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Great column by :
She observes that “the decline in test scores started well before the pandemic, around 2012. One obvious culprit is smartphones, which became popular just as test scores started to decline.”
But “phones are not the only electronic devices students use at school. These days, nearly every middle and high school student — and a good number in the elementary grades as well — brings a laptop or tablet to school and uses it at home for homework.”
“Many of these devices are provided by schools. You might think that these school-issued devices allow only a limited number of functions, like access to classroom Canvas pages and Google Docs. If you assumed that, you would be wrong.”
This is a major problem.
Kids are distracted by their laptops and seeing things they shouldn’t see.
A mother “asked school administrators to restrict her son’s use of the laptop” and “they resisted, saying the device was integral to the curriculum.”
These devices also have a negative impact at home where they continue to distract and disrupt:
makes numerous recommendations.
Read the whole thing:
Not really. There's no good evidence for this. Still, the evidence is that phones and screens have little impact on child outcomes.
Twenge, I regret to say, is not a reliable source on this matter. I'd argue, with books panicking people over technology to say, she has as much
EdTech is a disaster in general. ChatGPT is basically the latest and most pernicious iteration of EdTech usurping students' brains.
I have gone to an almost device free classroom this year. They are allowed out to: Write the final draft of the unit essay and take the state mandated end of course exam.
Notes and draft writing is all done with pencil and paper. Quizzes, exams and homework is all done the same.
Not all studies agree with your assessment.
What makes tablet-based learning effective? A study of the role of real-time adaptive feedback
We basically robbed the amazing Web from our kids.
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Nilesh Trivedi
@nileshtrivedi
Since general purpose computing started becoming slop, kids now need a dedicated operating system. Schools are not at all prepared to configure software in a good way. And so, their response became "screen-time is harmful".
Years ago, I had hoped that Google will build the x.com/sfmcguire79/st…
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I've followed this debate since they put Commodore 64s in my classroom in 1982. Admins saw "every child having a computer" as a revolutionary way to learn; when all they used them for was electric textbooks. (And of course playing Oregon Trail)
This website is used in many schools and is overrun with gay and furry content.
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Mitochondrial Eve
@tardwife4life
When @scratch says their mission is helping kids everywhere create what they imagine, THIS IS WHAT THEY MEAN. Scratch is marketed as an educational coding website for children but it is overrun with gay, trans, furry and violent content. Is this ok with their donors?
@MIT
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Kids can’t and don’t read. They can’t write. Between the use of Audible in the Classroom (for reading) and AI for writing, our kids are learning less and less every day due to the “convenience” of digital ed “tools.” Go back to basics.
So... can we stop the madness yet? Too late for my stepkids... their education was already destroyed by these policies, but maybe my soon to be born daughter has hope? I'm planning on homeschooling because of your Chromebook policy and the damage it's
Screens were supposed to support learning, not swallow it. When a device becomes the main classroom, kids lose focus, depth, and genuine curiosity and teachers are left competing with notifications instead of nurturing thinking.
My middle school was an early adopter and gave us all iPads. They encouraged us all to download a news app and turn on push notifications. The day of the Sandy Hook shooting we were all sitting in class getting notifications on the increasing death toll. Only worse after that
Yep, I teach HS physics and it’s our schools policy to allow them to use iPads to “take notes”….which never happens. It’s a shame the administrators knowingly allow them to sabatoge their education.
My 14 yo boy’s teachers complain about how he (and his classmates) play video games during class and I yell at my kid, but what the heck- why does he have the equivalent of a crack pipe at his finger-tips all day? Even as an adult I have a hard time resisting my phone sometimes,
School-issued laptops have made it nearly impossible for parents to limit their kids' screen time. All of my children's work is online. They have no textbooks or notebooks. Even their math homework is digital. My middle schooler has never used pen and paper for assignments.
I'm mostly amazed at the inversion of technology <> elite education. This may already be happening, but it seems like a more luddite, liberal arts education will soon be MORE elite than a tech-stacked education.
Even more so in an economy where AI pushes the most
Doorman.school is new EdTech company helping tackle these issues for schools in an innovative way
I don’t think it ever “seemed like a good idea” to give each child their own device.
Old school is the best school. Less screens and more paper, pencils, and books.
My kids don’t raise their hands and ask to go to the bathroom at school. They send a message to the teacher and the teacher either approves or declines. It’s so DUMB! Make them interact with authority figures. Make them ask. Make them hear “no, but you can in 5 min.”
Can confirm all of this is true and it is extremely destructive and impossible to control as a parent. “But I need the laptop for homework. But I need the internet for homework”
We need to go back to kids getting books in paper, notebooks and pencils: ditch the technology to where it's only used in the classroom for one or two hours a week
I don't think the issues are screens as much as it is teachers do not understand the modern world mixed with the fact that the school system is still trying to prepare kids for a world that no longer exists.
