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The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#141

Post by seanmcdirmid »

is0tope wrote: post #136
Spooky23 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I wonder about this also. In most districts you don't have a choice, and it is those kids with October-December birthdays that are delayed a year because of the cut off date. Maybe they are using fake birth certificates?

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#142

Post by seanmcdirmid »

pier25 wrote: post #110

It totally is. I worked in EdTech for the past 4 years and was in contact with the education world. Digital devices are harmful to younger kids. The brain develops much better when using fine motor skills such as writing with pen and paper. France banned all digital devices in primary schools for a reason and all countries should do it. The most important factor in getting quality education are not digital devices or…

At least for China, they've never done a country-wide sample, they've only done their richest city (Shanghai) and richest provinces. For the article cited, it is 2012 when they did just Shanghai (likewise Singapore is a city state and Estonia/Finland have less population than either).

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#143

Post by ceejayoz »

mrr54 wrote: post #127
MandieD wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Plus the last thing my kid needs is more screentime. I don't want to have to sit next to them all night making sure that they are only doing 'productive' work.” That was my German mother-in-law's rationale for not having a TV in the house while my husband and sister-in-law were kids. “I didn’t have enough time to watch and make sure everything they saw was appropriate.” To her, just because the program claimed to be…

I can't even comprehend how anyone could tune out constantly-running TV. Just turn it off!

I know people who sleep to TV, and it genuinely sounds like torture to me.

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#144

Post by blhack »

ceejayoz wrote: post #143
mrr54 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even comprehend how anyone could tune out constantly-running TV. Just turn it off!

I know people who sleep to TV, and it genuinely sounds like torture to me.

I do this. I have a really difficult time turning my mind off in silence. If it’s dark and quiet, my mind is working.

Listening to old TV shows like TNG helps distract me enough to fall asleep.

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#145

Post by Mirioron »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #140
ses1984 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)_/¯

I also think mental math matters, but I think that people who end up using simple math a lot will simply pick up the ability to do mental math as necessary.

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#146

Post by mwcampbell »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #137
plughs wrote: post #8

Our 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 m…

> The computer was a great equalizer to me

It was an even greater equalizer to me, as a legally blind person. I can see enough to handwrite, but it's laborious. When I was in the third grade, my mother convinced my teachers to let me do as much of my homework as possible on my family's home computer. And sometimes I could do in-class assignments on a computer as well, either in the regular classroom or in the special room for the blind students. I wish we had had ubiquitous laptops back then (late 80s and into the 90s).

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#147

Post by mrr54 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #3

I was considered a gifted child from a young age. In third grade, because of my "giftedness", I was told I could just read instead of participating in the class skit of the planets of the solar system. I used that time to complete the entire Chronicles of Narnia (good books btw - skip The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle though). I've wondered what would happen if we scrapped the most useless 30% of my state's s…

The Magician's Nephew is the best one! You do need to read it after at least the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe though, or it's a bit of a spoiler.

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#148

Post by daxfohl »

SolarNet wrote: post #61
lordnacho wrote: post #54

First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? I hear the term a lot, not clear what the main ideas actually are or how people view it. My own kids go to private schools in the UK. None of the parents would have any problems buying a load of tablets or VR goggles or whatever if the schools said so, and the schools would not have any problems buying whatever manner of gadgets they…

> First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? A new set of standards for education that are meant to cut across state lines (e.g. California and Texas previously set education standards merely through market volume and being the biggest purchasers). It's mostly fine. A lot of people are upset that they "changed how math works" but what they really did was introduce a bunch of d…

My eldest is in first grade and so far I'm not a fan of the Common Core math.

I could make a cynical conspiracy argument that much of it is designed around promotion of the type of technology presented in the article. "Carry the one" is the simplest thing to explain with a pencil and a blank piece of paper. All the additional Common Core techniques seem to require some kind of visual representation, either via the games sold to the schools and onward to the parents, or via the overpriced blocks promoted to teach these techniques. Yeah you could draw it all out, but geesh you end up doing 90% drawing and 10% teaching. Whether it ends up helping students is moot; it helps put money into a lot of lobbyists' pocketbooks.

In fact, now that I think about it, I find myself probably believing it.

Even when I'm trying to be positive about it, I find it a bit backwards. I think giving beginning students a dozen ways to reason about the answer only adds to the confusion. IMO the better teaching method is give them one way to get the answer. Once they've mastered that, then start looking at additional ways to reason about it.

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#149

Post by markdeloura »

japhyr wrote: post #16

If you're interested in an ongoing critical look at technology in education, Audrey Watters is a great person to follow [0]. She helps keep me honest as someone working in this space. She put out a really long and interesting post, The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade [1]. [0] https://twitter.com/audreywatters [1] http://hackeducation.com/2019/12/31/what-a-shitshow

That article is a useful summary but a tad sensationalist and should be read with a critical eye. Many of the debacles would be portrayed as successes by a different person with a different perspective. For example, Google for Education (#10) is extraordinarily popular and useful - hardly a debacle. The CSforAll movement (#6) has made a substantial and growing difference in the number and diversity of software engineers. Gamergate (#5) was clearly a clusterf, and it is many things, AND a stretch to relate it to ed-tech.

Re: The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

#150

Post by Mirioron »

johnchristopher wrote: post #105
jacobolus wrote: post #81

Earlier 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…

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-18158665 N=1: I feel like - and I am 99% certain - that my grammatical and spelling skills have decreased since I started using the internet heavily.

On the other hand, the internet pretty much taught me English. Sure, we had English classes in school, but the internet gave me an immense amount of practical experience. Most of my peers, particularly those who didn't use the internet, finished school with significantly worse English than I did. Spell-checking has been pretty useful, but probably not vital.
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