Revolution in Education: Game consoles in the classroom?

Continuing my case for greater use of technology to assist schools, I interestingly picked up on this article from the PhysOrg.com blog that notes how schools in Tokyo are successfully using portable game consoles assist children in learning.

In a growing number of cities, teachers hoping to engage children born in the fast-moving digital age are using game machines such as the Nintendo DS, the hugely popular double-screen handheld console, to draw in and hold students.

The strategy seems to be working in one Tokyo classroom, where students come for extra-curricular maths lessons each Saturday morning.
...

"With the game console, you can feel the fast speed and tempo. I think it matches today's children," he said, adding the board had received no complaints from parents.

At just one-fifteenth of the cost of a personal computer -- around 17,000 yen (150 dollars) each -- the DS is an economical teaching tool, he said, adding that results in an initial trial showed the English vocabulary of junior high school students using the DS had soared by 40 percent.

The private Otemon Gakuin Elementary School in the western metropolis of Osaka used Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) from last September to March this year in a class of 38 fourth-graders, aged nine or 10.
Teacher Toyokazu Takeuchi did not need to print out or check tests. Instead, his own console received real-time data showing which students were making mistakes and what mistakes they were making.

Incredible.

"This is e-learning made in Japan -- traditional efforts in reading, writing and calculating coupled with the power of information technology and game machines," he said.

People around the world are dealing with the same issues we do here.  What we need to do is start thinking out of the box by looking around the world to see what kind of solutions are out there that we can adopt to solve our similar problems.

The education review board and government should be getting in contact with these individuals in Japanese schools to gain insights from this study and launch a similar program here.

With the pilot programme wrapped up, Takeuchi plans to expand the use of PSPs to second graders from April next year. If the project is extended, it would cover some 800 students in Osaka.

Kenichi Fukunaga, vice president for external relations at Sony Computer Entertainment, said he believed the educational uses would spread further, as game consoles were easy-to-use, high-performance machines.
There was still some tough opposition to game machines, he said, but added: "In every era parents have worried over a new medium they cannot understand but their children are absorbed in."  

"This is a revolution in education"

Indeed, a revolution in education is exactly what we need.

Equipping our youth with tools for success

If Bermudians are to survive in the digital age it is imperative that we make the early jump to equip every child in school with a laptop.  Such a trend is increasingly happening around the world as countries are discovering the need to expose their youth to the benefits of technology so they can ensure no child is left behind in tomorrow's future.  We should be looking to take the best ideas from around the world and utilizing our wealth to properly invest in our youth to provide tangible opportunity for the future and the best education system possible.

CNN has an interesting article on how the government minister for technology in Macedonia, one of Europe's poorest countries, has decided to improve the country's educational system by outfitting schools with a slew of new computers using thin-client technology.

What is particularly fascinating about the article is the discussion of whether Macedonia should be investing in the One Laptop Per Child initiative instead:

Walter Bender, One Laptop Per Child's director of software and content, derides the traditional model, in which children get to use PCs only in computer labs for a few hours a day, as "antiquated" and "ineffectual."

"It's such a backward way of actually educating people in computing," Bender said. "It's better than nothing, but it's not going to touch the families, it's not going to be used as engine for entrepreneurship, creativity, exploration. ... Maybe it's economical from the dollars and cents perspective, but not from the learning perspective."

Ivo Ivanovski, Macedonia's minister of information society, defends his decision to equip schools with thin-client computers as the One Laptop Per Child route would be unrealistic for a country where educational resources are stretched so thin that half the children attend school in the morning and the other half in the afternoon.  He contends that his plan will better equip all of Macedonia's 420,000 students even with their limited resources.

However, Bermuda is not limited like Macedonia.  Indeed, being one of the richest countries in the world we are far from it.  With our own situation of a poorly performing education system and questions arising of how to revolutionize it, should we be leaving ourselves to be left behind when third world nations around the world are preparing to equip every student with a laptop?

Bermuda could be in the position to lead the way if we were to embrace truly progressive forward thinking and begin strategizing how we could equip our own students with the tools for success.  Ideally, we could be taking the best of both worlds by equipping our students with laptops that act as thin-clients supported by a high speed wireless network with benefits such as being able to host centrally managed virtual machines for youth to connect in to which would remove a great many of the maintenance hurdles while still affording youth the abilities to explore, create and entrepreneur their way into a digital future.

Bermudians need to encourage and embrace a future that will provide the best possible opportunities for our youth.  We need to take heed of the changes happening worldwide and rather than being left behind, take the lead by being one of the first to empower our youth.  We should be taking the best ideas from around the world and investing in the best possible education system to provide the most opportunity we can manage.  Every Bermudian child should be equipped with a laptop.

A revolution in education

What impact would there be if we were able to offer one-on-one tutoring for every single Bermudian child?  Could it revolutionize our education system?  Could it help us achieve the standard of education that we so desperately seek for our children?  What if it were not only possible but also cost effective?

