their publishing effort. Could there possibly be some conflict of interest or unspoken incentive to resist change?
1) Other peoples money – educational book purchases are socialized at primary and secondary level, and mandated at university level
2) Incentives and kickbacks – if you ever had a professor who wrote a textbook (like my differential equations instructor) you know the story.
3) Culture of indifference – Literate and political interests overwhelm technological interests among the rank and file who teach and administrate teens and younger. Paper files from which last year’s test is photocoppied for this year.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Why not just require textbook publishers to publish online (give each kid an account)? If the school system buys a book they get the online version free.
You could give pc’s for 1/4 the cost; why on earth each state isn’t creating a knowledge portal for their students (full of educational software appropriate for their grades) and giving away pc’s is beyond me. Or subsidize cable bills for low-income students – if they spend x hours working in the portal the state pays the cable bill. They could improve their scores for pennies on the dollar, and the kids who respond least to traditional classrooms would probably improve the most.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Why would Apple “rescue” US Education? Apple hates America.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:34 pm
Actually, NoKidding, a textbook does not have to be low-print-run to be high cost. I worked for a while on a very popular high-school science book. The production budget for this book, which ended up being about 1000 pages with 3000 color illustrations, was on the order of $10 million. Printing alone was around $10 a copy. Which means that even without printing, at $15 a copy, the publisher still needs to move a lot of copies. Of course, at that price, they’re probably expecting to sell a copy to every student every year, rather than one copy per student to the school every five years.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:36 pm
lalaland says, “You could give pc’s for 1/4 the cost.”
Man, I’m just not going to the right webpages when I visit Dell.Com and HP.Com.
Do these $125 computers last a whole school day? I guess you don’t need ‘em during PE, so some of HP’s new $1500 Ultrabooks that can go over six hours might come close. But frankly, I’m not aware of any general-purpose tablet that’d last 9 hours for much of anything less than the iPads.
Oh, you could try seeing whether locking in to the Amazon Kindle proprietary format might get you a bulk purchase of $250.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Apple is going to rescue education, again and again and again.
The first time was with the Apple II.
The same problem time after time. The schools that really need rescuing have no money in the budget for fancy toys. Books are tough and durable. They will survive the careless behavior of the average 7th grade boy. Ipads on loan to the same boy won’t survive. And don’t ask the boy to replace it because if he can’t afford one in the first place how can he pay for a replacement.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:53 pm
I see what happens to kids around me when you give them a digital device like an ipad – enormous amounts of their time are spend in the small rectangular app world, where they can be in control, and where the world always jumps to their command. What they don’t get is the sort of intuitive understanding of processes, human relations, the natural world, materials, etc. etc. In other words, they are “educated”, but ultimately helpless in the real world. Like lots of academics that I know, for that matter.
What we really need to do is to make match, science, etc., real – not paper problems, but exercises which engage imagination, physical materials, nature, the real world, and show what math and science really mean. What we really need to do is to not give them the digital devices in the first place.
A real education builds intuition, a sense of the world, from which students can leapfrog in any direction. Apps are terrible at this. Apple apps are not the solution
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:09 pm
“…Since this nonsense is being mandated in schools, what will be the long term consequences of children spending even more time looking at screens? Apple doesn’t have any options for reading its locked-down content on anything other than conventional computer screens. At least with E-ink and other electronic paper displays, one gets an experience that’s more similar to reading text on regular paper.
What will be the long term consequences of children reading ebooks with stuff spinning and blinking right next to the text that they are supposed to be comprehending:
Mayer and Moreno have studied the phenomenon of cognitive load in multimedia learning extensively and have concluded that it is difficult, and possibly impossible to learn new information while engaging in multitasking. Junco and Cotten examined how multitasking affects academic success and found that students who engaged in more multitasking reported more problems with their academic work. (Wikipedia: Human multitasking)
But that dazzling, distracting iCrackPad vending machine is the future of learning? It’s the answer to decades of disastrous, lobotomizing sKo0l?
Like the author of the piece below, I also think that ebooks are inevitable. This shift to video game style learning is well underway. But if something like the Kindle is disturbing, this iBooks thing is an order of magnitude more so. It’s not some sci-fi dystopic concern that’s always 20 years out.
They’re gunning for your children’s minds with this right now.
Via: The Verge:
In the wake of Apple’s announcement of iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and the latest version of iTunes U, I’d like to take a moment to step back and look at the technology they all look to replace: paper…”
http://cryptogon.com/?p=27117
~~~
Some Parents Who Work for Elite Silicon Valley Firms Send Their Children to School with No Computers
October 23rd, 2011
Via: New York Times:
The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.
