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                          Computers in the classroom

I'm actually very dubious about computers in the classroom [1], and it's not
because of any Luddism I might have (heck, I have trouble getting rid of
computers). I'm dubious for multiple reasons, one for the over-reliance on
technology aspect [2]. And two, I think it's a huge waste of money.

Years ago, maybe ten or so, I was invited to a middle school in Palm Beach
County (forgotten which one it's been so long) to give a talk about the
Internet. So one week day I arrive at the middle school and get a tour of
their computer lab.

Oh.

My.

God.

A huge room, with about 20 or so high end computers (wouldn't surprise me it
was Apple Macintoshes—Apple [3] was always big in the educational system) all
networked together in this gorgeous lab. Large windows. No visible wires (all
wiring ran in tasteful pipes running up from each desk).

It basically exceeded any computer lab in the Computer Science and
Engineering Department (Computer Science and Engineering, Florida Atlantic
University) [4] at FAU (Florida Atlantic University) [5].

And the first thing that ran through my mind was, how much money was
**wasted** on this lab?

Twenty computers. Assume two students buddy up at each computer. Fourty
students per class. At six classes per day (the number I had in middle
school) that's 240 students that have access to these computers. Out of a
school that probaby had close to 2,000 students (it was a huge two story
middle school—way larger than the one I attended). That's 12% of the student
population had access to this beautiful computer lab.

And I have no idea what they actually taught on the computers (when I
attended high school, it was BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code) [6] and Pascal programming [7], but I doubt that's done
anymore). I thought that the money spent on the computer lab could have gone
to better use. More teachers. Better text books [8].

Anything but expensive, fragile computers that the teachers probably couldn't
operate.

(Oh, and the students I talked to about the Internet? Totally uninterested in
anything I said. Sigh.)

(Oh, and computers in the classroom? Highly distracting. Couple that with
networked computers in the classroom, woo boy—just ask my Computer Graphics
teacher [9] … on second thought … don't.)

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2007/01/02.1
[2] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2006/12/03.1
[3] http://www.apple.com/
[4] http://www.cse.fau.edu/
[5] http://www.fau.edu/
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(programming_language)
[8] http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
[9] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2002/12/19.1

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