Comments on: In action, School of One mixes high- and low-tech teaching

By: mjordan

mjordan — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:50:29 +0000

I am so over hearing from teachers who complain about technology.
If you can’t keep up then get out of the way! NY DOE is doing what they feel is the right thing to do to make the system work for ALL students – not just the “good kids” who can sit down and learn nearly everything the first time through the material. Keep up the good work New York! Let me know when this show can make it to Michigan!

By: dcollera

dcollera — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:08:49 +0000

I am not too sure about this approach to scheduling and learning. Though I think many aspects of this program could be beneficial I also think many of them seem unstructured. I would think it may allow some students to fall through the cracks. The idea of teachers not really planning out their day would leave an unsettled feeling to me.

By: Mystery kid

Mystery kid — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:53:46 +0000

Haha, I’m in this picture!

By: Herman Padilla

Herman Padilla — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:17:49 +0000

This is exciting I would love to try this out with our school. We have a three tier Client server
network with the most powerful server in LAUSD and top of the line Cisco switches. What we lack is a comprehensive software program that could let us work to our full potential, also money
the district is broke. I would like to see us continue to work this investment in technology
till it pays off we are so close to being able to really make school wide networking a content
delivery system tying classroom smart boards and computer labs together in a way that has
so much potential and would be really exciting to see and use. Adding to that an individual
student tracking software that creates a virtual one on one experience for the student I think
API scores will go up a 100 points. This ties everything that’s been done for the past ten years
together very few schools are ready for it, we are I wish someone would work with us to get
this program into our school. John Muir Middle School District 7 LAUSD. muirmiddle.org

By: k.r.m.

k.r.m. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:21:36 +0000

Education Fads like this are what set us behind the rest of the world, and account for the US lag in education globally. Our students today are digital natives, they spend hours a day using technology to communicate in so many other ways, when are they going to learn interpersonal skills and how to function in the real world if we incessantly push technology on them for everything else? Kids today find technology fun, and incorporating it into education draws them into the lesson in a way they want and need to be engaged, but this is just outright disturbing! It’s one thing to have students receive online supplemental instruction and tutoring assistance from home, when there is no teacher there to support them. But technology is just that: a SUPPLEMENT! Wake up, NY. You’re barking up the wrong tree. You’ll never re-create all the value of a daily classroom experience in a Virtual World. Maybe this is an option for students who can not otherwise function in a realistic school environment, be it medical reasons or aggressive behavior, etc., and this is the ONLY way for them. But, this appears to be just another excuse to outsource education to other countries and save money to fix the potholes I often encounter in my travels through NYC streets. Get back to reality, stop trying to save a buck at the expense of children’s learning. Becasue, when this fails, you better hope parents don’t sue you for wasting a year of their child’s education! You’ll be out more money then than now!

By: Diana Senechal

Diana Senechal — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:33:30 +0000

Why the big rush to implement a program that seems such a hodgepodge and so conducive to distraction? I don’t see how this allows teachers to “deliver great lessons,” when whole-class instruction is forbidden and the computer generates the lesson plans for the teacher. This program may have limited benefit, but to make it the wave of the future, to usher it in without looking carefully at the effects on curriculum, is to slap education in the face as so many fads do. Why not slow down, look closely at it, ask good questions, and consult with a wide range of teachers and students?

By: JM

JM — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:49:28 +0000

Sounds very much like what was suggested by George Leonard in the 1960s in his book “Education And Ecstasy.”

By: MK

MK — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:30:37 +0000

While I think technology can be beneficial to learning, I am somewhat cautious of this new program. I previously piloted a computer based reading program in my classroom (Jamestown Reading Navigator) and the program had a lot of problems. While individualized learning plans are great, and being able to immediately see which concepts individual students are mastering and not mastering is an excellent tool, learning from a computer is not always a good thing. Additionally, if students become too accustomed to a system that designs their “playlists” and is “fun” (as shown in the NYT article) they will never learn how to be independent learners who learn for the sake of learning. If a student can’t learn in a class of 25, how will they learn in a college lecture of 300 students. Isn’t part of the goal of K-12 education to prepare students for college? Also, I tend to think math lends itself better to computerized learning than other subjects. Does anyone know what other subjects they plan on adopting? I can imagine it now: students being forced to work on the main idea while reading boring passages. Is this really what learning is supposed to look like?