Clever. But also tragic. The poor teachers who have been caught in the middle of all this really make me feel sad.
Teaching is already a rough gig, and being forced to improvise with limited to no support from communities, schools, or governments.
Teaching is already a rough gig, and being forced to improvise with limited to no support from communities, schools, or governments.
I have nothing but a giant respect for teachers that are usually underpaid for the giant importance that they carry on their shoulders, a good teacher can help completely change the life of their students.
Cheap sports shoes so the poor kid isn't left out after he lost his shoes but can't afford new ones, pens etc for children who lose them and don't have friends who will lend them one, tampons or sanitary towels for girls whose parents refuse to accept she's growing up.
Example article on this: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nearly-1-in-10-school...
Anyway as others have pointed out, if the schools won't fund that, should the teachers be shelling out for supplies like that themselves? Where's the excessively rich tech companies now? They could do some dank virtue signaling and give free hardware to teachers for example. They've earned tens of billions in the past month anyway, if the government isn't doing anything for society, it's down to the companies.
... And you don't even know if this is a problem you need to solve. Did you do an analysis to see if a) this is a wide-scale problem and b) that an expensive hardware solution is the actual answer versus, say, shipping an extra webcam that teachers can position in any way they want, or shipping a cheap plastic clip with a mirror that replicates what this teacher did.
I don't think taping a CD to a laptop is perfect, but you can imagine all the technical difficulties that come from using something like a Wacom tablet like home, right?
Drivers/software/OS support for the tablet? What program do they use to write in? How do they share that with attendees? How reliable is all this?
There's a simplicity to keeping it completely analogue which has much less failure scenarios. I don't have a link, but a saw a tweet where a teacher (?) had 3D printed a mount for a mirror to put on the laptop lid, a more polished version of this same thing, basically an overhead projector for a webcam.
So no, Wacom tablets are not a magic time-saver that protects teachers time. In fact, it may the case you shipped Wacom tablets and this teacher STILL chooses to use this low-tech approach. Why? Because you didn't do your due diligence and just assumed Wacom tablets will solve this problem and you have ZERO evidence for that.
Right now, we're in just scrambling to get the basics sorted out. I think you do want to give teachers some flexibility in figuring out the last mile of this process and potentially roll out things that work, into general policies later ... because there is no way a school board can think through all the challenges.
I had teachers who I know for a fact had wacom tablets available, as they taught the photography/graphics course, who still chose to use pencil and paper. I have to assume therefore that there is some benefit to using pencil and paper over a wacom.
With this ingenious level of analysis we'd still be banging rocks together to make fire.
Aside from ethics, a class of kids represents millions of future earnings and GDP, this warrants serious approach and best tools money can buy.
Instead education is still stuck in 18th century and we have to put up with ridiculius aruments about petty expences.
Indeed it does. Let's start with paying the teachers more instead of assuming they should pay out of pocket, then, we can have districts pay for the teaching supplies... Oh wait, that all costs tax dollars? Never mind, carry on.
Edit: Also, I had teachers who I know for a fact had wacom tablets available, as they taught the photography/graphics course, who still chose to use pencil and paper. I have to assume therefore that there is some benefit to using pencil and paper over a wacom. This being the case, why on earth would they spend more money?
Either way, it's important to teach children to use technology so they aren't lost when entering higher education or career environments that will use said technology.
I completely agree, but for the purposes of a teacher using a tool to display something to the class, if paper works better, paper works better.
>Instead education is still stuck in 18th century
Nitpick. Education is not stuck in the 18th century.
If they carefull trialed it and got scientific data as to PDA's effectiveness, then you have no right to declare 'obvious stupidity' of any sort, no matter what the results were.
The sensible path of course would be for the school (district) to provide its teachers for job related expenses. A home office budget should be part of that, especially these days.
Needs additional software and mental overhead to get the sketches on screen.
That's half a day's pay for a newly qualified teacher in the US.
Everyone is trying to figure out how to continue life during this pandemic. Why would you expect all levels to have this figured out?
> Everyone is trying to figure out how to continue life during this pandemic. Why would you expect all levels to have this figured out?
There's a big difference between, on one hand, complaining "why haven't communities, schools, and governments figured this all out?", which would be a ridiculous complaint and which no-one is making; and, on the other hand, observing that communities, schools, and governments have collectively thrown up their hands and declared that it's all the teacher's responsibility, which is a real and justified complaint.
Is it a real complaint? I don't see anybody claiming it's all the teacher's responsibility. I don't see that from the parents, or school board, or any government of any level.
> Is it a real complaint? I don't see anybody claiming it's all the teacher's responsibility. I don't see that from the parents, or school board, or any government of any level.
No indeed, it is usually not stated explicitly, just as racism and sexism often are not. But few to no resources are given to teachers, and the first port of call for governmeents, school administrators, and parents looking to apportion blame is teachers, so the effect is the same, even if no one explicitly acknowledges it.
I think a little credit and understanding is due to all the people working at all levels of government, including teachers and school boards, for trying to do their best in an unprecedented, unplanned situation. Having said that, I'm sure there are parents that complain about this, that or another thing, but those parents will always complain about everything.
>and the first port of call for governmeents, school administrators, and parents looking to apportion blame is teachers
I don't see that happening with respect to the pandemic response at all.
I agree this happens with education standards in general and it is a pet-peeve of mine when it does happen. The reality is that if students fail, it's never the teacher, and in fact, it isn't even the school. It's always the parents. Always. If the parents don't enforce education standards and make sure their children don't fail, then there is very little that schools and teachers can do.