Would You?

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://wcbstv.com/local/online.high.school.2.619184.html

It's coming. On-line secondary education. No more traditional high school.

Gazing into my crystal ball I see that teachers and classrooms are too expensive for taxpayers. So teachers are replaced with canned instruction provided by the cream of educators. The school districts will provide labs for science projects, sports/exercise facilities, and daycare for the dummies.

Teachers/schools are 50% of the local-state tax burden.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'm sure it will all come out well. What could people possibly learn in a classroom that they can't look up on Google, anyway?

 

[Guest]

I'm sure it will all come out well. What could people possibly learn in a classroom that they can't look up on Google, anyway?

I adore you, Horsey.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BLACKIE

I'm confident it will, too. The unions will fight it, but I've belonged to unions that resisted technology, and they lose the war in the end.

The kids stand to get the very best educators, and zillions that go to pay mediocre teachers can be used for labs and first rate phys-ed facilities....and libraries. No more multi-million dollar school campuses, no more gangs, no more pedophiles in the classroom, etc.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I adore you, Horsey.

Well, if I was to Google both of our names, I probably could learn that, but I'd much rather attend the hands-on lab demonstration in class.



The feeling is quite mutual.

 

[BlackShanglan]

BLACKIE

I'm confident it will, too. The unions will fight it, but I've belonged to unions that resisted technology, and they lose the war in the end.

The kids stand to get the very best educators, and zillions that go to pay mediocre teachers can be used for labs and first rate phys-ed facilities....and libraries. No more multi-million dollar school campuses, no more gangs, no more pedophiles in the classroom, etc.

Yes, that's the lovely part about looking only at the "pros" side of any decision. Eliminating all actual education will indeed eliminate all of those unhappy problems that at times occur alongside it. And the savings in cost are undeniable.

Just imagine how much more we could save if we eliminated food as well. The "pros" side of that balance sheet is simply stellar.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BLACKIE

It's coming, dear.

A lot of educators need to consider signing up to sell AVON. Ugliness cant be cured by the Internet, and there's plenty of it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/HSJ/Morrison.html

 

[sr71plt]

http://wcbstv.com/local/online.high.school.2.619184.html

It's coming. On-line secondary education. No more traditional high school.

Gazing into my crystal ball I see that teachers and classrooms are too expensive for taxpayers. So teachers are replaced with canned instruction provided by the cream of educators. The school districts will provide labs for science projects, sports/exercise facilities, and daycare for the dummies.

Teachers/schools are 50% of the local-state tax burden.

This seems a case of "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." (Sorry, Blackie.) You can put a pile of well-qualified teachers at one end of the Internet (just like we try to do in the classroom), and it doesn't mean a hill of beans if someone with some steel in their spine and sense in their head isn't at the other end making the students absorb what's there. Looks like this will just widen the gap between the few educated who see the importance of education for their children (who have no trouble putting their children in classrooms) and the rest of the folks out there focusing on their electronic toys and grasping at services while avoiding their taxes.

 

[R. Richard]

I think what BlackShanglan is referring to is the difference between learning and education.

A child can learn a great deal more sitting at home in front of of a computer monitor, taking instruction from a talented teacher, proceding through classes at his/her/its own rate. If the child has a question, the question can be submitted via e-mail/on-line chat and the question can be answered in a timely fashion by someone who actually understands the material. The comprehension of the child can be measured effortlessly by a sequence of on-line tests, to insure that the child is actually learning and the on-line tests can be integrated with the course material to make it very, very difficult for the child to have someone else take classes for the child. In addition, the child can be publically tested, at intervals, to insure that the child is actually learning.

The problems with at-home learning come with the clash between learning and education. Learning is difficult, but easy to measure. Education is easy, but very difficult to measure. If an attempt is made to actually measure education, it is frequently discovered that the educated child has learned very little.

When I lived in South Carolina, they required an exit test for children graduating from high school. One child had a 4.26 cumulative grade point average [4.00 is an A grade, but advanced placement classes offer a bonus.] The 4.26 child couldn't pass the exit test. I listened to the child, on TV. The child could construct what were apparently wonderful verbal images, however the child had trouble putting a subject and a predicate in the same word grouping. [Of course, the child could always become a politician. Of course, a whore or pimp makes more money, but at the price of INCREASED social standing as compared to a politician.]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SKY PILOT

Take it to the bank....teachers will either improve their stuff and become on-line educators OR they'll get left behind in the dummy ghetto.

