Friday, May 24, 2013

Books are still the best technology!

My department is about to spend a lot of money on three new projector carts.  I like projectors, but I wonder if it might be better to spend the money on building up some classroom libraries. As a recent study reminds us, computerized gadgets may be neat, but are not necessarily educational -- unlike books.

The study is from the National Bureau of Economic Research, and it finds that giving poor kids computers doesn't help them do better in school.  Free computers increase computer use, but do not lead to improvements in grades, test scores, attendance, or disciplinary actions.

This is another reminder that books are a more important educational technology than computers.  Giving books away in doctors offices works.  Having book-filled libraries is very important.  So maybe the NBER should do a study in which they tried giving some kids a thousand dollars worth of free books?

4 comments:

  1. A thousand dollars worth of free books would be my dream come true :0
    Not that I have the time to read them these days, what with finals coming up and everything... (and then there's that stack of books I plan on tackling as soon as school lets out).

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    1. Summer reading is one of the best literacy programs around--for those who do it. I'm looking forward to my summer reading too...

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  2. The study you mentioned doesn't consider the fact that poor kids rarely have access to good teachers or schools that teach them how to find resources online. They also probably do not have internet access, or for that matter the willpower to work rather than enjoying all the other distracting entertainment Portable Computers provide.

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    1. Actually, the kids did have internet--they seem to have spent a lot of time on the computers doing social networking. As for your other points, I do agree that there are many factors involved in educational achievement, but I don't think teachers and willpower are the most significant factors or the most easily improved. In any case, this study only looked at one factor, computer access (including internet), and I was simply suggesting that book access might be more important. I think the importance of access to books, and the wide disparities in that access, is often overlooked.

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