Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”
Yeah when I was in high school we discovered an exploit on Chrome that would let you download files despite the content control blocking any downloads for non admins. So I hosted a bunch of pirated games on a google drive, and my friends and I would distribute it. Then everybody would be playing Minecraft or CS 1.6 LANs in class and in the after school detention room. Shit was awesome
At the risk of doxxing myself, I’ll tell you from the inside. It’s a game of whack-a-mole. The students will always find ways to circumvent the tools. And many of the teachers themselves do not know how to properly use the tools. It’s an impossible task. Monitor every student’s (20+ in a class) screen and manage open tabs/windows on a dashboard while trying to teach on a whiteboard? Not gonna happen.
We have to go back to pencil and paper. Even if that means I don’t have a job. Laptop and software platform based instruction is not working. It’s not good for developing brains. I’m witnessing it in person.
Laptop and software platform based instruction is not working. It’s not good for developing brains. I’m witnessing it in person.
It’s perfect for developing brains if you’re Google or Microsoft. Gotta get them hooked young and make sure these kids only know how to use Windows and Google Office.
I volunteer at a non profit in my town that takes old laptops and loads em up with Linux and Libre Office. Most people actually prefer that setup to the Google/Microsoft one and since it’s offline, you can just rip the wireless out of the device.
It seems to me that if you took a class of high school students and tasked them with the 100 day melon challenge in Minecraft, you will have prepared them with all the mathmatic, engineering, and research ability they need to navigate society.
They have to install mods for building, research what builds to make and why, know how much material they need, where to get it, learn about logic circuits+signal propagation in redstone, learn about the exponential curve of growth, and learn how to focus on a grind for an hour or two at a time.
Then say that whoever has the most melons gets a crown they can wear for the rest of the semester and they’ll be off to the races.
Which is to say that, in terms of applied academics, wouldn’t you be better off with access to Minecraft?
Yeah when I was in high school we discovered an exploit on Chrome that would let you download files despite the content control blocking any downloads for non admins. So I hosted a bunch of pirated games on a google drive, and my friends and I would distribute it. Then everybody would be playing Minecraft or CS 1.6 LANs in class and in the after school detention room. Shit was awesome
At the risk of doxxing myself, I’ll tell you from the inside. It’s a game of whack-a-mole. The students will always find ways to circumvent the tools. And many of the teachers themselves do not know how to properly use the tools. It’s an impossible task. Monitor every student’s (20+ in a class) screen and manage open tabs/windows on a dashboard while trying to teach on a whiteboard? Not gonna happen.
We have to go back to pencil and paper. Even if that means I don’t have a job. Laptop and software platform based instruction is not working. It’s not good for developing brains. I’m witnessing it in person.
It’s perfect for developing brains if you’re Google or Microsoft. Gotta get them hooked young and make sure these kids only know how to use Windows and Google Office.
I volunteer at a non profit in my town that takes old laptops and loads em up with Linux and Libre Office. Most people actually prefer that setup to the Google/Microsoft one and since it’s offline, you can just rip the wireless out of the device.
God I’m old. Our computers were garbage so we installed Bolo.
This was us and Halo: Combat Evolved in the engineering and business lab playing LAN back in ‘06
It seems to me that if you took a class of high school students and tasked them with the 100 day melon challenge in Minecraft, you will have prepared them with all the mathmatic, engineering, and research ability they need to navigate society.
They have to install mods for building, research what builds to make and why, know how much material they need, where to get it, learn about logic circuits+signal propagation in redstone, learn about the exponential curve of growth, and learn how to focus on a grind for an hour or two at a time.
Then say that whoever has the most melons gets a crown they can wear for the rest of the semester and they’ll be off to the races.
Which is to say that, in terms of applied academics, wouldn’t you be better off with access to Minecraft?
CS 1.6 and computer labs, good childhood.