But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.
Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools don’t mix…”
http://cryptogon.com/?p=25654
note: They’re gunning for your children’s minds with this right now…
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:18 pm
oh great. a whole generation brainwashed into thinking it’s smart to pay double.
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:22 pm
The proof will be in the pudding.
I just order two textbooks and will begin reading them tonight. I suspect that this will be another winner for students and Apple. There are a billion students that will want iPads to access their textbooks. That’s another $100 Billion “plus” to Apple’s Retained Earning for future dividends.
I think I will buy “more” share and just put them away. Apple is a juggernaut.
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:36 pm
lol. Like American education system is bad. That is a globalist myth. Repel the myth, liberate the teachers to teach and get rid of bullcrap tests that create a illusion of nonlearning.
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Seriously? The problem with US education for the last 30 plus years has been a lack of iPads? Color me skeptical. There are serious problems with our public education that have noting at all to do with technology in or out of the class.
With iPads it seems to me that two issues are being combined:
1) books are going digital.
That seems likely to me given a long enough time-line. On the balance I suspect e-books will be an improvement in the class room as they will in general use. I’m far less certain that reading e-books on an Apple ™ product is better than on some competitor. I’m typing this on a 2 year old $250 windows netbook that is also running a web server, hosts several complete development platforms and has a decent keyboard. I love the Kindle for books. The iPad is great too, but it isn’t the only option out there. Indeed, I doubt it is the best for interactive learning.
2) “technology” added to the classroom will intrinsically cause a pedagogical shift that will, in and of itself, enhance student achievement.
I think there are, indeed, many places where tech in the class is likely to be beneficial. However, I don’t think there is any reason to believe that tech (Apple or otherwise) will help every class or every student. It seems absurd to me to assume (as these kinds of headlines seem to) that adding tech will obviously be better than using resources in other ways.
“Can Apple save education?” No.
Apple may have products that benefit education but you’d have to be simple to believe that adding tech in general, much less Apple tech, to the class will make everything better. The resources we give to public education are limited and declining in real terms. Educating more effectively with fewer resources is a difficult task. “Tech” used wisely may help. But tech is just a name for different tools. Choosing tools before defining the problem is bassackwards.
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:55 pm
long clippage for the ‘click’-adverse, apologies, in adv.~
“…His views have always been extreme. His only computer is a Lemote Yeelong netbook, because it’s the only computer which uses only Free software – no firmware blobs, no proprietary BIOS; it’s all Free. He also refuses to own a mobile phone, because they’re too easy to track; until there’s a mobile phone equivalent of the Yeelong, Stallman doesn’t want one. Generally, all software should be Free. Or, as the Free Software Foundation puts it:
As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us.
I, too, disregarded Stallman as way too extreme. Free software to combat controlling and spying governments? Evil corporations out to take over the world? Software as a tool to monitor private communication channels? Right. Surely, Free and open source software is important, and I choose it whenever functional equivalence with proprietary solutions is reached, but that Stallman/FSF nonsense is way out there.
But here we are, at the start of 2012. Obama signed the NDAA for 2012, making it possible for American citizens to be detained indefinitely without any form of trial or due process, only because they are terrorist suspects. At the same time, we have SOPA, which, if passed, would enact a system in which websites can be taken off the web, again without any form of trial or due process, while also enabling the monitoring of internet traffic. Combine this with how the authorities labelled the Occupy movements – namely, as terrorists – and you can see where this is going.
In case all this reminds you of China and similarly totalitarian regimes, you’re not alone. Even the Motion Picture Association of America, the MPAA, proudly proclaims that what works for China, Syria, Iran, and others, should work for the US. China’s Great Firewall and similar filtering systems are glorified as workable solutions in what is supposed to be the free world.
The crux of the matter here is that unlike the days of yore, where repressive regimes needed elaborate networks of secret police and informants to monitor communication, all they need now is control over the software and hardware we use. Our desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and all manner of devices play a role in virtually all of our communication. Think you’re in the clear when communicating face-to-face? Think again. How did you arrange the meet-up? Over the phone? The web? And what do you have in your pocket or bag, always connected to the network?
This is what Stallman has been warning us about all these years…”
http://www.osnews.com/story/25469/Richard_Stallman_Was_Right_All_Along
January 23rd, 2012 at 6:10 pm
The problems with Apple’s iPad solution.
