[1010G]Economist阅读帖 by Sola-nana

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

以后的大概都按这个形式来~


Background reading
Opening statements
Rebuttal statements
Guest
Closing statements
Decision


1. 好的单词
2. 好的词组
3. 好的句子
4. 列举（注意阅读方法和AW材料收集）
5. 观点、态度、结论句
6. 不太确定的词句，希望大家给出意见~~

7.难句

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/121
Technology in education

This house believes the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education.


About this debate

Over the last several decades, large investments have been made to equip primary and secondary schools with computers and teacher training. Now it is time to examine whether there has been a sufficient return on this investment. Does technology really offer substantive(实质的) advantages to students? Does technology accelerate or impede（阻止、妨碍） real progress in education? Similarly, does technology serve as a teaching crutch（拐杖、帮助——很生动的用法哦~） or does it offer the ability to promote sustainable change in the world’s classrooms? And if so, is the technology deployed（使展开——有些翻译不通..） today being used to best possible advantage? What conditions need to exist in schools for technology to have an impact?

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

Background reading

Tech.view

One clunky（笨重的） laptop per child

Great idea. Shame about the mediocre（不好不坏的） computer

Jan 4th 2008 | From The Economist online
IT WOULD be a stunt（矮小的东西）, but one perhaps worth performing, to write this column on the tiny, green and white, $200 XO computer from One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) that sits idle（idle修饰that前的专有名词，为adj.） before your columnist（专栏作家）. Alas（哎呀, 唉）, he cannot.
段义：XO电脑给人的整体印象

This is not because the keys are too small for his adult hands (though they are), or because the processor’s slow speed makes the machine frustrating to use(though it does). Nor is it because the track pad（垫） sometimes goes screwy（螺旋形的, 怪僻的, 扭曲的） and the keys lack the normal pressed-key response that allows smooth typing. It isn’t even because moving the column from the word-processing application to the web-mail system is prohibitively（过高、过分地） difficult.

Instead, it is because the XO, which your columnist has explored since it arrived a few days before Christmas, has bugs that cause occasional crashes. A discreet（小心的） message sometimes flashes when the system boots up（启动）, warning of some sort of data-check error. This, along with the host（服务器？） of other hiccups（轻微错误）, necessitated（迫使） the use of an ordinary, expensive computer for this column.
段义：XO电脑存在系统漏洞，导致人们去使用普通、昂贵的电脑

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Nicholas Negroponte, a tech guru at the celebrated Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, launched the initiative（初步行动） in 2005, the vision was grandiose（宏伟的）, but the implementation（完成） seemed beguilingly simple（看似简单的） . Computer-processing technology（计算机处理技术）
had become so widespread and inexpensive that DVD players and mobile phones had as much power as the PCs of just a few years ago. Just add a screen and keyboard, the thought went, and you’ll have a cheap, functional laptop.
段义：Nicholas Negroponte在Computer-processing technology方面的成功

Indeed, Mr. Negroponte’s vision was brilliant. He planned to blanket（掩盖——生动） the developing world with tens of millions of $100 laptops for kids. The low cost would come from a tripartite（三重的） “perfect storm”. First, economies of scale: sales would be directly to governments, who could only buy quantities above 1m. Second, the machines would bypass Intel’s processors and Microsoft’s software in favor of open-source stuff. Third, commodity parts would keep the price low.
段义：XO电脑价格低廉的三个原因

Mr. Negroponte sought funding from education ministries（教育部）: “It’s an education project, not a technology project,” he was fond of saying. Faced with critics who argued he should concentrate on the classic development issues that keep people poor and sick rather than doling out（施舍） high-tech gear（齿轮）, Mr. Negroponte would rightly reply that education through computers can help resolve all such problems.
段义：Mr. Negroponte的观点：education through computers can help resolve all such problems

Today that optimism seems Pollyannaish(过分乐观). Many governments (including Nigeria’s and Libya’s) cancelled their informal commitments to purchase the machines when they realized the devices were untried(未经试验的), the price higher than envisaged（想象） and other cheap laptops available.
段义：实际情况不容乐观

All this is a shame, not least because Mr. Negroponte’s idea was sound and the machines’ hardware, at least on paper, impressive. The initiative inspired several advances in laptop technology, in terms of features (flash memory instead of a spinning（旋转的） hard-drive), design (a laptop-to-tablet form and a waterproof（防水的）keyboard) and price reductions. A pull-cord hand-generator for power is in the works. OLPC and their boosters deserve hearty（恳切） congratulations for all of this. Unfortunately, OLPC’s problems, which can be distilled（提炼） into four main areas, risk turning a wonderful idea into a plastic paperweight（纸压）.
段义：OLPC的想法很好，但存在着以下三个问题，让这个伟大的构想成为了纸上谈兵

（大列举）First, the implementation（履行、完成） of the technologies is terrible. In their zeal（热诚、热心） to rewrite the rules of computing for first-time users, OLPC shipped machines with a cumbersome（麻烦的） operating system.( For example, adding Flash to do something like watch a YouTube video requires users to go into a terminal line-code and type a long internet address to download the software: it seems impossible to cut-and-paste the address. ) Major PC vendors（卖主） spend millions in research and development to enhance a computer’s usability（可用性）; OLPC tried to reinvent the wheel and came up with an oval（椭圆形）.
段义：第一个问题，OLPC配置的系统过于复杂

