[Gllug] Light the blue touchpaper...

[Pete Ryland]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2004 at 11:33:06AM +0000, Jason Clifford wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, John Hearns wrote:
> 
> > Saw this on the TV news last night. They featured a class
> > of primary school kids, with rather nice (I think) Vaio laptops.
> > But I did think it rather sad that children aren't learning
> > the 'pen and paper' methods first. 
> 
> I am firmly of the opinion that the current drive towards putting computer 
> learning first is harming a whole generation's education.

I beg to differ.

> Instead of learning how to spell and use correct grammar children (and 
> others) are learning how to rely upon features in software. 

I have seen households where a child has asked her mum to check homework and
the mum has "corrected" grammar to the wrong thing.  English was not her
first language, but she was surprised when I (hopefully as nicely as
possible) re-corrected the kid who had the right answer in the first place.
If[1] a computer could check grammar, perhaps this may be an easier way for
a child to learn the correct way.

> Instead of learning how to perform basic mathematical calculations people 
> are learning how to use a calculator.

Did you learn how to calculate tan x by hand before someone gave you a book
with a table in it?  I doubt it.  We have the technology, why not use it?
I'll be the first to admit that my numeracy is far worse than my parents',
but I don't think I'm any worse for it.  My maths is certainly far far
better than theirs.  Most of my uni maths exams didn't have any numbers in
them anyway.

> I've nothing against using helpful tools but doing so without first 
> understanding what the tool is doing for you builds a dangerous dependance 
> upon others for very basic building blocks in a persons abilities with 
> regard to academic and other skills.

Agreed on this though, but this shouldn't mean that we should tell a child
to understand the source code before they can use dict(1).

Pete

[1] Whether current grammar checkers are any good or not is a discussion for
another day. :-)
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