Proflikesubstance, who just finished teaching a summer course for teachers, reports the following (boldface mine):
Perhaps part of the reading problem can be traced back to the fact that many school districts in the state have gone text book free. On the surface one could argue that text books may not be the most dynamic reference text, but they have replaced them with… nothing. Teachers are now supposed to be finding their own materials, but following from the above point, that often means two or three readings on the same material, geared for different abilities. Add the fact that copy paper budgets were not adjusted to compensate, and school districts are running out of paper in February. I guess the assumption was that kids all have computer access at home? I don’t know.
This policy will clearly help narrow the educational gap between rich and poor students.
mikethemadbiologist
The sentence after the last part you set in bold is one of my biggest concerns. We are moving towards an assumption that all students have Internet access and a computer they can work on at home.
For instance, I was helping a former student with a biology lab writeup. I do not teach biology any more, so I am out of the loop on what the biology teachers are doing. Turns out lab reports must be entirely computer generated. They may not turn in hand written work at all. In addition, they may not include hand made drawings. I was flabbergasted.
I have tried to remind my colleagues many times that we achieved spaceflight, nuclear power, and atomic bombs with chalk and slate, paper and pencil, slide rules and scratchpads.
Computers are wonderfull tools when you know the basics.