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> This is a big victory for the parents, teachers, and students Who should never have been using computers in the first place. There's really no point. Using g

by tgv 3y ago

> This is a big victory for the parents, teachers, and students Who should never have been using computers in the first place. There's really no point. Using gmail and gdocs doesn't teach anything of value. A lot of the other software is pricey and sometimes even detrimental to the school result.

lern_too_spel 3y ago
Writing papers in a word processor is a far different experience from writing papers on paper.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Thankfully. Handwriting caused me massive hand cramping until much later in life when I re-trained myself to hold a pen differently. A lot of my school essays were optimized for the fewest number of words that met the base requirements. That in itself is a useful skill, but I don't recommend it as a coping mechanism to avoid physical pain.
- nocman 3y ago
  Yeah, writing on a word processor is a million times better (at least it is for me). Don't get me wrong, I do think it's bad that writing things by hand is becoming more and more rare all the time. In particular, handwritten letters and notes have an extra bit of "personal touch" to them that can make them very valuable to the recipient. However, from the time I was in High School to today I would never want to be required to write a paper, well, strictly on paper (from the beginning). I want all of that ability to quickly edit at my fingertips.
  - com2kid 3y ago
    As someone who has physical problems writing by hand, papers I wrote by hand in school where better. Being forced to slow down gave me mental time to edit before I committed to page, by the time my pencil made a mark I was already on the 2nd or 3rd revision of what I was going to write.
    - nocman 3y ago
      On a computer I can easily rewrite the same phrase 10 times, reorganize a sentence for the best sounding flow, move or remove whole paragraphs multiple times, until I am satisfied I have said what I wanted to say in the best way I know how. I can save off any number of possibilities and compare them side by side. Also, none of this prevents me from spending 30 minutes beforehand thinking about what I am about to write. Although, I will admit, even if I do that I am likely to have at least a text editor open to jot down a few notes as I think about it. I do agree, however, that the up-front thinking is a very good idea.
    - Thedarkb 3y ago
      I also have physical problems writing by hand, and it led to me handing in a lot of unfinished essays after running out of time in exams. If I hadn't gotten a special dispensation to type my exams later on, I wouldn't really have anything to show for my education. Before my issues were diagnosed, my teachers and parents felt that it was due to a lack of effort on my part and that they could punish me into writing properly, and I feel that having access to Chromebooks is worth it if it even spares one kid from having to deal with that.
- cududa 3y ago
  Okay, and? Hand written papers haven't been a thing in nearly 2 decades unless it was some form of punishment. Also, teachers don't want to have to context switch between reading each paper, adjusting to each student's handwriting
  - LordDragonfang 3y ago
    Handwritten essays are still widely used in testing environments (including those arguably most important to a student's future, AP tests).
    - NavinF 3y ago
      You listed the one exception to the rule. Most AP tests (physics, math, econ, etc) don't have that. Even the SAT essay is gone. That one AP test the final stronghold for an obsolete medium
      - easton 3y ago
        The ones you listed still have FRQs that require critical thinking. Econ is writing a paragraph and drawing a graph, as I recall, and Physics has a question where you have to reason out an experiment. And all of the history and english ones require long form writing.
        NavinF 3y ago
        Weird, I don't remember writing paragraphs for any of those tests. I took almost all the AP tests available, tho that was a decade ago. At most I labeled some axes and that was enough for perfect scores
  - lern_too_spel 3y ago
    > Okay, and? You appear to be violently agreeing with me that there is a point to giving kids computers to use gdocs.
- butlike 3y ago
  For me it's the lack of context switching that would get to me. I'm many years out of school (for now) but I do remember having a blank page in front of me as being somewhat inspiring. It was a new, fresh invitation to write something. Ctrl + N in a word processor just opens up a new window, and for whatever reason, doesn't carry that same weight of inspiration.
- vel0city 3y ago
  My boss always loves it when I write the documentation for my code on a wide-ruled paper in cursive instead of in our Wiki system.
Klugistiono 3y ago
ah yes of course why should a school teach kids not relevant knowledge like computer? Perhaps to make sure that poor kids can never learn it or what is your logic behind this?
- lostlogin 3y ago
