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The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

sites.math.washington.edu

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Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#11

Post by cmrdporcupine »

dfaigonio wrote: post #4

I've long held that, if we want computers in the classroom at all, we should steer well clear of any modern gee-whiz gadgets. A modern Commodore 64 clone would teach vastly more about computers than an iPad and would cost maybe $50 total. Modern computers are designed so people don't have to understand them , which is exactly backwards for a student.

But it depends on the goal. Most people's interactions with computers is going to be as a user, even a power user -- but not as a developer. Due to classroom activities, my 10 year old is quite adept at Google Docs, Slides, etc. and various authoring tools they use in class. She puts together presentations and reports with them, and collaborates with her peers using them.

I grew up in the Apple II/Ti-994a in the classroom era. Only a small fraction of students took the challenge of those machines on such that they learned software engineering skills later. We had classes teacher BASIC and Logo, but almost none of my peers went on to do anything with it, and I'm sure retention generally was very poor.

I'd love for people to learn like you say, but I don't think it would work that way.

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#12

Post by perl4ever »

Some declarations of the limits of computers jump out to me as dated:

"The inability to develop good translation software has been one of the most embarrassing failures of Artificial Intelligence. If the best computers in the world are unable to translate from French into English..."

"in the calculus final exams at my university we usually ask for exact (not decimal) answers. For example, sin(60°)=\sqrt{3}/2, not 0.866; the circumference of a circle is 2 pi r, not 6.283r"

Also, the comparison of computers to automobiles in order to dismiss them is odd, as driver's education was part of school when I attended in the 90s. And so was auto repair, which I regretted not taking in later years.

A computer from 1996 seems, in today's context, rather ironically like "simple, unstructured play material like clay, sand, blocks, rag dolls, and finger-painting sets".

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#13

Post by msangi »

Clubber wrote: post #3

If I were a professor, I wouldn't allow open laptops or phones. I would imagine it's a huge distraction and students are there to listen to the lecture and learn, not goof off with their devices. I'm old and crotchety though. We had laptops when I went to school, but no one (that I noticed) used them in non-computer class.

I would allow them, but then I'd also shift the focus from learning some mechanical procedure or facts to more fundamental concepts and increase the complexity of the problems accordingly.

It's hard to do it right, but I believe it has the potential to to engage students and increase their understanding by separating the boring parts (that a computer can easily do) and the challenging parts that the students need to understand

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#14

Post by rsp1984 »

Pardon my ignorance but can somebody educate me on what K-13 means? I know about K-12 and have seen K-14,-16, ... as well but I've never seen K-13 in an international context.

At my local school in Germany the final year was called K-13 but it's probably not what's meant in the article.

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#15

Post by dzdt »

UtilityDave wrote: post #8
dahart wrote: post #6

> We already saw an extreme example of misallocated resources in Peru. But even in a ``wealthy'' country one has to be concerned about this problem. Many educators in North America share the feeling of betrayal of the teacher who said, They can give us the axe, but they can spend thousands on computers. We have to fire our music coordinator, we have to fire our music teachers, we have shitty libraries. (Lynn, a Canad…

Honestly the computers kids should have are the most barebones python and assembly beige boxes that can be found, and told they can play games when they can make them. That's why I learned to code. And beige boxes are WAY cheaper than Apple products (and make you do more with less)

You're missing the point that the current tech push is largely to get computers that can run the standardised testing bloatware being pushed down from the top of the system. Education possibilities are only a side benefit; testing is the goal.

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#16

Post by bsznjyewgd »

rsp1984 wrote: post #14

Pardon my ignorance but can somebody educate me on what K-13 means? I know about K-12 and have seen K-14,-16, ... as well but I've never seen K-13 in an international context. At my local school in Germany the final year was called K-13 but it's probably not what's meant in the article.

I think it just means kindergarten to year 13. At least, Ontario (Canada) used to have a 13th year, but they phased that out 2 decades ago into just K-12 as well.

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#17

Post by userbinator »

dahart wrote: post #6

> We already saw an extreme example of misallocated resources in Peru. But even in a ``wealthy'' country one has to be concerned about this problem. Many educators in North America share the feeling of betrayal of the teacher who said, They can give us the axe, but they can spend thousands on computers. We have to fire our music coordinator, we have to fire our music teachers, we have shitty libraries. (Lynn, a Canad…

digital arts

Doing some demoscene-ish things might fit... and be more likely to inspire curiosity and self-learning. As the sibling comment here notes, "you can play games once you make them" can be a powerful motivator.

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#18

Post by lr4444lr »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #11
dfaigonio wrote: post #4

I've long held that, if we want computers in the classroom at all, we should steer well clear of any modern gee-whiz gadgets. A modern Commodore 64 clone would teach vastly more about computers than an iPad and would cost maybe $50 total. Modern computers are designed so people don't have to understand them , which is exactly backwards for a student.

But it depends on the goal. Most people's interactions with computers is going to be as a user, even a power user -- but not as a developer. Due to classroom activities, my 10 year old is quite adept at Google Docs, Slides, etc. and various authoring tools they use in class. She puts together presentations and reports with them, and collaborates with her peers using them. I grew up in the Apple II/Ti-994a in the clas…

That's great they're learning about business applications, which is a valid part of the curriculum. But they're not about computers, as per the OP's point.

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#19

Post by jimhefferon »

curun1r wrote: post #10

I don't know about general purpose computers, but my life would be completely different if my high school hadn't required the use of computers that masqueraded as calculators. My school required us to use either a TI-81 or TI-85 and my friends and I quickly discovered the power of TI-Basic. We started with small games to amuse ourselves, since this was an era before mobile phones. But I quickly realized that I could…

Education has fads so a person learns to be cautious about things in this field. But one that seems to have a lot to it is helping students be more active learners. Working through those programs sounds like it helped you in that way.

I teach Theory of Computation and one problem with that course (which I expect lots of people here have taken) is that it can be people watching as things get proved. I'm working on a text that includes programming work;there have been others in this direction but my point is that I hear more stuff like your comment where people are taken through the material in doing the scripts.

Re: The Case Against Computers in K-13 Math Education (1996)

#20

Post by SamReidHughes »

rsp1984 wrote: post #14

Pardon my ignorance but can somebody educate me on what K-13 means? I know about K-12 and have seen K-14,-16, ... as well but I've never seen K-13 in an international context. At my local school in Germany the final year was called K-13 but it's probably not what's meant in the article.

Kindergarten through calculus. Calc I and II are traditionally a first year undergrad courses, if you don't take it as an AP class.
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