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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

#441

Post by lucb1e »

rimliu wrote: post #44
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…

if you need to "learn AI" - your AI sucks.

Could say the same about language, driving, and writing systems?

Steve Jobs popularized among startup/HN audiences that intuitive interfaces are the best interfaces, but I have yet to see evidence for that. Are systems that work without education truly better than those where you might be a lot more effective with some amount of study? Probably there's an optimal point, like a year of full-time education to use your OS won't pay off at median longevity, but whether It's great for onboarding people to your tech product, though. Incentives may be misaligned between what's best for the users and what's best for the cashflow

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

#442

Post by Izkata »

fl4regun wrote: post #331
dathinab wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> touch type can even be harmful IFF we interpret "touch typing" as the typical thought typing method and not just "typing without looking at the keyboard". In general key arrangement traces back to physical limitations of type writers not ergonomics and layout choice isn't exactly ergonomic based either. But even if it where, the biggest issue of touch typing is that it's often thought around the idea of your hands…

Anatomy might matter if you're talking about world champion speed typing. I don't think it matters for just being competent (I say this as a man with short and fat fingers)

They're talking about long-term wrist issues and cramping, not typing speed.

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

#443

Post by Izkata »

fasterik wrote: post #229
pier25 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important that children gain basic technical literacy They certainly will at home. > I suspect there is a gap in the technical literacy of lower income students, whose parents are less likely to have a computer at home. In which country? I live in Mexico and even here you really need to go to the poorest families to find a home without a laptop. Even those families have multiple smartphones. Today a smartphone…

Even if they have a computer at home, that doesn't mean they're practicing the relevant skills. Touch typing, word processing, researching a topic online, etc. are things that need deliberate practice. Based on my own experience, using a computer at home 99% of the time meant playing video games. The following article suggests that in the United States, about 59% of lower income households have a laptop or desktop co…

> Based on my own experience, using a computer at home 99% of the time meant playing video games.

I ended up with a non-home-row style of touch-typing just by being forced to get chat messages out quickly in StarCraft multiplayer. So it's at least possible to learn it from that, even if most don't.

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

#444

Post by lucb1e »

fastasucan wrote: post #240
eviks wrote: post #234

> whether the digitalization of classrooms had been evidence-based There is no indication that the current opposite move is evidence-based either, so it's basically your typical vibe shifts. Might revert back to "digital basics" in another decade or so with identical quotes?

Usually you have to prove the effect of introducing something new.

Seems strange to me, a bit like the evidence required for new foodstuffs without judging the old ones by the same criteria. People have been winging it and now new options would have to be scrutinized before use whereas the old 'wisdom' can just stay in place?

Then again, by comparing new techniques against old ones, presumably the old ones get studied indirectly as well. Guess the glass could be half full with this approach

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

#445

Post by lucb1e »

petterroea wrote: post #227

It's the same in Norway, and news paper chronicles are going as far as saying things like "Now that we learned that we went to far, what do we do with the generation of kids we experimented on?". Food for thought.

Considering how many old people hold on to beliefs like women belonging at home doing the household and/or that people of color are violent, I'm not sure such a conversation is going to lead anywhere. We let them vote until they die, or authorize someone else to get a second vote (like my 90yo grandma does for my 65yo conservative/racist dad), as though they still have an understanding of society. A good understanding of climate change is barely 40 years old, if the news didn't tell them then they just go no education on the world's biggest ongoing challenge. People have just been letting the old generation be because we can't figure out anything better (I'm also not sure what a good system would look like)

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

#446

Post by groby_b »

WalterBright wrote: post #387
groby_b wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It worked for me. Have you tried it? I have. It doesn't work that way for me - but that hardly matters. More importantly, there's plenty of research around inner monologue and sensory replay also pointing out that this isn't true for most people. > I attended a university where that wasn't a problem. You were blessed :) > But, frankly, I liked his in-person lectures using the blackboard and chalk better. That's not…

It's been 50 years, the voice has long since evaporated. I wish I had had the prescience to have recorded the lectures on cassettes. > You were blessed Indeed, but not totally. I took an economics course, and soon discovered that the prof was a Marxist. Since Marxism is a fantasy, I saw no more value in it than listening to a lecture on astrology. > many students are very muched biased to discarding these points give…

> I have little interest in helping people that don't want to make an effort.

What you were trying to say is "I can't be bothered to engage with people who are not taking my word as gospel".

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

#447

Post by ninalanyon »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #237
ninalanyon wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how to touch type What for? I've been writing computer programs and documentation since 1969 and I can't touch type. I've never felt enough pressure to do it. I can still type faster than I can think. When I'm writing most of my time is spent thinking not tapping the keys.

You typed out this message by hitting individual keys as your eyes searched for them? Isn’t that mentally exhausting?

No I don't have to search for the keys. But I don't use all the fingers of my hands and I do look at the keyboard quite often. No it's not mentally exhausting, it's the thinking that is exhausting.

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

#448

Post by ninalanyon »

cmoski wrote: post #384
ninalanyon wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how to touch type What for? I've been writing computer programs and documentation since 1969 and I can't touch type. I've never felt enough pressure to do it. I can still type faster than I can think. When I'm writing most of my time is spent thinking not tapping the keys.

Really? I can touch type and there is no way I can keep up with how fast I can think. Physics seems against you on this one.

I type code as I think of it trying to get it at least approximately right as I go, my typing speed is most definitely not what holds me back.

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

#449

Post by oschvr »

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…

Wait you have 10 kids !!?!? Much respect
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