Kids are not stupid, they realize that we no longer live in an
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And what of the parents who called this out AT THE TIME IT HAPPENED? Do we get an apology from the teachers who maligned us and our kids?
Thank Common Core for this. It only seemed like a "good idea" to the people who supported that unvalidated ed fad that ruined public education. Schools hardly use textbooks anymore, because now everything is digital. And they have mountains of data on our kids, that will follow
Paper & pencil worked for hundreds of years, including for my generation. There is no need for technology in general/all classrooms in K-12, outside computer science or specific technical courses. All the tech mavens send their kids to Montessori schools for a reason. Raise
There was good research showing this would be harmful at the time. I showed it to law school professors in 2013 and they started making changes to move their adult students away from screens. I’m told it was a curve shifter - everyone was suddenly learning more.
Who thought it was a good idea?!? I have been fighting my kids on school devices for 13 years!!
Total failure. Amplify is not a measure of progress and academic achievement. It is a measure of parental compliance. Enough is enough.
Not sure when it ever seemed like a good idea. It would have at least been good if they gave them devices that did not have games and other distractions on them. But Google Classroom has been terrible IMO.
When I was in elementary school I had an AlphaSmart, which was basically digital typewriter, with no functions other than typing documents. We need more “dumb” non-internet connected tech.
You would be stupid to invent the computer, then not try to use it to teach children....
The new york times refuse to mention government ordered school closures in response to the Wuhan flu.
There is no fixing this.
Did none of the people that implemented these policies go to college when laptops were first becoming mainstream in the classroom?
You could sit in the back of the auditorium and like 30% of students that had them were playing 3D Pinball: Space Cadet.
So dumb. It was cool when it was bill gates but when it’s regular kids… this discussion without addressing curriculum, pedagogy or plain, old moderation is just more rage bait.
i was gifted a laptop after i graduated hs, this was directed by my bio sister who is also a pedophile n raped/ tortured me as a child. 17 yrs later i believe this was intentional crippling which was her fav abuse tactic
Another casualty of the bottom quintile, I'm afraid.
It's kind of like the inverse of "having books in the house improves education."
It's not the books, or the screens. It's what people do with them. That all comes back to one pesky thing that's taboo to discuss.
I think the issue is that issuing them was a good thing. It allowed students who normally would not have access to a laptop/home computer to get access. Doing all tasks at all times on them was the error. Writing and oral interaction leads to learning.
Over half my students damage and destroy their laptops and therefore waste class time whining about it. I have to buddy them up with someone who does have a working device and it’s a huge distraction. I wish I could just give them a zero, but admin won’t let me.
Each of my second graders have one but I, as their teacher, choose to be service free in my room. They do t even ask for them because when you set boundaries they follow them.
The big tech infiltration of education would be extremely difficult to fix. The “it’s the phones” crowd can be placated by bans but the elephant in the room really is 1:1 iPads and the like. Good to see it spotlighted here
All in the name of “21st Century Skills”
We created amazing PowerPoint and Canva creators, but managed to ignore the concepts needed to actually learn.
If you're currently receiving Social Security, or if you're under 55 and you expect to ever receive Social Security, please read and re-post this.
There are critical facts about the system and its returns, that you MUST understand.
This is not a screed that's for or against.
The monolith is now trying to undermine AI education tools to save teacher unions by feigning penance for supporting programs they 
supported
When the NYT comes out against digital education tools, it’s time to embrace digital education tools
supported
When the NYT comes out against digital education tools, it’s time to embrace digital education toolsI’ve got a freshman in my college course who stopped coming to class because I don’t allow him to use his computer. He only shows up for quizzes and exams. I don’t let students pretend they’re in class if their minds are elsewhere.
Teachers have been screaming about this for 5 full years. Some dolt makes it into the NYSlimes & all of a sudden it’s something to heed. Pedagogic philosophers wax poetic from the toilet while real educators fight their mandates daily, yet no one listens. This is why we’re tired
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Math teacher here. All paper and pencil. I was posting answers on my school website, but since the district did an overhaul of the website, we no longer have teacher pages. Oh well.
Yupp. Half the kids are watching YouTube on their school chromebooks instead of doing work
One of our boys spent a year at a private school in between being homeschooled. They gave him a Chromebook. I turned it in by Christmas & said it never comes to my home again. They just game. This was in 2014.
My issue is that it’s much harder for a parent to see what their kid is learning in school when it’s buried in a device. Textbooks & worksheets allow parents to easily peruse what’s being covered & to engage with their kids on it.
Like Covid school closures- all of the damage was completely foreseeable to people willing to see it.
