Thanks for getting me to rereading the report. In my skim I found it mildly interesting even if I felt it missed the point but now I find it disturbing. While these comments focus on the negative aspects of the report Im far more interested in being proactive and viewing the conclusions as a chance to improve our approach to educating and connectivity.
In trying to keep my comments short and pointed I didnt explore the issues in full depth. Though I used a provocative title this doesnt mean there arent valid points in the various broadband reports. The Duke report does make the point that providing more exposure to the world via broadband can be very distracting just as TV was in the 50s and, well, 10s. How can we make these opportunities rather than liabilities? Im influenced by Seymour Paperts view of educators as guides helping students to learn how to learn and showing them a path. The report, though, seems firmly planted in a world where the purpose of education is to increase test scores and educators see the real world as nothing but a distraction. I strongly agree with you that computer access is not a magic bullet. And magic bullets arent magic bullets. And if the report stopped there then it might be making a reasonable, if not novel, point. But the conclusion doesnt stop there: · It blames the parents. But these are the very households where the parents themselves need help so it ends up blaming the victim rather than seeing an opportunity for improving the children. Its a reminder that educating students is difficult if we dont take into account the context. Shouldnt we address the disadvantage instead of using it as a reason to further disadvantage them? · Maximizing test scores. Sad and very disturbing comment on what education has devolved to. Testing has a place but making education about testing and nothing but testing is the best way to move the US from leadership to trailing edge. Yes, Im worked up about this. Another point Papert made is that students need to learn to debug their test scores. But are we making test score the terminal phase of education rather than part of the process? · Computer literacy and job opportunities. Are we talking about education or training? Is the only purpose of going to school to get trained for a job? Like the terms broadband and digital divide the term computer literacy is used without defining it or, it seems, understanding it. o Perhaps we should use terms like computing literacy, knowledge and information engineering, critical thinking etc. That would make it very clear that these skills are fundamental to learning. How could you learn if you dont understand the basic concepts of debugging your understanding? o Computer use and a connected world are givens. Trying to pretend they dont exist is willful ignorance. o As you note too often we confuse computer literacy with keyboarding. How many schools teach word processing as a typing process rather than using a tool that allows you to organize and rework information and do research? Keyboarding does have a place according to other studies (which I cite but now fear may be just as flawed) show that typing improves the ability to write because handwriting is an impediment to expression. Simply using the keyboard is a basic skill. How did we get to the point that its viewed as anything more than playing the role that cursive writing played in the distant past? o If students are protected from the Internet at an early age why should we expect them to become knowledgeable and adroit self-educators when they get to high school? o Are elementary school teachers up to the task of educating students for todays connected and ambiguous world? To the extent that exposing students to a large world hurts their education we should see this as an indictment of the education system rather than as a call to keep students ignorant of the world. This is a report that first does harm and doesnt get to the positive recommendations. This is the start of an interesting discussion. It touches upon the central question of what this Internet is and the role and methods of educating in a connected world. From: Atkinson, Robert [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 06:15 To: Bob Frankston; Frank Coluccio Cc: Ed Pimentl; Lauren Weinstein; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [ NNSquad ] Irresponsible science and academic frau Bob, I look forward to your essay. Ive read the study. It says a couple of things about 5th-8th graders that make intuitive sense: * personal computers and internet access in the 5th-8th grades can crowd out the development of other learning skills, including math and reading * this is a particular problem in households with little or no parental supervision or control. In other words, computers and internet access are not a magic bullet for educational achievement, particularly for the disadvantaged students, and, in certain circumstances, can be counter-productive. An earlier European study reached similar conclusions about crowding out and suggested that over-exposure to computers and the internet in these early years of intellectual development produced great keyboarding skills that would prepare the students to compete for low-paying data entry jobs but not for jobs requiring intellect. It seems reasonable to consider the possibility of adverse impacts under the admonition of first, do no harm. >From this reports CONCLUSION: This evidence is consistent with the view that internet service, and technology more broadly, is put to more productive use in households with more effective parental monitoring of child behavior. For school administrators interested in