
Step 1: give every kid a laptop. Step 2: learning begins? - llambda
http://arstechnica.com/business/the-networked-society/2012/02/step-one-give-every-kid-a-laptop-step-two-learning-begins.ars
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jdietrich
Teaching is a bizarrely evidence-free field. It's as if there's an active
aversion to finding out whether a method or tool works or not. I can't think
of any field where so little is known, where there is such a paucity of good
data.

We've been spending hundreds of millions on putting technology in classrooms,
without a shred of evidence that it improves learning outcomes. As a society
we do plenty of things that we know not to work, like imprisoning people or
criminalising drug users, but at least we've got enough data to say that they
don't work.

~~~
chc
That's because the goals of teaching are bizarrely ill-defined. With drug
laws, we have a concrete, measurable outcome we're looking at. Most attempts
to actually define a goal for teaching (e.g. with standardized tests) have
been derided as measuring the wrong things and harming education in the
process by forcing teachers to "teach to the test".

~~~
r00fus
Exactly.

Current efforts at educator performance are attempts to apply basic economics
to a real-world complex multivariate issue - how does a given teacher affect
the arc of a child's overall education, when decoupled from the child's home
environment and overall societal trends?

Accurately measuring this kind of impact would be more similar to modeling
weather than say, worker performance. A more accurate model would be like
lifetime patient medical outcomes (which we also are poor at measuring in
detail)... if we could measure how good a doctor is by the healthfulness of
their patients, then we have the basic model by which we can measure
educators.

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feralchimp
Laptops and tablets are the most distraction-prone pieces of technology yet
invented. That anyone would expect dropping them into the hands of children to
increase their consumption of traditional rote-learning curricula is just
_bizarre_.

The article's point about basic infrastructure is right on. What allows me to
really concentrate and be productive with my $n-thousands of dollars in
computing hw/sw is that I'm in a relatively comfortable, relatively calm
environment with easy access to a bathroom and snacks.

[That, and I've hacked my way into responsibilities that are adventure-like.
Totally agree with fellow-commenter's reference to The Diamond Age.]

Take those things away, and the primary use for my laptop becomes either a)
distracting myself from the fact that I'm uncomfortable, or b) using the
laptop to procure some combination of peace, bathrooms, and snacks.

Startup idea: "like Foodler, only for toilets and earplugs!"

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DanBC
I could understand a project to give every child a (good quality) e-ink
reader. These devices could be semi-locked down, and have minimal specs.
That'd reduce the opportunities for use other than reading text books.

People can highlight passages they're finding difficult. There could be basic
exercise questions (and these could even be web enabled).

It'd fit in well with open source text books; allowing updating of content
when needed, with corrections and improvements over time.

There are a few drawbacks - there's very little interactivity and no chance
for video. People with dyslexia aren't going to get best use of these devices,
nor are people with learning disabilities or visual impairments etc.

But the cost would be very much cheaper than the current dead-tree text book
system.

~~~
lotu
Are you referring to the in the US? If that's the case I think Universities
are starting to do that type of thing and it may filter into high schools in
the next couple of years.

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tom_b
Forget the hardware.

What we really need is a way to get Anki (spaced repetition learning software)
hooked up with enough logic (AI like?) to allow individualized learning with
different instruction methods that tailor themselves to each student based on
subject.

Of course, what I am really saying is that Neal Stephenson showed us the way
with "The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" in The Diamond Age.

Now all we have to do is make it.

~~~
simonsarris
This is precisely what Kumon learning centers already do.

I worked at one for a few years as a tutor. Annoyingly, the biggest complaint
from new parents was "My kid already did this worksheet! Why are you giving it
to him again?"

I had to explain that repetition was the most important part. You could
explain the science but the parents don't seem to care about that part. The
parents often thought that it was de-motivational and belittling to have to do
the same work over again, so we often mentioned that revisiting something
you've done before and acing it the second time around can actually boost
confidence quite a bit (we would sometimes make a point of showing a kid that
he might not have done so well with something a few months ago, and now he did
it perfectly or nearly perfectly).