Second, the go-to-market execution (as it’s called in the industry) was imperfect. There was a lack of documentation, support and methods to integrate the PCs into school curricula, teacher training, and the like. OLPC seemed to think that just by handing out（施舍、分发） laptops, everything would sort itself out. This columnist happens rather to like that gung-ho approach, yet also recognizes that the consumer is not the nine-year-old user with infinite time on her hands, but a government bureaucrat who has to evaluate the machines relative to the other options.
段义：二、战略计划的执行不完善

That leads to the third problem. Since the project launched in 2005, commercial rivals have emerged: Intel’s “Classmate” at around $250; Acer’s laptop at $350; Everex PCs with Zonbu software at around $280; Asustek Computer’s Asus Eee at under $400; and an Indian competitor, Novatium Solutions, which created a basic "NetPC" for around $80. There are many more.
OLPC initially treated all these activities as threats rather than competitors. Lately, Intel has supported OLPC, though this week said it would leave its board, and Microsoft is trying to tweak（bother） Windows XP, an earlier operating system, to work on the XO. But all computer buyers will have to compare the XO to a lot of other products in the market—something that never seemed to have struck OLPC’s staffers as a possibility（似乎没有触击到被OLPC的员工当做有可能的事——即：OLPC的员工没把市场上其他的产品当成可能成为他们威胁的东西）, but should have.
段义：三、OLPC过于轻敌

This leads to（逆向指代，说明上段内容为此段的原因）the final problem that has done the most to disappoint OLPC’s fans: the hubris（傲慢）, arrogance and occasional self-righteousness（自我感觉良好的） of OLPC workers. They treated all criticism as enemy fire to be deflected（使转向） and quashed （镇压）rather than（强转折——重点在后面） considered and possibly taken on board. Overcoming this will be essential if the project is to succeed past its first release. Technology products improve based on user feedback（反馈）. The OLPC staff will need to learn to listen to the candid criticism of outsiders for the second-generation of the laptop—or they do not deserve to build one.
段义：四、OLPC没能正视批评

Ultimately the OLPC initiative will be remembered less for what it produced than the products it spawned（产生的）. The initiative is like running the four-minute mile: no one could do it, until someone actually did it. Then many people did. Likewise, an inexpensive laptop seemed impossible until Mr. Negroponte and the OLPC group placed a stake in the ground to build a $100 laptop—which in turn spurred（刺激） the industry’s biggest players to create low-cost PCs. Mr. Negroponte’s vision for a $100 laptop was not the right computer, only the right price. Like many pioneers（先驱者）, he laid a path for others to follow.
段义：Mr. Negroponte的想法刺激了低价PC的产生和发展

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

Intelligence

Dimming

Disturbing evidence of a decline in youngsters’ brainpower

Oct 30th 2008 | From The Economist print edition

Jupiter Images The hands-on way to budding minds

EVERY year Britain’s school-children provide gratifying（愉悦的、令人满足的） evidence of their increasing smartness. More leave primary school having done well in tests of reading, writing and arithmetic; more get top grades in national exams at ages 16 and 18. Nay-sayers, though, think this progress overstated, even illusory（错觉的）. They attribute rising marks to dumbed-down（低能化） curricula, downward-drifting（直线下降的） grade boundaries and teaching to the test. But even the gloomiest assessment（评价）, it appears, may not go far enough. In important ways, the country’s children appear to be becoming dumber.

段义：英国小学生的成绩越来越高，但智力水平却越来越低

Michael Shayer of King’s College London has been testing children’s thinking skills since 1976, when he and colleagues started studying the development of reasoning（推理） abilities in young people. In 2006 and 2007 he got 14-year-olds to take some of the same tests as 30 years earlier. The findings, to be published early next year, are sobering（严肃的）. More than a fifth of youngsters got high scores then, suggesting they were developing the ability to formulate（用公式表达） and test hypotheses（假设）. Now only a tenth do.

段义：MS发现现在只有10%的14周岁青少年能在测试中的高分，而30年前有20%（概括的讲，MS的调查证明了第一段的结论）

The tests did not change, so the decline was not caused by different content or marking. And since they explored the ability to think deeply rather than（强转折） to regurgitate（反刍） information or whizz（快速地干） through tasks, the results matter deeply. In the purest test of reasoning, pupils were shown a pendulum（摆钟） and asked how to find out what affects the rate at which it swings（摆动）. “Their answers indicated whether they had progressed from the descriptive（描述性的） thinking that gets us through most of our days, to the interpretative（解释的） thinking needed to analyse complex information and formulate and test hypotheses（他们的回答指出他们应用于平常生活的描述性思考进阶到当他们分析复杂信息、公式和证明假设时需要的解释性的思考）,” Professor Shayer explains.

段义：解释上段所述试验的内容

In 1976 more boys than girls did well, a fact the researchers put down to（认为…是由…引起的） boys roaming（闲逛） further out of doors and playing more with tools and mechanical toys(研究者认为1976年的试验中男生比女生做的好是因为男生更喜欢在室外闲逛，更喜欢玩工具和机械化的玩具). Both sexes now do worse than before, but boys’ scores have fallen more, suggesting that a decline in outdoor and hands-on（动手的） play has slowed cognitive（感知的） development in both sexes. Britain’s unusually early start to formal education may make things worse, as infants are diverted from useful activities such as making sand-castles and playing with water into unhelpful ones, such as holding a pen and forming letters.

段义：实验证明，现在青少年由于室外活动和动手游戏的减少导致感知能力发展速度的降低

British children’s schooling may be hampered, too, by the tests that show standards rising. These mean teachers’ careers depend on coaching（教育学生） the weakest, rather than on stretching all children, including the most able. This interpretation is supported by another, more positive, finding from the research: that fewer children do very badly now than did 30 years ago.