1) iBooks don’t run on Computers!!!
So, you’re $2,800 MacBook Pro can’t open the files!
I prefer my MacBook Pro Big Screen for reading.
2) iPods can’t run most software, including the Mountain of Java Applet’s out there Specifically for EDUCATION.
Sure, I like Apple Stock, but I don’t like this strategy that forces me to buy an underpowered electronic book, when I already have one of their most expensive Computers.
January 23rd, 2012 at 7:17 pm
I’m a teaching professional at the high school level, teaching ninth and eleventh graders in English. I can tell you this:
If anyone in their right mind thinks any electronic gadget is going to pave the way to a more educated adolescent generation, they are either smoking something or they work for Apple.
My experience tells me electronics in all it forms (iPads, desktops, computer games, you name it) are serious barriers to the development of higher order thinking skills.
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:09 pm
For those that are old enough to remember the big Apple push into education in the early days, how was that working out ….
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Great infographic! For 16 years, I taught high school/college English. Today, I am an Small Business Internet Marketing Consultant & real estate agent. I have been on both sides of the fence…utilizing tech “tools” then and now.
Certainly, the right tools can help improve learning…just as “tools” help you and me with our work today.
Panacea? NO! Unequivocally “NO!”
Above, Theravadin nails this discussion: “What we really need to do is to make math, science, etc., real – not paper problems, but exercises which engage imagination, physical materials, nature, the real world, and show what math and science really mean. What we really need to do is to not give them the digital devices in the first place. A real education builds intuition, a sense of the world, from which students can leapfrog in any direction.”
Myriad factors have contributed to what is reported as “failing K-12 education:”
1. Obsessive TESTING culture with continued sellout of K-12 education to BIG BUSINESS that desperately wants to carve greater profits off your and my kids. More drill & kill! More rote & regurgitation!
2. More and more kids (tragically) CANNOT think or even communicate effectively – no cogent thoughts to communicate effectively. NOTE: please don’t expect proper spelling & grammar – “new agers” are okay with “texting” language, i.e. “R u kewl w/ dis?”
3. On Bloom’s Taxonomy, teachers teach to base level – this is where the TESTS structure questions. Fortunately, many parents – perhaps many of you already know this truth. Chances are, it is you who are teaching your kids HOW to think & synthesize information. Sadly, teachers (whether or not you acknowledge this) are forced to teach to the test. In Florida, it’s FCAT. With Annual Yield Performance (AYP) tied to $$, you’d better believe obsessed K-12 administrators demand drill & kill as they scamper for every loose dollar hanging on a test score.
4. Electronic “tools” will not transform K-12 education. I’ve been in public, charter, parochial & private – show me parents who truly are involved in their kids’ lives (not just education) and **generally speaking** I’ll show you kids who are emotionally, socially, intellectually & psychologically healthy…and who enter K, middle, high school, college or the work force READY to add VALUE.
I love TECH. I own Apple stock. I want Apple TECH to benefit K-12 education. I sure as hell want Apple stock to blow through the roof. :)
Mike
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:38 pm
I’ll build you one for $17, a cup of tea and a biscuit.
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:40 pm
@ssc – I am old enough to remember the big Apple push into education in the early days. You ask, “How was that working out?
Glad you asked.
Bean counters in late 80′s convinced school board to kick Apple out of the schools in favor of Microsoft. Keep in mind, I was bi-lingual: from my high school teaching classroom (English/business) I provided TECH support on both Apple/WinTel to teachers/admin.
#1 reason TECH failed (generally speaking) in K-12 classrooms is that EDUCATORS never were trained to utilize effectively tech in classroom. As bureaucrats often do, they put the cart in front of the horse.
In education, they piled classrooms with computers, only to have these TOOLS transform into worthless paperweights.
I stopped trying to make sense of this absurdity.
Further, school districts purchase HARDWARE – pretty boxes.
No software.
No training.
No RESULTS!
Glad you asked, “SSC.” This is how it “worked out.”
However, this had NOTHING to do with Apple. In fact, in 1992 I fought the School Board and became persona non grato when I offered empirical evidence, PROVING Apple tech would cost LESS than WinTel tech.
Guess what?
School board in its infinite wisdom kicked Apple to the curb, filled classrooms for cheap-ass WinTel crap that broke down every other minute. Before you knew it, district admin added a bazillion TECH Support people to the payroll to support those WinTel boxes.
Apples worked, day in and day out. As with the Energizer rabbit, they’d take a (kid’s) licking & kept on ticking.
