I have been on this list for quite a few months now and have stayed silent. This response to the "Beware the $100 dollar laptop" topic has prompted me to respond.
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Yes - computer skills will help these students in the long-run.
However, as far as NCLB is concerned (and as far as my district is concerned - the NYC DOE) The only way to currently track students progress is through pure numbers and percentages (I am not an advocate of these types of assessment, just to clear the air). The folks who go to Washington and ask for money to support these programs will be hanging out on a limb if they do not have the hard "data" to present to the higher-ups (seriously).
While I do agree that having the opportunity to break the class-barrier and provide each student, regardless of race, class, or whatever else is a huge incentive in their long-term growth as a student, and a member of society, again, the ones who shell out tax dollars to provide these things, at this point, only want true hard numbers.
Unfortunately, we are forcing assessment on CHILDREN who cannot articulate exactly what these particular numbers mean - but (as we all know) bureaucrats have begun using a level of assessment used most commonly in PROFESSIONAL fields to see what level a particular student's achievement has reached.
I have been in the EDU-TECH field for over 10 years, and only have begun to feel that I am a PROFESSIONAL.
-Dan Markovic
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>>Beware studies which ask the wrong question. These studies seem to ask the question "does having a computer make learning X better" where the X is anything not computer related. > No having a computer doesn't help your kids directly as an actor, understand philosophy, or learn math. (though it may make it easier to do research or write a paper etc.) What having a lot of experience using a computer does do is make them comfortable with USING A COMPUTER. And that is an invaluable vocational skill almost regardless of what they end up doing.
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