段义：英国小学通过重点培养成绩最差的学生达到提高学生整体水平的目的

When asked to speculate（深思） further on why fewer British teenagers now display（展示一种能力） mature reasoning, Professor Shayer eschews（逃避） local explanations and puts the blame squarely（直接） on television and computers. They take children away from the physical experiences on which later inferential（推理的） skills are based, he thinks, and teach them to value speed over depth, and passive entertainment over active. That chimes（与…一致） with other researchers’ findings of cognitive gains on tasks that require speed rather than close reasoning—useful, perhaps, as the pace of life accelerates, but hardly a substitute（替代品）for original thought.

段义：MS对于英国青少年缺少成熟的推理能力的原因的解释（但作者对此持否定态度）

So what of children elsewhere? Britain’s are not the only ones kept inside for fear of traffic or paedophiles（有恋童癖的人）, or slumped（堕落） in front of a screen for much of the day. “There is no similar evidence from elsewhere,” says Professor Shayer. “No one has looked for it.” Perhaps they should.

段义：没有人真正去寻找合理解释的证据，作者建议应该去寻找

江雪UID: 2790520

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Nicholas Negroponte, a tech guru at the celebrated Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, launched the initiative（初步行动） in 2005, the vision was grandiose（宏伟的）, but the implementation（完成） seemed beguilingly（诱惑人地？） simple.
--------
beguilingly simple=deceptively simple=challenging
不知道这么说你明白没有~

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

5# 江雪
嗯~又查了下，是“看似简单”吧~但challenging怎么做解呢？ 引起兴趣的？挑战性的？

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

Opening remarks

The moderator's opening remarks

Oct 15th 2007 | Mr Robert Cottrell

Welcome. Thank you. We have the opening arguments. Now is the time to argue back. I invite comments and questions from the floor.

Proposition: This house believes that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education.

The opening statements for and against the motion give some ground for agreement, and much ground for argument.

Both of our speakers, I deduce（推论）, are persuadable that technology could in principle（原则上） be a vital（重要的） source of advancement in learning-if only（只要） it was（虚拟语气） to be implemented with enough brilliance and resources. But is even this true? I would be pleased to hear from commenters（时事评论者） who believe that education is primarily a matter of character building, and, as such, an activity best conducted among human beings, with the least possible mediation（调解）. Will any of our grandchildren look back on his or her schooldays, and credit（归功于） his or her success in life to "a really good computer"?

段义：提出论点

Is there an argument for keeping new technology out of the classroom, precisely because it is so ubiquitous（普遍存在的）everywhere else already?(不能单纯的因为新科技的普遍存在而将他们拒于教室门外——新科技是能应用于现代教学的) Can a child who is chatting online or video-gaming for six hours every day really benefit from spending even more time staring at a screen in the classroom?（对于一个每天晚上聊天和玩视频游戏六个小时的孩子，让他们每天盯着教室的电脑屏幕更多的小时有任何好处吗？——新科技应用于现代教学也不是完全有好处的）

段义：用两个例子说明辩论双方的观点

How do we even measure-and how broadly（概括地）should we measure-the educational impact of new technologies? No doubt, by putting iPods in the classroom, we can improve iPod skills. No doubt a newer generation of microprocessors（微处理器）can help the math class calculate pi to even more decimal（小数的） places. But what about social skills? Kindness? Common sense? Happiness? Physical fitness? Latin and Greek? Do those go into the metrics（韵律学）?

段义：新科技不能帮助学生全面发展

All of this, moreover, assumes that resources are plentiful. But what about school districts with very limited budgets, or education ministries（部） in poorer countries? Should they see technology as a way to cut the cost of delivering education（实施教育）? Or as an expensive add-on（附加物） to basic teaching methods? We are in danger of encouraging them to take the first approach, only to discover that new technologies are all too often disastrously（灾难性的） complicated and expensive to implement-as we find often enough in other areas of government and industry.

段义：提出新科技应用于教学的另一个问题：经费问题

Finally, for now, let us remember that we are talking here about new technologies. Their application is, by definition, a matter of experiment. Do we want to experiment with our children's education? Do you want someone experimenting on your children? Perhaps you do, and perhaps you should, since only by experimenting can we ever make progress. But if you prefer educational methods tried and tested over centuries, please say so. Likewise, if you feel it would be barmy（不合理的） to exclude from（排除）education technologies that are commonplace（平常事物）elsewhere in life, please say so too. These are both defensible-and assailable-positions.

段义：提出几个正反论证的角度

Robert Cottrell Deputy Editor, Economist.com, The Economist Newspaper

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

The proposer's opening remarks

Oct 15th 2007 | Sir John Daniel

Technology has transformed everyday life in much of the world.[与后面几句构成总分结构] Goods that were once the preserve（禁猎地）of the rich are now household（家庭的）items. Food is abundant and varied. Travel has been transformed. News and entertainment come to us instantly from around the world. Technology and the media have transformed all aspects of human life - except education!

段义：引出话题：教育也需要改革

Politicians still campaign for 'education, education, education', lamenting（悲叹）the poor performance of their schools. America, the earliest country to be infatuated with（迷恋） computers in the classroom, gets mediocre（中等的、不好不坏的）outputs from its school system by international standards. Most poor countries struggle to reach the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. For them universal secondary access is a distant dream. Meanwhile rich countries worry about boys dropping-out of school.

段义：提出美国和贫穷国家存在的教育问题

Technology is replacing scarcity by abundance in other aspects of life: why not in education?

