* Eva Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [020120 21:45]: > Computers will continue to hog time and resources in elementary schools,
[apologies for length, but at least I trimmed the quoted text] Computers can hog time with bad curriculum based around teaching computer skills as opposed to teaching computer skills alongside the rest of the curriculum. Secondly, I feel strongly that most of the solutions for equipment, networking, and consulting for the k12 level is horribly managed and overpriced. I've not been in the 'scene' for a couple years, but even in 'rich' 'burbs, they threw tons of computers and hardware at everything, but really didn't get how to teach with them until the hardware was massively obselete. The network design and people managing the network weren't trained for what they were getting into. And the overpriced 'consultants' just sucked the budgets dry for something that decent IT staff could have delt with. I felt that people forget about the 'how to teach' and 'who will take care of this' and just did the 'we can buy a ton of these and everything will be fine'. In moderation, computing is a great tool for information sharing, creation, and learning. However, with how some of these firms misrepresent what they can do, and with school districts having funding problems with hiring 'good' people that cost less than overpriced consultants, how do they get anywhere? Also, those of you who feel that there is no good 'resources' on the internet need to remember that TIES and MINITEX both have (i believe) free or reduced access to resources like ProQuest and Lexis-Nexis. Those two sources alone can provide more data to a user than most school libraries can dream of. However, this argument is less germane with elementary school. I do remember towards the end of my elementary school career having an introduction to researching for a paper and how to keep track of sources, perhaps including some online research and experimenting with using and identifying 'reliable' sources is a possible way to avoid the AOL syndrome. As to the mothers day card, thats a lapse in *curriculum*. I could see a math course teaching the basics of coordinate geometry (the whole x,y thing) use LOGO to create cards for their mothers. However these cards would require a student to learn how to draw basic shapes with simple instructions. Many current programmers and non-programmers alike that I know still remember how amazing LOGO was to learn, but easy. Anyhow, theres a whole field out there for people who can't create artwork, but can create visually pleasing pages out of other elements. Sometimes peoples arguments sound more like they want to discourage exploration into some fields. Seems like wishful thinking to me. Computer skills are *not* vocational training. People who think that and can also tell me that computing devices will not be ubiquitous within two decades need to rexamine what kind of world we live in. Perhaps I'm mistaken and most people just don't see these things until middle school, but I remember them when I was in elementary school. They did get me more involved in computing and I used much of my time the next few years finding ways to apply this technology to other projects down the road through school. Oh, and if you need to see some really cool stuff that 4-6 grade students are doing, look here: http://www.thinkquest.org/tqjr/ These are education content websites *created* by students. Obviously, it isn't impossible to introduce students to creating content and doing research while including research skills. Creation, I believe, is one of the greatest parts of having this technology, and one of the most ignored. (disclaimer: I am a systems administrator, however all the education based computing experiences above are from when I was in k12 education as a student.) -- Scott Dier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.ringworld.org/ (umn/east bank, work) the desire for space travel is a metaphor for escape _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
