Fixing education | Hacker News Reader

Fixing education

huffingtonpost.com

1 pointarijo5 comments

"It's too early to assess the impact on learning in Portuguese schools. Studies of the impact of computers in schools elsewhere have been inconclusive, or mixed."

Well, all right then, it's too early to advocate the things Portugal is doing just now as a model for fixing United States schools.

"Portugal has invested 400 million euros to makes sure each classroom has access to the Internet. Just about every classroom in the public system now has an interactive smart board, instead of the old fashioned blackboard.

This means that nearly nine out of 10 students in Grades 1 to 4 have a laptop on their desk. "

Maybe too early to see the results, but would you advocate that having 9 out of 10 students in grades 1 to 4 with a laptop on their desk is not a model for other countries to follow?

would you advocate that having 9 out of 10 students in grades 1 to 4 with a laptop on their desk is not a model for other countries to follow?

Yes, because results of studies in the United States suggest that more computer use by schoolchildren results in lower rather than higher academic achievement. Computers are important, wonderful tools, and you and I are using computers right now to communicate about this interesting submission to HN, but children have a lot of development to go through for which computers have no demonstrated ability to help. On an issue like improving education, research matters, and there isn't a strong body of research to show that increased computer use does much to improve primary education.

"and there isn't a strong body of research to show that increased computer use does much to improve primary education"

Maybe beacause primary education students do not have computers in the classroom in all countries but Portugal?

Not so, there has been much study of this issue, including studies with experimental rather than observational designs,

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

in a variety of countries.

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