I speak with teachers every day, and the trend in public education is managing dummies.

The best teachers dont have to settle for this. The others will beat their heads against the wall from frustration with empty skulls.

 

[BlackShanglan]

This seems a case of "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." (Sorry, Blackie.) You can put a pile of well-qualified teachers at one end of the Internet (just like we try to do in the classroom), and it doesn't mean a hill of beans if someone with some steel in their spine and sense in their head isn't at the other end making the students absorb what's there. Looks like this will just widen the gap between the few educated who see the importance of education for their children (who have no trouble putting their children in classrooms) and the rest of the folks out there focusing on their electronic toys and grasping at services while avoiding their taxes.

I'm quite willing to forgive the liberty, sr71plt, when you put the case so neatly.

This sort of solution will always look attractive, of course, to politicians, taxpayers, and students as well - because most of them really just want to attach the student to a diploma and shove him or her into the workforce as quickly and cheaply as possible. In the short term the savings can look so tempting that they overshadow the long-term issues, like the problems that result from an under-educated work force that cannot effectively employ itself or support substantial industrial and technological growth.

The unfortunate problem with education is that it's difficult to measure. If you were leaving most of the components out of computers as they rolled off the assembly line, quality assurance staff would be able to tell you immediately and the computers could be sent back to be fixed. If, on the other hand, you create an educational process that consists of little more than a quick coat of whitewash, it may be years before the full impact of the problem is felt, and by then it will be too late to help those affected by it. Worse, the politicians who built their careers on their low tax / slash education budgets platforms will be long gone on their higher ambitions, and not a whit the worse off for it - as they indeed know now, and so happily rob the future to bankroll the present.

The special Irony Prize in Education goes to the decision to use multiple-choice bubble tests (the quickest, cheapest alternative, of course, albeit also the least effective) to attempt to measure educational standards. It's beautiful to see the ways in which the constant drive to find the cheapest way to claim a job has been done trickles all the way down to gut even the most basic attempts to actually do it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

RICHARD

I respectfully disagree. Learning is the easiest task in the world. I know of no one who took remedial instruction for not pissing on an electric fence. The mind absorbs the lesson like the proverbial sponge. It's all a matter of shaping the lesson into a sharp stick the student can poke things with....the lesson follows whatever the student pokes.

 

[sr71plt]

The problems with at-home learning come with the clash between learning and education.

I disagree, as I said up the line. I think the problem with at-home learning is that students won't pay any attention to what is running on the video. They wouldn't in the classroom either, if they weren't monitored face-to-face.

Those who do pay attention are ones who have someone making them do so--the same someone who now makes sure they do their homework and show up to class.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BLACKIE

Nope. The results of education are easy to measure. All the student need do is duplicate what she was taught. The lesson can be as basic as how to stack bricks in a pile or how to recognize a psychiatric disorder.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I think what BlackShanglan is referring to is the difference between learning and education.

A child can learn a great deal more sitting at home in front of of a computer monitor, taking instruction from a talented teacher, proceding through classes at his/her/its own rate. If the child has a question, the question can be submitted via e-mail/on-line chat and the question can be answered in a timely fashion by someone who actually understands the material. The comprehension of the child can be measured effortlessly by a sequence of on-line tests, to insure that the child is actually learning and the on-line tests can be integrated with the course material to make it very, very difficult for the child to have someone else take classes for the child. In addition, the child can be publically tested, at intervals, to insure that the child is actually learning.

The problems with at-home learning come with the clash between learning and education. Learning is difficult, but easy to measure. Education is easy, but very difficult to measure. If an attempt is made to actually measure education, it is frequently discovered that the educated child has learned very little.

When I lived in South Carolina, they required an exit test for children graduating from high school. One child had a 4.26 cumulative grade point average [4.00 is an A grade, but advanced placement classes offer a bonus.] The 4.26 child couldn't pass the exit test. I listened to the child, on TV. The child could construct what were apparently wonderful verbal images, however the child had trouble putting a subject and a predicate in the same word grouping. [Of course, the child could always become a politician. Of course, a whore or pimp makes more money, but at the price of INCREASED social standing as compared to a politician.]

