Computers kill learning

[rainorshinexo]

Does anyone else find computers an awful distraction to actually learning?

I remember at university I could never get anything into my head without shutting off the machine (or just closing the laptop lid), and getting my face and mind stuck into some juicy mathematics on a piece of paper.

Even now, when I do "casual learning", whether it be mathematics or languages, or anything really, nothing is ever really absorbed unless it is from paper.

I am better off going to bed with a book, a pad of paper and a pen and learning that way, than I am with the entire internet - a whole world of free information! - at my fingertips.

So what is this? Surely I cannot be the only one? Is it a psychological barrier? If I cannot scribble or grasp something in my hands then I cannot learn? Or is it just that the internet is always there...distracting me from learning?

 

[KathyW]

Probably the distractions. I'm at work. On MAP.

 

[FlashT]

i do most of my learning on a computer

 

[wernerslave]

Computers actually help me a lot more. When I got into college and later the academy, I started transferring all my handwritten notes to a Word document every time I got home. I can type a lot faster than I can write (dang writer's cramp hits me every time) and by reading it, typing it, and occasionally saying it out loud I got way more out of it that way than I ever did by just hand jamming and reviewing it again later on.

 

[ChristopherPaul]

the fact is, too, that digital data is simply more practical, cost-effective and space efficient than paper or film (although it can cause vision fatigue, headaches and all that jazz, so it's not an absolute replacement)

 

[Luvlee_Dreamer87]

It's a stage I went through and a lot of people go through (I teach IT skills so talk to a lot of people about this sort of issue), where writing something seems to let you learn something in a way that typing it doesn't.

I have a thoery that it's influenced by how IT literate you are. If you imagine you have a limited amount of concentration available and you're having to devote a good chunk of it to using the keyboard, making the word processing programme work, saving your work etc, then you have little left to devote to actually taking in what you're writing. Once you're used to working on a PC you stop thinking about the 'poot and start devoting your attention to the matter, not the medium.

Mitch

 

[co0kiecrumbz]

to better answer the original question, i believe it's indeed psychological, more specifically having to do with your concept of what computers and the internet are for. if you only recently started trying to learn in the computer, you might have the notion that it's a "play" instrument, and will have difficulty phasing it out of that role. kinda like giving a modern kid an educational game; he'll just go WTF and go back to playing unreal tournament or something

 

[MiamiG]

no they don't

 

[AliciaW]

8 posts so far and 4 haven't used capitalisation correctly. Case closed

Mitch

 

[rpoilto]

my english is mediocre at best, my logical side is much more advanced, and I work on computers as a living. I had to put so much more time and effort to get my English language up to normal, whereas if I had spent more time using computers to aid me I could have advanced my computer skills a lot more! I could programme computer games by the age of 8 (I have a picture of me after I had coded my first programme at 3), and probably could have done alot better if it wasn't for the time that had to be put aside to fit into the school system of learning. I didn't do anymore computer related education in secondary school until after A levels.

I think old fashioned attitudes is certainly detrimental to learning.
Not everyone fits in the box that you have to be good at language and able to write several essays over night with pen and paper.

Learning should be a flexible to people's skills, rather then trying to fit everyone into the same pigeon whole of skills to produce many Jack of all trades when more could have had specialisations.

 

[strosnlcs]

Hey, at least they'e not using l33t speak...

 

[AlexisInfectious®]

People get things all backwards. The computer serves up the information. The brain does the learning.

 

[Sheeeeeee]

I found just the opposite, when I got into programming I finally had a use for the mathematics I'd learned and I could see results rather then abstract theory.

Before that I really couldn't have given a crap what "x" was.

 

[EmoeNemoe]

realMenUseCamelCaseCosWhiteSpaceIsForLosers

 

[manchesterlass73]

I think it depends on the subject. For something like history, where you can learn the subject by reading about it and memorizing information or by discovering new information in a book, a computer can be great for learning. For physics, not as much.

I've certainly used the computer to find papers. That's what I do most of the time now when I need to find a paper; scholar.google.com. But if you want to learn to apply a concept in physics, to be able to solve a problem and have more than just a general idea of the theory, a computer may not be all that useful. You need to do problems and find solutions on your own. Reading about it in physics is never enough, and that's not just limited to computers either. For example, I'm sure you've used Jackson's E&M for a class at some point. Pick a chapter--any chapter, maybe even Chapter 1. Read it. Now try to solve one or two problems at the end of the chapter. . . how many times did that keep you up all night?

Most of the information on the internet about physics, at least, more complicated physics, lies somewhere between accessible to the public and useful for physicists, so that it's completely useless to everyone. I mean Wikipedia's article on general relativity has just enough math in it that you can't understand it if you don't study physics but not enough that it's useful when you're taking a class. And I can't tell you how many times I've struggled trying to get google to spit out the right webpages for the information I want only to find later on that one of my textbooks has it in a pretty accessible place (of course, the trick is to know which text book to look in, sometimes).

 

[JeffersonH]

Space in a MAP post is


















































blue. See?

Mitch

 

[RODAguilera]

I'm not so sure. Of course gathering information is only ever going to get you so far in physics and to gain any real understanding of a theory, you need to apply it to problems. However, I think it's incredibly useful, especially when you're away from university and the libraries, to be able to trawl the web for lecture notes and problem sheets on a particular subject that interests you. I've spent the day learning Lagrangian mechanics from the Cambridge maths undergraduate lecture notes. Without the internet, being able to freely learn about different topics at my leisure would require me to buy tons of textbooks which I simply cannot afford, many of which I would probably find unhelpful and would never look at again.

At my current level (2nd year physics undergraduate), I think there's lots on the internet that can be very good, especially when there aren't any other resources at hand.

 

[MikeSteelheart90]

Not at all. I needed a laptop to take notes as I do not write fast enough to keep up with what profs say i am not able to; I own my own laptop and desktop - could sit down and write an essay better, actually, when I had msn on at the same time. I think its because msn allowed me to take mini-breaks and chat with friends which helped me stay there and write essay for hours and hours. Simply, because I never had to get up because i was never tired. I got a lot of essays written that way.

Of course that only works if you can be disciplined. Which I am - see my sig quote hehe =]



and this is another reason why I found computers great. My degree was bachelor of arts; my double major was History and Russian Language and LIterature.

 

[WillM]

As if people...

YouTube and porn make up for a vast amount of the time people spend on computers 'learning'. Well and then there is MAP.

Call a spade a spade.

 

[definitive_prankster]

On average, I've had to buy one text book for every class I've taken (there are a few where I bought two, and some where I haven't had to buy one because it was the same book as last semester/they didn't have a book for the class). I don't really mind, and I'm actually happy to have all of these books. I wouldn't want to be without them. If I ever have my own lab, I'll be sure to put them in there as part of a mini-library for the group.

Lagrangian mechanics is one thing--there's one equation you need to know and if you know it, you can do it. Conceptually there's a little more that you need to understand but it's not too bad. The Lagrangian is what made the second semester of mechanics I took much easier than the first (or technically, the third, easier than the second, since I took AP physics in high school).

But still, if I gave you a problem like (and I think this is pretty much how one of the problems in the text book went) "a board is balanced on top of a soda can. When the board tilts, the soda can rolls. For a small perturbation, find the motion of the board after someone taps it," would you be able to solve it just from reading those notes? Eventually, probably, but not as quickly as if you had experience actually working problems.

Now try finding useful information on the internet about Lindblad resonance that will allow you to do actual calculations.