IAE Blog

The idea of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) is suggested by the following statement by Charles Babbage:

On two occasions I have been asked—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. (Charles Babbage; English mathematician, philosopher, inventor, and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer; 1791–1871).

The previous IAE Blog entry discussed a ninth grade Computer Science course that is being required for all students in a Pennsylvania school district (9/29/2010). The course includes an emphasis on problem solving. However, we all know that problem solving is an important component of every academic course and that computers are an important aid to problem solving in every discipline.

As students gain this computer science knowledge and skills one would expect that they would want to use their new knowledge and skills, both while in the ninth grade and in subsequent grades. This means that all of their teachers will be faced by students wanting to use their newly acquired computer-oriented knowledge and skills.

In browsing the Web today, I came across a newspaper article reporting on a school district requiring all ninth graders to take a computer course. (http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20100927_Springfield_High_looks_at_computers_in-depth.html.) The Springfield Township district is the first in Pennsylvania to mandate that students take a computer science course as a graduation requirement.

I read the article to see what it might have to say about students learning computer science.

We are all interested in improving our informal and formal educational systems. This is an everyday challenge to parents, teachers, politicians, and many other people.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is certainly relevant to addressing the challenge. Most people who look at possible roles of ICT in education ask just two questions:

Those of us who routinely talk with precollege students have some insight into what these students think about schools. Project Tomorrow carries out a yearly survey to help capture some of these insights. Quoting from the Project Tomorrow website:  http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/SU09NationalFindingsStudents&Parents.pdf.

For the past 7 years, the Speak Up National Research Project has provided the nation with a unique window into classrooms and homes all across America and given us a realistic view on how technology is currently being used (or not) to drive student achievement, teacher effectiveness and overall educational productivity. Most notably, the Speak Up data first documented and continues to reveal each year the increasingly significant digital disconnect between the values and aspirations of our nation’s students about how the use of technology can improve the learning process and student outcomes, and the values and aspirations of their less technology comfortable teachers and administrators. [Bold added for emphasis.]