maximizing achievement test scores, or reducing racial and socioeconomic disparities in test scores, all evidence suggests that a program of broadening home computer access would be counterproductive. Of course, administrators may have other goals aside from improving math and reading test scores. Computer literate students may enjoy improved job opportunities later in life, or may be poised to take better advantage of online resources once their internal mechanisms for behavioral regulation have fully developed. ... It is not clear, however, whether computer literacy actually leads to better employment outcomes, and also not clear whether access to home computers in the early secondary school years is critical to later computer literacy. [p.35] On 6/28/10 6:16 PM, "Bob Frankston" <[email protected]> wrote: The more I think about it the worse these studies are. They are fraudulent. If do real science and try to isolate the factors youll find that the one factor most antithetical to these results is the broadband business model. I argue that keeping that service-based pricing out of the home was a key enabler what weve gained from todays connectivity. I can understand companies proffering marketing bad studies as marketing hype thats their job. But when academics get in the business thats irresponsible and even fraudulent. Sometimes its just a result of sloppy work, especially with statistics which get tricky. In statistics people can also fall back an accepted practices such as significance testing even if they turn out to be very problematic. But these kind of studies, Duke is far from alone and I havent look at this one in particular, have no such excuse. They are simply a race to publish and prove their thesis. This is also normal part of the grant process you better know the answer before you waste the governments money on research. I put all this in quotes to emphasize factors that prevent discovery. Im mulling an essay on this. The general topic is too deep and pervasive but focusing on broadband might be useful for making the point. Too bad people dont understand science and see it as discovering the one true truth rather than refining our ability to deal with an ambiguous world. The idea of revealing the truth is more religion than science and leads us to confirm our naïve assumptions rather than challenging them. And it leads to terrible policy decisions From: Frank A. Coluccio [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 17:45 To: Bob Frankston Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [OIA] FW: [ NNSquad ] Duke Univ. study claims universal home access to broadband would *widen* math/reading achievement gaps Bob, you've touched on a recurring theme whose frequency and breadth is on the rise and expanding near-universally. I'm currently discussing the "NBN" prospects of several countries with their leading proponents who are holding out social agendas and attempting, whether wittingly or not, to shoehorn network infrastructure, which has already been contaminated by "broadband", to meet the contours of specific vendors' municipal applications (similar to the far-sweeping social platforms now being proffered by vendors doing exactly the same thing under the guise of CSR, or corporate social responsibility) in the most gratuitous and self-serving ways. It's pervasive. Green, smart-grid, broadband, the list goes on. This is what happens when the elasticity of legitimate enterprise reaches its limit and becomes entirely exhausted: Madison Avenue FUD. --- [email protected] wrote: From: "Bob Frankston" <[email protected]> To: "Open Infrastructure Alliance" <[email protected]> Cc: 'Lauren Weinstein' <[email protected]> Subject: [OIA] FW: [ NNSquad ] Duke Univ. study claims universal home access to broadband would *widen* math/reading achievement gaps Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:11:57 -0400 FYI. I really need to write a full essay on the fallacy of using these kind of results to justify bad policies. We can think of many other policies. For example, training people to work at MacDonald's will improve their job prospects but nowhere near as much as educating them with skills to learn or train themselves for whatever job happen in the future. Settling for broadband is like getting a bad loan to buy a year's supply for first class train tickets instead of buying a car you can afford that will take you where you choose to go, especially to local destinations. -----Original Message----- From: Bob Frankston [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 17:09 To: 'Lauren Weinstein'; '[email protected]' Subject: RE: [ NNSquad ] Duke Univ. study claims universal home access to broadband would *widen* math/reading achievement gaps The problem with these studies is that they are correct but the policy implications are limiting. Sure broadband will improve skills. The danger comes when we use it to justify giving away our infrastructure to service providers. We could accomplish this an much more if we take other approaches without the negatives of the broadband business model. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lauren Weinstein Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 16:54 To: [email protected] Subject: [ NNSquad ] Duke Univ. study claims universal home access to broadband would *widen* math/reading achievement gaps Duke Univ. study claims universal home access to broadband would *widen* math/reading achievement gaps http://bit.ly/czWVww (Calder Center [PDF]) --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator _______________________________________________ Open Infrastructure Alliance http://lists.bway.net/listinfo/oia