  I am married to a teacher who teaches 8-9 year olds. This is her perspective from many years with that age group. Computers and screens are introduced too early. The kids just use them to zone out and mess around. The kids all forget their passwords, so login is a pain. To solve this the school made the same password for all. Some brat sets all the girls avatars to boobs. The various ways kids look up porn is a continual frustration. It doesn’t add to the learning, it makes lazy teachers lives easier. Some classes play Minecraft - I’m unclear how that’s teaching. Some use iPads to take creative photos. It’s not creative and is a waste of time and lazy. Computers have a place in schools, and it’s with older kids than 8-9 and needs to be way more prescriptive when used with <10 year olds. Edit: Probably relevant, my wife and I went to a Steiner school, as does our kid. That system has a pretty old fashioned view on screen time and devices - as I started typing this our child stated that metal work and leather work lessons were starting soon.
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    >Some classes play Minecraft - I’m unclear how that’s teaching There are definitely ways to teach within Minecraft. Redstone springs to mind, but I imagine there are others.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    > The kids all forget their passwords, so login is a pain. I really wish Google would make fingerprint sensors standard for Chromebooks.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      I'm not sure collecting kids biometrics makes anything better. Fingerprints are easy to find, capture, and replicate using things students have readily available like glue or gummy bears (https://it.slashdot.org/story/10/10/28/0124242/aussie-kids-foil-finger-scanner-with-gummi-bears https://it.slashdot.org/story/10/10/28/0124242/aussie-kids-f...). Once a fingerprint is compromised the user is screwed forever because it can't be reset.
mongol 3y ago
You don't use gdocs to learn gdocs. You use it to write an essay or something. It is a tool, like a pen.
- tgv 3y ago
  Which is only needed at the end of secondary school, and only at higher levels. Before that, essays are very short, and should be handwritten, or they not even part of the curriculum.
  - creatonez 3y ago
    If we want schools to reflect useful skills, we'd be better off introducing typing and computer skills younger and dropping the requirement for cursive penmanship. This has already been done (in many cases, 15+ years ago) at most American grade schools -- touch-typing and computer skills instruction now starts only 1 or 2 years after handwriting instruction. This means it is introduced in 2nd or 3rd grade. (Most essay-writing remains on paper until 6th grade, though)
greiskul 3y ago
My mom sent me a photo of me when I was about 8 years old, playing on the home computer. It was very expensive to have a computer in Brazil at that age, and my parents used it for their work. I used it for games. I grew up using computers. Just getting the games to run, was something that needed knowledge back then. That lead me to at my teenage years, to try out programming, cause I wanted to make some changes to the open source version of a mmorpg my brother and I played. That lead me to choosing computer science. That lead me to being a FAANG engineer. I had a leg up agaisnt every single one of my peers during all my teenage and university years. When my peers were learning to use a computer, I was already programming. When they were learning to program, I was already good at it. You say that computer for young kids have no value? Useless? That computer usage was the single most valuable thing that has happened to me in all of my life!
- robrtsql 3y ago
  Which open source version of an MMORPG was that? If you don't mind me asking.
  - greiskul 3y ago
    Tibia.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
  Yeah keep scrolling down until you see that comment from a teacher who thinks it’s a distraction. In general Just because you had a clear purpose for and interest in computers doesn’t mean it’s gonna be the same for other kids
- nonameiguess 3y ago
  Not to be antagonistic, but this story makes it sound like your advantage came from the fact you had a computer early and your peers didn't. If everyone gets one, there is no advantage. You've just created a new necessity instead.
  - pb7 3y ago
doctor_eval 3y ago
I mean you can apply this kind of comment to literally any technology. Cars, carpentry, electricity… computing is part of the fabric of society and making it totally inaccessible won’t help anyone. Imagine this: > Who should never have been using electricity in the first place. There's really no point. Using power tools and washing machines doesn't teach anything of value. A lot of the other appliances are pricey and sometimes even detrimental to the school result.
- tgv 3y ago
  The weird thing is: arguments change their meaning when you change the words. But indeed, washing machines wouldn't be very useful in a school.
thefurdrake 3y ago
> Who should never have been using computers in the first place. Is... is this comment in good faith? Are you sure about that, bud? Parents and teachers shouldn't be using computers in the first place? What a concerning and confusing view of the world.