PS: 99.9999% of tutoring success depended on motivation. I could teach any kid
in the world anything if he was motivated, regardless of his or her knowledge
when they came to us. There were only two things I figured out about how to
get kids motivated that weren't:

1\. Enthusiasm is contagious. The tutor damn well better be excited about the
subject. The environment better be positive, and sometimes that meant telling
the parents to back off. Most parents I worked with were
Indian/Chinese/strict. Most were extremely good and supportive, but some were
really harsh.

2\. Provable, tangible progress that you can show the kid. This is another
reason repetition is so important, it's half of the motivation, even if the
kid doesn't outwardly admit it.

~~~
freehunter
I'm taking a class through my university right now that uses LearnSmart from
McGraw-Hill. I was pretty irritated having to buy a subscription to a website
in order to do my homework ($50 plus the $230 book, seriously?), but they have
a study guide that you have to go through to get to the homework that is
actually quite helpful. Right up front, it presents you with the question then
asks how sure you are that you know it. If you don't know it very well (even
if you get it right) it keeps asking the question until its sure you know it.
You're supposed to go through this every day (or so), and it will ask
different questions mixed in with the older questions.

Worth the $50? That's debatable. Helpful? You bet your sweet ass. When I miss
a question then get it right the next time it comes around, it's difficult to
describe how I feel.

------
niels_olson
I think it's pretty obvious the Maine paradigm is the way to go. I think
peter_l_downs (1) and GigabyteCoin (2) and are on to something: games get
boring. Video is the biggest problem.

I have two kids, 10 and 7, and a slightly obscene number of computers.

* They each have OLPC laptops, which they have no interest in. Occasionally, I'll dig one out to show them how they can manipulate the programs, but they quickly tire. No news there.

* We have a Touchpad and an iPad.

 __The TouchPad charges in the master bathroom, and is basically an extremely
fancy radio for NPR in the morning and the kids use it as a Pandora radio in
the afternoon. Please get CyanogenMod 9 stable on TouchPad. Please.

 __The iPad has games and sometimes has Netflix installed. I generally
uninstall Netflix unless there's some compelling reason, like a road trip, to
install it. But my wife has fairly well commandeered it as an e-book reader.
We read e-books to kids before bed (eg, Nim's Island), which has proved a to
be one way to condition the kids to understand the iPad is useful for
something other than games. But, overall, if Netflix isn't installed, they
mainly use it to play Pandora.

* They have access to two older, larger Dell laptops (dual and single core, 15" and 17", respectively) running Ubuntu, one in the spare room, one in serves as the main living room stereo, with Spotify piped to a big old Denon receiver. They occasionally use that one for music or the web; that's about it. There are probably a hundred games installed, they don't play them.

* We have a 27" iMac. They often use that for look-ups, occasionally a movie on the weekends, and occasionally some flash games. Whenever I see them playing flash games in the browser, I quietly ssh in and point that domain to localhost. The next time they visit, the browser errors out, and they move on. They also now use it to interact with the school's BlackBoard account (kill me now, please)

* There is a dual-monitor, two-CPU Dell in the garage, cobbled out of spare parts, running Ubuntu Studio, complete with condenser mic and keyboard.

We enforce a few rules

(1) No video or gaming during the day or school nights. The only exception is
long trips.

(2) Sneaking off to your room with the iPad to watch video will result in the
iPad being put in timeout, usually for several hours.

(3) Arguing over the iPad will similarly result in the iPad being put in
timeout, even on trips.

Overall, the fantastically, overwhelmingly most common use of a computing
device is music. The rest a 5-10% items. That is almost certainly due to the
fact that we fight video and keep them otherwise engaged (Thing 1 is in
gymnastics, Thing 2 is in piano, and rock climbs while Thing 1 is in
gymnastics).

I will probably buy an iPad 3. I don't envision taking it to work. If
CyanogenMod doesn't get stable on the TouchPad, I have considered buying two
of the iPad 3s, but controlling what's on them.

So, again, I agree with the commenters who have observed from their own
experience that young people are evaluating the utility of their tech just
like the rest of us. If something's boring, or they are never exposed to it,
they don't do it. Games and video are the lowest common denominator. It takes
time to read. It takes time to do gymnastics and rock climbing and piano. We
have to create a society where parents can and are encouraged, incentivized,
to spend that time on their kids. Can Zynga get parents to spend more time
with their kids?

(1) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3590627> (2)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3590416>

------
GigabyteCoin
I am pretty sure that is how it works, yes.

Sure, when I got my first Mac back in the day, all I wanted to play were video
games. Because I was a kid and video games were cool.

Maybe it was the small selection of computer games available back then, but I
quickly became disinterested in the games and wanted to start tinkering as
soon as I knew it was possible.

Or perhaps we could simply persuade these children to think learning was
cooler than video games. They are ours to mold at that age.

------
peter_l_downs
My high school lends MacBooks to all of its students throughout the school
year. I will say that it is nice to be able to look something up at almost
anytime. I _have_ learned a lot from it, but it's nothing I couldn't have
learned from using a shared desktop computer or my family's home computer.
Still, for students who don't already have computers (the target market of the
OLPC project), having an internet connection is really nice.

I will also say that the first year we were lent computers, everyone
procrastinated a ridiculous amount. Games, everywhere, all the time. Very
little work was being done. But now, three years later, people mostly just use
the computers for work.

I don't think a laptop in itself is _that_ valuable. Maybe I'm just jaded -
computers are pretty fantastic. I'd say that by far the most valuable part of
a laptop is being able to go on the internet: wikipedia, forums, google, it's
all incredible.

------
cromulent
Illiteracy would seem to be the first problem to solve in many of these areas,
not a lack of laptops.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5251340>

One library (card) per child might be a better goal.

