“A class of 30 students at Gumley House Convent School in West London is being given the free iPhone 3GS models until the end of the academic year next Summer,” Sillis reports. “Instead of banning phones, the aim is to encourage the kids to use their free iPhones in class to aid their learning. How the school envisions a platform which offers a myriad of TV streaming and tower defense gaming apps being used for solely educational purposes is anyone’s guess though.”
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone with at least half a brain doesn’t have to guess, Ben. If you bothered to look for a second rather than act the snide idiot, you’d know that there are thousands of educational apps for iPhone; 7,540 currently, to be exact.
Sillis continues, “Katie Ivens from the Campaign for Real Education said that ‘mobile phones have quite rightly been banned from many classrooms as they prove to be a distraction. The case for learning by computer has not been proved at all.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Like Ben, Katie obviously hasn’t done her homework. We have. Please see related articles below.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
Is it just a coincidence that the British writer quoted a “tower defense” game? Bloody ‘ell.
MacDailyNews:
Don’t be too harsh on Ben Sillis. I know he got his information wrong – but he’s British, and that explains it.
Look, just because there are educational apps on the iPhone doesn’t mean that students will actually USE them.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink…
Hmm, one or two months ago we had the same here in Switzerland, some classes got free iPhones 3GS. That included a free phonecalls, data, SMS, etc., and the kids could take it home (and don’t have to give it back ever). There was only some protest by the parents who think it would be better not to give a flatrate, so the children can learn to control their use.
My wife is Japanese, and I have seen there a similar kind of use with the Nintendo DS, many programs to learn to write Kanji, etc. In general I think it is much better to learn “on-the-go” than with the computer, personally, I love the iVocabulary-app… However, I have to practise my English a lot more……
Unfortunately Kate is a retarded and ill informed moron. Anyone with an inkling of common sense can see how interactive access to a world of information is a boon to education. I am more than happy for cell phones to be banned from school but the iPhone (or similar such device) in the way it is being used in this school as an computer and information access device is exactly how interactive educational tools ought to be exploited. From my own experience I have have discovered a whole new love of history by way of the mass of information searchable through the web where you can get interactive, educational and cross referencing capabilities simply not possible via a book or teacher based system. What’s more its a damn sight more interesting and insightful too.
Typical reactive old-school thinking – oh noes! Something incredibly useful can also be used to goof off! Whatever shallz we do!
My mom’s a high school teacher, so I’m at least partially familiar with the tough challenges teachers are facing today with smartphones – students sending answers back and forth to one another in class, or saving all their class notes to their phone to refer to during tests, are just two of the many things they’re encountering with some of the more ethically-challenged kids we’re nurturing in today’s world.
However, I think a lot of those problems are due to the way the school systems are stuck in the old-world way of thinking. Rather than recognizing that we now have incredibly useful tools for education in our midst, we’re doing our best to ban them or pretend they don’t exist, so we can carry on teaching things the way we’ve always done.
But with so much of our information available online for free, would it not be better to acknowledge that fact, and turn our efforts to teaching students the critical thinking skills needed to verify if the information they’re finding is indeed accurate? Seems to me that’s a vitally needed skill with today’s information overload.
Truth bearer it seems that it isn’t only educationists who show a lack of intelligence and insight. Who was it again who having listened to his electronic accent said its a good job Stephen Hawking wasn’t British because the NHS would have killed him by now. People in glass houses and all that.
Now if Apple would setup a Find my iPhone for Multiple Phone, the turin officer (do they still exist?) would have an easy time of it.
Plus it would be hard to say I forgot my homework at school when it is with them all the time and they were texting from home the night before.
“Tower defense” is different from ‘Tower Madness”? I have the second one and its really addictive, I even dream with it some times
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Cool.
In my high school we get free macbooks. It’s a private high school in Sweden, you can enter it if you have high points.
In my school we had to buy our pens, pencils and notebooks.
It was a 5 mile walk to school, uphill, both ways.
Kids today.
I know he got his information wrong – but he’s British, and that explains it.
Yeah, as opposed to how embarrassing it would be if the following were true:-
According to a 2001 Gallup poll, about 45% of Americans believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” Another 37% believe that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”
Imagine being that stupid!