World globalization is making the world a smaller place. While it may make it easier to outsource jobs, it is also making it easier to buy skills from around the world for a much cheaper rate. What if globalization could be used as a means to give our children a better education? What if we could hire tutors from the other side of the world to work one-on-one with every Bermudian child as a means to assist our in-classroom teachers?  A radical idea that just might work.

Online tutoring by the likes of companies like TutorVista is an incredible concept and may well be a tremendous solution for revolutionizing our education system.  It's premise being to take graduate degree level tutors in India and have them tutor children one-on-one over the Internet, unlimited, 24/7 for $100 a month.   Skeptical?  Check out the video clip of it from the Today Show or the articles in the New York Post, CNET News, or the San Francisco Chronicle.

How would we achieve such a thing?  We could begin by taking a hint from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative and endeavor to equip every child in Bermuda with a laptop capable of communicating with a tutor.  Combine it with island wide high speed wireless networks and change the format of the Bermudian classroom to incorporate assisting with both in-class work and homework with online tutors.  Top it all off with standardized testing across the board to ensure that all students are achieving the levels required for progression.

Could we achieve one on one education for every single Bermudian child?  Could it revolutionize our education system?  Could it help us achieve the standard of education that we so desperately seek for our children?  What if it really is cost effective and if so, whats stopping us?

How America counts graduation rates

A reader wrote in the following summary of how American graduation rates are calculated.  Interestingly they seem to be in direct contrast to how Bermuda's new calculations are performed.

In 2005 governors of all 50 American states signed the Graduation Counts Compact and committed to a common method for calculating each state's high school graduation rate. In addition to agreeing to a common formula for calculating the graduation rate, the governors committed to leading efforts to improve state data collection, reporting, and analysis; reporting additional indicators of outcomes for students; and reporting annually on their progress toward improved high school graduation, completion, and dropout data. The governors undertook this commitment because they understand the imperative to gather more accurate, comparable data on how many of their students graduate from high school on time.

The States agreed to calculate the graduation rate by dividing the number of on-time graduates in a given year by the number of first-time entering ninth graders four years earlier. This is very different from the abbreviated accounting now used by Bermuda which shows a higher graduation rate.

The Graduation Counts Compact can be found here: http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.9123e83a1f6786440ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=f57c04493f5bc010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD

Cherry picking education numbers

So its not an "education crisis" as long as you don't count drop-outs?

The source said that the Ministry of Education previously measured the graduation rate by comparing the number of passes against a starting group of students, which included some who had moved from the Island, gone to other schools or dropped out of the system.

“We were so bad at calculating data before that I know the rate was deflated,” they said.

“Students were counted that were no longer in the system; students that had withdrawn or gone to other schools. We were never in the deepest of crises that we were led to believe.”

Thanks to an earlier post on the education numbers, I dug up an article (School statistics flaw corrected) from back in January that said:

Schools have now been equipped with the means to track where a student comes from when they enter the school system, and when they exit.

Recalculating the graduation rates without subsequently providing the details of how many dropped out is cherry picking the numbers so that you get the result you want rather than the real picture.

Give us a breakdown of

a. How many left the island and have not returned

b. How many transferred schools

c. How many dropped out.

A drop-out is a fail to graduate and reflects the education systems failure to educate and prepare young Bermudians.   It is absolutely critical that we know how many are dropping out.  A 50% drop out rate is just as critical as a 50% failure rate because it ultimately means that 50% of Bermudians are not being properly educated. 

Something missing in education numbers

According to a recent gazette article suggesting an 82% graduation rate, which is far above last years 48%.

This year, there were 173 graduates out of 212 senior four students.

In 2006, 148 gained a Bermuda School Certificate out of 309 senior four students.

These numbers open up a whole host of questions because such a large one year increase is unfathomable.  The first which springs to mind is what is the dropout rate and how do the graduation rates reflect dropouts?  One should quickly note that there were 97 less students in this years total than there were last year.  How many dropped out?

What were the student to teacher ratios?  If there were 20 teachers overall in both years, that would mean student/teacher ratios of 15 students per teacher for last year and 11 this year.  If true, what would the extra attention garnered for each student say about the graduation rate?

What is the larger picture?  What calculations were used?  What are the base numbers?  Where are the rest of the stats?

Lets go back to an old gazette article published on January 26th of 2007 for reference:  School statistics flaw corrected

In previous years, said Mr. Horton, students who were not enrolled in the BSC programme were included in published graduation rates, giving an inaccurate set of results.

He said previous statistics were also less reliable because there were was no way of knowing whether students had left the school system before graduating privately in Bermuda or abroad; if they were institutionalized; or if they dropped out in the traditional sense of the word.

Schools have now been equipped with the means to track where a student comes from when they enter the school system, and when they exit.

"when they enter the school system, and when they exit."  Where are these numbers according to how many and why they entered or exited?  Where are the numbers for the Bermuda School Certificate (BSC) enrollment.  How many of our youth did and did not enroll?  What percentage?

Are the requirements of attaining the Bermuda School Certificate the same?  What were the test scores for graduates?

