Responding to a message by Dan, to Charles on ...
DT>You make a good point here and you are correct that I am thinking of 
DT>specific work sheets (the boring, canned, meaningless, busywork kind).  
DT>What you are describing is not what the type of work sheet to which I am 
DT>referring.  I think I would probably agree with using work sheets that 
DT>facilitate a lesson or provide a student with a format for recording 
DT>data, interviewing a person of interest, researching information from 
DT>library material, etc.. I think this is what you are describing.  
For the most part.
DT>.DT>For many children this type of activity is busy work and it's
DT>.DT>boring.  
DT>CB>So is washing up the dinner dishes, but I do it every day.  
DT>
DT>Charles, you are talking apples and I am talking oranges.  If we can 
DT>make learning more meaningful and get more kids engaged in their own 
DT>learning don't you think they will be more excited about school?
Yes, but teaching only things that are fun should not be our motivating 
force.  If anything, it is just this philosophy about education that has 
put the U.S. so far behind other nations - we've lowered our standards 
so as not to "tax" our children by teaching them things that are 
difficult to learn or that they aren't properly motivated to learn.  We 
must determine, as a nation, what we want our kids to know, when we want 
them to know it, teach it to them, then test them on it. 
DT>You really think a kindergartner or 1st or 2nd grade kid cares that some 
DT>things in life are boring?  The fact that some things in life may be 
DT>boring seems a poor excuse to pass off boring kindergartner as a 
DT>legitimate way to teach kids.  (I said boring kindergartner....we have 
DT>already established that some WS are good.)
I'm afraid I don't follow this.  My point is this...if we establish that 
we want all 3rd graders in this country to be able to read at a 3rd 
grade level on the XYZ Exam, then I don't care *what* the kids think is 
boring, we teach them to read at the proper level by the 3rd grade.  The 
adults are in charge, not the kids.
DT>CB>Don't you think that an electronic worksheet is still just a
DT>CB>worksheet?   I don't see the difference except that the computer has
DT>CB>a little more  color and sound.
DT>
DT>It's very different in my mind.  It's interactive for one, it offers a 
DT>variety for two, it is entertaining for three, and it's not boring for 
DT>four, and it usually is a choice that is completely left up to the 
DT>child.  I challenge you to this:  Put out match-the-letter usually or 
DT>count-the-objects usually and also have the computers on match the 
DT>letter/number games.  Which do you think the children would rather do?
Okay, I won't beat this argument to death, but in my mind, connecting a 
picture to a beginning sound is no different if done with a pencil or it 
is done with a mouse.
Chuck Beams
Fidonet - 1:2608/70
cbeams@future.dreamscape.com
___
* UniQWK #5290* My other computer's a... er... well, it's a piece of junk 
o.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
---------------