As more and more schools introduce "one-to-one" computers in their classrooms, a new study entitled "The Impact of Computer Usage on Academic Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Trial at the United States Military Academy" questions their efficacy.
I would be interested in having educators in day schools that have introduced computer use in the classroom on a large scale weigh in on the merits of this intervention.
The study can be downloaded at [
seii.mit.edu]
A popular description of the study appeared in the Washington Post last week -
[
www.washingtonpost.com]
An excerpt:
<<
For the past 15 years, educators have debated, exhaustively, the perils of laptops in the lecture hall. Professors complain that laptops are distraction machines; defenders say that boring classes are to blame — students have always doodled or daydreamed, so what’s the difference that they’re browsing Facebook instead?
The remarkable thing about all the fuss is that, until now, there hasn’t been really great data on how classroom computing affects learning…
Now there is an answer, thanks to a big, new experiment from economists at West Point, who randomly banned computers from some sections of a popular economics course this past year at the military academy. One-third of the sections could use laptops or tablets to take notes during lecture; one-third could use tablets, but only to look at class materials; and one-third were prohibited from using any technology.
Unsurprisingly, the students who were allowed to use laptops — and 80 percent of them did — scored worse on the final exam. What’s interesting is that the smartest students seemed to be harmed the most.
>>
Shalom
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2016 06:33AM by mlb.
