Blog #1

http://www.edutopia.org/php/article.php?id=Art_1672
Paperless Learning
By: Amy Standen

REVIEW
This article is well summarized by its title, Paperless Learning. In some areas such as Seattle, Washington and parts of Utah, many students are finding themselves with a lighter load in their backpacks. Many schools have resorted to a kind of textbook replacement, the e-book. Aside from the lighter load, students seem to respond better to interactive textbook use than textbooks alone.
During a typical e-class, a teacher would lecture for 10 to 20 minutes. The students would then work as a team to complete the daily assignment using their e-books. E-book teachers feel a sense of freedom that allows them to help students on more of an individual level. Homework is submitted electronically which also lightens the teachers load!
However, there is a flipside to this new technology. First, the creation of an e-book is a tremendous amount of work. Second, many teachers whom have learned to "teach from the text" are reluctant to change their ways.
COMMENTARY/OPINION
I used to think that this kind of technology was limited to places that I considered to be "technologically inclined". Seattle and parts of Utah would not have been my first guesses. Technology is more widespread than I had initially thought. When I was teaching middle school Social Studies, I noticed that teachers were lecturing less and group work took up the majority of the class period. I always found this too be difficult because I had to teach without textbooks. So what were my students doing without books? They didn't have computers. They had nothing. Now it seems that the group work includes a computerized text book or something close to it. That of course is the missing piece. I often look back at my teaching and feel like my students were directing their own "sourceless" activities. What a waste...
This article also mentions a statistic that I find to be completely "bogus". Even in a school where 50% of the students are on a free lunch program, everyone has a computer at home. I cannot say that everyone has a computer at home. I worked in an economically challenged district and one, just one of my students did not have a computer. I often assigned computer work and was at a loss as to what to do with her. I gave her extensions on all of the assignments. I would let her come up to the computer lab during recess. She happened to be a wonderful student but the rules were just not fair. The other students became angry at my inconsistency and at this student. This gave her a "poor" stigma. 46% of the students in my school were part of the free-lunch program. Statistics about school lunch say nothing about technological access. This author just threw that information in because it sounded good. That really bothered me.