I trained other teachers to support Apples.
District kicked Apple out, hired a bazillion Tech Support people and teachers stopped using computers in the classroom – too unreliable.
How would you like to create your nifty PowerPoint, only to get in front of your peers and/or potential clients & suffer Window “pain?”
FWIW, I use both platforms – TECH to me is tools only. I’m not married to Apple or MS. I just want my tools to work when I need them to work. I despise wasting time working (on) these tools. YUCK!
Mike
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:57 pm
OK, I’m open to the argument such tools might be helpful….
Now, explain to me who decides as to their effectiveness? The vendor?
While you’re at it, explain this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?pagewanted=all
1980-2012 Schools around these parts spent tons of money on such hardware…but I think you’d really struggle to demonstrate effectiveness. In most cases, it seemed the lizardman just booked a sale – then not much else.
The school systems I’ve seen were actually utilized as expensive, under optimized, movie projectors for that nifty Discovery Channel subscription most schools purchase. They seemed successful in that application.
My gut feel is that any hardware capable of displaying the information video, sound, text – is as good as any other. Only the programming really matters.
If that’s the case, a truckload of “third world” laptops would do the trick – without the pricetag. You might then take the savings and provide every child with their own “locked to discovery channel, science channel, history channel” viewing device for their bedroom. Talk their parents into just banning junk television there….
Hollywood works.
“Lack of teacher computer training” or “lack of modern hardware” are often just cop outs for failed, career ending, administration “me tooisms”. “Spending our money freely” is just the way they justify their bloated compensation. Dazzle with the BS – as they say.
January 23rd, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Just spotted this one, and thought it was very worthy of repeat.
Lalaland does it the right way.
lalaland Says:
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Why not just require textbook publishers to publish online (give each kid an account)? If the school system buys a book they get the online version free.
You could give pc’s for 1/4 the cost; why on earth each state isn’t creating a knowledge portal for their students (full of educational software appropriate for their grades) and giving away pc’s is beyond me. Or subsidize cable bills for low-income students – if they spend x hours working in the portal the state pays the cable bill. They could improve their scores for pennies on the dollar, and the kids who respond least to traditional classrooms would probably improve the most.
January 23rd, 2012 at 9:30 pm
The Coming War on General Purpose Computation
January 1st, 2012
Via: Cory Doctorow at Chaos Computer Club:…”
Related:
‘Steve Jobs, The Pioneer Of The Computer As A Jail’
Apple to Require Sandboxing in Mac App Store Apps in March 2012
Microsoft’s Desperation to Catch Apple in the Crackpad Race to the Land of Dumb and Dumber
Richard Stallman Was Right All Along
Posted in Dictatorship, Economy, Elite, Surveillance, Technology
http://cryptogon.com/?p=26761
-Bois, Boys, & Girls, it isn’t, that, difficult–to ascertain “TBP” ..
~~
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ascertain
as·cer·tain (sr-tn)
tr.v. as·cer·tained, as·cer·tain·ing, as·cer·tains
1. To discover with certainty, as through examination or experimentation. See Synonyms at discover.
2. Archaic To make certain, definite, and precise.
[Middle English acertainen, to inform, from Old French acertener, ascertain- : a-, to (from Latin ad-; see ad-) + certain, certain; see certain.]
ascer·taina·ble adj.
ascer·taina·ble·ness n.
ascer·taina·bly adv.
ascer·tainment n.
some things shouldn’t be ‘archaic’ ..
much like–some things, that are ‘new’, are not, necessarily, ‘better’..
January 24th, 2012 at 1:51 am
I have a kid with special needs >99% in reading and comprehension <1% in motor skills, like writing. We bought an iPad two months ago for him.
iTextbooks needs to add iWorkbooks and iWorksheets. The biggest time/effort saver in our house right now is scanning homework sheets and pages and converting them to PDF's, so he can enlarge them and either type or write his answer. He then emails his homework to his teacher.
This has dramatically improved his ability to participate with classwork and homework. It would be amazing we didn't have to scan the blank assignments first. Imagine no homework sheets. CC the parents on pages that are due. Record keeping allows parents AND teachers AND students to keep a copy electronically. Entire forests are saved.
All of this said…..
It's gonna be crazy easy for future governments to rewrite history when there are no physical history books left to bear evidence to what the original version of the story was. Ah. That's the rub.
Forget guns and ammo. Stockpile George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, the US Constitution and any other printed media you can get your hands on.
