Arizona School Replacing Textbooks With The Internet
from the babt-with-the-bathwater dept
This fall, a Tuscon high school will become the state's first all-wireless, all-laptop public school, replacing standard paper textbooks with online articles. The intent is to force teachers away from the habit of "simply marching through a textbook each year" by forcing teachers to create lesson plans based on available online articles. To completely toss out textbooks is a haphazard, careless move. While students with laptops are more engaged in the classroom (hopefully not IM'ing with classmates), to assume that a textbook can be replaced by Googling today's lesson is a tad aggressive. It's not that laptops are a bad idea in the classroom -- but, to implement them without a clear plan or curriculum is careless. Even the superintendent admits that "It's not clear how the change to laptops will work." While the intentions are good, school administrators are looking to put in a quick fix for outdated textbooks (this time with the PR-worthy cry of "The Internet Will Save Our Schools!") -- then again, at least Arizona isn't following California's lead and outlawing all books over 200 pages.
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maybe so, maybe not by Block Sheep on Jul 11th, 2005 @ 3:07pm
> To completely toss out textbooks
> is a haphazard, careless move.
This is probably true for new teachers, but not so much for experienced teachers who (a) have learned how to adapt to ever changing research (and policies) in education and (b) probably have already made a shift away from textbooks anyway.
For most teachers this is a gradual process of replacing each section of the curriculum as better and more meaningful alternatives are tried and discovered, so an abrupt change probably isn't a good idea, but it is sound pedagogy to replace as much textbook learning as possible with authentic exercises, activities, and readings.
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Pc's at school by Ronel on May 15th, 2006 @ 3:37pm
I beleive that Laptops should not be in schools because they are good!!!
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Re: Pc's at school by Ronel on May 15th, 2006 @ 3:42pm
not i acuucally mean to say that they could cause bad things!
Example:Students gan get distracted easily instead of focusing on why the teacher is teaching!
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Re: Re: Pc's at school by Daniel on Mar 12th, 2007 @ 1:33pm
Thats true, but for the students that actually want to take the classes and get them over with this will mean cheeper prices and easier transportation for class needs (notes, text, wide range of info).
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by Sarah, Kyle, Mikey on Dec 13th, 2007 @ 10:01am
How do you manage to pay for it?
What do you do if they break it?
Do we need more tech support if we get laptops?
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