The internet effect

[mobertol]

Originally Posted by jaysay

My other half has invigilated for the GCSE exams at here local secondary school for the last five or six years and it astounded me when I heard that kids are allowed to take calculators into examsthe only thing we were afforded was logarithms back in my day

I remember getting my first Casio Scientific Calculator back in 1976 (from Wardleworths), it took me through many exams, I still have it and it works perfectly. We had lessons on how to use it correctly. We also had to learn to use a slide-rule. At junior school maths was split into "Mental Arithmetic" and "Mechanical Arithmetic" - do you remember that J? I always remember a fantastic line out of the "Liverbirds" -where Polly (can't remember the surname!) says that whenever they mentioned Mental Arithmetic at school she used to wet her knickers!!
By the was,I apologise if i got a bit hot under the collar in my last post but it really gets to me when you see bright young people throwing away opportunities...

[garinda]

Originally Posted by mobertol

Polly (can't remember the surname!)

'In fact neither actress really had a Liverpool accent - Polly James was from Oswaldtwistle.'
The Liver Birds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Incidentally, she wasn't. She was from Blackburn, but her parents moved to Ossy.)

[Guinness]

Originally Posted by jaysay

My other half has invigilated for the GCSE exams at here local secondary school for the last five or six years and it astounded me when I heard that kids are allowed to take calculators into examsthe only thing we were afforded was logarithms back in my day

And you were allowed to take the Napier log book in with you on your maths GCE, which in effect was a table of calculations i.e. a rudimentary calculator.

Things move on, e.g...no more latin.. duco, ducis, du..(cue 12yr old snigger).

A calculator is no more or less a tool than the log book, slide rule or abacus.

The internet, like a log book, a calculator, abacus or even a power saw, is just a tool. As long as you are informed how to to use it correctly..it's just as valid

[Margaret Pilkington]

Using the internet as a tool shows only one thing...you know how to use the internet.
If that is the skill you are testing then all well and good.
But to have learned something means that there has to be an observable change in behaviour, which can be attributed to something that has been taught....or certainly that was what I was lead to believe in my CGLI Adult Education Cert.
I honestly can't say that the internet would fulfil that criteria......you still interaction with teachers...you can be a long way down the wrong road if you have no-one supervising what you are doing.

[Guinness]

And going into a maths exam with a log book only shows that you can read not that you can do the math..yet that fulfilled the criteria 40 years ago.

My maths teacher taught me how to use logarithms, I was not expected to do the complex mathematical formula needed to tell me whether COSa was greater than 2xSINb, I looked it up in the log book, like I said todays teachers should inform students how to use the internet, it's no different, it's still falls under the remit of 'teaching' and 'learning'.

[Margaret Pilkington]

The internet is a source of information, but it isn't all good information. Teachers are guides and motivators...well, the good ones are!

[garinda]

I've just done a test.

At school I was asked to write an essay on the relationship between the American Civil War, slavery, and the Lancashire cotton industry.

Visits to libraries produved virtually nothing of relevance. Just the odd useful line in an encyclopedia.

Searching online now, using a few key phrases, produced reams of information, that would have made the task much more interesting, and rewarding.

The internet can't replace a teacher, but it must be the most amazing tool for students, in helping with research.

[steeljack]

What saddened me is after doing a clear out, I offered one of my neighbours (a woman who has custody of her 8, 12, 13 yr old grandchildren ) a National Geograpic world atlas , she said she didn't want it as the kids didn't read books , pointed out it was an atlas , a book of world maps .......response .. "Why do they need maps" .... time to give up/wasting my time ....
Folks will disagree , but my thoughts/when I'm in charge of things , it will be compulsory for every home to have a bookcase containing books of some sort

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by DaveinGermany

What, a clay tablet & stylus ?

Yeh less of the lip scouse

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by mobertol

I remember getting my first Casio Scientific Calculator back in 1976 (from Wardleworths), it took me through many exams, I still have it and it works perfectly. We had lessons on how to use it correctly. We also had to learn to use a slide-rule. At junior school maths was split into "Mental Arithmetic" and "Mechanical Arithmetic" - do you remember that J? I always remember a fantastic line out of the "Liverbirds" -where Polly (can't remember the surname!) says that whenever they mentioned Mental Arithmetic at school she used to wet her knickers!!
By the was,I apologise if i got a bit hot under the collar in my last post but it really gets to me when you see bright young people throwing away opportunities...

Evidently I'm a tad older than you mobertol as it was just plain maths in my day and it was Polly James, her mother and father lived in Havelock Street in Ossy, saw her in the Stop and Rest in Ossy, in the seventies, with here parents having.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by steeljack

What saddened me is after doing a clear out, I offered one of my neighbours (a woman who has custody of her 8, 12, 13 yr old grandchildren ) a National Geograpic world atlas , she said she didn't want it as the kids didn't read books , pointed out it was an atlas , a book of world maps .......response .. "Why do they need maps" .... time to give up/wasting my time ....
Folks will disagree , but my thoughts/when I'm in charge of things , it will be compulsory for every home to have a bookcase containing books of some sort

I already do have a quite large book case SJ but only has books by the likes of James Patterson, Dean Koontz and Steven Kink

[mobertol]

Originally Posted by garinda

'In fact neither actress really had a Liverpool accent - Polly James was from Oswaldtwistle.'
The Liver Birds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Incidentally, she wasn't. She was from Blackburn, but her parents moved to Ossy.)

As soon as i saw the surname I remembered it -brain obviously taking another rest in that moment...It was a brilliant TV series, Carla Lane was a really good writer, I had the pleasure of meeting her at a Hall dinner at L'pool Uni back in 1984, nice woman and very unassuming.

[kestrelx]

Originally Posted by garinda

When I was 13 you had to go out to look for smut.

Strangely, hedgerows, and derelict houses were favoured spots, where things like that were stashed.

I'd never have left the house if they'd have had the internet thirty years ago.

So you are saying that you used to find saucy postcards in "hedgerows and derelict houses" back in your childhood!

[Margaret Pilkington]

I don't think he was talking about the postcards there....I think he might have been referring to real live 'smut.
But I'm sure you know that really.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by kestrelx

So you are saying that you used to find saucy postcards in "hedgerows and derelict houses" back in your childhood!

Rindi was a very resourceful child