Kids these days are starting to use computers earlier and earlier. I remember when I was in school there were only few people in all class that had a computer at home. Kids these days learn to use computers as soon as ages 4 to 5. A common thing is to see kids teaching their parents "computer stuff".
It would be a waste not to use technologies we have ant those which are still in progress in classrooms. If a simple reading devise like kindle can replace a whole library why the same devise couldn't be used for storing all the books that school children has to carry every day. I remember when I had to carry 6-7 books and lot of notepapers every day as a child. And also carrying those books isn't good in any way for kids health and spines.
I had read a paper about experiments of using different electronic devises in classrooms for education purposes. Especially one used in seventh or eighth grade classroom. Every kid had a devise that was connected to teacher's computer and the displayer. Teacher gave kids a question and they could answer them anonymously and then the answers would be displayed on the board. That study showed that it greatly increased productivity in classroom. Kids who usually would ignore the assignments put a little more effort in the tasks and especially in voting tasks. Kids that were shy to speak in front of the class showed even greater Involvement in the class work.
Of course a bit more work has to be done to create perfect system and methodology for schools. There are lot of debates what sort of system it should be: or individual electronic desks or devise like kindle that could be brought home by student; whether it has to have color or not, if it has to have wifi or cable connections are better in this case, whether it has to be touch screens of traditional input ant control model is better for classrooms. For example touch screens may be more interesting for kids but it has more reliability problems, it is easier to break ant not necessarily faster and more efficiently that standard screen and keyboard.
I agree electronic books have great potential. The possibility of keeping all your books with you all the time is a great feature. One other advantage of ebooks is searchability. I personally often wish I could search my dead tree books more efficiently, especially when indexes are lacking.
ReplyDeleteIn theory ebooks are great but I'm a bit sceptical still. It all depends on the publishers that impose restrictions to them. For example selling a ebook once you don't need it anymore is hard (not possible?). Copying parts of the book is often not possible nor printing pages. Some of the ebooks that are in public domain contain these restrictions as well.
I'm also wondering how much of the increased productivity in the classroom in the study was because of the new way of learning. Once the excitement of a new appliance wears off will the students remain more productive?
Btw, I think hauling the bags full of books from home to school and back is only good for the health of the today's video gaming kids :)
It was not just ebook reader used in that class, it was all system- individual displays, keyboards, some sort of voting device all connected to teachers computer and projector.
ReplyDeleteAbout ebooks. I understand that some people just don't want to read books 'old fashion' way anymore since we have computers etc, or they don't like overcrowd their homes with all libraries, also its faster no need to go to library or book store.. and lot other reasons. But I don't see myself using them.
It reminded me one story I once read:
-Dad give me 250$ I need to buy a book for school reading. It's called "War and Peace"
-What? 250$ for a book? And we have that book in the attic. And it only cost 10$ brand new.
-That is the old version of the book. We need to read new version where subjects and characters were changed. Also the book is just 50 cent. But that is only demo version of the book. Full version costs 50$. Another 50$ it for special glasses so you can read it in computer. Also there is 100$ for enabling feature to block unwanted adds who block most of the text if you don't enable that. And there 50$ for getting the summary of the book with basic information so we can present the book for class.
-So you wouldn't be reading the book at all! I'm not paying for that.
-Dad our school require that we have all these otherwise I will fail my class.
-Fine here is the money. At least after that give it for me to read, it was a long time since I have read that book.
-Wont work dad. These all payments are done by my individual profile so you are unable to read any of mine purchased books and features.
-Go buy that book and bring me our "War and Peace" from the attic.
"And also carrying those books isn't good in any way for kids health and spines."
ReplyDeleteI'm not buying that one until I see some sort of reliable reference! But the subject of using mobile devices to assist education in basic class room situations is definetely interesting and there would be lot of opportunities that could be achieved with quite simple improvements. Here is one great article that deals with this issue: http://ctl.sri.com/publications/downloads/UnlockingWILDs.pdf
- Aleksi M