Students Hurt By The Digital Divide

mcravenufo said:
What the hell. You mean they weren't teaching kids to write in cursive anymore? :eek:
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My cousin's a kindergarten teacher and when she said they aren't doing that anymore I nearly lost it. Her reasoning was that there was so much curriculum to teach they just can't squeeze it in. For me there has to be SOMETHING that isn't as important they can ditch. Today I get students that turn in homework like it was a 4th grader who wrote it, tomorrow it'll look like a dyslexic quadriplegic who's having a seizure is writing it. Don't get me wrong I'll happily accept typed up stuff, but still writing should be pretty damn fundamental, while I might not use cursive much, I think the years learning it actually made my printing looking nicer.
 
cageymaru said:
I ran into this very problem myself as my professors assumed that everyone was on campus and I commuted 2 hours to get there. So the professors would be like download this 185mb magazine and have your work ready tomorrow. I would have to wait on campus everyday until 8pm when he would upload the magazine as all was available in my area was 14.4k dial up. So one day he came across the campus around 7pm and he asked me why was I still there if I had a 2 hour commute back home. I explained to him what the problem was and he told me to move on campus or give up school as most of the professors operated that way.

So I ended up dropping out as I was taking care of my father and mother. Would have been nice if he could have linked articles in advance or gave me the name of the physical magazine so I could buy it. But like he said he was doing what was best for the majority. I guess that's how it is.
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Was this professor's last name MORON by any chance? Unbelievable ...
 
sfsuphysics said:
My cousin's a kindergarten teacher and when she said they aren't doing that anymore I nearly lost it. Her reasoning was that there was so much curriculum to teach they just can't squeeze it in. For me there has to be SOMETHING that isn't as important they can ditch. Today I get students that turn in homework like it was a 4th grader who wrote it, tomorrow it'll look like a dyslexic quadriplegic who's having a seizure is writing it. Don't get me wrong I'll happily accept typed up stuff, but still writing should be pretty damn fundamental, while I might not use cursive much, I think the years learning it actually made my printing looking nicer.
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Writing is fundamental, but why should cursive be? IMO it should be phased out.
 
cageymaru said:
I ran into this very problem myself as my professors assumed that everyone was on campus and I commuted 2 hours to get there. So the professors would be like download this 185mb magazine and have your work ready tomorrow. I would have to wait on campus everyday until 8pm when he would upload the magazine as all was available in my area was 14.4k dial up. So one day he came across the campus around 7pm and he asked me why was I still there if I had a 2 hour commute back home. I explained to him what the problem was and he told me to move on campus or give up school as most of the professors operated that way.

So I ended up dropping out as I was taking care of my father and mother. Would have been nice if he could have linked articles in advance or gave me the name of the physical magazine so I could buy it. But like he said he was doing what was best for the majority. I guess that's how it is.
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Say what? That's insane. May I ask what course it was and what college? I've never heard of such crap. If that's what most professors do at that educational institute, be glad you dropped out, sounds friggin retarded.
 
The internet is the new teachers version of a textbook. They don't have to know jack shit, just read from the book/point them at the net.
 
I find it amazing that we had $1.5 Trillion (and counting) US Dollars to spend on Iraq and Afghanistan, which we benefited very little, if at all from, but we don't have $45 Billion US Dollars to see to it that everyone in the US has a quality internet connection. Which we would all benefit from immensely.
 
GotNoRice said:
When I was in highschool I already had broadband at home. There were computers in every classroom and the library with full internet access available for any student to use. I graduated highschool over a decade ago. What the hell is anyone's excuse today?
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And where, exactly do you live at?

Lemme guess. A relatively densely packed urban locale. Right?

Try getting internet in places like rural West Virginia.

Or farm country out in the butt-crack-back-of-beyond in northern Iowa.
 
timta2 said:
I find it amazing that we had $1.5 Trillion (and counting) US Dollars to spend on Iraq and Afghanistan, which we benefited very little, if at all from, but we don't have $45 Billion US Dollars to see to it that everyone in the US has a quality internet connection. Which we would all benefit from immensely.
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They spent that much on air conditioning, or contractors driving empty trucks. We didn't benefit, except for those involved with cost-plus and gouging.They spend more than that on the TSA. And most rural Afghans don't know about 9/11.

Maybe the kids affected by that hostage/bus shooting terrorism also in Alabama warrant one week of infrastructure spending in Afghanistan, but through local companies. I won't hold my breath.
 
Steve said:
They used to be called "textbooks." ;)
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More and more frequently textbooks are coming with a serial number. Online homework assignments are linked to said book (exact revision, etc etc) and require the serial number. The serial number can not be transferred, thus the used textbook market cant exist. Students must now buy a brand new text book rather than a used one, to get the valid serial number/online access number/etc in order to do the online homework that is linked to that book.