Heavens, no. I'm talking about what happens to the other students - the ones who don't choose of their own free will to sit down before the computer and carefully and patiently work their way through all of those learning modules, honestly and sincerely doing their own work and giving their best effort to each and every part of it. In short, I'm talking not about the difference between learning and education, but the difference between imaginary students and actual ones.

I'm also thinking, of course, of pedantic, picky little things that only those hopelessly indoctrinated by teachers' unions could possibly be concerned with - things like the massive body of research indicating that nearly everyone learns best through multiple sensory channels and frequent opportunities for hands-on and practice and direct interaction, or the tendency in real life of "sit and read the pre-prepared materials" to fail abyssmally (anyone else remember SRA?), or the fact that being able to ask a question by email and receive an answer the next day has certain drawbacks when compared to the "ask a question and receive an immediate answer so that one may continue with the task at hand" model. But no doubt those are mere shadows and not realistic objections to so wonderfully thought-out a plan.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SKY PILOT

Then what we do is ignore the sad bastards who wont cooperate. Or you create a learning environment that never fails to hold their attention.

 

[BlackShanglan]

BLACKIE

Nope. The results of education are easy to measure. All the student need do is duplicate what she was taught. The lesson can be as basic as how to stack bricks in a pile or how to recognize a psychiatric disorder.

Both of the tasks you've chosen require basic-level skills - repetition and identification. Analysis, extension, and extrapolation are more difficult to evaluate because they offer so many different ways in which the same problem can be solved correctly. This is the inherent problem with multiple choice tests; they can only measure a limited range of skills, because they can only offer a very limited way to respond. If the question is "create a long-term agricultural improvement project for a village in the following location and conditions, and explain why you feel this is the best one," multiple choice isn't very helpful - not because the question isn't an excellent way to test skills like analysis, synthesis, application, and creation, but because those skills rarely lead to a single correct answer out of four.

 

[BlackShanglan]

SKY PILOT

Then what we do is ignore the sad bastards who wont cooperate. Or you create a learning environment that never fails to hold their attention.

Excellent. Then all we need is a workplace environment that craves a limitless supply of workers who are either completely uneducated or wholly unaccustomed to bothering with anything that doesn't immediately entertain and gratify them. That sounds just like the backbone of a strong economy.

 

[Liar]

I'm sure it will all come out well. What could people possibly learn in a classroom that they can't look up on Google, anyway?

Throwing chewing gum at the temp.

 

[sr71plt]

SKY PILOT

Then what we do is ignore the sad bastards who wont cooperate. Or you create a learning environment that never fails to hold their attention.

Sorry, I can't ignore these "sad bastards." Experience has taught us that they will become a burden on and threat to us later on if they aren't taught both how to and to be willing to pull their own weight at some point. Reality isn't as simple and insular as you seem to want it to be.

As far as the learning environment, if you can't create it in a classroom set up for focused learning, you are pissing in the wind to assume you can set it up in the unmonitored home with all of the distractions existing there.

You apparently just want to dump the problem and not to have to pay for any of it--which you would do in spades anyway in the long run if you got your shortsighted wish. I'm pretty sure that we have to pay more per capita to imprison someone than to maintain schools for them.

 

[R. Richard]

Heavens, no. I'm talking about what happens to the other students - the ones who don't choose of their own free will to sit down before the computer and carefully and patiently work their way through all of those learning modules, honestly and sincerely doing their own work and giving their best effort to each and every part of it. In short, I'm talking not about the difference between learning and education, but the difference between imaginary students and actual ones.

I'm also thinking, of course, of pedantic, picky little things that only those hopelessly indoctrinated by teachers' unions could possibly be concerned with - things like the massive body of research indicating that nearly everyone learns best through multiple sensory channels and frequent opportunities for hands-on and practice and direct interaction, or the tendency in real life of "sit and read the pre-prepared materials" to fail abyssmally (anyone else remember SRA?), or the fact that being able to ask a question by email and receive an answer the next day has certain drawbacks when compared to the "ask a question and receive an immediate answer so that one may continue with the task at hand" model. But no doubt those are mere shadows and not realistic objections to so wonderfully thought-out a plan.

