Yep, I can remember when pinching and swiping meant something completely different.

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Anyone who has spent time in a classroom and actually paid attention knows that this is true. Computers are wonderful things, but used inproperly, they inhibit learning rather than facilitate it.

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I think the Amish were way ahead with this thinking.

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Use computers to replace printed textboks but not as some corespondance wannabe.

History or grammer can be printed texts and reused but science, geography, computer language ect change much too quickly.

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Have to agree with Citizen. Textbooks have added greatly to the cost of schooling at all levels. Maybe we did spend too much time on handwriting in my day, but until a student's reading skills are sufficiently advanced, computers offer too much diversion. Basic skills must not be overlooked. The ability to do simple math must be taught before calculators and computers enter the picture. Without them, who will recognize a displaced decimal point and the adverse affect on the final numbers spit out?

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Someone has apparently failed to explain to these folks that the purpose of the American educational system is to produce cogs for the machine that generates wealth for the economic aristocracy.

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Your headline book learning preferred over computers, can be taken the wrong way. If the book is the center of all learning then students will be shortchanged as many are in schools all over the country. "The" book( a product of the larger states controlling what is contained in k-12 textbooks) should only be a guide, and not the major emphasis as to what is taught and how it is taught. Research shows conclusively that student centered learning is the way to go, not teacher centered/directed or slavish reliance on the textbook.

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By those standards, history could be said to change quickly too, Citizen1. And grammar? It's changed a lot since I studied tenses and diagrammed sentences -- maybe not so much in the books, but on the street, in the classroom, everywhere. Shesh.
I think we should insist our students make do with books, paper and pencil, along with old fashioned brain exercise, certainly in elementary school. Then use computers as an adjunct starting perhaps in junior high or high school, but not the be all and end all. After all, they are tools which can be used well only if you have the background to know what you are trying to accomplish. Otherwise, they are often merely the equivalent of the National Enquirer or Star. Or the Texas version of history.

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Students are carrying computers in the form of smart phones starting in elementary school. I freak out when I see little kids with iPhones and wonder how the parents can afford to replace them when the inevitable accident happens.

I think kids are in general better able to tell fact from BS on the internet than the preceding generation. The big lie emails I get generally all come from older adults.

Another thing missing is the increase in intelligence/learning/general 'smartness' that comes from living in a world where brains are networked together without regard to geography or appearance.

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Well, in Walter Isaacson's official Steve Jobs bio, due out Monday, he reports that the visionary genius definitely wanted to get into the textbook business. That was the next business he wanted to transform.

”If textbooks were given away free on iPads he thought the publishers could get around the state certification of textbooks. Mr. Isaacson said Mr. Jobs believed that states would struggle with a weak economy for at least a decade. “We can give them an opportunity to circumvent that whole process and save money,’ he told Mr. Isaacson.”

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/h…

(P.S. Know what you mean, Outlier, about building regulations and earthquakes. I’ll take an earthquake over a tornado any day. But that’s just jiggly li’l me. Meanwhile, I’ve got something more ominous to tell you about later, but right now I’ve got to run.)

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From the end of the story: “Besides, if you learn to write on paper, you can still write if water spills on the computer or the power goes out.”
Now that is one smart 10-year-old.

Occupy, I wonder if the "big lie e-mails" usually come from older adults because they are subjects that group is concerned about. In many cases, they experienced a lifetime of indoctrination and some commentators -- so-called authorities -- cater to that.
I haven't seen many kiddos who are interested in the latest Rush spout, for example. But I'd be willing to guess that there is a lot of back and forth between kiddos about the latest (age-appropriate) entertainment figure or sports brouhaha, right after chatter about what their schoolmates and friends are doing.

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Sent the story link to a retired journalism proff in Florida. She responded:

"Each time a new technology appears, it upsets me that schools (and other agencies of govt) rush out to spend big money getting the technology and then twice more to train people to use it. I wrote about that in the Fort Lauderdale school system with tv; every school in the county was wired and equipped. Programming staff cost a fortune. within 5 years, almost no school used it. Now all the buildings and computers, the cameras, etc., are gone.

And to read that schools no longer are teaching cursive writing....what are we coming to?"