~~~
lotu
However laptops are probably cheaper then building enough libraries.

------
mapster
My inlaws purchased a fancy laptop for my kids. It serves as a game and
Youtube hub. Occasional Wikipedia lookup for school. I help them fiddle with a
few kid-level programming apps, but other than that I have the existential
feeling towards computers and kids: what's the point? I'd just a soon break
out the Apple 2e from the garage and let them stare at the DOS prompt - they
might discover its a computer that way and have to DO something that benefits
them.

~~~
lotu
Not everyone is going to grow up to be a programmer. Viewing videos and
playing games are important developmental activities. Yes programming a
computer is a stunning form of creation for me and many others here but not
everyone shares that view. For others, music, art, writing, teaching, and
building give them that feeling of joy of creating.

~~~
mapster
Spot on. Not to imply computers are for programming only. I am perplexed at
how to best make a computer/laptop useful to a kid. The issue I see are: too
many options, too many passive activities, or too complex creative
applications.

------
lomegor
We may still not know the effects of having laptops in the classroom. Five
years is little time to be measuring these things, specially considering that
the ones who started using laptops have not reached majority of age. This is
the same as saying that a new science curriculum does not work without having
a real world test. We have to wait to see the results.

This should not be used as an excuse to implement one of this programs. Just
saying that no results yet is different that net negative results or no new
learning. Like someone in the comments in the article said, he became
interested in computers because of his Commodore when he was little, which
didn't reflect until he was of age.

P.S.: And the sight of kids on the streets, even the ones who are homeless or
live in really precarious homes, using laptops and laughing is really a
wonderful thing.

------
unimpressive
I at one point worked on the OLPC project fixing the laptops.

Lets hope that their tablets do better.

However, I doubt they will. The justification being that in my view the tablet
is what the PDA tried to be fully realized. Well suited for work that one
cannot sit down to do, but certainly not something I would choose in favor of
sitting down to a desktop machine.

As the form factor of a device gets smaller, the quality of the sit-down user
experience diminishes. This, if nothing else, is why I don't expect to see the
desktop ever truly "Die" as a form factor, because it still makes the most
economic (In all senses of the word.) sense for sit-down setups.

It's just that the number of people who want to sit down to a computer has
dropped sharply.

~~~
brador
Tablets are for consumption not creation. The key is the low bandwith input of
"finger" vs. high bandwidth input of "keyboard".

I say they should be working on a touchscreen + mouse or trackpad + keyboard
combo. Maximum input possibilities and ideal for creation and consumption.

~~~
evilduck
Touch interfaces are just fine for creating. They only become limited when
you're trying to emulate a different interface, like a precision pointing
device, or half assed emulation of an interface like a keyboard, which relies
on precise finger placement and a variety of non-visual feedback mechanisms.

