A ZD Net Commentator does a nice job of asking and answering this question on the ZDNet Blog
See the link here.
What I like though are the responses. In particular, this one that you can clearly tell is from an actual working classroom teacher...
The Best education notebook is no notebook
I question the value of notebooks in schools period. It's a crutch for a bunch of lazy kids to do little, or surf to their websites of interest.
School achievement is completely based on the desire of the individual student to do the necessary reading and study to learn. Many schools, including the one I currently work in has PC's in every classroom, and two computer labs. But the students don't use the Internet, or the study materials for PC's to learn anything, or enrich their studies. they use it to find a source for a paper, many times some dumpy bogus web site, then type a paper full of grammar mistakes, misspellings, and bad formatting, and then expect an A.
If you can't read well, have no mastery of grammar other than "txt msg 2 u", and have no interest in the study and work of learning, then a PC Notebook in their hand is a waste. It will do them no good. If their family can't afford a PC, then go to a library, filled with PC's paid for by people who use a phone.
If they are overseas in poverty, then you have a whole different set of problems to deal with. But in the US today, you have a bunch of lazy kids who are addicted to pictures and music. A PC won't change them.
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IMHO is that they will be great, if and when used wellto promote learning. There is the rub.
Chime in with YOUR own reaction Here or on the ZD Net site!
Jim :-)
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1 comment:
Hey there, you have a very insightful blog. I am very intrigued by the future of "edtech." I just wanted to offer my own thoughts on one avenue where tech and education have collided, and that's in the university, college and online edu program search directory field. There are several to many sites out there devoted to basic directory service, but the only one I've found that puts a premium on "user-friendliness" is CampusExplorer. It's a delight to use, with lots of cool features and tons of data and good utilization of sites like wikipedia and yahoo answers. Anyway, just wanted to mention it, because I've used it and found it to be very effective and helpful.
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