It is not for lack of prophets（提倡者、预言者）. Ever since the invention of the blackboard each new communications medium has been hailed as（被当作） an educational revolution. Rosy（乐观、光明的） forecasts about the impact of radio, film, television, programmed learning, computers and the Internet succeeded each other（相继诞生并取代前者） through the 20th century although, revealingly（揭露性地）, each prophet compared the revolutionary potential of the newest medium to the printing press, not to the previous technological white hope（被寄予厚望的人）!

段义：科技在不断进步，但人么的认识却得不到提高

Why hasn't it worked? Why has the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media added little to（帮助很小） the quality of most education? What can we learn from those few applications of communications media that are acknowledged（被承认） successes?

段义：提出疑问：为什么科技的发展没有给教育带来很大帮助？

Technology is the application of scientific and other organized knowledge（系统化的知识） to practical tasks by organizations consisting of people and machines. In "The Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith described how applying knowledge to the practical task of making pins led to a factory that produced them with consistent quality in higher volume and at lower cost than artisans（工匠） making each pin by hand.
The technological bases of Adam Smith's pin factory were the principles of specialization, division of labor and economies of scale.

段义：提出科技的重要性，并用例证

Most applications of technology in education disappoint because they ignore these principles and so fail to use technology's intrinsic（本身的、固有的） strengths to tackle real problems. What are the practical tasks that challenge education?

段义：解释科技在教育中应用的失败是因为没能用教育本身的力量去解决真实的问题，并再次提出问题：What are the practical tasks that challenge education?

In my work at UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning I spend many hours with ministers of education; sometimes individually, sometimes in groups at international meetings. The practical task facing ministers of education is to expand access to quality education as economically as possible. They want the same outcomes as Adam Smith's pin factory: higher volume, consistent quality, lower cost.

段义：教育界要达到的目标：尽可能经济地扩大人们受教育的机会并且保证良好的教育质量

This is the great opportunity for technology in education. Tinkering with（焊接、修补） traditional classroom teaching cannot achieve these three outcomes because improving any one outcome makes the others worse. Increasing volume with larger classes lowers quality. Enhancing quality with more learning materials raises costs, and so on.

段义：三个目标相互制约，难以同时取得

Successful ways of introducing technology and media to（引进于） education tackle this challenge head on: cutting costs, increasing volume and assuring quality all at the same time.

段义：提出解决上段提出的问题的方法：引进科技和多媒体

The best examples are the open universities. The UK Open University has created a multi-media learning system that enrolls 200,000 students annually, operates at a lower cost than other UK universities, and ranks 5th, just above Oxford University, on aggregate（a.合计的） ratings of teaching quality. In a quite different context India's Indira Gandhi National Open University enrolls 1.5 million students and places 17th in the latest web ranking of universities on the sub-continent.

段义：例证

The secret of the open universities' success is twofold（两倍的）. First, they tackle real problems, in this case scaling up（扩大） educational provision and taking it to people who cannot access conventional teaching. Second they combine people and technology, using the principles of specialisation, division of labour, and economies of scale, to create new learning systems that are scaleable at low cost with consistent quality.

段义：open universities将科技应用于教育的两方面成功之处

The tragedy, and why you must vote for the motion, is that these successes are rare. Most attempts to introduce media into education do not take advantage of（利用） technology's strengths. Instead, they continue in the tradition of education as a cottage industry, hoping to make it more effective by providing the individual artisan, the classroom teacher, with fancier tools.

段义：成功是少数的，学校只是单纯的引进技术，希望通过给教师先进的工具而达到提高教育效果的目的

This approach is doomed to（注定） failure. It increases costs because the technology is simply an add-on. The number of learners remains essentially unchanged. Quality goes down because few teachers know how to use the new tools effectively and the students, who often do know how to use them, would rather apply them to other tasks.

段义：失败是注定的，因为教师和学生都不知道怎么正确合理的去使用它们

Having devoted much of my life to promoting the effective use of technology in education it saddens me that I have to support this motion because there are still so few examples of its effective deployment. I only hope that your passing the motion will be a wake-up call to educators and make them reflect seriously on（思考） why their use of technology has been such a disappointment. I suggest three reasons.

段义：作者的观点：不同意将科技引进教育，并提出三个原因

First, we assume too often that technology is the answer without asking what the question was. Successful applications begin with a clear and difficult problem to solve instead of a vague（含糊的、模糊不清的） assumption that technology will enhance teaching.

Second, we usually focus on improving existing teaching systems whereas technology is better used to create new learning systems. Enjoining all teachers to become artisans of eLearning is not going to improve educational outcomes.

Third, there is the quest for the magic medium, the ultimate technology that will revolutionize education. Yesterday it was the Internet; today it is Open Educational Resources. But there is no magic medium and never will be. Each technology has its strengths. The task is to use them to create a world where education of quality is abundantly available.

We are still a long way from that goal. To pretend otherwise is to sell technology far too short. So far, and I say it with regret,the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media has added little to the quality of most education.

段义：结论段：将科技引进教育对教育质量的提高几乎没什么作用

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

重点推荐~aw特别是argue很棒的文章

The opposition's opening remarks

Oct 15th 2007 | Dr Robert Kozma

In this debate I would like to take the contrary position（表明态度）and claim that new technologies and new media do make a significant contribution to the quality of education, at least under certain circumstances. More specifically, before the end of the debate, I will demonstrate that technology can make a particularly(独特的、显著的) significant contribution when coordinated with the training of teachers to integrate technology into their teaching, with applications that draw on the unique capabilities of technology, and with supportive curricular, assessment, and school contexts that advance complex problem solving, creative thinking, and life-long learning—skills that are needed to support an information society and knowledge economy.（很漂亮的排比句，很多有用的短语哦~）

段义：说明观点

Certainly, one cannot defend the position that all applications of technology make significant contributions to the quality of education in all situations(argue很棒的句子). There have been numerous studies from around the world which have appeared in the popular press that show no relationship between computer availability or use and student test scores, such as the study by Banks, Cresswell, and Ainley in Australia (2003) and the study by Dynarski, et al., in the U.S. (2007). There have even been studies that show a negative relationship between computer use and learning, such as the Fuchs and Woessmann OECD study (2004) and the Wenglinsky study in the U.S. (1998).

