[A] new study
indicates that computers alone can’t keep students from falling into
their same weak study habits from their ink-and-paper days…. The research, published in The Journal of Educational Psychology,
found that students tend to study on computers as they would with
traditional texts: They mindlessly over-copy long passages verbatim,
take incomplete or linear notes, build lengthy outlines that make it
difficult to connect related information, and rely on memory drills like
re-reading text or recopying notes.Meanwhile, undergraduates in the study scored 29 to 63 percentage
points higher on tests when they used study techniques like recording
complete notes, creating comparative charts, building associations, and
crafting practice questions on their screens. –summary posted on Science Daily
It’s good to see numbers to back up what we knew all along. What matters is not the quality of the technology in your teaching, but the quality of the teaching in your technology.
While I was drafting the above, the typo “teachnology” slipped in. I almost didn’t want to take it out. I rather like the term.
Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows, and college professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly…
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Quality is always better than quantity. Computers aid the dissemination of information but assessment of what is absorbed still needs some form of testing. Self assessment is all very well but if not geared to some practical achievement can too easily be manipulated.