What’s so embarrasing about intelligent design? And why can nobody ever seem to stay on topic?
-HazMatt
WolframAlpha at your fingertips in class? If those kids have half a brain, they should all get A+.
MDN, ” Like Ben, Katie obviously hasn’t done her homework. We have.”
Students still can’t spell. Just check this site for a while.
@Truthbearer,
When I was in New York in 1999, I was sitting in a restaurant with my friend who was a Kiwi… we were chatting away when an American woman tapped my friend on the shoulder and asked what country he was from…
“I’m from New Zealand”
She replied (and I kid you not):
“Wow, you speak great English considering you come from a foreign land.”
Americans, they can’t read, can’t write and think the are the centre of the Universe.
I saw Katie Ivens on the telly yesterday. From her dress sense and hairstyle the poor love is obviously stuck somewhere in 1958. I felt quite sorry for her really. She just doesn’t get the point of the world as it is now.
What’s so embarrasing about intelligent design?
I don’t know. What’s wrong in believing in the tooth fairy or astrology? Other than facts.
And why can nobody ever seem to stay on topic?
I don’t know. Why can’t so many of the prejudiced, xenophobic mouth-breathers who frequent this site read a story from or about the UK without getting in some snide remark whilst neatly disregarding that – if they’re using relatively modern Apple hardware – it was designed by a Brit and that the technology they’re using to post (HTTP/HTML) was originated by a Brit.
If I wanted to stay on topic, I could: I used to go to school around the corner from Gumley House (we used to have to fight their girls to get on a bus after swimming) and I’ve been inside the mobile TV studio that they partially own as part of a consortia of local schools.
Personally, I’m pro-technology in education – I have to be to be able to sell it and sleep at night – but here’s a question for Truthbearer and others.
One of the problems with the UK economy (and you should worry about this as well) is that – since the Thatcher administration developed an economic strategy based on service industries as opposed to manufacturing – the nation is now overly vulnerable to massive downturns in the financial services industry as has been witnessed in the last 24 months.
Now, unless the application of technology in education genuinely recreates a British manufacturing/engineering culture (alongside a respect for people who choose to make things as opposed to becoming merchant bankers or footballers), one could argue that the British public have a right to ask how the application of iPods (or any other gizmo) contribute to the national good.
BTW, unless people like Truthbearer consistently vote for parties/candidates in their constituencies advocating increased expenditure on education (through hypothecated taxation or otherwise), they don’t have the right to act as cheerleaders for such policies in other constituencies or countries and they certainly don’t have the right to snipe at commentators who wish to ensure a rigourous examination of public expenditures.
Happy now??
“The case for learning by computer has not been proved at all.”
If you believe that, you’ll believe anything!
You know, MCCFR, you are insulting to me. You’re so sure of your worldview that anyone who disagrees with it is stupid / narrow-minded / etc. You remind me of Jeff Daniels in The Squid and the Whale where he repeatedly labels other less “enlightened” folks as “philistines”.
Obviously this is not the place for diving into intelligent design vs. atheistic evolution debate, but your attitude is telling enough. You are as close-minded as they come.
Prove me wrong by contacting me on my website.
HazMatt
Hazmat…
Thanks for the invite, I might take you up on it when I have time.
It’s not meant to be personal: I can’t understand the observation that 31% of Americans believe in Astrology either, including 27% of people who profess to be Christian.
As you might have said during your recent experience with truck drivers, Pick a lane!
Agreed, and fair enough.
HazMatt
MCCFR: The Tooth Fairy? Seriously? I don’t see controversy in the scientific community arguing whether the existence of the tooth fairy is mathematically possible.
@Truthbearer…
Actually, the problem here is in the American reader, rather than the British writer. Note that he says “a platform which offers a myriad of TV streaming and tower defense gaming apps…
Which is exactly true. Note that he does not say “exclusively offers…”
But then the average reading age of Americans is among the lowest in the english-speaking world…
Chalkdust torture has worked for centuries! Screw this new-fangled crap! Trey don’t know what they’re talking about.