But there have also been studies that show a positive relationship between computer use and learning, such a U.S. study published by the National Center for Educational Statistics (2001) and studies in England published by BECTA (Cox 2003; Harrison, et al., 2003).

段义：继续说明观点：我们不能否认科技对教育的作用，并用例证说明科技能够促进学习

How do we make sense out of these mixed results?

Often single studies—even those that are well-designed—are constrained by the particular context（背景）or situation in which they were conducted and this limits the generalizability (Amer.一般化; 概括; 普遍化) of their conclusions. Let us take as an example a study conducted in Israeli schools by Angrist and Lavy (2001), which was featured in（作为特别报道刊登在） The Economist several years ago. This study examined the relationship between the use of "computer-assisted instruction" (or CAI, i.e. tutorial software) and test scores in 4th and 8th grade mathematics and Hebrew classes in a random sample of schools that successfully applied to participate in a national program to increase the use of computers in Israeli schools. Scores of students in these schools were compared to those in schools that elected not to participate in the program or were not chosen to do so.

段义：提出反驳理由1，单独的研究常常被特定的背景所限制，并且这些限制了pro结论的普遍性。并举例

Typically, self selection is a fatal design flaw in research studies but the researchers went to great lengths to(非常努力去达到…) statistically equate the two types of schools by including a variety of school, student, and teacher variables in their analyses. They found no evidence that the increased use of tutorials（个别指导） raised pupil test scores; indeed, they found a negative and marginally（少量地、边缘地） significant relationship between program participation and 4th grade math scores. （让步+转折）However, as in many similar studies, there are important features of this study that limit the results.（First, this study is limited to a particular use of computers (tutorials), within specific grades (4th and 8th) and subject areas (math and Hebrew) and within a particular timeframe（Amer.时间框架） (after one year of implementation) and a particular country (Israel) with a particular national curriculum. Furthermore, in an analysis of teacher surveys, the researchers found no evidence of differences between participating and non-participating classrooms in inputs, instructional methods, or teacher training. More significant is that fact that even the most active participants (4th grade math teachers) indicated that they used computers somewhere between "never" and "sometimes". Consequently, the study is particularly limited by the marginal nature of the intervention.） All of these factors constrain the generalizability of the findings and certainly do not allow the authors to make the general claim, as they do, that "CAI is no better and may be even be less effective than other teaching methods."

段义：作者又提出5个理由反驳

In order to make a general statement about the impact of technology on education, a large number of studies that cover a variety of situations must be included in the analysis. For this, I turn to a meta-analysis（元分析） (or an analysis of analyses) done in 2003 by James Kulik of the University of Michigan. Kulik included in his statistical analysis the results of 75 carefully-designed studies collected from a broad search of the research literature. As a group, these studies looked at several types of educational technology applications (such as tutorials, simulations(模仿), and word processors（文字处理软件）), in a variety of subjects (such as mathematics, natural science, social science, reading and writing), and a range of grade levels (from vary young to high school). His findings across studies can be summarized as follows:

段义：给出例子，使之能全面地评价科技在教育中的作用

Students who used computer tutorials in mathematics, natural science, or social science scored significantly higher
in these subjects compared to traditional approaches, equivalent to an increase from 50th to 72nd percentile（百分位数之一） in test scores. Students who used simulation software in science also scored higher, equivalent to a jump from 50th to 66th percentile.

Very young students who used computers to write their own stories scored significantly higher on measures of reading skill, equivalent to a boost from 50th to 80th percentile for kindergarteners and from 50th to 66th percentile for first graders. However, the use of tutorials in reading did not make a difference.

Students who used word processors or otherwise used the computer for writing scored higher on measures of writing skill, equivalent to a rise from 50th to 62nd percentile.注意：三段中很多表示比较的搭配

段义：以上三段是对前段试验的结论：三个技术对教育的帮助有多有少

By including a large and diverse set of studies in the analysis,
it is clear that technology can make contributions to the quality of education that is both statistically significant and educationally meaningful. Nonetheless（虽然如此）, the classrooms included in this meta-analysis were, by and large（总体上）, conducted within the traditional educational paradigm（范例） and the uses of technology were fairly ordinary. What if advanced technologies were used to ignite a major transformation of the educational system? How much more of a contribution could it make under these circumstances? These are questions to which I will return later in the debate.

注：meta-analysis（元分析）是一种定量综合研究结果的方法，其在诊断、治疗、危险度评价、干预、预防及决策等方面起着独特的作用，在国外已应用于医学各领域。其定义为对先前研究结果的综合评价和定量统计合并,它把先前研究结果作为观察单位,所以可看成是分析的分析,也有人称为“结果流行病学”。

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

Featured guest

Mr Don Knezek   

Maybe it does depend on how you choose to assess quality of education.

I must start by expressing relief to see such a strong consensus that continuing the introduction of new technologies and media can add to the quality of education. I am equally pleased to find so much agreement about the importance of conditions and context as we evaluate strategies for improving and transforming education.

