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Oh I know. When I was a junior in High School we were supposed to be reading the Grapes of Wrath, and there was a group of us that sat in the back and somehow managed to play cards everyday in class. Mind you that this wasn't a huge class -- maybe 20 students, and 1/4 of the class was play cards. Not sure that the teacher ever knew ....
In any case, I was simply pointing out that this type of technology could potentially exacerbate and already existing issue, but maybe it could help swork on that issue at the same time if implemented correctly. Obviously you can't age a teenager to stop being a teenager ..
--Kirk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Black" <blacks@indiana.edu>
To: "Bloomington LINUX Users Group" <blug@cs.indiana.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 11:55:17 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [BLUG] California approves OS textbooks
I have to say, as a someone that was a slacker and an underachiever for
pretty much all of Jr. High (then there's my first 10th grade year -- I
refer to it as "The Year I Slept"), no amount of technology can prevent
a student from doing work when they have plans to slack off.
I'm serious. It doesn't matter how much technology you throw at the
problem, it simply can not be solved that way.
I actually had classmates convinced I could sleep with my eyes open.
I would be awake in the class, with my textbook in front of me, and
just... not be there at all.
You can't stop people from slacking off. The best you can hope for is
that people can slack off in ways that do not disrupt their classmates.
If I started reading fiction in elementary school as a way to pass the
time when I didn't need to pay attention to the teacher, my teachers
probably wouldn't have resorted to having my desk face the wall every
year starting 2nd grade.
Cheers,
Steven Black
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 11:36:19AM -0400, Kirk Gleason wrote:
> Steven raises an interesting point here though. Having been a teacher
> in a junior high for a brief period of time, and having spent the
> better part of my life in a classroom; I have to acknowledge that
> keeping the students on task is one of the most difficult part of
> the average teachers job. Now imagine a classroom where all of the
> students have netbooks or Kindle-like devices. How is the teacher to
> know that a particular student is reading the same text as the rest
> of the class, and not the latest installment of Harry Twilight, or
> whatever the latest and greatest thing might be.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I think that this is all good stuff, but it
> does raise particular issues for teachers that are probably not as
> technologically proficient as their students. One that maybe could be
> solved via technology as well .... some sort of e-book reader and a
> proximity system that restricts what can be opened.
>
> I have a son that is already looking to Junior High 2 years from now.
> I would love to know that he has access to the best possible stuff.
> I need to read this entire thread again when I am not at work being
> interrupted by IMs, phone calls, and rap music (ok that is my fault)
> so that I can figure what I can do as a parent and as a geek to help
> out ....
>
>
> From: "Steven Black" <blacks@indiana.edu>
> To: "Bloomington LINUX Users Group" <blug@cs.indiana.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 10:09:44 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: [BLUG] California approves OS textbooks
>
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 08:17:39AM -0400, Simón Ruiz wrote:
> > One secondary school textbook is rarely cheaper than $100. Now, how
> > many do our public schools purchase per kid over their K-12 time?
>
> The article mentioned that.
>
> Thinking about my own experiences, it was really rare that I would come
> across a text book more than 5 years old except for a few exceptions.
> Most seemed about 3 years or newer, but then I remember a lot of
> cases where I was the first user of a book, so that may not have been
> realistic. (I frequently was in reasonably affluent suburbs, though,
> so that may have been right.)
>
> > If you're like me, though, and prefer reading on an un-backlit
> > substrate, eInk e-book readers have come down past the $300 mark for
> > something with a screen comparable to the Kindle 2. But while reading
> > long-form text out of a netbook might not be fun, how many
> > textbook-related assignments involve long enough sustained reading to
> > cross that threshold of pain?
>
> I've read full books on computers before. (In particular, I pretty much
> read the entire Subversion book online, in addition to the entire GNU
> Make info document.) For some people the backlight is less of an issue.
>
> It reminds me of Star Trek, where paper books were all antiques, though
> antiques that some people preferred to reading the same material
> electronically. Paper books won't disappear, regardless of how small a
> population actually favors them.
>
> There's another side of it, too. When eBooks are acceptable for
> textbooks, it is easy to leverage the same infrastructure for some of
> the literature assignments, too. How many of the great English classics
> that are regularly and routinely assigned year after year are actually
> available via Project Gutenberg? How many middle school book reports
> could be taken care of via a Project Gutenberg book?
>
> Shoot, I only read any Edgar Rice Burrows once I was I was in high school
> -- I'd heard about him in Robert A. Heinlein's novel _The Number of
> the Beast_. All the Edgar Rice Burrows books are available via Project
> Gutenberg. (This, of course, means that I could've been reading these in
> class instead of my textbook and folks would have been none the wiser.
> As it was folks sometimes noticed was reading a work of fiction.)
>
> > And how heavy is your average secondary student's backpack nowadays?
> > Neither a netbook, nor an e-book reader, weigh nearly as much as a
> > *single* textbook.
>
> This has regularly been an issue. Back when I was in Jr. Highschool there
> was cause of concern as they were worried that the heavy backpacks, when
> not worn properly, were contributing to long-term back problems in some
> kids.
>
> Of course, for taking notes shorthand is still the best. However,
> they've not taught it in the classroom in the US since the 1970's when
> Gregg Shorthand shot itself in the foot by putting out a revision that
> stopped being fast for the sake of being "easier". (And really, 100 WPM
> is fast for a typist. Shorthand speeds can reach 200+ WPM.)
>
> > Printing out F/OS textbooks is, to me, one of the least interesting
> > possibilities for them.
>
> Printing out *entire* textbooks is totally the least interesting.
>
> Allowing an instructor to take a textbook and split it in to
> easy-to-handle packets, however, is something that could well allow
> F/OS teaching material to seep in to earlier grades. (And this could be
> anything from "my class is really advanced for their grade, we're using
> the whole book in easy to swallow packets", to "my class got ahead of
> their current book, we're going to use material from this book for the
> last month of the school year."
>
> In a semi-related note, the use of electronic distribution also allows
> the perversion of science in an easy-to-maintain manner. "We use an
> electronic science book. Here's the URL." And, well, *that* science book
> is totally missing the chapter on evolution.
>
> > What I think is going to be the exciting thing to watch is the things
> > a large, creative teacher population could do with the four freedoms
> > applied to the material they're working from and with.
>
> Yeah, it could well be interesting.
>
> I just wish they would cut out most of the standardized testing. It has
> a negative impact on the amount that kids learn.
>
> > And how, if we work on it now, maybe by the time we finally make that
> > $100 laptop available to every child on the planet we'll have some
> > great, comprehensive, time-tested F/OS educational material ready for
> > them...
>
> I've more immediate concerns. I've a baby, and I want her to have access
> to decent cost-effective educational materials regardless of the school
> she happens to be in.
>
> Not to mention, if her peers are better educated it will make a better
> world for her to live in. Educated fools are no less foolish, and there
> will always be some fools. However, better education for all means that
> folks at least have a choice in the matter.
>
> --
> Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
> Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07 78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E
>
>
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