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Yeah, you've got to pay to play in the tech world. No one knows which technologies will survive and for how long. I have to remind my 15 year old to check her email if I send her something.

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.

Back in the 70s even small corps around NWA were establishing
"Audio-Visual" departments, mostly for worker training and their own
media releases.

Did any of you ever have to "rush" a company video to the tv station?

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Let me point out that textbooks are another scam that will be gone in Occupied America. Ma didn't raise no thief, but I did a fair amount of stealing at the U of A bookstore in Fayetteville when I was there. I lived in Gregson, then a bastion of poorer students. I got sick of the worried faces and sometimes the teary faces of my dorm mates at the start of every semester when it was time to buy new text books.

There was no Amazon or Craig's list back then and very few of us were lucky enough to scarf up used textbooks from the people a year ahead of us. Even in an era of 39 cent per gallon gasoline, my poor buddy across the hall was asked to come up with 40 bucks for a pulp paper workbook for some lab he had no choice but to be in.

I lived on 10 dollars per week, so I sure couldn't loan him any money. So rather than watch him cry some more, I put on my coat and headed to the U of A book store with larceny in my heart. It was easy as pie! 15 minutes later I was back in the dorm and my buddy Terry Rudy wasn't crying any more. The Robin Hood of Gregson Lodge had been born.

I only did it 4 or 5 more times, not much of a crime spree, but the actual crime was in charging 40 bucks for a lab workbook printed on paper not worthy of comic books. Why do textbook companies cheat our precious precious children? Why do we let them get away with it?

Today mag and I struggle at the beginning of each semester to buy our kid's textbooks. They are printed on better paper, are more attractive, seem more substantial, but each one eats up the most of a hundred dollars in most cases if we're forced to buy them new. Is our children learning? Yes, thanks to the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery and parents willing to eat grilled cheese sandwiches every night.

I love a good book! I read every day of the year. But just the mention of textbooks make my blood boil. It was a racket, it is a racket and it will be a racket as long as we do nothing about it.

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DBI, at another university, friends and I used to buy books and share them by photocopying them at a nickel a page. Six hundred pages for $30 when a used one, if available, might cost $50. And if you could copy facing pages on legal size paper, $15, although you did often have to scratch your head at the print on the inner parts of the pages. We went through a lot of nickels during that multi-year crime spree.

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Wait a couple of weeks to see if the textbook is actually needed. It probably isn't, although that depends heavily on the classes. I never needed a book for business classes. Always had to get it for language and math.

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Science does change, but the parts in the textbooks are mainly basics that don't change that much. There is no reason to change basic biology textbooks every two years, except to line the pockets of textbook producers. It's a tremendous scam.

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Yes, yes yes. Good for you. There is no role in early childhood education for computers. First learn to do for yourself, then learn to think for yourself. If I had one of this age, I would enroll her instantly in Waldorf. As it was, my child went to Childrens House Montessori in Little Rock (Thank you, Nancy) and turned out brilliantly.

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Another thing about today's textbooks. They look great when they're brand new. But they're cheaply bound - on purpose, no doubt. They generally fall apart by the end of the year, thus eliminating any chance of recouping your investment by reselling it as a used book.

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The state of Arkansas does textbook change-overs by subject on a planned time cycle. When I was on the state Science Textbook Committee, the cycle time was 7 years. They take a beating over that time period and by the time the new cycle hits, probably 10% have been destroyed by lack of care.

At a review, the state standards are sent to each publisher and they submit ALL of their books, teacher manuals, workbooks, etc for every text they would like on the state approved list. I ended up with two pallets of books in my storage barn to sort through. At the time, there must have been 7 publishers with a high school Biology texts, probably 6 Chemistry, three or four Physical Science, and even multiple Physics series. Once a publisher is approved and added to the list, any school can select between any of the approved texts. I kept a Chemistry series for my school and several workbooks from different publishers and returned all of the other books to the depository. Some of the chemistry and physics text books were over $80 each. With all of the books, workbooks, etc needed, it probably averages $100 per student in a subject or higher.

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The question is, how to turn public schools into Montessori schools and Waldorf schools and so on. It isn't answered by getting your kid into a private school.

A good rule of thumb is that a public education should be comparable to the education the very wealthy and powerful buy for their children.

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