表明观点:

That's an excellent starting point(出发点).（让步+转折）But, I have to balance that with my concern that there is some tendency to discount（漠视） increased availability of quality education as an important consideration in this debate. When learners have access to better education through the introduction of new technologies and media than they would have otherwise, that moves the needle* toward added quality for most education.
When more learners have that access when new technologies and media are introduced, that moves the needle, too. So, germane to my decision to oppose the proposition are the arguments and the evidence presented thus far(到现在为止) that the introduction of new technologies and media continue to increase both availability of education and quality educational options（选择权） for millions of learners around the world.

提出反对理由:1.教育质量的提高被忽略

I'm also concerned with the metrics（度量/衡量的标准） by which we judge the quality of education in this century. Here's what I think matters: (1) relevance of educational outcomes to empowering the learner to thrive in a digital, global, and media-rich information society (see www.iste.org/NETS-S-2007), (2) existence of an environment that [enables learning strategies and learning experiences that (are deeply engaging and provide options for educational pursuit)] 存在着一种环境[使学习策略和学习方法(深深涉及并且提供有教育意义的追求选择权)起效], and, finally, (3) a system that enables and rewards variety in demonstration of educational gains through learner productivity and innovation.
一种体系，引起并奖励证明（教育收益是通过学习者的生产力和创造性）的多样性

反对理由2.评价的标准不一致,作者提出自己的衡量标准

If one's metrics are different or one has faith in the ability of an individual to know a single best way to educate the diversity of learners most of us face, then I can understand support of the proposition.（让步+转折） If one believes, for instance, that success in printed and verbal expression and discourse is the ultimate quality metric（度量/衡量的标准） for education—even while elections are won and nations are judged and Nobel prizes are earned through democratized technologies and media-rich* expression—then support of the proposition may be a reasonable position.

进一步说明人们的评价标准不一致,结论也是会不同的,并举例

I recently visited the remote, rural school district where I experienced my childhood education. I saw elementary age students doing far more significant research online than I ever did in my twelve years in that system. Working with co-learners from around the world they were producing compelling(引人瞩目的) and relevant learning artifacts on issues they cared about. And, they displayed a refreshing sense of empowerment. More students are learning that way because of the introduction of new technologies and media, and that looks like adding quality(能不能理解为对我的论证增加了分量?) to me.

作者探访小时候的学校,发现由于科技在教育中的应用,学生的学习能力得到很大的提高

Furthermore, even in an education focused on text and verbal skills we know students write more, accept and use feedback to revise more often, and score higher on writing and reading assessments when they participate in a significant, well implemented writing program supported by technology.

进一步论述上段观点

I've enjoyed this rich and interesting discussion.

*注:

1.moves the needle 是习惯用法,
不同上下文翻译不同,在此可翻译为make a change

2.media-rich :rich media:富媒体,包括多媒体（二维和三维动画、影响及声音）。富媒体作为广告的一种载体，本身并不是信息，但是可以加强信息，当信息更准确的定向时，广告主会拥有更好的结果。

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

closing remarks

Themoderator's closing remarks

Oct23rd 2007 | Mr Robert Cottrell

The rising margin of votes (atleast as I write, early on Monday morning) against the motion suggests,however, that the difference is either not perceived,or not accepted, by the majority of our voters. And perhaps rightly so.

"The sign of a truly educated man is to be deeply moved bystatistics", says commenter PAULO LIMA, attributing this view toBernard Shaw(萧伯纳).

On that basis, in his opening remarks and rebuttal(反驳), DrRobert Kozma was by far the most educated of all ofus,grounding his arguments in a wide reading of the academic literature.In his closing remarks he has shifted register改变观点. Hespeaks the
powerful language
of anecdote and first-hand observation. In effect, Dr Kozma has answered SirJohn Daniel's complaint that"Finding a statistically significant difference (sometimes) in theperformance of a small learning task does not address the wider question ofthe quality of education", even as Sir John was in the process of makingit.

Sir John, to, has raised his voice a degree or two. He directs it partly in my own direction, on the questionof quality versus quantity.He points out correctly that a good production processraisesquantity and quality alike, whether it be in a carfactory or at the Open University. He also provides a splendidlypithy(有力的) summary of themain strand[(观点、计划的)部分、方面 ] of his argument, saying:"[E]ducating people to use technology is not what the motion is about. It refers to using technology to educate people,
which is different."

The rising margin of votes (atleast as I write, early on Monday morning) against the motion suggests,however, that the difference is either not perceived,or not accepted, by the majority of our voters. And perhaps rightly so.（也许是理所当然的） If we take the view that computer skills, broadly defined, have established themselves as acore competence on a par（标准）with（等同于） reading, writing and arithmetic. If so, it is notgoing to make a deal of difference whether people are learning to log-on, or logging-on tolearn.

I confess to worrying that Sir John's conclusion, "You can only disagree with that proposition if your ambitions for technology ineducation are shamefully limited", is going to leave our technophobes（科技恐惧症）, ifany, wondering where to place their vote. I do not count（把..计算在内） myself among them. But, as some commenters have noted, I have sought,
for the sake ofargument, to keep the possibility of a fundamental scepticism alive. And, Ijudge, I have failed. I worry, too—you will have me pegged by now as a worrier—about one lastaspect of this debate, which has struck me all the more forcefully as ourhundreds of splendidly argued comments have accumulated. Barely 几乎不 one in a hundred of those comments has even mentioned the word"parents". It seems that the people often considered most vital形容词动词用法...the success of education have little or no place in our debate. It could be, ofcourse, that their presence is assumed in every line, but that is not my sense.