My brother is going through exactly that right now. Sure its a university course, but at $200-300 each for some of these books, multiply that by several courses....
 
thedge said:
More and more frequently textbooks are coming with a serial number. Online homework assignments are linked to said book (exact revision, etc etc) and require the serial number. The serial number can not be transferred, thus the used textbook market cant exist. Students must now buy a brand new text book rather than a used one, to get the valid serial number/online access number/etc in order to do the online homework that is linked to that book.

My brother is going through exactly that right now. Sure its a university course, but at $200-300 each for some of these books, multiply that by several courses....
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It's a racket.
 
octoberasian said:
Yeah, that's the problem I have with technology nowadays-- We cannot expect every person to afford every technological marvel, device, or access even if it benefits or helps them in some way.

Not everyone has internet access. Heck, my friend is running Windows XP off an old Pentium I computer on 56k still. He cannot squeeze DSL or cable access into his monthly budget given he has three children and a family to support.

It's one of the fears I have that if there is a technology or medical breakthrough that can help someone, that people that really need it and/or can benefit from it, will have no access to it. It's terrible how it is right now because technology should be helping us, not divide us between rich and poor, the haves and have nots.
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Ya so whats new poor people have more trouble the question is what sacrifices will he have to make to get his kids a step up in life. My parents were poor too, but my dad had the foresight even though he didn't really understand computers that they would be important and he made big sacrifices early on to put one in our house even though we could not afford it. Does your friend have cable TV, cell phones, a car, multiple cars? If he does hes choosing 1 item over the other. There are very few people in the USA whom are truly so poor they cannot get internet access in any way shape or form. Its more a question of what are you willing to do to get it, are you willing to give up something else? My parents didn't ever buy cable TV even though all my friends had it, it was a sacrifice we made. There has always been a divide between the rich and the poor from the first day you are born, some people decide to try to break that divide down others just make it an excuse.

I know when I was growing up if there was something I wanted or needed for school and I could not afford it, the school, or just a nice teacher or neighbor could be found who could help. The bigger problem is did you have the balls to admit you are poor and ask for the help or not?
 
thedge said:
More and more frequently textbooks are coming with a serial number. Online homework assignments are linked to said book (exact revision, etc etc) and require the serial number. The serial number can not be transferred, thus the used textbook market cant exist. Students must now buy a brand new text book rather than a used one, to get the valid serial number/online access number/etc in order to do the online homework that is linked to that book.

My brother is going through exactly that right now. Sure its a university course, but at $200-300 each for some of these books, multiply that by several courses....
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I like the fact my University's professors actually went to the effort of making self contained courses so that you didn't *need* a text book. In some courses it was highly advised to have one, but you could just share 1 among several students quite easily, you didn't need one yourself to follow lectures or to do questions. I think in my last 3 years of undergraduate I only bought 3 or 4 text books, and it was purely because I felt they were actually worth buying rather than feeling forced to buy them.

I like to rag on my university because I see all their flaws as I went through the whole undergrad system and also have done some teaching there... but when I hear about the shit a lot of people talk about with other colleges/universities it makes me feel maybe mine wasn't so bad. :eek:
 
mcravenufo said:
What the hell. You mean they weren't teaching kids to write in cursive anymore? :eek:
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No, it had been removed from the curriculum about a year ago for focus on typing. Not long, but I missed that it had been dropped.


From my perspective, the school system seems to be jizzing in its collective pants over tablets.

Tablets are fairly new, and the "OMG Technologeeeeeeee!" knee-jerk adoption reaction makes me want to puke.

I don't have it on me, but thought I heard of some study where the grades were dropping. Granted, there's other factors besides the schools (No Child Left Behind, parents who view the school system as day care), but it feels like there's a huge push to inundate kids with technology. It feels rushed.

We hear people bitch and moan about how kids spend time at home in front of the Xbox and TV, but then there's this momentum wanting Johnny and Sally to have an iPad for math, science, English, Spanish, art, etc. It leaves me scratching the head and why I had a WTF moment over cursive.
 
Cursive was a special writing system designed to help you write faster, back when most people only had access to a pen / pencil. It makes alot of sense that since most people in developed nations now have access to some form of computing device and typing that cursive would be dropped in favor of typing, which takes all the speed benefits of cursive, goes much faster and still maintains perfect penmanship. Ultimately the goal of the educations system is efficiency in society, so that is a correct way to go IMO.