by tgv 3y ago

lern_too_spel 3y ago

Writing papers in a word processor is a far different experience from writing papers on paper.

kstrauser 3y ago
Thankfully. Handwriting caused me massive hand cramping until much later in life when I re-trained myself to hold a pen differently. A lot of my school essays were optimized for the fewest number of words that met the base requirements. That in itself is a useful skill, but I don't recommend it as a coping mechanism to avoid physical pain.
nocman 3y ago
Yeah, writing on a word processor is a million times better (at least it is for me). Don't get me wrong, I do think it's bad that writing things by hand is becoming more and more rare all the time. In particular, handwritten letters and notes have an extra bit of "personal touch" to them that can make them very valuable to the recipient. However, from the time I was in High School to today I would never want to be required to write a paper, well, strictly on paper (from the beginning). I want all of that ability to quickly edit at my fingertips.
- com2kid 3y ago
  As someone who has physical problems writing by hand, papers I wrote by hand in school where better. Being forced to slow down gave me mental time to edit before I committed to page, by the time my pencil made a mark I was already on the 2nd or 3rd revision of what I was going to write.
  - nocman 3y ago
    On a computer I can easily rewrite the same phrase 10 times, reorganize a sentence for the best sounding flow, move or remove whole paragraphs multiple times, until I am satisfied I have said what I wanted to say in the best way I know how. I can save off any number of possibilities and compare them side by side. Also, none of this prevents me from spending 30 minutes beforehand thinking about what I am about to write. Although, I will admit, even if I do that I am likely to have at least a text editor open to jot down a few notes as I think about it. I do agree, however, that the up-front thinking is a very good idea.
  - Thedarkb 3y ago
    I also have physical problems writing by hand, and it led to me handing in a lot of unfinished essays after running out of time in exams. If I hadn't gotten a special dispensation to type my exams later on, I wouldn't really have anything to show for my education. Before my issues were diagnosed, my teachers and parents felt that it was due to a lack of effort on my part and that they could punish me into writing properly, and I feel that having access to Chromebooks is worth it if it even spares one kid from having to deal with that.
cududa 3y ago
Okay, and? Hand written papers haven't been a thing in nearly 2 decades unless it was some form of punishment. Also, teachers don't want to have to context switch between reading each paper, adjusting to each student's handwriting
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  Handwritten essays are still widely used in testing environments (including those arguably most important to a student's future, AP tests).
  - NavinF 3y ago
    You listed the one exception to the rule. Most AP tests (physics, math, econ, etc) don't have that. Even the SAT essay is gone. That one AP test the final stronghold for an obsolete medium
    - easton 3y ago
      The ones you listed still have FRQs that require critical thinking. Econ is writing a paragraph and drawing a graph, as I recall, and Physics has a question where you have to reason out an experiment. And all of the history and english ones require long form writing.
      - NavinF 3y ago
        Weird, I don't remember writing paragraphs for any of those tests. I took almost all the AP tests available, tho that was a decade ago. At most I labeled some axes and that was enough for perfect scores
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  > Okay, and? You appear to be violently agreeing with me that there is a point to giving kids computers to use gdocs.
butlike 3y ago
For me it's the lack of context switching that would get to me. I'm many years out of school (for now) but I do remember having a blank page in front of me as being somewhat inspiring. It was a new, fresh invitation to write something. Ctrl + N in a word processor just opens up a new window, and for whatever reason, doesn't carry that same weight of inspiration.
vel0city 3y ago
My boss always loves it when I write the documentation for my code on a wide-ruled paper in cursive instead of in our Wiki system.