One possibility is that theabsence of parents from our collective集体的、共同的 commentary reflects ahope, an expectation, that technology will perfect
v. the process of education, to the point at which the parentalrole will become irrelevant无关系的 inthe best possible way. Education will become a highly sophisticated productionline that delivers a good working product, whatever the provenance of the raw materials. Thatis a noble aspiration, but also, to me, a somewhat稍微，有点 scaryone. To emphasize:I am not saying that any of us consciously wishes to make such anargument, merely thathe accumulations of our arguments calls out forthis explanation, or another one.

As we move towards the final tally得分, let me
record my pleasure at,and gratitude for, the opportunity to join you in this debate. From thetraffic figures, it is clear that many returning visitors have yet to cast their vote. Early voters have done much to shape expectations,later voters may yet（肯定句中的意思？）decidethe outcome. Bythe standards of debate we are a finely精巧的、细微的 balanced room, afact in which our speakers can both
take pride.Their final speeches have given us much new information to digest; let us see if that does as much to change the division of our opinion.

Finally, to address procedural
notes raised in the course of the debate: it is clear that we must enable the linking or the tagging of comments, ifnot the threading穿过 ofthem; that we should give commenters more scope机会/范围、广度 for formatting and re-editing their text; and that we should highlight使显著 those comments raising vital points.

Thank you to those who votedearly; I hope nobody has voted often; I encourage everyone who has not yetvoted to do so now.

—

Robert Cottrell Deputy Editor,Economist.com, The Economist Newspaper

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

The proposer's closing remarks

Oct 23rd 2007 | Sir John Daniel

Too often technology is simply used to pretty up teaching yet, as many contributors have noted, technology may increase the reach of a poor teacher but it will not improve the quality of their teaching.

Suppose that instead of the current motion I had had to propose that 'this house believes that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new systems adds little to the quality of most transport(ation)'. That would have been a hill to climb! That proposition goes against my personal experience.

An efficient bus takes me to work in Vancouver and will soon be augmented by a light rail system that will take me to either my office or the airport in ten minutes. My car is reliable, comfortable, energy efficient and rarely needs servicing. I fly a hundred times a year but have never had an incident and rarely a significant delay or cancellation (I admit I don't often fly in the US!). When I go to France next month Eurostar will whisk me from downtown Paris to central London in just over two hours.

To propose a similar motion on transport I would have to come at it sideways by complaining about the climatic impact of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases and the social effects of congestion on the roads and in the skies. Meanwhile, people in emerging nations would still be desperate to get their first car, convinced that it will improve their quality of life.

虚拟+倒装Were I proposing such a motion I would be surprised if my opponent countered it by detailing studies of the relative merits of travelling from New York to Washington by horse and buggy四轮马车, rather than by car; by comparing Eurostar to the old boat train; or by analyzing the advantage of making the passage to India by sea instead of by air.

If you have to argue the case for technology by making the micro comparisons beloved of Robert Kozma you have lost the case. In other areas of life technologies make quantum changes. You can no longer compare apples and apples. Finding a statistically significant difference (sometimes) in the performance of a small learning task does not address the wider question of the quality of education.

At the risk of being pedantic卖弄学问的 let me return to the motion and deconstruct it in the light of comments from the floor, which are impressive in both quantity and quality. I start with our dear Moderator, clearly a traditionalist at heart实际上
本质上, who worries that too much quantity in education will reduce quality. Let me nail that one right away.

Throughout history the expansion of education has been held back by the insidious 逐渐的assumption that quality and exclusivity排斥性 独享性 are inextricably解不开的 逃不掉的 linked: you cannot have quality education without excluding most people from it. This assumption is, of course, the basis of the perceived quality of our prestigious institutions: Oxford, Harvard and the Indian Institutes of Technology. Their quality is based on a selective admissions policy of 'good little piggies in make good bacon out'. Quality is defined by those you exclude.

This insidious link between quality and exclusivity has been blown apart by technology in other areas of life. A good modern production line produces thousands of cars, each one of which is of higher quality than any vehicle that a group of enthusiasts could build by hand in a garage.

Technology can do the same for education, which is why I quoted the example of the open universities, noting that the UK Open University ranks above Oxford in aggregate ratings of teaching quality. Thanks to technology these open institutions achieve greater quantity as well as better and more consistent quality.

What do we mean by quality of education? Quality means fitness for purpose (some would add 'at minimum cost to society'). So, is the introduction of technology making education more fit for purpose? We have to answer this question at the macroscopic level宏观水平, not by examining the learning of some picayune(of little value) item. Political discourse in most countries suggests that most education is not fit for purpose, whether it be President Bush saying that 'average is not good enough for American children' or ministers in developing countries lamenting their failure to achieve universal primary education.

The most frequent theme in the comments from the floor is the dichotomy分裂 between education for technology and technology for education. Many contributors remind us that in today's world it is important that people be taught how to use information and communications technologies. I absolutely agree. But educating people to use technology is not what the motion is about. It refers to using technology to educate people, which is different.

I take an analogy from the contributor who talked about training people to use microscopes. That is a useful skill, but it doesn't help you to learn history. Acquiring ICT skills is helpful in many areas of life but it does not seem to have improved the quality of most education.

Another common theme was the absolute importance of students and their motivation. I fully agree and argue that technology has underperformed比预期或..做得差 because it is usually applied to help the teacher teach rather than to help the learner learn. The successful examples of technology that I have cited involve the creation of learning systems that create a rich environment around the learner. Too often technology is simply used to pretty up teaching yet, as many contributors have noted, technology may increase the reach of a poor teacher but it will not improve the quality of their teaching.