If a student doesn't sit down at the computer and work, then the student is found out very rapidly because of the student's failure to properly answer the very frequent quizes practical within a computer based learning system. Corrective action can then be taken in a timely fashion. If the student hires someone to take the classes for the student, then the student can get away with the sham, right up to the required public tests. Then the sham falls apart and the student can be forced to attend public classes. [By the way, I am aware that school teachers fight standardized tests like fury, because the standardized tests measure not only the failure of the students, but also the failure of the teacher. The situation is a matter of checks and balances. I taught programming classes and my students were required to pass standardized tests. I didn't fear standardized tests, because my students were actually learning the material and could do the work required of them after they graduated.]

You might note that there exists an on-line chat feature in the Internet. Via on-line chat, the student asks a question and receives some sort of answer in very rapid fashion. If the rapid answers don't solve a problem, then the problem can be referred to higher authority, via e-mail. The answers that the child receives are correct answers, because they are in print and available for review. If an incompetent is furnishing false answers, the incompetent will be found out very quickly.

A student who learns at a computer terminal has the benefit of talented teachers. If the material presented by one talented teacher doesn't do the job, the child can be directed to the same material, presented by another talented teacher. The process can be repeated through several levels. From my own experience, one of the sets of material will finally break through and teach the student. It is not a matter of the break through material being necessarily better than the other material, it may be a build up of knowledge over several slightly different repetitions or it may be that a particular approach is better suited to a specific student's thinking process. With computer based learning, the student can be exposed to several talented teachers, a wealth of applicable examples, frequent feedback testing and automatic corrective action as problems occur. The problem of lack of student interest proves not to be a problem with computer based learning, since the student is being tested on an ongoing basis. Unless the student flat-out refuses to do the work, the student will do the work. [I understand the public education has some problem with students who flat-out refuse to do the work.]

A computer can 'give individual attention' to many, many students at the same time. I have never found a live teacher who can do the same thing for a large number of classroom students.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SKY PILOT

Naaah. Draft them into the army and invade...Canada or the North Pole or anyplace, really. My old man enlisted when he was 13 years old, and the army was a good experience for him. Hell! He was a sergeant by the time he was 15. Of course, he was a mighty big boy. He looked like he was 7 feet tall, but 6-5 was his height.

Florida used to lease delinquent children to contractors. The youngest was 4 (horse thief). And their camps were so far out in the boonies there was no point in escaping because the wolves or panthers or gators would get you. So teens mined phosphate rock, cut trees, built railroads thru swamps, or cleared land for sugarcane plantations. Girl delinquents cooked, washed clothes, cleaned, etc. They ate beans, cornbread, and sugarcane syrup....plus whatever critters they caught.

Kids need real choices that illuminate the value of education.

 

[sr71plt]

Corrective action can then be taken in a timely fashion.

What, by whom, based on what authority, on what schedule? You are right back into red tape, administrative overhead, and maintenance costs.

The problem continues to be on the receiving end, not the delivery end.

The compromise would be to engage Internet capabilities inside the classroom (NEWSFLASH: this is already being done--and if it's not working well, this pretty much points out how much more of a disaster it would be to try to get kids/parents to get it done in the home instead).

 

[sr71plt]

SKY PILOT

Naaah. Draft them into the army and invade...Canada or the North Pole or anyplace, really. My old man enlisted when he was 13 years old, and the army was a good experience for him. Hell! He was a sergeant by the time he was 15. Of course, he was a mighty big boy. He looked like he was 7 feet tall, but 6-5 was his height.

Florida used to lease delinquent children to contractors. The youngest was 4 (horse thief). And their camps were so far out in the boonies there was no point in escaping because the wolves or panthers or gators would get you. So teens mined phosphate rock, cut trees, built railroads thru swamps, or cleared land for sugarcane plantations. Girl delinquents cooked, washed clothes, cleaned, etc. They ate beans, cornbread, and sugarcane syrup....plus whatever critters they caught.

Kids need real choices that illuminate the value of education.

Ah, I see. You're not being serious. Just jerking chains. Ha, ha.