Chalkboards With Brains 231
theodp writes "Third graders at Columbia University's elementary school may never know the sound of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. All across the country, dust-covered chalkboards are being ditched in favor of interactive whiteboards that allow students and teachers to share assignments, surf the web and edit video using their fingers as pens." From the article: "Bang uses the board to display a wide range of learning materials on her computer, from web pages to video clips. It is also used as a lunch-time reward for students: The children watched Black Beauty on the same screen that was used earlier for geography."
Re:Price? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the more general problem is: 10 year old use computers, and everybody is really really desperate to get them to get them to use high-tech wizardry, when really what all that does is make kids multimediocre.
Primary school don't need computers to teach kid to read, write and do basic math. They need good well-paid students and good quality schoolbooks...
Re:Real value (Score:5, Interesting)
One was very excited about all of the presentational gadgetry at her community college. Luckily she had some very good professors, but sometimes the gadgetry failed at inopportune times. Othertimes the gadegtry took over the presentation (think of slide shows / powerpoint presentations where you stop listening to the orator because the slides compete).
A month ago, she started taking classes at my alma mater. She was very happy to find that the professors didn't seem to be harder than those of her community college, but a bit worried that there was almost no special presentational hardware. For those who wonder, the material was primarialy displayed on an array of sliding chalkboards. Interestingly enough, her grasp of the material improved.
Now there's at least a million reasons why her understanding of the material may have nothing to do with the presentational medium; however, those who took (or were forced to take) a speech class can understand immediately why low tech often makes the best presentation: You don't compete against your material for the audience's attention.
With a chalkboard, there's not enough time to lay out every detail, so the presentation focuses on big ideas, drilling down into details where necessary, tied together with occasional diagrams. This puts the burdeon of explaining the material on the orator, who is likely well versed in the material. Basically you are getting the information from the expert.
With presentation mediums of higher fidelity, the medium presents so many details that the orator (if one is even present) a distraction. The downside is that you have to personally discover the pitfalls of what's not spelled out in the medium, and you fail to get feedback on ideas that you might believe plausible, but are poorly founded due to conditions outside of the scope of the studied material.
At one end of the spectrum you have professors, at the other you have books. I wouldn't want to read a text while someone was talking to me, nor would I want to listen to a professor while I am busy watching a movie / reading a book. High content presentational medium has its place, but without personal feedback, correction mental misperceptions cannot be made as they form which can be equally destructive to understanding. Oddly enough, the same high content presentation competes with the person most likely to be trying to teach us something.
Re:Price? (Score:3, Interesting)
old (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Real value (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Price? (Score:3, Interesting)
Intrestingly in the UK they have started paying students. For 16-21 there is a thing called EMA which gives the students £30/week: provided they attend all their classes and behave themselves. It seems to be working as a motivational tool.
Problems with Durability, obsolesce and TCO (Score:3, Interesting)
Durability: All it takes is one pissed off kid stabbing it with a pencil to kill it. What about scratches? Assuming (hopefully) there is a clear screen protector most schools will wait until one can barely see through it before replacing. The screen protector would most likely cost a few hundred dollars and would need to be replaced once a year. Also repairing a big screen monitor like this is difficult and would require two people to pull it off the wall, deliver it to wherever it will be repaired and reinstall. Atleast three hours per person.
Obsolesce: Every few years these things get better and cheaper. $20k today is $10 in three years with a better picture and more features. In five to eight years these monitors will either sit in a pile like PII computers today or hang on the wall dead.
TCO: Between the initial cost, screen protectors and a short lifespan compared to a standard whiteboard these things IMO are way too pricey for the average secondary school.
Why not go with a LCD/DLP projector and a Mitsubishi DiamondTouch input device? A DiamondTouch "tablet" handles multiple, simultaneous input (two people can write on it at the same time), is incredibly durable and requires much less maintenance than a backlit screen. One could last for 10+ years handling input while the projector is updated every few years. IMO the TCO would be much lower than a huge touchscreen. As for durability it can be easily washed and very cheaply recovered. Since the sensors are on the sides and not behind the writing area it's rather immune from the "pencil penetration" scenario. Also Mitsubishi has been really good about driver support for GNU/Linux (along with MS Windows and Mac of course).
Will a backlit screen is nicer, a top lit projector and the above tablet IMO is a more realistic solution.
DiamondTouch Hardware [merl.com]
DiamondTouch Applications [merl.com]