Heather said:
Which means their children won't be able to use any educational programs
like:
Magic Schoolbus
SAT prep
Any of the Learning Center Series of Language programs, Science, Math etc.
The TI 89 calculator programs won't work.
Pupils 'do worse with computers'
Robert Booth
Monday March 21, 2005
The Guardian
Academics will today argue that the growing use of computers in
secondary school classrooms and for homework could be leading to
worsening performance in literacy, science and maths.
An international study of about 100,000 15-year-olds in 32 different
developed and developing countries suggests that the drive to equip an
increasing number of schoolchildren in the UK with computers may be
misplaced.
In a report to be given at the conference of the Royal Economic Society
in Nottingham this week, Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Woessmann of Munich
University say the research shows diminished performance in students
with computers.
"Holding other family characteristics constant, students perform
significantly worse if they have computers at home," it says.
"This may reflect the fact that computers at home may actually distract
students from learning, both because learning with computers may not be
the most efficient way of learning and because computers can be used for
other aims than learning."
But if computers don't help then plenty of books at home do. The authors
of the report found that "students with more than 500 books in their
homes performed better in maths and science than those with none".
The information was collected under the Programme for International
Student Assessment in 2000, but the new analysis appears to contradict
parts of the government's policy on information and communications
technology in classrooms.
[The so-called] Labour [party in Britain] has pushed a policy of
"personalised learning" with computers, and children as young as eight
now have access to laptop computers.
Last week the chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced an extra £50m for
information technology in schools - including moves to let pupils take
computers home on "low cost" leases.
--