January 24th, 2012 at 2:42 am
The $14 come on textbook price ignores the cost of the ipad. Jeff could do all this on Kindle Fires and would probably even discount the tablets even more. And then the $14 is being quoted because Apple is in cahoots with the publishers. Bezos would make them sell books for $10.
Of course, maybe Apple can get close on price by recruiting more Chinese slave labor. They will just need to build more nets around the rooftops of the Foxconn factories to keep the inmates from jumping.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-16-2012/fear-factory
January 24th, 2012 at 3:33 am
I saw a picture of Edison at his bench with VOCs about I suppose. Not happening, NIMBY.
I saw a pint bottle of 70% Rubbing Alcohol and a gallon of Distilled Water both stamped BEST BY some date in 2013.
How many of our six-figure college educated offspring will blindly look at the date and pour them both out in 2014?
I got money on the over.
January 24th, 2012 at 3:38 am
Current issues with education has a lot to do with “one size fits all” approach. As education content moves in digital form, education technology will evolve to ensure a more personalized form. The net effect will be beneficial. I think text books, just like newspapers and magazines, in its present form will become irrelevant in the next 10-15 years.
January 24th, 2012 at 6:16 am
“I think text books, just like newspapers and magazines, in its present form will become irrelevant in the next 10-15 years.”
The vast majority indeed will be more irrelevant, but a very few well-assembled ones will be worth their weight in gold.
January 24th, 2012 at 7:11 am
So an industry notable for chasing after ineffective fads since at least my entry into it in 1960 (linguistics, anyone? Nouns and verbs are so old-school!) wants to put the entire nation’s educational system on a flashy (oops!) proprietary product designed by a for-profit company noted for restrictive walled gardens and overpriced products. Hey, how could it miss?
January 24th, 2012 at 9:01 am
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360
Any school board signing on to something like this deserves extreme punishment. Groupthink doesn’t excuse stupidity.
If they can mug suppliers, they will mug consumers too. Ditto Amazon, Microsoft…and other master manipulators.
Public hardware, software, media – or nothing.
January 24th, 2012 at 10:10 am
Apple like in Phillip Morris hooks the young….. Yes I do own stock in both companies.
January 24th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
This is an interesting story about the use of technology in a New York school.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/05/12/freakonomics-radio-how-is-a-bad-radio-station-like-the-public-school-system/
January 24th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Technology is not responsible for the problems with America’s public education system, and therefore is unlikely to their solution. How about the fact that ever since Brown vs. Board of Ed. one of America’s two major political parties has been doing everything possible to destroy public eduction — from cutting budgets, instituting unfunded mandates, teaching to the test, attacking science (evolution, climate change), blaming everything on the teachers/unions, calling for an end to the education department, and trying to divert public funds to private businesses? It’s hard to fix something while someone else is standing across from you smashing it with a sledge hammer. I have no doubt that technology will change the classroom in ways we can barely imagine right now, but there’s something ironic about looking to science to solve problems created in large part by the anti-science party.
January 24th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Evidence: Students drop out less when they are entertained. Students studied do slightly better on certain tests when they are being evaluated, about the same amount of improvement we see any time people are studied. So nothing imperically interesting here.
Ironically most of the educational research I have read suggests teaching math, reading and writing directly are amongst the *worst* ways to teach math, reading, and writing. Instead when math, reading, and writing skills are necessary to do things that are more interesting, kids learn the best.
And the data directly refletcs this when evaluating NCLB which increases math, reading, and writing lessons, but budget constraints killed the programs where kids actually learned to apply these skills like shop, theatre and the like. Kids are performing much worse than they used to. And yes, I know this is confounded because nowadays we test everyone rather than excusing kids with special needs or other issues.
Go figure.
January 24th, 2012 at 5:28 pm
subscriptionblocker Says:
January 23rd, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Just spotted this one, and thought it was very worthy of repeat. ….
======================
Agreed. Some classes at our school have tried flipping classes–letting kids watch videos of the insyruction and the “homework” is done in the classroom. Teachers attend to those who need it and get out of the way of those who do not.
I also have a special needs child (hate that term) but she won’t use an iPad. Without USB, it is a nifty novelty piece of junk to her. No USB? Really? That is somehow radical design? My kid was gifted one and immediaetly wanted to hook up her external hard drive and thumb drive to add her favorite things to it. She called it stupid, It sits now unused. Have to sell it on ebay.
But font enlargement has been a huge help and is available on just about every device old and new! Ctrl scroll is a whole lot chepaer than an iPad.