I have no problem with giving every kid a tablet one day, say in a couple years when it cost about $100 for a 10 inch android tablet, at that point though they need to get rid of all the books and save us all the money. I actually think it would make more sense to force kids to buy the tablets them self, the point being you take care of yours and learn how to use it. As it is we are probably spending way more than $100 per year in various paper supplies and books for kids. I know now days I feel like teacher just print a ton more junk, they dont even think about it, just print everything and send it home with the kids. They also love to give them these organizers and stuff.
 
rudy said:
Cursive was a special writing system designed to help you write faster, back when most people only had access to a pen / pencil. It makes alot of sense that since most people in developed nations now have access to some form of computing device and typing that cursive would be dropped in favor of typing, which takes all the speed benefits of cursive, goes much faster and still maintains perfect penmanship. Ultimately the goal of the educations system is efficiency in society, so that is a correct way to go IMO.
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Writing with pen and paper or pencil and paper is still an extremely common practice, and I'm pretty sure we could exchange the time we spent on black history month to teach hand writing skills real quick.

Besides, if everyone writes uniformly in cursive style, which is the most efficient means of writing by hand, then notes taken on tablets are much easier to register and translate to regular text for software.
 
There's lots of benefits to learning cursive over just typing or printing. The only disadvantage that I know of is that dyslexic people apparently struggle more with cursive. Really, do we need to "teach" typing? Once you know your alphabet isn't it trivial? Just tell the kids where to put their hands and then they practice, does anyone actually take typing "lessons"?

I do also worry about teaching "digital skills" as the bar moves so quickly that teaching a specific system or program quickly becomes outdated.
 
Typing seems like it would be used for scheduling, so 30+ kids are sitting at computers with passive supervision and teachers get to do a, b, and c.
 
Writing with pen and paper is a common practice, but honestly I couldnt even remember the last time I used cursive by the time I took the GRE and they asked me to write in cursive and I was like umm, hmm how do I do that again. The main reason it is still common practice is because we are just flipping over to an era where almost everyone has a mobile computing device and as always old habits die hard. No way a person who practices on both devices and becomes proficient can go faster with pen and paper than they can even on a phone.

Note that I specifically said cursive, learning to print or write by hand should still be a fall back, and any of them of course builds motor skills, but learning the specific writing system of cursive is no different than calligraphic now, its just a fancy cool thing to do, its main use has been supplanted.

Also I totally disagree with people who say you should not learn typing. Most people who are left to their own come up with all sorts of funning pecking schemes for typing that are slow, learning to type properly is a basic skill now and will be till computers read our minds or voice input gets really good. I watch kids do it and seem them make trivial mistakes like press the wrong shift key etc... Its just a basic skill now days everyone should know.
 
rudy said:
Note that I specifically said cursive, learning to print or write by hand should still be a fall back, and any of them of course builds motor skills, but learning the specific writing system of cursive is no different than calligraphic now, its just a fancy cool thing to do, its main use has been supplanted.
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But then you have the argument of whether learning to print is actually better or even easier than learning cursive. There's several good arguments as to why cursive is better to learn.
Also I totally disagree with people who say you should not learn typing. Most people who are left to their own come up with all sorts of funning pecking schemes for typing that are slow, learning to type properly is a basic skill now and will be till computers read our minds or voice input gets really good. I watch kids do it and seem them make trivial mistakes like press the wrong shift key etc... Its just a basic skill now days everyone should know.
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Yes, I didn't mean to say kids shouldn't learn to type, but it's hardly a skill that you actually have to dedicate any significant time to the "teaching" of it. Once you know your alphabet, learning to type is just a mechanical thing. Put your hands there and type... now practice for a few thousand hours. At least that's my take on it, I've never tried to teach a young kid to type, maybe that's harder than I think it is. I learned to touch type when I was, I dunno, 12ish, and I don't think anyone in the class actually struggled with it.

The only problem I had learning to touch type was that I had already been typing for many years and had developed a method of typing that was more pattern based, so rather than knowing where each key is (when I say "touch type" I mean assigning each letter to a finger, I don't sight type when I "pattern type"), I somehow learned the pattern which different words make on the keyboard and don't instinctively know where the individual keys are and will use a different finger for different letters depending on what works best for the pattern for a specific word. So by the time I was 12 and they started teaching us to touch type, I could already type close to 60wpm, and trying to retrain to touch type I dropped to about 25wpm. Even now, if I'm typing a long report or a long post here on [H], I tend to pattern type rather than touch type, I don't know how much if any faster I'd be if I tried bring up my touch typing speed.
 
That's not to say I struggled to touch type, in school I could touch type as fast as any other kids after I'd practiced a bit, but I didn't bother to actually touch type outside of the computing class because I could type much faster without it.
 
