It’s not screens that are the problem, per se, but how they are used, and how schools and teachers were rely upon them to do every single little thing rather than using an appropriate methodology which integrates traditional teaching techniques which use technology to assist.
Screen use should be relegated to a smart board/overhead projector and computer lab. Make kids use real books/pencil & paper and every test score will improve as long as a zero smartphone policy is enforced.
Advice that was both a textbook and a notetaking system would be helpful too. But limited to just those tasks.
It often is the technology itself though. Or at least “the technology” defined in any way that’s relevant here.
No one is proposing that we remove every computer from school buildings. The mistake appears to be the “one laptop per child” policies that made laptops and tablets essential to school instruction. Crucially, these devices could ever be justified because they also took the place of the students’ books. Their books are on these devices. They don’t have physical books anymore.
No one is proposing that we remove every computer from school buildings. 🥬
a surprising number of people are 🥬suggesting just that, including many of those suggesting we stuff them full of computers in the first place :(🥬
but I agree that it’s all been a massive issue with how 🥬the tech was implemented, and precisely what tech we implemented.🥬
let’s go back to when we first implemented tech in schools: the 80s. I can speak authoritatively upon this subject 🥬_because I was there_. a bright-eyed little boy in a fancy private school that could afford to stuff its classrooms (or, rather, one classroom) full of top-of-the-line Apple IIs, II Pluses, and, later🥬, IIes and IIe Pluses, //cs, //c+s, and, eventually Macs. The full shebang. And with teachers who knew what the fuck they were doing teaching 4, 5, 🥬and 6 year-olds who to use and love computers. Seriously-- I learned LOGO and BASIC (quite proficiently) when I was five. In 1984. 🥃
To your point (and, further, mine) these were top-of-the-line PCs for the super-privileged, with highly-skilled instructors. We were very limited by the technology at the time. 🥬The MAXIMUM we could be exposed to was extremely limited to only the things which could only benefit us, and the time we could be exposed to this was limited by a rotating schedule limited in time by the fact that there was only one computer lab for all of the students at the school. 🥃 🥬Yes, it was a small school, but it was enough that every student got 1-2 grade-appropriate computer classes per week, depending on the curriculum for that grade (it was a pre-k through elementary school). 🥬Classes were typing, basic use, and basic logic, taught through educational software and basic class instruction, including such famous and legendary softwares as LOGO, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and other recreation titles. 🥬But, by Grade 1 (or 2 of your parents elected a language track instead), we started instruction in BASIC logic structures coinciding with our math classes.🥬
Anyway, the point im trying to make is that, due to the limitations on the tech at the time, our exposure to it and our use of it - but, most importantly, the tech’s capabilities 🥬- were strictly limited by its hardware to educational use only. to comport, solely, to that purpose and no more. 🥃🥬
I propose an eInk-based tablet device with both keyboard and stylus input which has network and (very) limited internet access that acts as both a textbook library, note taking device, and can be used to both receive and submit homework 🥬assignments, tests/exams, etc, but is limited to being only capable of those tasks and no more. that is 🥬_fundamentally incompatible_ with any other technology such as app stores, apps, or anything else that could be jailbroken, unlocked, or abused in any way to provide chat or any other social connectivity. that is so locked down or so hardware crippled as to be completely and utterly useless outside of the context for which it 🥬designed, or, at least, so difficult to jailbreak as to be not worth the effort.
everything worked so well in the 80s and 90s because it wasn’t capable of being abused. 🥬it simply wasn’t powerful enough and the tech didn’t exist. well, a tiny bit did, and you had to be a genius to figure it out. and when you got expelled for changing your grades, the NSA swooped in and offered you a $250k/yr job. 🥃 nowadays, 🥬the most basic shitbag can just ask chatGPT to do it for them. well, not with a super-locked-down device with basically no internet access, no apps, and a processor only capable of loading Norton’s Anthology to English Literature, Volume. I. Enjoy Paradise Lost. you little shit! 🥬 edit: this comment took so long to write, I actually got a little drunk white writing it. I went back and added a little 🥃 every time I had a drink 🥬 I’ll leaf you to guess what this one means ;)
As a kid who spent the first month of every semester reading the entire textbook because class was boring, yeah I’d abuse that tool
I stopped doing that around the seventh grade or so because I was always very annoyed at how poorly the textbooks were structured. I always thought I could do better.
A seventh grade English teacher of mine was very upset when I rearranged her teaching rubric for the semester. It, however, did make for a very amusing parent teacher conference and an even more amusing discussion on the ride home.
“Honey, when you’re smarter than other people, especially adults, it’s rude to let them know it.”
That was the first time I saw that my parents were jealous of me. It was also my introduction to the fact that both of my parents were malignant narcissists.
Idk I had my parents have to have a similar conversation with me and it wasn’t them being jealous or narcissistic, it was me being rude to adults because I was smarter than them. Learning to not rub my intelligence in people’s faces was a valuable skill
Oh, my parents definitely needed to have that conversation with me, and they were correct. But my parents were definitely jealous, and they are definitely both malignant narcissists.
I have a background in education. I’ve had a unique career that’s gone back and forth between engineering and education. I hold graduate degrees in both. I say this only as prologue.
