[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Hi > The problem in teaching computers at school is the same as the one in > teaching History Chemistry ..(anything other than the three 'R's ). > LACK OF PURPOSE.
Ahem! If, with computers getting into every nook and cranny today (cyber cafes and e-mail/internet, railway and airline reservations, telephones, washing machines, automobiles, all kinds of medical instrumentation and even the Metro rail entry and exit gates), students can't be motivated to learn about them then the fault, dear Sayan, lies not in the computers but in ourselves! > The students simply are not informed how all this stuff fit in with the real > life. That list above should give some idea. > What I suggest is that the schools should give one machine each (or even for > two pupils) and let them alone with an official looking project for anything > from an automated system for generating report cards to setting up an > interactive class website. Pupils will pick up the skills requiured for the > project from friends books or the internet. That way we will really learn > something and enjoy it too. At the risk of attracting the curses of students on this list I confess that I am a teacher. I am painfully aware of the deficiencies of our educational system. I am also aware of the statement of Edward Gibbon, historian and philosopher, that "the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy circumstances when it is almost superfluous." And yet I strongly believe that a systematic introduction to any subject by someone who is well versed in it helps the learner to get a grasp of it quickly and painlessly. Self-learning should be a means of last resort as it is generally time-taking and leaves many gaps in one's knowledge. BTW, how is your project on computing pi going? - Manas Laha -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/help/faq_list.html
