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March 21, 2005
Reading better than Typing?
"Holding other family characteristics constant, students perform significantly worse if they have computers at home," the authors conclude. By contrast, children with access to 500 books in their homes performed better. The negative correlation, the researchers explain, is because children with computers neglect their homework more.The Royal Society's quantative approach mirrors concerned raised by qualitative analysis of technology in education. Children are now awash with "facts", but don't know what to do with them.
Schoolchildren are developing a "problem-solving deficit disorder", and losing the ability to analyze. A better way, experts insist, is to encourage creativity. And the best remedy for this is to turn off the computer and stimulate childrens' imaginations.
Well, when you put it that way, duh...
Of course, if we really wanted to get to this, we’d have to significantly change the way we test in this country. Since putting facts together into interesting and useful ways requires a good deal of subjectivity, essays would have to play a more prominent roll, and multiple choice tests a lesser one. This opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms...
Posted by Andrew at March 21, 2005 01:58 PM
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