Thursday, September 07, 2006

On the value of computers for primary education

Daniel Lemire commented on a previous post of mine, and I thought I had an elaboration that merited a post, rather than burial in a comments thread. I had written that computers could be useful as tools in primary school, but not as objects of study themselves. He suggested a parallelism with pencils, etc., and yes, those other things are tools, too. But, while those are necessary, I don't believe that computers are necessary tools. Potentially useful, yes, but kids can learn the same things without computers. Here's a quote by Alan Kay from "Revealing the Elephant: The Uses and Misuses of Computers in Education":

Suppose it were music the nation is concerned about. Our parents are worried that their children won't succeed in life unless they are musicians. Our musical test scores are the lowest in the world. After much hue and cry, Congress comes up with a technological solution: 'By the year 2000 we will put a piano in every classroom! But there are no funds to hire musicians, so we will retrain the existing teachers for two weeks every summer. That should solve the problem!' But we know that nothing much will happen here, because as any musician will tell you, the music is not in the piano!

1 comment:

  1. Note that my daughters use computers, and as I said in my previous post, I consider the eMate to be a good fit for their needs. However, I'm going to disagree with you, again saying that computers are useful but not necessary (in the mathematical sense of the word). As it is, there's not enough time in the day to cover all of the things students need to learn. At the elementary school level, this often means that science is given short shrift, in favor of reading, writing, and mathematics. Remember, we're talking about elementary (primary) school here -- K-6 grades. By the time these students enter university, never mind the workforce, computer use will be totally different (at least, we should pray to God that it will be). Light switches have not changed significantly since the beginning of electrification, but the use of computers ten or twenty years from now might have no resemblance to the use of computers today (think back to how one used an IBM PC/AT or your old TRS-80 [I had a TI 99/4A, which probably tells you something about me]). I'm willing to accept that the skill of touch typing probably won't be completely obsolete by that time, but is learning touch typing worth sacrificing science? I'd rather that my daughters spend some time learning fundamental concepts such as evolution, and that schools spend their money decreasing class size.

    As far as programming is concerned, I actually believe that there is great value in learning mathematical concepts behind things like algorithms, that this could be included in the elementary school curriculum, and is necessary, at least before high school. But, as any theoretician will tell you, the mathematics isn't in the computer.

    Summary: Computers good, computers useful, computers not as important as language arts, math, science, or small classes.

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