Comments on: When digital kids rule the classroom

Schools aim to turn children's predilection for technology into a learning opportunity for both student and teacher.

[nap1805]

love the ipaq in the picture ;)

really good point you made.. with humour I guess.
Got my kids watching simpsons on their pocketpc while they should be listening to the teacher, that's rather more embarassing..

Nap.

[ws808]

perhaps the 35mm SLR is supposed to be funny too?

How about a picture of a kid using a digital camera instead? Can't be _that_ hard to find.

[rootwile]

Not so fast

While the spread of technology is not a bad thing, we must be careful to ensure the educational value of types of technology in the classroom. With the proliferation of powerpoints have come a generation of class skipping, note readers who ignore lectures and only pay attention to the bare minimum information visually presented to them. With adults botching the use of technology, will kids be any better? Doubtful.

[sporte]

When will kids do science with computers?

If we are to fulfill the promise of activities like the human genome
project, it's time to start having our kids use computers for doing science.

[volterwd]

Im teaching in grade 6 now...

and to be quite frank asides from listening to music, google images or rudimentary searches, and playing games, most students are ignorant of most technology unless they have parents who are able to expose them to a more broad use of computers at home and not just msn/games/music

[simstick]

Games not all bad but I agree that the kids level of tech knowledge is hype

I am a component level electronic technician and I learned more about computers playing games for a few years than I did when they were being used for real apps.

[Twey]

Rubbish.

At age 16, I can code in assembler, C, C++, C#, Java, ECMAScript, PHP, Perl, bash, and DOS, if the latter can be counted as a scripting language. At age seven, I was fluent in HTML. At eight, I taught myself Java, while learning ECMAScript unintentionally (it followed on from HTML and sort of settled on me from reading it a lot). Ten ushered on the Visual Basic era, most of which I've now forgotten, while at twelve I had finished teaching myself C++ and C (in that order). During this year I also discovered that there were other operating systems out there than Windows, and installed RedHat Linux on my desktop (having experimented with DOS, sure that there must be something more to Windows). bash followed quickly; it was a very simple language, and easy to pick up. At age 13 I realised that PHP could be used for other things than server-side backends (for which I already had Java and C++, my favourite language for CGI programs). I delved into Perl a little here too, but didn't really get into it until the age of fourteen, at which I learned C# thoroughly enough to work out that it was basically a Windows-centric Java clone. Last year it was necessary for me to use x86 assembler for a driver I wanted to write, so I promptly downloaded a copy of the free NASM compiler and began learning.

At the same time, people were attempting to train me to make webpages in FrontPage.

Kids are essentially the same as adults. If we have an interest in something, or a necessity of some knowledge, we will learn about it, no matter how much you try to hold us back. But we learn much faster.

[ljr-tech]

What students really know

I agree that the average student can bring up a game do hot mail and check on their favorite sports team but God help you if you expect them to take their science project's results and graph them using Excel.

[alek_nedic]

hot mail

http://www.analogstereo.com/nissan_titan_owners_manual.htm

[pmpscheduler]

If kids are teaching, why are teachers receiving salaries?

Kids teaching? What a crock! I ran into a principal who stated the children run the computers at my school. Some of the high schoolers may be able to do some minimal computing technology, however students that have four years have problems with computing.

Some regulation should come into fact here, isn't this like free work for no wages? There are technologists unemployed who need to support families. Why are teachers allowed to show such inadequacies in the classroom? THese students will leave the schools with no respect for their teachers and brag that they know more.

Checks and balances are needed here.

[pmpscheduler]

Clarification of four years...

Kids go to college with computer science degrees, graduate and know nothing about computing in the real world.

Basic email, image play, and browsing, even setting up web pages should be a prerequisite for a teacher. If they cannot do the basics, either training or demotion is needed.

There are too many unemployed people in this country for teachers to allow kids teaching computing.

How naive

Thinking that the students are the "Teachers' is pure naivite.
Students act as aides, under the guidence of teachers.

Sure, there may be some small districts where there is a student
acting autonomously, but that would be the exception.

Students often "work" in schools, not in place of adults but as a
learning experience. Back when I was a student, admittedly pre-
computer days, students were media aides, shepherding 16mm
projectors and setting them up. Later they videotaped
productions on one inch wide video tape.

This was resume building for the students. When they applied to
colleges, they listed these activities as their extra-curricular
activities. Not every kid played football or tennis.

This isn't a departure from the past. It's is the past adapting to
the future.

[dsherr1]

Really useful technology is transparent to learning

It is one thing to understand technology, it is another to use it as a panacea to poor performance by our educational system. My kids and now grandkids learned to use VCR and DVD players, respectively, themselves at two! I think we need to focus on nurturing children's ability and desire to learn. That is the real challenge.

Science, mathematics, art. These are the real fabric of technology competence. These disciplines, art especially, seem to suffer in programs that attempt use technology as a glitzy, but still poor surrogate for dreadful schools. Critical thinking and clear expression, like you know, is never, uh, obsolete.

Technologies comes and go. Focus on the joy of discovery and learning. All else will follow.

[patsyadams]

kids as teachers

This makes so much sense. With probably just a little help, students could teach other teachers in the building. Think of the self esteem boost even in elementary school!