Desknet - Summary

This group is not part of the GNU Project.

There is a fundamental mismatch between what a teacher does and what a computer can do. The computer can be a fairly decent tutor, working with one student at a time. A good supervisor might get two kids working at one machine, but if you try for three, you'll likely wind up with one kid working and two socializing. Teachers, by contrast, work with groups of students, thus the mismatch. A major problem with computer aided instruction in the real-world classroom has been to bridge that mismatch.

There have been two basic approaches: 1) get a computer for every student, or 2) find the magic management plan to allow rotation of students through a few machines somewhere in the room. Both of these approaches have obvious drawbacks. The first approach has typically been by way of a lab shared by several classes. The lab is extremely expensive and requires rigid scheduling that inhibits effective instruction (such as spaced practice for keyboarding). And sad experience has convinced me that the magic management plan does not exist.

The present project was developed as a third approach to bridge the gap. It is not a general solution, but it is useful in lower grade classrooms that are working on basic skills. There is a huge tradeoff, in that each student only gets a single line, rather than a whole screen, but what we get in return is simultaneous access to the program by all students, instantly, whenever the teacher wants it, without moving students from their desks or to another room. And it turns out that we can do more with a single screen line than one might think.

The present program includes 4 types of exercises:

1) Math facts practice for all four operations, presented as real-time competition that includes the entire class. The range of the problems presented is controlled by the teacher, and the scoring is handicapped, so that the top students do not completely dominate the race.

 2) Keyboarding practice. One hundred sixty lines of practice, beginning with the home row letters 'f' and 'j', and gradually extending to include all alphabetic reaches.

3) Word processing. Students can enter compositions of a few hundred words, which can be printed out, either for one individual or an entire class set.

4) Guided practice. Keyed to whatever math text is in use, this allows students to check their written work on a problem-by-problem basis, as they do it. The program never tells them the right answer to a problem, only whether their proposed answer is right or wrong. Presented with a new algorithm (such as multiple re-grouping in subtraction) students frequently will initially get it wrong and wind up doing several problems in a row incorrectly. Properly used, this program flags errors the first time they occur and keeps students from practicing a misunderstood procedure.

Registration Date: Fri 31 Oct 2014 04:41:47 PM UTC
License: GNU General Public License v3 or later
Development Status: 3 - Alpha