Printing is the basic form of reading, because it is more clear and easier to recognize. You will notice that almost all advanced countries have dropped the more ornate scripts in favor of simplified versions to make it easier and more clear to recognize characters. Even the complicated systems like Japanese have been simplified. Cursive is a special brand of english, in sense maybe we could teach it if we agreed to move all computing text over to cursive. But I think you know if you drive down the highway or glance at a word its just easier to ready fast if it is printed / typed in standard form rather than cursive.

The main point is if you teach people correct touch typing early on, they dont need to ever relearn how to type no matter what they do, I know what you mean by pattern typing, I was never taught to type correctly in any way and do similar things. And slowly over the years I have had to relearn certain techniques because they are not fast or efficient. Wish I would have just taken the damn typing class in middle school. I started 2 finger pecking, did almost everything that way at a pretty fast rate, moved to your pattern typing one day, I had to force myself to do it. And still to this day have alot of flaws in my patterns.

I think 1 semester in elementary school should do it.
 
rudy said:
Printing is the basic form of reading, because it is more clear and easier to recognize. You will notice that almost all advanced countries have dropped the more ornate scripts in favor of simplified versions to make it easier and more clear to recognize characters. Even the complicated systems like Japanese have been simplified. Cursive is a special brand of english, in sense maybe we could teach it if we agreed to move all computing text over to cursive. But I think you know if you drive down the highway or glance at a word its just easier to ready fast if it is printed / typed in standard form rather than cursive.
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But there are arguments that cursive is no harder to learn if you teach it first. Less chance of reversing or mixing up letters (q, p, g, b, d, f, t). Apparently it requires less fundamental movements. Teaches kids to think in terms of words instead of letters.

At the end of the day, I think the struggle is teaching kids the language, what the letters are, how they construct in to words. Once you know the alphabet in cursive, translating to print isn't difficult.

I guess my issue is less teaching kids to be able to do fundamental things like reading signs and fill out forms, and more about teaching kids how to learn and ways to think, so I don't think something like cursive should be so readily discarded.
The main point is if you teach people correct touch typing early on, they dont need to ever relearn how to type no matter what they do, I know what you mean by pattern typing, I was never taught to type correctly in any way and do similar things. And slowly over the years I have had to relearn certain techniques because they are not fast or efficient. Wish I would have just taken the damn typing class in middle school. I started 2 finger pecking, did almost everything that way at a pretty fast rate, moved to your pattern typing one day, I had to force myself to do it. And still to this day have alot of flaws in my patterns.

I think 1 semester in elementary school should do it.
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Yes, sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I do think kids should learn to type from an early age, however I think the challenge isn't simply whether you're teaching them to type/print/cursive, the thing is to teach them the language, the alphabet and words and then once you know that, the typing part itself is trivial and not a replacement for penmanship (in my mind at least, as I said, I've never tried to teach a young kid to type).

FYI, I do think if I'm typing a report or long screed of text where the emphasis is on whole words that typing by pattern the way I do really isn't really a disadvantage, but I think it's a big disadvantage in doing something like programing where you type by letters and symbols rather than words.
 
But the whole point is we don't want to waste time translating to print from cursive, if cursive no longer has an efficiency advantage then what point does it have? If the arguement is that cursive is simply superior then its time to get rid of print and move to all cursive where the keys on our keyboard are cursive etc....
 
rudy said:
But the whole point is we don't want to waste time translating to print from cursive, if cursive no longer has an efficiency advantage then what point does it have? If the arguement is that cursive is simply superior then its time to get rid of print and move to all cursive where the keys on our keyboard are cursive etc....
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Honestly, I'm not a primary school teacher :D But I believe the argument for cursive is that it's more beneficial from a standpoint of learning the language and learning penmanship. I could be wrong, but my impression is that learning cursive or learning print or learning typing is all pretty trivial once you learn the language and alphabet, the challenge is learning the language and how can you best use cursive, typing and print to teach the language.

I don't know greek, but I can understand the alphabet and how to write the letters. I don't know any ancient nordic languages, but I can differentiate the different runes and I'm pretty sure I could write them well enough. I'd have no bloody idea what I'm writing of course.
 
Godmachine said:
You can get also get satellite access across nearly the entire lower 48 states at speeds up to 12 down 3 up for $50 a month. You won't have tons of bandwidth but you could easily do what you need for research for school and between 2am-8am each day your bandwidth isn't counted against you so you can grab a download scheduler to setup any big downloads you want without a big hit to your bandwidth.

This service truly covers almost EVERYONE. It covers all the lower 48 and Hawaii and some of Alaska. Here is a map of coverage.



So really , don't tell me you can figure out a way to get coverage. No one HAS to use 56k if they just do some research.
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Freebsd (...linux...) is free... it has its own learning curve though... (Not detrimental if one has the free time...) [ a small tidbit of good news hopefully.]
 
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