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.