Once again, the people that knew something wasn’t a great idea are vindicated, and the so called experts are exposed. Technology isn’t always the answer.
the truly irredeemable part is that the curriculum delivery (assignment tracking, grades, etc) on the systems I've seen is abismal. my daughter complains that none of the apps work well together, browser sessions restart haphazardly and she loses work, basic stuff
This was obvious to me in school when these ideas were being tried and dudes were just playing games and trying to find porn.
When do you think they will sell the surplus chrome books to the public? I might be interested.
My pediatrician has a questionnaire before the annual physical that asks parents how much screen time they have. Options were 0-1 hour, 1-4 hours, and 4+ hours. If parents are honest, with school devices, most school age kids are 8+ hours.
Those pesky Republicans were more progressive than most people who call themselves "progressive" YET AGAIN. At this rate, it will be laughable to call Republicans "conservative" within another decade. 
It's ironic how often "conservative" Republicans are ahead of their time.
It's ironic how often "conservative" Republicans are ahead of their time.
This was determined over a decade ago when all the school districts in higher socioeconomic regions got rid of the tablet/laptops
Learning/retention was shown to be lower when information is read via a screen versus a physical book
The absolute best parenting advice I can give is to get your kids out of public schools.
My kids were provided with Chromebooks in middle school, but they had very restrictive safety software. In high school, the use of electronic devices in class is very limited.
Yes, I have students who rush through assignments in order to play games or shop. I walk around, catch them, close the browser and out away device. The comment is always “but I finished.” So I say “no there’s more to do we just won’t use the laptop to do it.”
And they’re starting it in kindergarten now. Insane. Schools should required to notify parents about total class and individual screentime daily.
The push for 1:1 devices started in 2012 it has much less to do with phones. SO much money wasted.
Everything a child needs to learn was printed on paper 100 years ago. Every dime spent on educational technology, software, and premade curricula with "modules" and quizzes was wasted.
Worse, it was all acid that has dissolved the mortar binding our foundations.
Here are the best tools for educating a child: pencil, paper, expectations, boundaries, consequences, and (of course) real books. That's all that is needed.
The plan has been to dumb down an already dumb group of society and to make them dependent on the more successful members of society.
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I have known this for years. A lot of teachers have an over-reliance on the internet as well. I can’t count the times my kids have had assignments to write an essay or answer questions after watching a YouTube video, eg from the Southern Poverty Center. 
Taking a work call while walking the Bay Trail with my kids felt like good multitasking this sunny morning, until my 7-year-old ran far enough ahead that some random helpful person called the police because of an "unattended" child 
On the bright side, my 4-year-old--who has
On the bright side, my 4-year-old--who has
Absolutely not to mention they are then monitored by a dystopian hodge podge of “safety tools” that are absolutely violating privacy
I predicted this in my town and told the board and officials via email years ago when they were proposing it and they poo pooed me and did it anyways. And I work in IT
I wouldn't blame the screens.
I blame the teachers who could not lead the students to use them to their benefit.
This is where we are:
It is terrible curriculum and bad teaching that is robbing students of a good education.
It is not electronics nor structural racism, but either of those may be used as a puppet to distract from the real problem.
Someday you will all accept that they have the same effect on adults but nobody wants to admit it.
I wonder if they could be replaced with “dumb” devices that aren’t fully functional computers - more like a brick phone or game console that has limited functions
And, as a retired teacher who started WAY before every child getting a device, it makes for lazy as hell teachers who have no clue what to do if the wi-fi goes down. Computers are daily babysitters.
Here’s why- lazy teachers substitute laptops for teaching. Here- watch this, go online. Sit quietly. Period ends. Next class.
GIF
In math, most kids just do random guessing with computer learning till they get the correct answer.
Glad the research has caught up to what was obvious to every parent 5 minutes after the laptops arrived.
And to add to the stupid.
Teacher assigns inoffensive, and on point math or history video. And safety software blocks
Schools still manage students on versions of PeopleSoft running on Cobol and you’re over here blaming tech. George Bush started wrecking schools and the growth in administration sealed its fate.
So, if you bring back textbooks, how are you going to prevent the vandalism of them? I can't tell you how many textbooks were defaced with drawings of penises & foul language. Within 2 yrs of a new issue, 50% are ruined. Nobody wants their child issued such books
It’s absolutely maddening that by the time the department of education rights the ship my kids will have since long graduated. A whole generation is being failed- it’s shameful for us all as a society.
Just got to in DC for an in-studio segment on This Morning with !
We'll be starting soon—tune in for the discussion.
Let's give the man his due. His cell phone policy single handedly destroyed education for black and brown students.
Give them textbooks. You literally have to send your kids to private school to have them learn this way.
It never seemed like a good idea. Laptop schools were always cringe and just doing it to make their clearly less capable students feel cool. I shudder to think that this became normal since then