Had a guy in a van cut across three lanes in front of me today!I beeped my horn and flashed my high beams at him as I had to brake. He incorrectly gave me an apologetic wave with his middle finger extended. If you can't even wave properly, then I dare say that you may lack the dexterity and motor skills to operate a vehicle!
I'm still rather skeptical about this whole digital BYOD thing with Year 7 this year, especially as a language teacher. Because language is a social skill, and these devices often encourage kids to be anti-social (i.e. facing screens instead of another human being). We all know that the best way that children learn languages is via human interaction. It's not as if infants learn their first language through a freaking app.Originally Posted by M-bot
I don't know why the digital version would cost so much, but perhaps one reason is the sheer amount of time it takes to digitise documents. I know that it took us aaages just to document our Year 7 Latin, French, German and Japanese booklets. Ages. Just as well I had a young techno-savvy student teacher who really sped things along quickly for us (she did in a month what would've taken the rest of us about a year).
I think that we've dispensed with using physical copies of the Latin, French and German books, but we're still undecided as to whether or not we want to give them a printed version of the Japanese book, because it does require students to learn how to hand-write new scripts. AFAIK we're not charging any extra though.
I do recommend that you get a calculator though, as I suspect that media devices will not be allowed in tests & exams (because students might be able to cheat by accessing saved documents containing notes, formulae etc.). This is why students aren't allowed to use their phone calculators.
I do share your concern that this all makes education all the more expensive. One of my personal criticisms with the BYOD policy is that it may serve to further marginalise poor families.Theoretically, students who cannot afford their own device can access one from the school's pool, or seek government funding. But there are a lot of families who don't qualify for assistance but aren't overflowing with money to spend on this technology. Something that concerns me is that these devices may become status symbols at school; i.e. more affluent kids can afford to get the latest devices with all the latest apps and doohickeys. This may serve to make the rich and poor kids stand out more.
One great thing in countries like Australia is that most of our schools enforce a uniform. I've spoken to people from countries like the U.S. and Canada where most schools don't, and they tell me that discrimination against poor kids is rife because they obviously can't afford to wear expensive clothes. In a uniform school, you can't immediately tell who are the rich or poor kids because everyone dresses the same. When the government rolled in the free notebook policy for students in Year 9, they were all given the same Lenovo notebooks. So again, no socioeconomic discrimination because everyone had the same model.
Another concern that I have is the distraction factor. This was a problem that we had with the notebooks. A lot of kids were using them to play games or access social media etc. during class. I even had some parents come and complain to me that their child's notebook was proving more of a distracting hindrance than a help. The immediate challenge for teachers is that whenever we stand at the front of the classroom, all we can see are the backs of their devices. So obviously we're going to have to physically roam a lot more during class, which I admit is something I've been doing less of since I started using CLIL teaching, simply because I need constant access to the keyboard for presentations. Last week I bought myself a Logitech Wireless Presenter so that I can use the laser pointer and also remotely control certain features of PowerPoint during presentations while I roam around the classroom. So I am trying to prepare myself for this.
I dunno... maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this big push for preparing our students to be "21st Century Digital Learners" is the right way to go. Maybe I'll completely change my mind about this by the end of this year. I can only hope that my concerns will be proven unfounded.
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