Digital *Lazy Natives

Today’s Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required) features David Robinson (associate director of Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy) review of Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation.

Citing NAEP test data, Mr. Bauerlein puts forth the theory that although access to information has never been more cost effective and pervasive, knowledge and test scores do not seem to be rising commensurately. Today’s student, according to Bauerlein, has not limited their TV viewing only supplemented it with text messaging, You Tube videos and MySpace. Thousands of LOLs, ROFLs and short sentences ending in ellipses have denigrated the quality of writing in grade level students leading to a diminished ability to articulate in a professional setting, not to mention diminished interest in scholastics.

While this may be true, sadly, I think administrators will relexively seek to distance themselves from technology in the classroom and keep students further disengaged from instruction that still involves a chalkboard (whiteboard, if you are lucky) and four-colored textbooks.

OLPC and Birmingham

You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a low cost laptop available for school-aged curriculum it seems.  OLPC, Nicholas Negroponte’s durable, low cost version, is receiving significant competition from well funded large corporations such as Intel, to the point he now is giving it away.  What few seem to be pushing for, however, is curriculum to be loaded on these machines.

What good is a computer that merely surfs the Internet?  Sure Google and Wikipedia are perfect examples where students can pursue independent study but the lack of structure makes it very difficult to matriculate especially as proscribed by the state.

It Is The Skills, Stupid.

David Brooks, of the New York Times, has an interesting piece today on the dirty little secret that is skills-based outsourcing in a global economy.   Building upon the tenets of Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat,” Brooks argues that although the brute muscle that comprised our economy during the Industrial Age was is vital today, that component of today’s American economy has been largely outsourced offshore.

Today’s cognitive revolution, the increasing use of brain power to achieve workforce ends, will undoubtedly follow the same route if American education does not keep pace.  Currently, American students severely lag in the Sciences and Mathematics which are the sort of cognitive fields needed in an increasingly global, tech-oriented economy.

Higher Education Act In Flux — For Now

Effective April 30, 2008, the Higher Education Act has expired without reauthorization.  HEA is the vehicle by which loans for students attending college receive grants and loans as well as the authorizing legislation for a myriad of rules and regulations relative to college.  The Senate approved, by unanimous consent, an extension this week but, without House approval, the legislation remains in flux.

Web 2.0 – Wikiducation?

When I met with designers of the OdysseyWare blog to determined security levels, layout and themes I mentioned (with little fanfare) using Web 2.0 as the concept for collaboration between industry and school administrators, teachers, etc. The main concern for those involved was the extreme pace the discussions could take and the lessened administrative control we would have to monitor content on the site.

After much disagreement and a return of oxygen to the room, agreement was reached to proceed with caution with regard to Wikis, Blogging, discussion boards, etc.

Although the concerns were well-placed and mirrored many mentioned in this Campus Technology article, the overall benefit of allowing the marketplace to discuss and generate ideas was a no-brainer in my mind and something we clearly needed to pursue. The market is too diverse and overflowing with ideas for any one person, brilliant or not, to monitor and counter effectively.

‘Death List’ Redux

We mentioned the creation of a ‘Death List’ the other day by students in a Arizona school. Students in an Illinois school created a similar list including classmates and teachers. There is no mention of why particular individuals were singled out on the list, however, again authorities are claiming that no harm would have come from the list. Barney, however, was spared this time.

NY Catholic teachers go on strike

Apparently, a Papal decree is the only way to resolve this crisis.

Just days before the pope arrived, hundreds of lay teachers set up picket lines outside 10 Roman Catholic high schools in New York City and its northern suburbs Tuesday, forcing some of the schools to close early.

Students Suspended Over ‘Death List’

Unfortunately, it has become a daily occurrence in the news, but here is today’s version. Two students from Florence, Arizona created a ‘death list’ that included various and sundry individuals including fellow students, school administrators and, this is not a joke, the creator of Barney, the dinosaur.

“Do we think there was any danger of someone being injured of killed? We really don’t,” said Larry Cline of the Florence Unified School Dist No. 1.

Well, thats a relief. Tell that to Barney.

My, How Things Have Changed

I don’t know whether to be ashamed I know (and knew even less in 8th grade) few of the answers to this test or relieved that I am apparently not alone. The Smoky Valley (Salina, Kansas) Genealogical Society made public the questions to the 8th grade final exam use in 1895. As Minding the Campus notes, the most disturbing fact is:

Case Western Reserve’s Ted Gup, in the April 11, 2008 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, writes about how little his students know:

“Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries – China, Cuba, India, and Japan – not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. The question of when the Civil War was fought invited an array of responses – half a dozen were off by a decade or more. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975.”

A study by the National Center for Education Statistics found that only 31 percent of college graduates could read a ”complex book and extrapolate from it.” Furthermore, the study found that far fewer college graduates are leaving school with ”the skills needed to comprehend routine data, such as reading a table about the relationship between blood pressure and physical activity.”

We are a long way from discussing Orthography intelligently.

Jamaica Adds E-Learning

It is unclear why the United States is objecting this project – at least from this article – but the reassuring news is that Jamaican education authorities are adopting e-learning in the classroom.