I propose an eInk-based tablet device with both keyboard and stylus input which has network and (very) limited internet access that acts as both a textbook library, note taking device, and can be used to both receive and submit homework
While I agree with most of what you wrote, this part sticks out to me. I think the missing piece in your analysis is the human element, human neurology. The literature that’s been coming out in the years since devices were widely deployed has been pretty damning. It’s not just that the devices are distraction machines, though they certainly are that. It is that they are fundamentally, neurologically inferior methods of educating a student. It is not simply that computers are distraction engines. You can put two learners in completely distraction free environments, and ask one to learn on a tablet, and one with pencil and paper. Even with no distractions at all, the paper will be far superior.
We are physical embodied beings. A lot of tech folks like to think of themselves as some sort of disembodied soul piloting a meat robot, but that isn’t remotely how humans actually work. The body is just as much part of learning as the mind. Your mind is part of your body; and your body heavily influences your mind. Even your gut bacteria have an immense impact on your thought processes. Learning is not a passive process of absorbing information like a sponge. It requires active practice and synthesis, and the more modalities that experience occurs in, the better.
Here is how a traditional lecture works:
- The teacher speaks orally and writes key notes and diagrams on the board.
- The students watch, hear, and participate in the discussion.
- They continually process the lesson and detect the key points.
- They process the key points and summarize them mentally.
- They write the key points on paper notes, requiring coordination of the logical, auditory, visual, and motor portions of the brain.
- They must do this in real time if they want any permanent record of the contents of the lesson.
Here is how an electronic lecture works:
- Because it’s delivered by powerpoints, there’s no constraint on the amount of content. Instructors cram too much in the slides for students to ever hope to manually copy during a lecture.
- Students can’t keep up, so they reasonably ask for instructors to post their slides in advance, so students can “follow along.”
- Students watch a lecture with their laptop screen up, passively watching, never needing to write or process anything as they “already have all the notes.”
- If a teacher uses powerpoints of reasonable length, students will still expect slides to be given them in advance, as that’s what they’re used to in other classes. Even if you can hold firm on this, students will still have woefully underdeveloped note-taking skills, as those skills have been allowed to wither from years of powerpoint instruction.
This is a fundamental problem with the technology. Again, we’re embodied creatures. Writing with a pen and paper is more of a full body experience than using a touch screen can ever be. Tech loves to “remove friction,” but friction is the only way you ever actually learn anything.
We need to get the computers out of regular classroom instruction entirely. I’m perfectly fine with computers in a lab or library where students take computer-intensive courses (like programming or CAD), but there should be zero electronic devices employed in the lessons of core academic subjects such as mathematics, language, the sciences, and social sciences.
yes, I see what you’re talking about, and I don’t - whatsoever - disagree.
what I’m proposing is only on the student-side: an e-Ink tablet device which contains all curriculum-approved textbooks (within that student’s context) alongside note-taking capabilities (via KB or stylus), homework assignment receiving/submission capabilities as well as test/exam receiving/submission capabilities (local zone/time limited), plus other sundry capabilities as the education institution/demands see fit.
But the issue you raise is not WRT the student-held devices but WRT other tech within the tech environment and how they’re used.
My experience with this is much more recent-- my time finishing my undergrad degree and in grad school (2012-2016 at Parsons)-- studying, and you find this ironic-- UI/UX. ;)
Now, I can, first-hand, attest to how much I appreciated the instructors who took the time to add the line-by-line “reveal” effects to their powerpoints, so that they could reveal the points they were making as their lectures progressed. these were usually the instructors who had some previous instruction, themselves, in teaching. Some of the other instructors eschewed powerpoimts entirely and just used a whiteboard, or only used the projector to show us pictorial examples during off-the-cuff lectures.
nonetheless, I fully understand the point you’re making-- but this is much more a point to be made about effective teaching methods, and less a point about technology/“screens” overall, IMO-- but, still, a valid point-- just one WRT overall teaching in general today.
I’m trying to address the context of “what tech are students holding in their hands”. but what you’re saying does play into that.
systemic problems require systemic solutions. you and I are both discussing two separate branches of that system. another is these vultures of “total solution providers”, these private companies who hardly know what they’re doing, milking school districts out of tens of millions, just to provide shitty, barely functional “total solutions” that do the most damage. but I won’t even get started on Canvas or its cohorts…
And they wouldn’t have to have the screen do everything if they were paid the appropriate amount given the importance of their station
Honestly, I think that’s just one of the many problems with today’s education system.
Definitely. While I agree with rolling back some of these tech first policies, I think we need to be focusing on HOW it’s used.
I worry that disabled kids will be caught in the line of fire, too.
If they were digital e-readers, that can also be used for notetaking tasks and to distribute and resubmit homework assignments and tests, but without the extended abilities to install social apps, etc., that would be an ideal type of device.
But as long as we keep distributing more-capable devices that have limiters installed on them, kids will find a way to remove the limitations and abuse the devices.
This could address concerns of both convenience and address students with special needs.
People naturally want to make things as easy as they can for themselves; if you introduce a tool that can make things better when used in moderation, but worse if overused, it will inevitably be overused so long as that’s the easier thing to do. Convenience is one of the biggest factors in making the global population dumber and more complacent, and it’s often introduced as a useful tool in moderation.
I don’t think introducing digital textbooks that also allow notetaking is gonna make anyone dumber. Especially if it’s limited to just those tasks.
But giving every kid an iPad or a Chromebook, where they can absolutely abuse it no matter the intent, yeah… I see what you mean.