The iPad has no practical multitouch input limits (I think it's limited to
what int can hold), so it can track all 10 of your fingers at once, just as
fast as a keyboard. Given the right interface design it has more input
bandwidth potential than a keyboard, just not the _current_ familiarity.

Give it time, tablets and multitouch are still in their infancy.

~~~
jerf
No, touch interfaces definitely have less bandwidth than a keyboard, and you
can't make it all up with clever tech. Fingers are huge, relatively speaking,
and for touch interfaces to make up for that fact they _must_ get fewer bits
out of the resulting input. The mathematics of signal processing require this.
A stroke is much less definitive than a keystroke, or a mouse motion with
click, etc. Moreover, you have the problem of interfering with output
bandwidth as well as if you want to touch anything other than the very bottom
of the screen you must obscure the screen with your hand while doing it for
seconds at a time. You get less bandwidth both out and in.

What obscures this fact from your immediate recognition is that,
unsurprisingly, touch interfaces are optimized to work under those
circumstances, so you don't really "feel" the limitations, but you would if
you really tried to push them the way a really good content creation
application would.

For low-bandwidth applications they're fine, but they will never ever take
over everywhere because they have weaknesses that make them unsuitable for
high-precision, high-IO tasks.

~~~
evilduck
I don't remember asserting they would take over everywhere, just that they
_can_ function fine for content creation. By content, I did not mean "stuff
created with a keyboard" and I think my second sentence makes that perfectly
clear. Touchscreens are clearly not perfect multi-purpose interfaces.

But I think you're ignoring the true significance of multitouch and other
sensors and the additional dimensions of input that provides. A keyboard is
nearly linear input. There's a lot of 2 finger chords and a smaller set of 3
finger keyboard chords, but for typing there's nothing really separating a 3
fingered man from a 10 fingered man except for input speed. Compare that to
the capabilities of a 3 fingered man and a 10 fingered man playing the piano
and you get the idea.

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videoappeal
tl;dr - giving an article a skim read it appears these devices wont allow
facebook or youtube etc... so my point is probably mute..

Learning begins? Or we further Facebook's cause (along with other activities
that are complete waste of time, gaming and streaming poor comedy). In
Thailand at lot kids / teenagers / young adults have a netbook or laptop or a
smartphone, if you are being a mr nosy you are guaranteed to see the little
blue bar at the top of the screen and face palm, the wealth of information
that is out there..

------
mickey7
step 1: give every kid a laptop. step 2: gaming begins.

accessibility definitely plays a role but it's not the main impedance to
education. you could say the same about access to basic pen+paper or regular
books (libraries). this ain't no panacea - if a kid has the motivation to
learn he will find a way. stupid and unmotivated children will approximately
remain so regardless what tools or toys you give them (from experience of 1st
world education)

this obviously within the bell curve.

~~~
mickey7
depending on who sponsors this and what control they have over the content, a
positive side effect of this social program (ironically) might be exposing the
kids to the beauty of consumerism and opulent realities outside of their
backward culture and spark the evolution out of it - in the sentiment of
shanty towns sprinkled with satellite dishes

------
brudgers
The metrics for determining the success of OLPC and similar programs should be
long term, not short term.

I suspect that few of the HN'ers who started out typing BASIC from magazines
into a VIC-20 suddenly had better grades because of it.

Instead, they were learning and developing interests which have had long term
benefits - and that's what education should be about (at least in so far as
one buys into Dewey).

It could be that those teachers who are spending thirty minutes getting
students set up with their computers are spending that time because the
computer makes it obvious which students are not prepared for class - i.e. it
is easier to ignore a student who shows up without their notebook than one
without a computer.

------
georgieporgie
One TRS-80 or C64 VM per child.

Modern laptops, even simple ones like these, are too complex for a child to be
interested in manipulating them, in my opinion. And I don't think the OLPC
machines are powerful enough to do most enabling tasks that would help a
student.

I've played with an OLPC laptop. The most interesting thing were the built-in
programs to do stuff like measure distance using two OLPC laptops and sound.
Not terribly accurate, I'm sure, but excellent for sparking discussion of
physics.

