TV is rotting children’s minds. We need to ban television!
The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
131–140 of 295 posts
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> spellcheck is always on, why learn real spelling when the computer fixes it for you? The computer immediately shows spelling errors and corrections, TEACHING correct spelling. > The videos are more about funny jokes than the different phases of matter. ( youtube is a funny one. Non-there are many great youtube channels packed with scientific content, like Smarter Every Day, Veritasium, Mark Rober, CGP Grey, VSauce,…
Most of those channels you mention aren't really teaching anything beyond general knowledge and trivia. You could watch every video on every one of those channels and you might know a lot of random facts but it won't make you a physicist or a mathematician or a biologist. >That's a parenting issue not a computer issue. Teach your kids what's allowed and what's not, and check their browser history until they learn how…
There is a lot of excellent inspiring youtube content (including well presented secondary and undergraduate level math and physics lectures) buried in mountains of dreck.
People can learn all sorts of useful things from youtube, but they can also easily waste huge amounts of time, become radicalized by extremists, ....
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think students will better learn to spell without spellcheck? As far as I can tell spending class time on spelling per se and/or grading students on spelling mistakes is a complete waste of time and focus. The ideal way to teach spelling is (1) get kids to read a whole lot, (2) show students their mistakes in context when they make them on as short a feedback loop as possible, without judgment. It’s plausi…
>The ideal way to teach spelling is (1) get kids to read a whole lot, (2) show students their mistakes in context when they make them on as short a feedback loop as possible, without judgment. I'm not sure I agree with this. This doesn't teach the fundamentals and rules of how words are put together. Learning to spell isn't memorizing lists of words, it's learning the rules of English and how words are actually put t…
Like English spelling has any rules. There are a lot of irregularities with English spelling that students need to learn by heart how the word is spelled compared to how it is pronounced.
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#134Getting kids away from electronics is definitely important, and in some respects I find myself agreeing with multiple points from this: I absolutely agree that (in the USA) K-12 Education's basis should indeed be civic education, or the education required to create excellent citizens. I also absolutely agree that giving kids "technology" (as smartphones, tablets, Baby Shark, and the rest are known) can be unexpectedl…
I agree, and having been the volunteer runner of my kid's middle school computer clubs (and occasional stand-in teacher) I think the best way to teach computing is not with computers, but with pencil, paper and classroom simulations. We've successfully implemented some very simple computers by letting various class members stand in for components, and we had one very good implementation of TCP/IP over middleschooler.
Simon Peyton Jones gave a very good talk on this at Strange Loop 2018 - sadly it's falling to deaf ears
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#135I only ever write on a computer. I own a single pen which I have not needed to replace since I moved into my apartment in 2016. I'm pretty sure I last used it in November, when I had to fill out a form for jury duty. The article cite studies that handwriting is linked to brain development, and reading on paper improves memory, and so on... I'm certainly not in a position to refute those studies, but I have to wonder…
You need to write to do math, which is a major focus of K-12 education.
This is true.
I don't think schools should completely drop handwriting, at least not within my lifetime. It's necessary for filling out forms at the doctor's office, and signing contracts.
But a little basic ability is all you need—you don't need to write neatly or quickly. So if schools want to focus on it less, that makes sense to me.
Nobody should have to write whole passages by hand.
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Our elementary school uses chromebooks from 1st grade on, and I do see a lot of downsides. When my family moved last year, we moved to a school system where Chromebooks are in use. (You can bring your own or the school will provide one for you for free). I was very worried about many of the downsides as well, but after 1.5 years, I think it's actually a pretty big positive. In my case, my son has ADHD, so getting pa…
I think Chromebooks are awesome, but not at grade 1. Kids are too developmentally different at that age. They range from the kids whose parents delay kindergarten a year to make them better at sports to the kids put into school early to save money on daycare. Using a trackpad and keyboard is too abstract. My kids' school uses iPads as limited enrichment devices until grade 3. As a reward, they get to independently us…
> kids whose parents delay kindergarten a year to make them better at sports
Unrelated, but could you explain this?
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#137Our elementary school uses chromebooks from 1st grade on, and I do see a lot of downsides. The most outrageous problem, IMO, is that there are 'modules' that must be completed, and kids with computer access at home can work on them at home. Kids from low income families are screwed over - again. Other problems - spellcheck is always on, why learn real spelling when the computer fixes it for you? - The de-emphasis on…
> - spellcheck is always on, why learn real spelling when the computer fixes it for you?
Why is this a problem? Augmented spelling isn't bad, and you still have to know the differences between similar correctly spelt words. Learning Chinese, I de-empahsized writing them by hand and being able to write them on computer instead, you still need to know about them, what they look like and how they sound, but the muscle memory isn't necessary.
> - The de-emphasis on handwriting is mentioned in the article. In-class assignments are still handwritten, but take-home projects can be typed.
As a lefty I would have loved this. Our handwriting is already worse because our hand is occluding what we are writing. I got plenty of flack for it in elementary school (to the point that some teachers thought I should I should use my "right" hand instead). The computer was a great equalizer to me, which is one of the reasons I got into them in the first place.
As for the screen time issue, I'm more worried about their eye health, but ya, it is an issue all of us parents are facing these days.
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
People don’t learn the “rules of English” through explicit instruction. They learn them through years (decades) of exposure. Anecdotally, the main predictor of how good someone’s spelling will be is how much reading they have done.
In related news, the younger generation of kids in Asian countries are getting worse and worse at writing Chinese characters because they can just type the Romanized versions without learning how to write it. Personally I am able to read Chinese at a moderately high level (can read newspapers) but I cannot write most characters off the top of my head. This is what happens when you emphasize reading over physical writ…
Is that a bad thing? You can still write in Chinese with an IME, and most uses are on some sort of phone or computer anyways. 27 year old me learned how to text in Chinese but skipped learning the muscle memory to write characters, first I'm left handed so stroke order was bizarrely awkward anyways, but also...it just didn't feel important anymore.
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, yeah. We have a ton of books, including a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There is a very strong tradition of learning in our family. That said, it was no "blow off"; having a slightly newer laptop is not something a student should be concerned with. And they understand that. But also ... I think researching with your phone or laptop is perfectly fine as long as it is done with care. And is not the only met…
It's properly spelled "Encyclopædia Britannica" https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopaedia-Britannica-En...
It was flagged before I started typing the "Britannica" bit.
Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're thinking of it as a pedagological tool. I'm thinking of it as a crutch. The truth is in-between and will vary from person to person, but I'd bet money most people lean on it more than they learn from it.
But does developing your spelling actually matter? Maybe being able to spell perfectly is about as useful a skill as putting shoes on a horse or chipping a piece of stone into an arrowhead. What if 100% of the time that s devoted to spelling was devoted to something else, like just reading?
> But does developing your spelling actually matter?
I don't think it does. I think it's similar to how people used to lament the loss of the bard who'd memorize songs/stories as reading became increasingly popular. I was just responding on how it changes how we think.
I do think mental math matters, but most people disagree so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