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Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

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Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#11

Post by graemep »

smatti wrote: post #2

A very similar development is going on in neighboring Finland. There are schools that use almost exclusively paper books (instead of digital ones) again. The overall consensus among parents is that books are way better than screens for kids, all the way up to high school. Hand-writing and free drawing with pen and paper provide many advantages to fixed screens. You cannot open a new tab to Youtube in a book. The sign…

"screens" can be great for research and there is a lot you can learn online.

The main problem mentioned in the article you link to seem to be distraction from what they were supposed to be doing.

Distraction is not always bad and kids can learn a lot by being distracted by something that catches their interest. it depends on the approach and its more of a problem following a fixed curriculum in a classroom. Probably more of a problem for uninterested or younger children.

I think video can be a big problem, particularly given the tendency of sites to try to keep you there.

Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#12

Post by schnitzelstoat »

gritspants wrote: post #4
smatti wrote: post #2

A very similar development is going on in neighboring Finland. There are schools that use almost exclusively paper books (instead of digital ones) again. The overall consensus among parents is that books are way better than screens for kids, all the way up to high school. Hand-writing and free drawing with pen and paper provide many advantages to fixed screens. You cannot open a new tab to Youtube in a book. The sign…

I don't see the advantage of learning 'AI workflows'. I am in the US and there seems to be a FOMO plague infecting our school system when it comes to technology. In practice it seems more destructive to the child.

I don't think they need to learn 'AI workflows' (whatever that means). But I think it makes sense to use the LLM's as a resource.

I've used them when studying new languages (human languages not programming languages) and ML algorithms and they've been really useful.

Learning to check the citations it gives you is a useful skill too. I wish many adults were more sceptical about the things they are told.

Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#14

Post by SiempreViernes »

kzrdude wrote: post #6
smatti wrote: post #2

A very similar development is going on in neighboring Finland. There are schools that use almost exclusively paper books (instead of digital ones) again. The overall consensus among parents is that books are way better than screens for kids, all the way up to high school. Hand-writing and free drawing with pen and paper provide many advantages to fixed screens. You cannot open a new tab to Youtube in a book. The sign…

About "all the way up to high school", what about the rest? I'm in the camp that it's better for all people, regardless of age actually.

Well in university you are typically an adult and so what your parents think about the study material isn't a great concern, except for the case they are a subject matter expert.

Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#15

Post by mentalgear »

I remember that - even though Steve Jobs promoted the iPad as a replacement to the 'heavy schoolbooks kids had to carry all day' - he never allowed his children to use iPads.

I bet Zuckerberg doesn't allow his children to use social media.

And I assume that Sam Altman won't allow his children to use AI chatbots.

What does that tell us?

Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#16

Post by rvz »

Good.

This is the right decision and should be to go back to the basics, instead of full computer everywhere including iPads, phones and laptops.

Remember the big tech founders / CEOs do not give their kids access to social media, iPads, phones for a reason.

Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#17

Post by macNchz »

It’s kind of baffling to me that laptops in classrooms took off the way they did, as it seemed like a distraction machine to me even 25+ years ago, as a kid myself! My school got some carts of laptops that would move from classroom to classroom in ~2000—they were heavily used for flash games and other nonsense, and were strictly worse for that than in the dedicated computer lab classroom, where all of the monitors faced into the center of the room where the teacher could see them.

When I got to college a few years later I’d sit in the back of classrooms and see that a majority of students who’d brought a laptop (ostensibly for notes) were consistently distracted and doing something else, be it games or StumbleUpon. I can only imagine these decisions were made by groups of adults sitting around conference rooms, each staring at their own laptop and paying 20% attention to the meeting at hand.

Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#18

Post by greenbit »

Having observed a fair amount of computer based primary school, it seems to me anyway that the biggest problem is that kids just can't focus properly that way. Even if the machine is locked down to prevent open internet access, it's just too easy for them to become distracted by the medium itself. Books, pencils and paper may not be flashy, but isn't that actually desirable, in this context?

Re: Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

#19

Post by mentalgear »

smatti wrote: post #2

A very similar development is going on in neighboring Finland. There are schools that use almost exclusively paper books (instead of digital ones) again. The overall consensus among parents is that books are way better than screens for kids, all the way up to high school. Hand-writing and free drawing with pen and paper provide many advantages to fixed screens. You cannot open a new tab to Youtube in a book. The sign…

~20 years later on all the "Digitalisation of Schools" brought us is waning attention spans for children but billions of sells to Big Tech for software, and e-devices that after a few years become electronic waste to be shipped to a poor country stripped for rare earths and finally ending in landfills in Africa or Asia to poison the ground water.
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