On November 6th, 2006, Bermuda Union of Teachers President Lisa Trott was quoted as follows

Ms Trott said a true graduation rate would show how many students began school in Senior One and how many left with a BSC from Senior Four.

She said: “We need to know the numbers in terms of retention and to see how many students are spending six years rather than four years at senior school level.

Where are these numbers? 

How do we fix education?

Government, through a review being conducted by the Attorney General, has made an interesting call out to the people for ideas on how we can fix our education system.  You can write to submit your insights into the Bermuda school system by writing to bermudareview[at]yahoo.com.  What we are witnessing is more of a rise in public consultation which is a great thing to see.  What we can hope is that our government shall listen, that it shall harness the strength of all Bermudians for ideas on how to bring desperately needed change to our education system. 

Do we have standardized testing across the island for both public and private schools?  Something that will give us a solid measurement of the performance of each student across our entire education system so that we can assess the progression and improvements we make to our education system?  Do we have a standardized curriculum to ensure that all students are learning the right tools at each level?

Can failing students be held back if they need extra assistance?  Can we afford to pay teachers more in order to retain their skills over the summer to teach those students who need that extra bit of attention to make it through the year?  Not just a summer school, but a full complement of teachers so that we can vastly reduce our teacher to student ratios for the summer term?  What is our current teacher to student ratio and how do we compare to other countries where there are successful educations?

As a friend suggested, can we encourage more positive male role models and try to spread our schools more evenly so that children in younger grades have ones in older to look up to?  This as a contrast to what may well be happening now where the only role models in school are of the same age group, drop out and take a great many followers with them?

Are these the kinds of questions you would be asking?  Do you have ideas and insights into how the Bermuda school system could be improved?  Could you have the suggestion that could make the difference of an education for our island's children?

Take a moment to make the most of this opportunity, submit your thoughts and watch for the review.  When the review comes, take a moment to review it yourself, find out if they've come up with good ideas of how we can fix our education system and tell your representative that you want to see the best ideas pushed forward so that we can start making a difference today and put our country back on the right track.

One Laptop Per Child

I am quite amazed by the launch of the One Laptop Per Child project who's aim is to empower every youth in undeveloped countries with access to the best education possible.  By equipping children with laptops, mesh based internet connectivity and the ability to make class sessions collaborative.  By tapping into open knowledge based resources such as open source software and online open book projects technology access to open source software and open book/textbook projects like google books.  It is incredible how movements are being made to empower every child around the world with such technology at their fingertips.

I can't help but compare this to our own predicament regarding education.  We have a 48% graduation rate and "60 percent of the Island’s 16- to 25-year-olds do not have adequate literacy skills for a modern, knowledge-based society."  This amounts to quite a crisis on our hands and we're struggling to figure out what has been a worsening trend for years.  We live in a society who's lone major industry is heavily based upon knowledge capital and, as such, in order to compete we need to stay at the top of ability in terms of technology.  I would have much rathered to have seen us spend $15 million equipping every child with a laptop, internet connectivity and collaborative/interactive schooling programs then spending it on a football team. 

I guess I'm still bummed that we've spent $26 million in two years on sports and my generation is still in the dark when it comes to a leg up in a increasingly demanding world.

$15 million for football?

Are you kidding me?  Last year it was $11 million on cricket and we all witnessed how well that turned out.  I must be reading this incorrectly.  Are we honestly going to spend $15 million on football?

Don't get me wrong, football is a much loved Bermudian sport that needs the support of the country, but I do need to ask about the motivations behind throwing a large amount of cash behind another professional sport when there may be more important things we should be focusing on.

Should our government not be focusing more of their efforts and $$$ on education?  I don't just mean improving the system for future students but also fixing the horrible mess that has been made of my generation.  Certainly my generation has gotten the short end of the stick.

There is one perfect example that springs to mind that will help illustrate my point.  While at recruit camp, we had regular evening lectures to learn various topics.  In one such lecture on the combination of making schooling more accessable to recruits, one recruit asked if it was possible for him to attain his GED through the program.  This may have been something whose responsibility was passed off to the National Training Board, however what concerned me was that this recruit was requested later in the presentation to stand up and read a slide.  It surely was an embarassing scenerio for the individual as he struggled to read many of the words and did so at a snails pace.  It was such an abysmal performance that one could do nothing but feel very sorry him and feel enraged at the system that was supposed to educate him to enough of a level to survive in our society.  While he is just one example, there were many others who showed signs of being very poorly educated.

The regiment education program is a good first step, but the approx $100,000 of funding is pennies in comparison to $15 million.  Especially when many recruits arn't even capable of performing at the college level considering they missed out on the basics.

If government is interested in preventing "young people from getting mixed up in crime and drugs", the first step should be to ensure they are educated well enough to afford themselves a future.  Spare funding should be put towards helping all of those who have fallen through the cracks of our failed system.

Bermuda has failed my generation.  Football is all fine and nice, but we should be focusing more heavily on core issues not just paying idle lip service to them.