"The Los Angeles Board of Education votes to require grades of D or better in college-prep classes starting with incoming ninth-graders in the fall, raising requirements to a C for the Class of 2017." That is the subtitle for the following article:

Blume, Howard (5/9/2012).  All L.A. Unified students must pass college-prep courses. Los Angles Times. Retrieved 5/13/2012 from http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0509-lausd-20120509,0,245781.story.

The underlying idea is that all students should be required to get a good education, where “good” means be prepared to enter the California State University System. Students not achieving this "good" education will not be allowed to graduate from high school. In my opinion, the definition of “good” is “bad.”

The idea of requiring all students at the precollege level to learn something about computers (to gain in computer literacy) has been around for a great many years. In 1982 Art Luehrmann wrote an article, “Should the computer teach the student, or vice-versa? The article discusses computing literacy. Quoting form the article:

Mass computing literacy is not an agreed-upon educational goal. Today very few courses at any educational level show students how to use computing as an intellectual tool with applications to the subject matter being taught. Oh, there are a few isolated, subject-matter-free courses in computer programming; but their market is largely restricted to vocational-education students, at one end of the spectrum, and future computer professionals at the other. It is true that most schools consider it prestigious to have a large and powerful computer facility; but the fact of the matter is that such computers are usually the captives of research and administrative interests and operate on a pay-as-you-go basis. Ironically, it is in the most prestigious universities that students are least likely to be permitted to use those prestigious computers. It is a rare secondary school, college, or university that budgets and operates its computer facility in the same way that it budgets and operates its library. … In the main, literacy in computing simply is not an educational goal at many schools. Most educators seem to find bizarre the suggestion that accreditation agencies examine schools for the quality of their educational computing facilities, just as they now do with libraries. (Learn more about Art Luehrmann at http://iae-pedia.org/Arthur_Luehrmann.)

The 1983 report, “A Nation at Risk” (http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html) includes the statement:

Over the years I have done a lot of writing. I was certainly a naïve author when I began. I was truly surprised when journals presented me with a “page charge” to publish my research articles.

Then I coauthored an academic book. The intricacies of the of the process were certainty both interesting and a challenge.

In 1979 I started and headed the International Council for Computers in Education, which eventually became the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).  I published many articles and books through this non-profit organization. I suppose that the publication details were easier for me because of my position in the organization.

This IAE Blog entry is based on the article:

Online has made a significant difference in the worlds of business and industry, and in higher education. It is of steadily growing importance in precollege education.

I  have long been interested in computer-assisted learning. It has been fun to watch the progress of this field during the past half century. Over the years, Computer-assisted learning materials have gotten better. I have been especially interested in the roles that Artificial Intelligence and computer simulations have played in this progress.  Recently my friend Dexter Fletcher sent me copies of two reports  from the Institute of Defense Analysis. These were publicly available reports on research being done on an intelligent tutor system that can help train navel personnel (DARPA, 2011).  Certain aspects of military training lend themselves to use of Intelligent Computer-assisted Learning materials. Trainees are learning to diagnose and repair faults in complex instruments and other devices. There are steady streams of new recruits who have to be quickly trained and educated to a high professional level of expertise.

I regularly read the SmartBrief on EdTech. The following two items are copied from the July 28, 2011 issue available at http://alquemie.smartbrief.com/alquemie/servlet/encodeServlet?issueid=F0FD6D26-5568-44B9-B59D-B79CBE776638&lmcid=archives.

Click here to learn about Dave Moursund's free book on science and technology education for teaches and parents of K-8 children.

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A few weeks ago I was reading a book to one of my grandchildren who is in kindergarten. We came to a picture of a cartoon animal that had five spots on its front side. I suggested to my grandchild that the animal likely had spots on it back. I asked my grandchild how many total spots the animal had. He thought a little bit and decided that the animal had five spots on its front side and five spots on its back side. A little quick mental arithmetic and he produced an answer—11 spots. But, within a second, he said, no that is not right. A few more seconds and he produced the number 10 with some help from his fingers.

Click here to learn about Dave Moursund's free book on science and technology education for teaches and parents of K-8 children.

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In November 2010, the National Science Teachers Association recently a position statement about Teaching Science and Technology in the Context of Societal and Personal Issues. See http://www.nsta.org/about/positions/societalpersonalissues.aspx.

Click here to learn about and download Dave Moursund's free book on science and technology education for teaches and parents of K-8 children.

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This is my third IAE Blog entry about what I consider to be a serious weakness in our math education system.  The problem situation is that many teachers and students view the educational goal in math word problems is to learn to “get the answer.”