The Moderator commented that the debate has converged on the middle ground. This is because many of you, like me, think that technology can do better even if it has disappointed so far.

But this is decision time. I ask you to look the motion squarely直接、诚实的 in the eye, to set aside wishful thinking, to fight the subliminal influence of the Intel logo grinning咧嘴笑 at you on the side, and to acknowledge that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media has added little to the quality of most education. You can only disagree with that proposition if your ambitions for technology in education are shamefully limited.

kevinswenUID: 2678128

哈哈 楼主好用心啊
攒RP 帮顶 LZ 加油

sola-nanaUID: 2744594

本篇注意积累有关科技进步的例子...

Theopposition's closing remarks

Oct23rd 2007 | Dr Robert Kozma

Okay, let me be emphatic; I'll set
nuance aside不理会、取消. Technology IS making a positive differencein education, as it is in the rest of our lives. This calls for
avote against the proposition. Let me explain why there should be no debateabout this. First, without new technologies there literally
确实地、真正地wouldbe no debate here. I posted my opening statement in SanFrancisco. I was in Amsterdam when I submitted my rebuttal. I'm now in Jerusalem. I will be in Amman when I readyour final comments and your votes are tallied. Sir John is in Vancouver. Youare in China, England, Peru, Canada, and all over the world. In preparation ofmy arguments, I could do free-text searches of hundreds of documents andarticles on my hard drive and millions more on the Internet. Technology ischanging for the good the ways we communicate and our access information.

Likewise, newtechnologies—computers, the Internet, digital media—are benefiting education.In fact, it is difficult to identify any other factor over the last hundredyears that is affecting as much change in education as is happening now withtechnology. Let me give a variety of examples.

几个例子重点！！科技给人类生活带来的改变~

I asked a secondary teacher inUganda if he would rather keep his new computer laboratory or have more booksfor his school library. Contrary to Sir John's assertion, he was emphatic about his choice,"When you get books, they are immediately out of date and each is on onlyone topic. But with a computer connected to the Internet, I have access to thelatest information on millions of topics." His students,standing on an earthen floor and in uniform but for bare feet, said, "Weare doing a collaborative project with students in Canada and South Africa.Before this project, they did not know we existed. Now we are citizens of the world."

Emphatic, too, were farmers inrural Kenyan village, where I did volunteer work, when they asked me to helpthem build a community learning center connected to the Internet, "We needinformation on improved seeds and fertilizers, on new farm practices, and onmarket prices." For them, the needfor information was the difference between having barely enough to eat andhaving enough left over to put a metal roof on their house and to pay tuitionfor their children's schooling. They knew that if they walked to theagricultural agent's office 10 kilometers away, he was likely to be elsewhereand probably did not have access to the latest information anyway. They wereconvinced that new technology would give them access to the information theyneeded.

Similarly in rural Chile, mostchildren attend one-room schools; their teachers are isolatedfrom othersin their profession and from the Ministry of Education. With technology, theseteachers can communicate with colleagues around the country and they can access a portal with the latest curriculum materials. In each of thesecases, networked computers provided students, teachers, and communities withaccess to others and to needed information that were not otherwise available for lackof local expertise, distance, impassableroads, and lack of transportation.

Teachers all over the worldare using technology to change their teaching. Like the primary school teachersin rural Catalonia whose students created a website on the history of theirlocal villages by taking digital photos of churches and local monuments and audio recordings of songs and storiestold by their grandparents. And teachers in a secondary school in Norway whosestudents collaborated with
students in the US to follow two women (one Norwegianand one American) as they traversed Antarcticaon cross country skis. The students communicated with the women and withweather and research stations in Antarctica to learn about the continent. Andteachers at an all-girls secondary school in the Philippines where teams ofstudents developed their understanding of biology concepts and their criticalthinking skills by using a microcomputer-based lab kit and probe ware tocollect and analyze data as they solved a hypothetical murder case. Studentsand teachers all around the world are conducting ThinkQuests and WebQuests,attending virtual courses, and collaborating with scientists on the GLOBE andJason Projects. None of this would be possible without new technologies.

教育改革很好的例子~

Many of you have pointed outthat educational systems are notoriously臭名昭著地 slowto change. But change is not just happening with a few innovative teachers.Ministries of Education in Chile and Singapore, Finland and Jordan, Korea andCosta Rica are redesigning their education systems around the opportunitiesthat new technologies provide. Ministries in these countries and many others are affecting changes in curriculum, pedagogy, and
schoolstructure with the certitude that new skillsrelated to and enabled by technology will prepare their students for the 21stcentury ahead. Millions of teachers in these countries and othershave been trained in the use of technology for collaborative student projects.These teachers are not just teaching students to use the latest technology—manyof you have stated that students already know this—rather their students aretaking advantage of the technology to apply school subjects to solve difficult real-worldproblems, to work in distributed teams oncomplex tasks, to
think critically, and to create new knowledge,new products, and new cultural artifacts. These students are using technologyto learn the skills needed for a knowledge economy and an information society.

I urge you to vote against theproposition that the continued introduction of new technology adds little tothe quality of education. Although change is currently slower and less dramatic than any ofus would want, does it mean these countries and teachers shouldabandon their efforts? Change is happening now but technology will make evengreater contributions in the future. A "con" vote from youwill affirm the efforts of these countries and the millions of teachers aroundthe world who are moving forward with technology to make changes in educationand to prepare their students for the challenges of the century ahead.

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lykzebraUID: 2788077

楼主好强大~~~顶一个~