Does Anyone Else Find Watching Simpletons Discuss Technology To Be Oddly Reassuring?

[PLATO]

I apologize also for being a right-wing hack.

Some things are just almost sig worthy.

[Sava]

I'm frequently told I need to be more serious at work.

You can be both incompetent and uptight.

[The Mad Monk]

Just look at Obama.

[Hauldren Collider]

Students can use their own devices (iPods, iPhones, Androids, iPads, whatever) to contribute to the lesson on the board in tons of ways - answering interactive questions, contributing to a real-time word cloud or brainstorming session, etc. They can get up to the board and collaborate together to solve a problem (up to 40 touches on displays up to 110"), etc.

Oh good. The kids get to have cell phones in class. I'm sure that will prove entirely constructive and not the slightest bit distracting. I bet you even have studies showing that education is improved when kids can text each other under the desks in real time

[Hauldren Collider]

God forbid a kid just raise his hand and answer a teacher's question. Now we can make him press a button! Teach HIM not to talk out of turn!

Seriously, where was this **** when I was in high school? Everything would have been so much better in math if we'd spent less time doing practice problems and more time doing half-baked activities on ****ty worn-down fragile electronics that we inevitably won't have enough of and so will have to share with two other students

[Sava]

Just look at Obama.

HU HUH UHUHU HUH UYEAH OBAMA HUUHUHUUHU

[Sava]

Our method of education is horribly inefficient... putting everyone in a large group and having a single person lecture to them. Everyone learns at a different pace. Lumping everyone together ensures that the group will move at the pace of the slowest person in it.

Schools are designed to be prisons for children. If we want to improve education, we need to make education, not discipline, the goal.

[Hauldren Collider]

agreed. We need to split kids up by skill levels more. They learn faster that way. The slow kids don't become discouraged, and the fast kids aren't slowed down by the slow kids.

[Sava]

agreed. We need to split kids up by skill levels more. They learn faster that way. The slow kids don't become discouraged, and the fast kids aren't slowed down by the slow kids.

I also think it would be beneficial if younger children, especially kids learning at a slower pace, could be somewhat directed in their learning by older and more intelligent children. This could alleviate some of the need for more teachers and lower class sizes.

Smaller groups are easier to manage. Think of it a bit like how TA's help out college professors. The overall lesson plan would be the teacher's responsibility. But the direct management of the smaller groups could be the responsibility of other students.

And during that time, credit would of course be given to those older children... in the form of management training.

[Hauldren Collider]

What worries me is that there are a lot of kids that see other kids who are way smarter than them, and just tell themselves, "Well, I'll never be as good as him, so I won't bother. What's the point?" I think that's a real problem. Maybe they'll never be geniuses but they would still benefit from trying.

[The Mad Monk]

HU HUH UHUHU HUH UYEAH OBAMA HUUHUHUUHU

I said coffee, not cocaine.

[Sava]

I said coffee, not cocaine.

CRACK COCAINE CRACKCOKAINEEEEEEE

[The Mad Monk]

What was in that syringe in Pulp Fiction? Adrenaline? Epinephrine? Either way I'm out.

[Elok]

Oh good. The kids get to have cell phones in class. I'm sure that will prove entirely constructive and not the slightest bit distracting. I bet you even have studies showing that education is improved when kids can text each other under the desks in real time

We call them (cough) "mobile learning devices." The teens have already learned to use the acronym MLD ironically. As have the teachers. They do have a use in the classroom, though: if you let an obnoxious kid listen to music on headphones, he'll be effectively isolated from his peers.

[regexcellent]

If I were a teacher I would confiscate cell phones at the beginning of class. We did that in the ROTC class after non-cadets started signing up for Military Science.