Klugistiono 3y ago

ah yes of course why should a school teach kids not relevant knowledge like computer? Perhaps to make sure that poor kids can never learn it or what is your logic behind this?

lostlogin 3y ago
I am married to a teacher who teaches 8-9 year olds. This is her perspective from many years with that age group. Computers and screens are introduced too early. The kids just use them to zone out and mess around. The kids all forget their passwords, so login is a pain. To solve this the school made the same password for all. Some brat sets all the girls avatars to boobs. The various ways kids look up porn is a continual frustration. It doesn’t add to the learning, it makes lazy teachers lives easier. Some classes play Minecraft - I’m unclear how that’s teaching. Some use iPads to take creative photos. It’s not creative and is a waste of time and lazy. Computers have a place in schools, and it’s with older kids than 8-9 and needs to be way more prescriptive when used with <10 year olds. Edit: Probably relevant, my wife and I went to a Steiner school, as does our kid. That system has a pretty old fashioned view on screen time and devices - as I started typing this our child stated that metal work and leather work lessons were starting soon.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  >Some classes play Minecraft - I’m unclear how that’s teaching There are definitely ways to teach within Minecraft. Redstone springs to mind, but I imagine there are others.
- fragmede 3y ago
  > The kids all forget their passwords, so login is a pain. I really wish Google would make fingerprint sensors standard for Chromebooks.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I'm not sure collecting kids biometrics makes anything better. Fingerprints are easy to find, capture, and replicate using things students have readily available like glue or gummy bears (https://it.slashdot.org/story/10/10/28/0124242/aussie-kids-foil-finger-scanner-with-gummi-bears https://it.slashdot.org/story/10/10/28/0124242/aussie-kids-f...). Once a fingerprint is compromised the user is screwed forever because it can't be reset.

mongol 3y ago

You don't use gdocs to learn gdocs. You use it to write an essay or something. It is a tool, like a pen.

tgv 3y ago
Which is only needed at the end of secondary school, and only at higher levels. Before that, essays are very short, and should be handwritten, or they not even part of the curriculum.
- creatonez 3y ago
  If we want schools to reflect useful skills, we'd be better off introducing typing and computer skills younger and dropping the requirement for cursive penmanship. This has already been done (in many cases, 15+ years ago) at most American grade schools -- touch-typing and computer skills instruction now starts only 1 or 2 years after handwriting instruction. This means it is introduced in 2nd or 3rd grade. (Most essay-writing remains on paper until 6th grade, though)

greiskul 3y ago

My mom sent me a photo of me when I was about 8 years old, playing on the home computer. It was very expensive to have a computer in Brazil at that age, and my parents used it for their work. I used it for games. I grew up using computers. Just getting the games to run, was something that needed knowledge back then. That lead me to at my teenage years, to try out programming, cause I wanted to make some changes to the open source version of a mmorpg my brother and I played. That lead me to choosing computer science. That lead me to being a FAANG engineer. I had a leg up agaisnt every single one of my peers during all my teenage and university years. When my peers were learning to use a computer, I was already programming. When they were learning to program, I was already good at it. You say that computer for young kids have no value? Useless? That computer usage was the single most valuable thing that has happened to me in all of my life!

robrtsql 3y ago
Which open source version of an MMORPG was that? If you don't mind me asking.
- greiskul 3y ago
  Tibia.
rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
Yeah keep scrolling down until you see that comment from a teacher who thinks it’s a distraction. In general Just because you had a clear purpose for and interest in computers doesn’t mean it’s gonna be the same for other kids
nonameiguess 3y ago
Not to be antagonistic, but this story makes it sound like your advantage came from the fact you had a computer early and your peers didn't. If everyone gets one, there is no advantage. You've just created a new necessity instead.
- pb7 3y ago

doctor_eval 3y ago

I mean you can apply this kind of comment to literally any technology. Cars, carpentry, electricity… computing is part of the fabric of society and making it totally inaccessible won’t help anyone. Imagine this: > Who should never have been using electricity in the first place. There's really no point. Using power tools and washing machines doesn't teach anything of value. A lot of the other appliances are pricey and sometimes even detrimental to the school result.

tgv 3y ago
The weird thing is: arguments change their meaning when you change the words. But indeed, washing machines wouldn't be very useful in a school.

thefurdrake 3y ago

> Who should never have been using computers in the first place. Is... is this comment in good faith? Are you sure about that, bud? Parents and teachers shouldn't be using computers in the first place? What a concerning and confusing view of the world.