« No Frills Mobile | Main | To Live Forever »
October 15, 2003
Classrooms a Tech Moshpit
Gizmodo turned us onto a story in the New York Times about the proliferation of gadgets in high-school classrooms.
"They are everywhere this year," said Danny Berger, a junior at Fieldston High School, in Riverdale. "A lot of people have cellphones and MP3's. Just today, my friend who listens to music all day sold his older MP3 player to another student because there is a newer one out now. Palm Pilots have an infrared way you can beam stuff to other Palm Pilots, so during class you can play a game of Pong with another student from across the room."
One would have to be pretty optimistic, and more than a bit myopic, to expect that all that tech is being used strictly on the up-and-up. While it's been possible to cheat using tech for decades, the range of options open to students seems wider and more varied than ever.
"I have heard that during the regents math exam, kids go to the bathroom and use their cellphones, which have calculators built in, to solve equations." said Anne Manwell, who teaches molecular biology and research methods at Stuyvesant. Jeremy said he knew a student whose entire Latin text was loaded into his Palm Pilot. Another student said that wrist calculators resembling watches were great places to store math and science equations."
Of course, you can always debate the merits of having to memorize stuff in the first place, but that's another issue. As a college professor, I've been fairly unimpressed by the gear that my students, undergraduate and graduate alike, have brought into class -- mostly just cellphones and the occasional three-generations-old PalmPilot. But then, maybe the students who do get it are smart enough to hide their tech where I can't easily see it.
Posted by Craig in Society / Politics
Comments
Well, CNN covered this awhile back, and we covered it on 9/22. See http://www.gearbits.com/archives/000223.html
Posted by: Ken at October 15, 2003 3:43 PM