Monday, July 2, 2012

A hollow experience: Computer based learning | Seattle Education

A hollow experience: Computer based learning | Seattle Education:


A hollow experience: Computer based learning

This article was recently sent to me and provides an excellent description of how much richer the experience is when we interact with other human beings rather than computers. Online learning will be the next big push in our state and there are privatizers waiting in the wings to make their next big fortune off of our children.
Dora
Social Networking and Electronic Games – Hollow Victoriesby Ted Twietmeyer
Most everywhere you go today, you see young and old alike incessantly playing electronic games or flipping through screens on a phone. Electronic games have become an addiction for tens of millions of people. In the past the older generation wanted nothing to do with computers, especially video games. Now even senior citizens can’t seem to get enough. In this essay we’ll refer to cell phone games and computer games simply as video games.Consider someone who spends just two hours a day (a conservative estimate) playing video games or flipping through cell phone screens. This totals up to 730 hours/year in a non-leap year, or 30.4 DAYS/YEAR. That’s equivalent to one month out of the year spent doing absolutely nothing useful, productive or educational to improve your life. Over 12 years an ENTIRE YEAR of someone’s life is completely wasted. Yet if you were to as